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Technology

Cutting The Cable

When we got home from our Labor Day weekend at Casey’s parents on Monday, not only was our TV showing static instead of cable television, our TiVo service was inactive – effectively turning the machine into an electronic doorstop. No, this wasn’t some sort of horrible mix-up. This was our family’s final step in breaking-up […]

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Technology

Morning Golf

This morning I’m golfing in a family scramble at the Washburn golf course. It’s a beautiful day after some pretty bad storms last night. Posted via email from Jason Berberich’s posterous

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Technology

My Favorite Tech Things for 2008

I realized yesterday that it’s been awhile since I’ve written about some of my currently-favorite technology tools, so here are a few, in no particular order. Hopefully you’ll find at least one or two you haven’t used or heard of yet. Apple iPod Nano I got my iPod Nano as a Christmas gift from Casey […]

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Technology

The Electronic Wasteland

Last night’s 60 Minutes featured an important story about a town in China that has become a dumping ground for “recycled” electronics. Their reporters did some great undercover work, and managed to get physically assaulted in the process. You can view the segment below, or on CBS’s website.

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Technology

The Great DRM Revolt of 2008

Last week, Electronic Arts released one of the most highly anticipated computer games of recent memory – Will Wright’s Spore. The game, which lets you create a new species and control its evolution from single-cell organism to intelligent space explorer, was expected to be the crowning achievement in Wright’s series of computer simulations (including SimCity, […]

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Technology

Finally – A Diesel Hybrid

For awhile now, I’ve been wondering when we’d see our first commercial diesel hybrid vehicle. The combination just makes perfect sense. Modern diesel engines are extremely efficient and clean burning, getting very good mileage on their own. Put one in the center of a hybrid system, and we’re talking miles per gallon currently unheard of […]

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Technology

Amory Lovins: Improving Energy Efficiency

I’ve been slowly making my way through a backlog of podcasts since getting my new iPod for Christmas, and recently listened to a fascinating series of lectures on energy efficiency by world renowned expert, Amory Lovins. These lectures are being made available for free from the Social Innovation Conversations channel of the Conversation Network. In […]

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Technology

A Better Broadband Router: Linksys WRT54GL and the Tomato Firmware

My family has been using Midcontinent Communications for our broadband internet for about three and a half years now, and have had a very good experience with it. About a month ago though, things seemed to really slow down. This was especially noticeable whenever I loaded up a video from YouTube – or any other […]

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Technology

Household Energy Conservation

Last Saturday, we had the opportunity to have an Xcel Energy employee come out to our house and perform a home energy audit. This program, subsidized by the company, gives you a very clear picture of types of things that could be improved to use less energy and ultimately save you money. Because our home […]

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Technology

Mobile Organization with Sandy and Jott

Since its release in May 2005, I had been using 37signals’ Backpack web application to keep track of pretty much anything I needed to remember. It worked well for awhile, but eventually became a burden. It became a dumping ground for everything in my head, and I began to dread logging into my account each […]