I’m quite delighted to have read that Sierra County, New Mexico has approved a 1/4 of 1 percent gross receipts tax increase to fund the building of Spaceport America. They’re working on getting all the other approvals they need to operate the spaceport, as well as a deal with Virgin Galactic.

There’s just something about seeing commercial space travel make progress that’s really exciting to me. I figure it comes of having a space-crazed father and reading quite a bit of science fiction.

I bought a Maxtor One Touch 4 500 G external hard drive recently, and finally got around to hooking it up to the computer the other day. After all, what’s the point of having an external hard drive if you don’t take advantage.

So far, so good, although the Amazon reviews do make me nervous. I hadn’t seen them before purchase, as this was a fairly spontaneous one - got it for $100. And I have noticed an occasional issue with it losing connectivity with my computer for a moment or two, which is an issue I see in the Amazon reviews. But I’m trying to keep my hopes up. At a touch it is a touch warmer than I would like it to be as well, judging from how my computer feels.

What I do like is how fast it goes. It really does that job well, at least. And looking through the external hard drives on Amazon, it appears that most brands have issues pretty regularly. I guess I have to hope I got a good one.

Fortunately, I’m not relying on this critter 100%. I back up my computer to my husband’s computer and vice versa periodically. Just the My Documents section, not a full system backup or anything. We figure odds are we won’t have two computer failures at the same time.

The catch to the OneTouch is also that it doesn’t have a function to back up the entire computer. You do have to get a separate utility for that. I’ve been looking at that option, but I do have a good warranty on this computer (and taken advantage of it in the past!), and the discs to the programs I’ve installed on my own, so I think I’m in pretty good shape.

Ah, I’m just in one of those moods. Kind of goofy, geeky and just need to post some stuff that looks like fun. KWIM?

Let’s start with carpet skates!

Considering the fall my daughter had the other day just walking too fast in socks on a wood floor, I shouldn’t even be thinking this. But how can I not? I don’t care that they say ages 6-18, I want them for me!

And I’m thinking combine them with marshmallow guns.

Seems like a great way to have a mini indoor war. The marshmallow guns take some work to pump up, but that’s a part of the challenge. These I already own.

Just sayin’ it might be fun…

Or perhaps I should say… super vision? Looks to be on its way.

A contact lens has been designed that can have circuits in it. It could display things superimposed on what you normally see.

The uses for these could be practical as well as fun. They’re talking about how pilots could use the technology as well as how it could be used in virtual reality games.

Of course, we all have to wait to see what actually comes of this technology. It can’t do much yet.

Bugs in the computer, that is.

My computer was crashing a lot today. This particular machine has always been exceptionally sensitive to dust. I can tell when it needs to be dusted again (about every other month) because it starts crashing.

But this time it was more than just the dust. Yes, indeed, there was a bug in my computer, of the pincher bug variety.

Know what? They really don’t like cold air being sprayed on them, even to get them out of the computer. And when the air is especially cold, coming from a can of air that has just dusted a computer, they really, really don’t like it.

My sister and her husband gave me a very nice Christmas present this year - their spare TiVo plus an annual subscription. They say if I like they can just renew it each year for me rather than buying a present. Not a bad deal, but I told them I will think on it.

You see, I already have Media Center on my computer. But TiVo was the version I first tried out, back when it first came out and one of my other sisters had it. And I’ve long thought that I like it best.

Don’t get me wrong. Media Center is nice. It came with my computer that I was buying anyhow, and all I had to do was get the tuner card so that it could receive cable channels. No subscription fees.

Each one has some advantages and disadvantages.

TiVo Advantages:

• Designed just for the television.
• Great operating system. Easier to interact with in many ways.
• I like watching my shows on the television.
• Makes suggestions of shows you might like to watch, and records them. This can be turned off if/when it drives you nuts.
• I think the picture quality is better in my experience.

TiVo Disadvantages:

• Subscription fees.
• Watching a lot of television on the television means I work less.
• If you just want to record, for example, the 9:00 showing of a show every week, you can’t just type in the name and tell it to do it. You have to go by time and channel for this. Otherwise the subscription will go for all showings. This is a pain if it’s on a channel that does a lot of reruns, such as the Discovery Channel.
• My own problem - living room is really not set up for an internet connection or telephone connection, so we have a cord running through the house to the nearest phone outlet. We hope to eventually do wireless internet, but it’s not in the budget now.

Media Center Advantages:

• No subscription fees.
• Sometimes it’s nice to watch television on my computer monitor.
• Add on for the computer. Designed to deal with much more than just recording and watching television.
• Could be set up to work with the television if I cared to do it. They’re in separate rooms, so it’s not happening for me.
• When you decide you need to program in a show you’d like to record, what you are currently watching appears in a small screen near the bottom, so you don’t stop watching completely.
• You can choose the airtime of shows you want to record, so episodes run at other times do not record.

Media Center Disadvantages:

• Add on for the computer. Designed to deal with much more than just recording and watching television. Yes, good and bad.
• Watching a lot of television on the computer means I work less.
• I’ve always felt the picture quality was poorer.
• Took a very long time to figure out how to change show priorities. You have to go to the Scheduled recording section, then switch to series before you can mess around with recording priority on anything other than a case by case basis.

All in all, it’s interesting having both. I don’t know if my preferences will change or not over time. One plus to having both that I’ve already noticed is that my husband and I can more easily enjoy our preferred shows separately and together. With Media Center on my computer, not his, he hasn’t always been able to watch his shows as easily as I could watch mine.

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