Recently we received a notice in the mail. Switch to Shaw Digital and get a FREE HDPVR. This sounds great! We were already a Shaw customer for Internet and Phone, and thought we might make the switch from Star Choice.

Well, Star Choice is now owned by Shaw, and has changed names to Shaw Direct. As a result Shaw will not extend the offer to us. They say they are only offering it to people switching from other competing companies. I can understand that, but its quite annoying – simply because the direct mail they sent us didn’t say anything about that.

My wife called Star Choice (now Shaw Direct) to try and get the deal from them, saying “Shaw Digital is offering this deal, so if you cant match it, then we will switch to Bell”. After more than an hour on the phone with 6 different employees, the best Shaw Direct could offer was an HD PVR for $499… interesting, considering that they are offering that anyways!!!

We have been using Star Choice for nearly 5 years now, and until this recent event, have had great customer service. It seems that only when they made the switch to Shaw Direct that their service has gone significantly down hill. It is funny really – in this tough economy companies should be doing whatever they can to keep their customers, instead they are letting us walk away. They are willing to watch a loyal customer of 5 years spend their money elsewhere. Does that make any sense? I don’t think so.

If Shaw Digital can afford to give away a FREE HDPVR for a new customer, you would think that Shaw Direct could afford to give away a FREE HDPVR to retain a customer – after all, it’s really the same thing.

So after all these years with StarChoice, we will say goodbye, all because your parent company made us an offer that they are not willing to stand behind.

A Finnish software developer has had a USB flash drive implanted into his prosthetic finger. After losing part of his finger in a motorcycle accident last year, Jerry Jalava’s doctor suggested he have a USB drive built into his replacement digit.

When he needs to use it he simply pops off his finger and sticks it into the computer. I think this is a great idea, and am thinking about getting a couple drives surgically implanted into my nipples. (I was going to say somewhere else, but that’s too crude even for me to write publically – although I guess I just kinda did.)

Ahh, I remember back in the day – our old 486 4-100. It was lightning fast, faster than all my friends, and faster then all the computers in the school – that thing rocked. It had a HUGE hard drive in it too, a mind-blowing 512 megs, and those 8 megs of ram, almost unheard of!

Its hard to believe that we have exceeded those amazing storage and technological capabilities! Today, 1TB hard drives are not uncommon, and even JumpDrives far exceed the capacity of hard drives from just a couple years back. I saw a secure 16 GB JumpDrive at Lexars website that had a capacity meter built in – pretty cool really. 16GB on a jump drive is really quite amazing considering that just a few short years ago, standard hard drives didn’t even reach this figure.

With USB 3.0 in the works, it wont be long before every computer has it, and that will open up a lot of opportunities for speed. I can see a future where all your software, operating system, everything, is stored on a jump drive. Take the jump drive to the office, or over to a friends house, plug it into their machine, and run all your software, games, operating system etc, all off of the JumpDrive. Today, USB 2.0 would likely be a bit too slow for this idea to work, but when usb 3.0 takes off (expected next year) its speeds of up to 10x that of 2.0 may make this kind of usage possible.

(Note, if 16 GB is not big enough for you, CDW has a 64 GB jump drive available, but at over $5000, you might want to wait a bit)

If you really love your home audio, and I mean REALLY love it – AND if you care more about the aesthetics than the sound, AND have a very strange sense of style, then have I got the bargain for you!

How does a set of glass speakers sound? They’re cheap too – will cost you only $168,000. (Yes that’s in dollars, not yen).

Apparently this set of home audio speakers took 44 months and involved the work of 23 subcontractors to produce. The set appears to come with two fronts, two surround speakrs, and a subwoofer. I cant say that I understand, or would want these, but something about them is still neat, and worth writing about. If you want to learn more, check out CNet.

Take a look at that mouse of yours. Just about every computer has one in some shape or form. It may be the traditional 2 button optical or laser mouse, maybe you’re using some ancient ball mouse, or perhaps you’re on the laptop using the touchpad.

Have you ever stopped to think, I wonder how many mice are out there? No? Really? Well… neither have I. BUT that doesn’t change the fact that Logitech has seen its Billionth mouse roll, or as cnet says, scamper off the assembly line.

1 Billion mice. And that’s just one company. At first my mind said, is that possible, a billion mice? When you add up all the mice from Microsoft and… hmm… What’s another mouse company? I dunno, but there are others, so including them, I am sure that the total figure is at least 2 billion plus. That’s a lot of mice, and hard to believe, but I guess I have owned… 10? Maybe 12? In the past 15 years. Maybe more – so it’s no wonder how the number has grown to such heights.

It looks like further advances in USB technology are just around the corner. While you won’t find the device available in time for Christmas this year, and possibly not even next year, by 2010, it will likely be in personal computers all over the world.

USB 2.0 has been around for a few years now and is common place on all new computers and peripherals, but before long it will start to be phased out with the next generation – USB 3.0.

USB 3.0 is going to deliver higher power efficiency, the ability to recharge a wider variety of gadgets, and due to its incredibly increased speed, will possibly even wipe out FireWire. Speeds achieved via USB 3.0 are expected to be up to 10 times faster than 2.0.

If you want to know more Wired has a far more detailed article on this upcoming technological improvement.

I read one of the funniest things ever today over at Wired.

A woman named Susan had used her husband’s iPhone and noticed a photo of his “special purpose” attached to an email in his “sent items” folder. The email was addressed to a woman with a Yahoo account.

She confronted her husband about this and he told her that, yes, he had taken the picture, but had never sent it to anyone – he said it was an “iPhone glitch” that randomly takes photos stored in the phone, and attaches them to emails located in the “sent” folder.

Susan then posted a question in an Apple support thread asking if this glitch is real, noting her marriage depends on the answer.

I think it’s time she looks for a good divorce attorney.

FYI: “Special Purpose” is how Steve Martin referred to his penis in the 1979 movie, “The Jerk”. …Just in case you were wondering.

When I was a kid I always loved Lego. Usually I would build a little Lego house and a Lego car, then smash the Lego car through the house – hours of fun! Sometimes I would even build things and put them on the tracks of my electric train set and crash the train into them. What is it with boys and destruction? One of my biggest challenges was to use ALL my blocks to build something, but I always seemed to have a couple left over with no purpose.

Well, some guys over in the Netherlands have used their childhood toys to create a working digital safe. You can take a look at their website if you like, but its not in English, so if you’re like me, it won’t help much.

Their safe is complete with an electronic display and motion sensor alarm. Using five double digit codes to open it, the 305 billion possible combinations make it incredibly difficult to hack.

It may be secure enough to keep your Lego safe from your little brother, but I’m sure a swift kick, or a few hits from a hammer would crack this safe. Regardless, it is still very cool, and far beyond anything I have ever built with my Lego.

Take a look at the Lego Safe in the following YouTube Video:

I came across a post written a few months ago about USB wristbands being sold at live concerts, and found it a rather interesting idea.

As more and more people are turning towards a world of digital music, and as CD’s are breathing their last breaths, bands are getting creative in their marketing.

A band that I have never heard of before, “Slightly Stoopid”, had a concert back in August and was the first to sell USB wristbands that had the nights full concert saved to them. The drives were made available 15-20 minutes after the concert.

What great concert souvenirs – the full concert in digital format. I am certain we will be seeing much more of this in the very near future.