Under a Gibbous Moon

I recently replaced my old laptop with one made by ASUS. One of the nice things about ASUS laptops is that they have a free, two year accidental damage warranty (ADW). After I brought it home I downloaded the forms, filled them out, and mailed them in so that I could take advantage of this.

I recently received and email from ASUS stating that my laptop does not qualify for that ADW because it was purchased from a retailer (Best Buy) that offers their own warranty service. Specifically:

Deny Reason: Bought from Best Buy – Retailer does not participate in ADW

It’s good to know that Best Buy’s terms of sale with ASUS preclude them from giving you their free warranty so that Best Buy can sell you theirs.

A IBM 350 hard disk from 1956.

I can’t find a weight on it, but it looks at least as much as a fridge. The twenty-nine inch platters spun at a blistering 1,200 rpm and it held a whole 5 MB. Makes the 5.25 floppies look efficient.

Hat Tip: BoingBoing

The stars have aligned and Cthulhu has risen from his aeons deep slumber in R’lyeh to… save the world?

Zeboyd Games is producing a retro styled RPG for the Xbox that features everyone’s favorite Old One as the hero. It looks interesting and I’m definitely going to look into it when it is released.

Cthulhu, saving the world through insanity!

I’m pretty much on the fence with netbooks. On one hand, for the money that you pay, you get a tiny screen and fairly anemic performance. On the other hand you get a highly portable computer that has exceptional battery life. On certainty that I do have is that netbooks have increased the resale value of used notebooks.

It used to be that used computers were worth close to nothing. This is, of course, because technology advances so quickly that unless you plan on selling your computer within a few months after purchase, the cost of new one will net you a better cost to performance ratio than a used one.

Netbooks have upset that, though. Not everyone buys a netbooks simply because it is tiny or that they can use it in a Starbucks for ten hours straight. Some people look at them and see them simply as affordable computers. Enter used laptops.

Unless your laptop is so old that its battery has to be worn on your back, then it specs out better than all but the most top of the line netbook and all with much larger screen. So for all of you with two, three, or even four year old laptops collecting dust in a closet somewhere, you might actually be able to get some money out of it.

Here is a bit of advice for those of you in the business world or graduates sending out resumes for that job you want. The letters “t” and “g” are close to each other on the keyboard. Way, way too close to each other. For this reason, I will never close a work-related e-mail with “regards” again.