High Tech Household

For years, Nintendo has had loyalty clubs in Japan and Europe. Recently, and with much rejoicing, Club Nintendo has debuted in the USA. If you have a recent Nintendo console in the house, along with occasional game purchases, it’s an easy way to get in on some freebies. The club is set up to support family accounts, as well, so parents can control the experience for children a bit.

The freebies are nothing mind-blowing, but there a couple of gems, if you like Nintendo’s stylistic design. One of the cheaper items available is a little bin that’s just big enough to hold a few Wii Remotes. The top end is a collection of Nintendo’s classic Game & Watch handheld games, re-packaged as a DS game. The kids may also like some of the card games or DS cases you can get.

So, for the price of a little bit of time and a little bit of surveys, Nintendo fans can earn a little bit of bonus.

If you’ve bought a new Windows PC in the last few years, you’ve probably become familiar with Microsoft’s latest OS. Windows Vista definitely had some teething pains, like any major new OS release has, but due to a variety of factors, Vista gained a very bad reputation out of the gate that it really hasn’t been able to shake completely. So how does Microsoft fix it? They release another OS.

That might sound like a bad thing, but really, it’s very good. In reality, Windows Vista is a very good performer on recent hardware. Releasing a new OS gives Microsoft the opportunity to really polish its next OS. The new OS: Windows 7. Read all about it:

• Microsoft’s official website
• Wired: 7 Good Reasons to Switch to Windows 7
• You can still download the release candidate and try it out, until August 20th. After that date, you’ll still be able to get an install key from Microsoft, but it might be harder to find the download.
• If you’ve bought a new PC with Vista recently, you will probably be able to upgrade to Windows 7 for free or very cheap.

Before the final version comes out in October, we’ll do a full review, especially in setting up Windows 7 to use in your household. Stay tuned.

Not that long ago, wise homeowners started wiring their homes with Ethernet cables for easy internet and network access throughout the house. Some even tried to future-proof by installing conduit piping for the cable, so they could easily string a different cable through, if the technology moved in that direction. Thankfully, through the the magic of radio and computers, Wi-Fi has made all our lives easier. And maybe a little harder. Read more…

My wife and I recently moved into our first house, so now that we’ve got the immediate issues good-enough-for-now (walls painted, wallpaper removed, water heater replaced, yadda yadda), we’ve each settled into more fun projects. My first project along those lines was setting up a home-theater PC. I’ve got a few observations from the experience.

Read more…