Tuesday, October 30, 2007

USB to DVI Adapter Expands Screen Space Without Adding Video Cards [Adapter]

sewellusb.jpgThe idea of driving a DVI or VGA display with a USB adapter isn't new, but Sewell's latest adapter seems to be fairly cheap and useful. Their adapter costs $119 and has 128MB RAM on board, which is then powered by USB ports from your computer to drive a 1600x1200 resolution monitor at the same time as your standard monitors. Sewell claims that these USB-driven monitors have the same quality as standard DVI monitors at displays of up to 20-inches. If you're trying to power anything bigger, like a 22 or a 24-inch, you're better off getting a new video card anyway. Unless you're on a laptop, in which case you're boned. [Sewell via Sewell]

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Facebook's NY Rent: $29k/Month

fb-rent-thumb.jpg First we found Facebook's secret Midtown office. Now, thanks to a helpful reader with access to a real estate database, we can tell you what Mark Zuckerberg is paying for the 5,350 square feet he's renting in the French Building: $65 per square foot, or $347,750 a year. That's $29,000 a month. Full details after jump.

Our tipster wonders why Facebook is slumming it in midtown: While the French Building has cool art deco flourishes, it's considered a "B" building by commercial real estate standards, and it's not really wired for state-of-the-art IT companies. Google's Chelsea space, by comparison, is famously situated right over a major Internet hotbed. But this doesn't seem like a mystery to us: Google's NY office is heavy on actual engineers, and there's actual technical work happening there. Facebook's NY outpost, at least for now, is a sales office with a heavy Madison Avenue orientation.

Related: Inside Facebook's Secret NYC Office, Facebook's NYC Digs: Photos! fb-rent.jpg

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First Technical Review of the Samsung LED Backlit LCDs [LCDs]a

IMG_2539.JPGGary Merson backs up our review of Samsung's new LED driven LCD displays, agreeing with my impression that its the best LCD I've ever seen. Gary's tests went deeper, revealing that the TV resolves 800 lines of motion which means that these sets have better blur resistance than even most 120Hz sets, and even some plasmas.

He also disliked the set's handling of 480 content, reporting massive jaggies. But scaler aside for a moment, anyone can tell this set looks good, technical tests or not, by looking at it plain and simple. If you're considering this TV, he also drops in comparisons to plasmas and some other sets so reading his review is worth it. [HD Guru and Samsung's 81 Series on Giz]

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Anti-ripoff megapost from The Consumerist


The Consumerist has posted a giant round-up of their advocacy articles called "The Ultimate Consumerist Guide To Fighting Back." It breaks down into three sections:

Section 1: "I've been wronged! What do I do next?"
Section 2: The Consumerist Corporate Executive Directory
Section 3: Success Stories

and each section contains links to excellent articles on everything from timestamping your communications with customer-service lines to "launching an executive email carpet-bomb" to the delightfully named "Underlying Principle For Forcing An Uncaring And Adversarial Company Fix Your Problem." The next time I'm ripped off, I'm starting here. Link


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Anti-Stealth for College Applications

In the same way that Path 101 wants to bust open the data lockbox for the job market, showing you what others like you are doing with their careers, PeerDecision is aiming shed light on college admissions.  This is fascinating, because I don't think there's anything more competitive and cutthroat than college admissions (except maybe Upper East Side Nursery School admissions), and so I could imagine students swarming on this in a hurry. 

I wonder if the anti-stealth nature of it might cause a little fudging.  I'm sure Jack actually got a 1480 on his SAT, but how do we really know for sure?  :)

This is data I think everyone wants to see, but perhaps this is a case where public profiles aren't a good idea.  If people start comparing themselves to others, is that going to open up some really negative interactions?  I think people want to compare aggregate numbers, but I think singling out individuals might get too personal, and maybe even downright ugly. 

They also have voting, where you could vote people up or down depending on whether or not you'd make certain schools.  Again, this might bring out the worst in people.

So, I REALLY like PeerDecision, I just think people are evil... especially overambitious high school kids.

One thing I might consider is flipping the voting a little.  Have people try to gauge themselves...  vote which schools you think you have a good shot of making and then show me the aggregate data.   This way, I don't have a reason to mess up the voting, because I'd only be screwing up my own account.

Another thing they need to nail that Path 101 needs to nail as well is a reason to get people to add this data.  I could join and tell people what schools I made, but what do I get back immediately from that?  For Path 101, we can do some job skills and trend data, but PD is tackling something that's even a bigger data black hole... so I'm not sure how you could even prime the pump here.

What about maybe a way to gripe?  "What's the school that turned you down?  Tell us about it...add other schools".

It's interesting... check out their site...  It's a process I'd love to see them succeed in opening up more, but I'm not sure how to do that.

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