Joel McLaughlin

Archive by Author

News March 5, 2013

Ham Radio to be Featured in Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing on ABC

I’ve watched Last Man Standing all season this year and am really enjoying the series in its second year. One of the reasons I was attracted to it was that the character Tim Allen plays, Mike Baxter, is an Amateur Radio Operator. He has been given the tongue in cheek call sign KA0XTT. The “XTT” stands for Ex Tim Taylor. [...]

News February 25, 2013

by Joel McLaughlin

Melitta Pour Over 1 Cup Brew Cone Review

I love my Keurig. It’s my morning companion almost every day. A cup or two of coffee and I head out the door to work. Once I get to work, I also get another cup or two of coffee while I read through my e-mail. Well, recently I had to move offices from one building [...]

Read More 0 Comments

News February 22, 2013

by Carly Z, Michael Anderson, Joel McLaughlin, Deni Tako and Travis Ehrlich

Chromebook Pixel – A Bad Idea?

Chromebooks have been a bit of a mixed bag for many people. Some users love the idea of a lightweight, browser-focused operating system, and others feel like a computer that just runs browser apps is a waste of money. When Chromebooks occupied the $199-$300 space, they fit a niche as a lightweight “secondary machine”. Yesterday [...]

Sonar Linux Aims to Make Linux Accessible to All

Over the years that I have worked in an IT support role, I have often had the experience of talking to people who didn’t have perfect eyesight or who might have other disabilities. What might be easy for you or me to do on a computer might be extremely difficult for someone who doesn’t have [...]

Read More 0 Comments

News January 22, 2013

by Joel McLaughlin

Geeksphone to Ship FirefoxOS on Developer Hardware Next Month

The biggest criticism I have of Android and iOS challenger UbuntuOS is that they made an announcement with no hardware that was even close to shipping. Well, the Mozilla project has gone a step further and announced that they will have not one, but two developer phones to ship next month with the new [...]

Read More 0 Comments

News January 22, 2013

by Joel McLaughlin

Quirky Ham Radio Gadgets from Yesteryear: The Wouff Hong and the Rettysnitch

Well, the Wouff-Hong is not so much a gadget, but it has been a part of Ham Radio lore since 1930′s. What is a Wouff Hong? According to 1930 edition of The Radio Amateur’s Handbook: The Wouff-Hong is amateur radio’s most sacred symbol and stands for the enforcement of law and order in amateur operation. [...]

Read More 0 Comments

News January 22, 2013

by Joel McLaughlin

The Good and Bad of HDMI Switching

This holiday season was the season my family finally made the jump to HD TV. I absolutely love HD TV, and I am really looking forward to watching NASCAR and actually being able to read the tickers! As result of getting the TV, I ended up receiving or giving products that needed an HDMI connection [...]

Read More 0 Comments

News January 22, 2013

by Joel McLaughlin

The Tricorder Could Be Just Around the Corner

I love Star Trek. One of the things I like the best about Star Trek is the gadgets, and the gadget I have always thought was the coolest was the Tricorder. There were, of course, two different Tricorders. One was used to look at items in the environment to get away teams the info they [...]

Read More 0 Comments

Quickies January 21, 2013

by Joel McLaughlin

Banana Slicer Is Good for Slicing Bananas and a Laugh

Normally I wouldn’t even look at the Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer on Amazon as I have seen these gadgets hanging on grocery shelves for about 20 years at LEAST. However, thanks to several friends who shared this on Facebook, I had a good laugh the other day. Why? The comments! It keeps getting funnier as [...]

Read More 0 Comments

News January 19, 2013

by Joel McLaughlin

APC Releases Rock and Paper Computers

The Raspberry Pi has been openly embraced by the hacker community for all sorts of projects. From roll your own set-top boxes to Amateur Radio uses, it’s become a fast favorite of the hacker community. Not to be outdone, APC has released two new computers that are sure to peak interest of the hacker community and [...]

One Laptop Per Child Association Introduces Three New Products at CES 2013

One Laptop Per Child project started many years ago with the goal of making a durable laptop that was cheap enough to make for education in third world countries. That resulted in their first device, the XO Laptop. At CES, OLPCA has introduced three new products. The first is the new XO 4.0 Touch which [...]

Linksys Introduces New 802.11ac Routers at CES 2013

I’ve always been a big fan of Linksys over the years for making reliable routers for the home. Even though the next iteration of WiFi, 802.11ac, is still being finalized, this isn’t stopping Linksys from introducing three new routers based on a draft of the new standard. This is similar to how the previous generation, [...]

Read More 0 Comments

News January 3, 2013

by Joel McLaughlin

Café Cup Review

I love my Keurig coffee maker. It’s my morning companion and has been for many years. Sometimes, though, I have coffee I want to try that is not available as a Keurig K-cup. While Keurig offers up an adapter that lets you use any ground coffee in a Keurig machine, my experience with it is not [...]

Canonical Outs New Ubuntu for Phones

The New Year has barely begun, but there’s something BIG going on at Ubuntu’s parent company, Canonical! Today Canonical has announced a version of Ubuntu for Mobile phones. According to Canonical, Ubuntu for Mobile Phones should have this on hardware to demonstrate at CES 2013. Canonical says that the SDK has everything developers need. The interface certainly looks [...]

2012, the Year the Netbook Died, a Eulogy

It’s been widely reported over the web that Acer and Asus are pulling out of the netbook market as of today effectively ending the netbook as a viable platform. It says a great deal when Asus, who practically invented the netbook, has said they are done. I write not to bury the netbook but to [...]