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REVIEW: Time Warner Cable’s DVR

What: Time Warner Cable’s newest digital set-top box.
Where: Available in Charlotte and elsewhere, contact your local cable provider for details.
How Much: As low as $6.95/month

It you don’t know what a “DVR” is, you’re behind the times. It stands for “Digital Video Recorder” and popular DVRs like TiVo and ReplayTV record your favorite TV shows on a computer hard drive instead of a tape. Given the massive capacities of today’s hard drives, DVRs can record dozens of shows on the hard drive, instead of a measly 8 hours on a T-160 VHS tape. And programming them is a breeze compared to a VCR. Easy to read on-screen menus – much like the channel guide you already have with your current analog or digital cable – have replaced the cryptic commands associated with setting the timer on your VCR.

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MP3: Still “Good Enough”?

Back in the 1980s, a new audio format was invented at a research facility in Germany called the Fraunhofer Institut. It was called “MPEG-1 Layer III”. A patent was issued for the new format by the German government in 1989 and Franuhofer would receive an American patent for their format in the United States on November 26th, 1996 – by which time the format was simply known as “MP3”. And so time rolled on… until 1997, when programmer named Tomislav Uzelac developed the “AMP MP3 Playback Engine” for his company Advanced Multimedia Projects – get it? Advanced Multimedia Projects… AMP? Anyway, AMP was the first MP3 software player to hit the market, but MP3 had yet to take off. And so time rolled on… until two Americans – Justin Frankel and Tom Pepper – would take part of the AMP code, give it a nice Windows interface and call it WinAMP. And time rolled on yet again – until 1998 when newer versions of WinAMP became more stable. Finally, the MP3 format would become all the rage.

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The 2006 “Best Of IT” Awards!

Lots of my non-technical friends often ask me what the best program for this or best program for that is. In fact, it happens so often that I decided to put a list of them here, so that they could look it up for themselves. However, I figured that a generic list might be a little boring, so I decided to make the list the “First Annual JIMCOFER.COM Best Of IT” Awards – complete with commentary! So put on your black tie and let’s roll out the red carpet… it’s award time!

Best Office Suite
Winner: Microsoft Office
Runner-up: OpenOffice.org

Office suites are packages of software mostly used in business. They almost always include a word processor and a spreadsheet application, and nowadays most suites come with presentation software, personal information management (PIM) software, and maybe even HTML editing and database software.

Microsoft Office is the 800-pound gorilla in the office suite category, and for good reason: Microsoft has spent millions in R&D making Office as easy to use as possible. And since 90%+ of all businesses use Microsoft Office, you can be sure that any document that you send to a business will be able to be read by the recipient. OpenOffice.org is a package of programs that mirror the capabilities of Microsoft Office, yet has one important difference: it’s free. Although OpenOffice.org is still rough around the edges in many aspects, it’s definitely coming along nicely. Although OpenOffice.org claims to seamlessly import Microsoft Office documents, beware that the conversion doesn’t always work that well in complex documents.

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REVIEW: Madonna Obsessive Support Group

What: A play. A comedy (sort of)
Where: Dad’s Garage, 280 Elizabeth Street
When: 12 April – 11 May 2002
Website: http://www.dadsgarage.com

Dita and I were heading north on Buford Highway when she stumbled across the ad in the Creative Loafing:

“Look, here’s something for you – the Madonna Obsessive Support Group…”
“Gee, thanks. I know I’m a bit obsessed and all, but…”
“No, it’s a play… at Dad’s Garage.”

I completely forgot about it by the time I got home, but Dita emailed me a reminder shortly thereafter. I hadn’t been to Dad’s Garage since I was in college. Back then it was called “Actors’ Express”. How would Dad’s fare given the somewhat recent gentrification of Little Five Points? I went to the website and checked it out. And then I thought “what the hell – why not”? Was there ever a play more tailor-made for me?

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General Travel Tips

I had so much fun doing the London Tips page that I decided to branch out into general travel tips! Although most of these are about preparation, packing, and air travel, I hope they come in handy for all travelers! As always, this page will undoubtedly grow as I learn new tips from my own travels or from the helpful bunch of jimcofer.com readers… so check back often!

Check Your Travel Documents I – Many countries will not permit you to enter their nation if your passport expires within three to six months of your dates of travel. Here is a partial list of such countries: Brazil, Ecuador, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Paraguay, Romania, Singapore (six months); Cambodia, Denmark (including Greenland), Fiji, Switzerland (three months). To make matters even more confusing, some countries date their requirement from the day you enter their country whilst others date it from when you leave their country. And Denmark applies its three-month rule to your stay in any of the core 15 EU countries, so even if you pass Denmark’s requirements at the time and pass to to a country that doesn’t have such a rule (say, Italy), Denmark will still refuse you entry if your passport would enter the three-month zone after you’ve left their country!

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Of the Ecclesia Anglicana

Part 1 in a continuing series about the Anglican faith.

The “Anglican Church” is a collection of churches worldwide that are “in communion” with the See of Canterbury (The Church of England). How the Church of England came to be is an exciting story in itself.

It’s a common mistake that is repeated in textbooks and classrooms everywhere: most of us were taught that England’s King Henry VIII wanted to get a divorce from his wife Katherine of Aragon. The truth is, Henry sought an annulment from her. In case you don’t know the difference, a divorce is a legal instrument that ends a marriage but an annulment is a legal declaration that a valid marriage never took place. Back in Henry’s day, it was quite common for the Roman Catholic Church to grant such annulments – especially for Europe’s royal families.

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Guide to Columbia House DVD Club

“Psssssst! Hey buddy! Want brand-new, shrink-wrapped, first-run DVDs for only $7.79? Come on, the first five are free!”

No, it’s not a drug dealer or gangster selling DVDs that “fell off a truck”. It’s just Columbia House. It seems as if everyone in America has been a member of Columbia House (hereafter referred to as “CH”) at some point in their lives. Many of you might have taped a penny to a postcard that had “stamps” for the vinyl albums you wanted – or maybe cassettes or even 8-tracks! Many of you might have a bad taste in your mouth from those days, and I can’t say that I blame you. As Homer Simpson once said, “the first five were only a penny… then they jacked up the price!!”

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Odd Asian Products

Back in 2002, I decided to take a trip down to Buford Highway. Buford Highway is an area in Atlanta often disparagingly called “Chambodia”, which is a combination of the name of the city part of Buford Highway runs through (Chamblee, pronounced almost like the wine Chablis, only with an m and without the pretentiousness) and (of course) Cambodia. The area used to be populated by mostly middle-class folks that worked in the nearby GM plant. As an aside, the somewhat popular 70s band Atlanta Rhythm Section wrote a song called “Doraville”, about one of Chamblee’s neighboring towns. The song touts the good ol’ boy mentality and the reassuring comforts of the town: “Doraville, touch of country in the city/Doraville, it ain’t much, but it’s home“.

How things change! In the early 1980s, the white folks moved out and the Asians moved in. It’s what passes for a Chinatown in Atlanta, although that’s not entirely accurate. Not only did Asians move in, but so too did Mexicans and other Central and South Americans, which is why this same area is also sometimes called “Little Tijuana”. Go figure! Anyway, I picked up a lot of stuff and here are some pics of the BEST of the lot.

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See? I’m Not Crazy!

For years, conservatives railed against what they called the “liberal media”. The liberals were strangely quiet about it… that is, until the birth of Fox News. Now they lampoon the idea that a “liberal media” even exists. Imagine my surprise a few days ago when MSNBC published this list of political contributions by journalists. There are dozens upon dozens of names on the list, and guess what? Most of them have a “D” by their name! Surprise, surprise surprise! In fact, if you remove the few names on the list from “known conservative” publications like the Washington Times or New York Post, and if you remove the names from journalists so high up on the food chain that they feel compelled to give to both parties… what you have left is a sea of Democratic campaign contributions.

Come on folks – you can’t tell me that a bunch of people, 85-90% of whom contributed to the Democratic party, can’t make up a “liberal media”. That just doesn’t make any sense! So read the list and tell me what you think.

For the record, I’m a registered Republican, but am actually more of a Libertarian. I was actually a card-carrying Libertarian for several years, but got sick of being lonely on election night. In any case, I’d side with fiscal conservatives of any party before I’d side with the socially liberal ones.