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Nest – Unboxing and Install

March 1, 2012 – 10:25 pm
I am a total gadget nut; friends and regular readers can attest to that. I love the whole concept of the automated and connected home. One of the home automation items I have been watching is the smart thermostat. Late last year I first heard of Nest and just knew it was exactly what I was looking for. Almost as soon as I had heard about it I signed up on their waiting list and just this week was notified that I could order mine. Tuesday I got the email, Tuesday I placed my order, and today (Thursday) I received and installed my Nest!  Here is the unboxing of my Nest as well as some shots of the install process and and finished installation. Nest in the Box I couldn't wait to open my Nest! The packaging is sleek and very Apple-esque. Nest components out of the box So I didn't really get a ...

Posted in Geek Stuff, Product Reviews | No Comments »

Battlefield 3 versus Modern Warfare 3

November 9, 2011 – 9:58 am
Let me start this post about Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, two of the most popular first person shooters, with a few disclaimers. First off I am not a hardcore gamer (at least not any more). Second I am not one of those dudes who is gifted at first person shooters and is always at the tops of the leader boards when I play. Third, this review is completely based on my opinion, which means for someone my review is going to be totally wrong. Just so you know, I am totally OK with that. Now that I have gotten that out of the way let me get into the games a little bit. I own both games on the Xbox 360. I know for many first person multi-player purists playing on a console is sacrilegious, but honestly I play for fun so deal with it. I ...

Posted in Geek Stuff, Product Reviews | 1 Comment »

Odd successes

October 28, 2011 – 9:12 am
Success is a funny venture. A little less than a year ago I learned of the Barnes and Noble Nook Color. Upon hearing it was built with the Android OS and geeks were successfully making progress towards hacking the Nook Color I was crazy excited to get my hands on it and try it out. I studied all the materials and wrote up one of the first articles on the Internet explaining how to root the Nook Color. Well sure enough I wasn't the only one who was excited about the Nook Color, because I started getting thousands of hits all going to that same article. To date it actually rates as the most popular thing (in views and draw to the site) I had ever written. The page has been served up tens of thousands of times and accounts for just shy of 15% of all of the traffic I ...

Posted in All About Me, Geek Stuff | No Comments »

What Steve Jobs’ death means to me

October 7, 2011 – 6:05 am
Sorry for the somewhat morbid title, but I have had this thought on my mind since learning about the passing of Steve Jobs on Wednesday night. For those living under a rock, Steve Jobs was a co-founder of Apple and was very instrumental in the resurrection of Apple. Now the people who have known me for a long time you will know I am not exactly an Apple Fanboy. In fact for a good amount of time I detested Apple and all Apple products. I used to cling to the idea that Apple products were under powered, over priced, overly simplified, heavily DRM'ed, etc. In many ways much of these issues still persist today with their products, but for some reason my perception has changed. I firmly believe it is due to the persistence of Steve Jobs to focus on User Experience above anything else. Another reason I admire Steve Jobs ...

Posted in Geek Stuff | 1 Comment »

Installing Withings Scale in Linux

September 21, 2011 – 9:12 pm
I recently made the permanent switch to Linux on my laptop and honestly I couldn't be happier. However I still get stuck here and there. Tonight I realized that my Withings Scale (which I previously blogged about) was no longer synced due to a recent router change. I decided to reinstall it with my linux laptop but got stuck and didn't find a good step-by-step tutorial online to help so I thought I would create one: A step by step to install the Withings Scale on Linux. Plug your Withings Scale into your computer via USB Go to my.withings.com Login (or register if this is your first install) Go to My Account and then click Install new scale Click configure my scale Download the file (which should be named pairingwizard_Linux_x86_64) Open up Terminal Navigate to the file download location for me it was in Downloads The file is a bin file so you need to chmod +x the file before ...

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Chicken Broccoli Casserole

September 9, 2011 – 6:22 am
So about 12 or 13 years ago in an attempt to increase the amount of food I could make that both I and my wife would like (I like spicy & seasoned, she generally likes more simple and unseasoned) I started working towards perfecting a recipe for a Chicken Broccoli Casserole. I started with a base recipe, but it has been altered so much that even if I still had the source I don't think I would provide it. So anyways here goes... Tenny's Chicken Broccoli Casserole Ingredients: 2 cups long grain white rice 3 cups water 1 stick salted butter 1 pound broccoli 4-5 chicken breasts 1 can (10.75 oz) cream of mushroom soup 1 can (10.75 oz) cream of chicken soup 2 tablespoons mayo 1 pound shredded cheddar cheese Instructions: - pre-heat oven to 350 - Coat a glass casserole dish/pan (9x13 works great!) with non-stick spray - Evenly spread 2 cups of rice on the bottom of the pan - Pour 2 cups ...

Posted in cincinnati food | No Comments »

I have a fever and the only cure is more World Cup

July 11, 2011 – 6:21 am
I have a confession to make; every couple of years I get hard core World Cup fever. I go from casual football (soccer to most Americans) fan that usually just keeps flipping the channel when regular soccer is on TV to an avid fan during the World Cup. I don’t care if it is women’s World Cup or men’s World Cup; I watch. I am not even a football/soccer player really. I did play some recreational football/soccer from time to time growing up so I know the rules, but I never really played as an adult. This year (Women’s 2011 World Cup) I have taken it one step further and am following several of the US soccer players on twitter, which has been enjoyable. Here are some of those players: Hope Solo: http://www.twitter.com/hopesolo Christie Rampone: http://www.twitter.com/christierampone Alex Morgan: http://www.twitter.com/alexmorgan13 Alex Krieger: http://www.twitter.com/alexbkrieger Megan Rapinoe: http://www.twitter.com/mPinoe Heather O’Reilly:  http://www.twitter.com/Heather_SBFC Tobin Heath: http://www.twitter.com/TobinHeath Carli Lloyd: http://www.twitter.com/CarliLloyd Lauren Cheney: http://www.twitter.com/laurencheney8 Abby Wambach: http://www.twitter.com/awaumbach_dc Of ...

Posted in Having Fun | No Comments »

Dell Sucks, I am forever done with Dell!

July 8, 2011 – 9:37 am
Let me start out by clearly stating that I am done with Dell. I promise I will never spend another dollar with Dell for the rest of my life. When I have had this conversation with different friends the general consensus is “what took you so long”. That is what I feel I need to explain… Let me start with a little history, my first Dell came many years ago when the average home PC cost was in the $2500 range. I had heard some great things about the company and to be completely honest they had some of the best prices out there. Even in those early days I remember them trying to do semi-questionable things like forcing unwanted products in the shopping cart of online orders, but that was always easily avoided by calling up to finalize the order. In the last 11 years, between my wife and I, ...

Posted in Geek Stuff, Product Reviews | 4 Comments »