Cool products
PERSONAL
Hair loss

HOME
Ant traps
Mosquitos
Camcorder
Tires
Electric car
Phone system
Audio and lighting system
Remote controls
Internet service
Oven

BUSINESS
PDA
Voice recorder
Cell phone

COMPUTER GEAR
My home system
Misc computer stuff
Digital camera
Digital camera software
FAX, copier, scanner
Photo printer
Graphics card
Flat panel display
Video camera
CD recorder
Removable storage
USB
Voice recognition




Here is a list of some of the products I use that you might find useful yourself, along with a list of pros and cons.

COMPUTER GEAR (updated 10/2014):

Ubiquiti Wifi Access Points: have zero handoff roaming feature. Very cool.

QNAP TS-451: a NAS with an incredible array of features.

ASUS VivoPC VM60-G105M Barebone System is really cool. I'd get this if I were buying a computer today.

PERSONAL

Hair loss
I'm using finesteride which I got from my urologist. Not only does it allow you to keep you hair, but it supposedly reduces your cancer risk too.

HOME

Killing ants in the house
Boric acid mixed with sugar and water and doused on cotton balls used to be my favorite, but it is messy, hard to clean up, and you have to keep it moist. My new favorite is the FMC: Products: FMC Ant Control Baits: FluorGuardŽ. $10 for 6 stations. See U Spray to order. These are really killer compared to the RAID stations you buy in supermarket (which don't seem to work at all). The ants really go for the FMC stuff and are all gone in a few days (sometimes a week) with no messy/harmful chemicals. I also recommend having a professional spray the exterior perimeter of the house to keep the ants away. These traps are all you need inside the house.

What's really cool is that a mixture of dish detergent and water which I put in a spray bottle will kill ants on contact, discourage them from coming back, and is completely non-toxic!

Mosquito repellant
DEET is the best way. See this article, and this one. On 20/20, sonic repellers got only a 27% reduction. Lots of studies have shown citronella is useless, others show it marginally useful. See also: All About Mosquitoes

Tires
Go to the Tire Rack. Search by size. I bought my NSX tires over the net from them. You can save major bucks this way. I had my tires directly shipped to a local installer who charges $25 per tire to mount and balance. The sales guys knew more about the NSX tires than my Acura dealer.

Electric car
GM's new EV1 was a very cool vehicle. Accelerates as fast as my NSX! No oil, no tuneups, no gas. Environmentally friendly. 

So now my wife and I both drive electric Toyota RAV-4s and maybe thinking about the new Tesla sedan.

Phone system
I've got a FLASH voicemail system ($2,500; just on the market) which works with my Panasonic KX-TD1232 Digital Super Hybrid System. Here is the datasheet on FLASH. But I dumped it in favor of the Panasonic voicemail system which isn't a lot better, but the Panasonic offered live call screening which I thought was pretty cool. The Panasonic voicemail system isn't very user friendly... I wish I had my Northern Telecom voicemail system at home!

Audio and lighting control
I have a Vantage lighting system and an Audio Ease Monaco audio control system throughout the house which is now replaced with the Phast/AMX Landmark system which interfaces to the Vantage system.

Remote controls
We originally used the Harman/Kardon Take Control remote control  (jointly designed with Microsoft) to control things. Once you program one, you can program them all via your PC! But we've replaced these with the Panja portable touch panels.

Oven
Wolf FlashBake oven (microwave speed, conventional taste developed in Silicon Valley). Looked cool, but with 2 microwaves already installed, we were set. My wife didn't want to give up more counterspace.

 

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Like the list?

If you found this list useful, let me know: [email protected]

 

BUSINESS

PDA cell phone voice recorder
I use an Apple iPhone. Love it.

My home computer system
I have an HP at home. It's very quiet. I have a custom built PC at work which is completely silent.

Digital Camera
I had the Olympus D-600L, then a Fuji MX-700 (which is smaller but the pictures are not as good), and finally, an Olympus C-2000 Z.

I also had a Kodak DCS-520 which I use for all my important pictures that I'm very happy with (see review below).

Today, I am using a Canon EOS D-30 with Adobe Lightroom to adjust the raw photos after upload to the PC. The flash is a Canon 550EX in E-TTL mode which is a lot less accurate than you'd like: it typically underexposes the subject.

KODAK DCS-520

This was a killer camera when it first came out many years ago. If you are a photo journalist, this is the camera to get. For personal use, I used it whenever weight/size/convenience are not a problem, e.g., at home, but not on a short trip. I've taken over 10,000 pictures with this camera in less than a year, so it was a real bargain, even though it cost $15,000. I saved on film and processing costs, and the images will last forever without degradation. Here's a picture I took of my father. Click on the image to see the original image at full resolution. Check out the detail!

Digital Camera Software
If you take a lot of digital pictures, use the Windows filesystem to organize your photos since the Photo Gallery software you can buy is pretty bad. Then get ThumbsPlus. I (and others) highly recommend this program. It let's you view, organize, and see a slide show on your images.

FAX, copier, scanner
I have the HP OfficeJet 600. Couldn't be happier.

Photo printer
I have the Epson Stylus Photo. If you aren't getting photo quality on plain and glossy paper, check the nozzle. Be sure to use the correct settings (including paper), and only use Epson paper. If you follow instructions, the output is superb. Indistinguishable from a photo. HOWEVER, there are basically 3 possible ways to print an image: PhotoEnhance (works fine most of the time, but occasionally can really screw up your image), Photo (not as much enhancement as PhotoEnhance, and screws up less on areas where PhotoEnhance screws up), and ICM (which doesn't mess up your image at all, but the colors don't seem as "vivid"). I always fix the images myself, and print using Photo mode with a standard correction that reduces brightness by -10 because it seems to give a result much closer to the original image brightness and contrast.

When I print on this printer, I absolutely love MGI PhotoSuite SE (which came with my Olympus camera) because in the Print Preview, I can drag and resize the image, and it shows me the allowable image area. Superb control, unlike anything in any other program. So I use this to print the 1728 x 1152 images from the Kodak since I can effectively see where the "cropping" is for each type of paper I am printing to, and adjust the image to fit the printable area.

Future printers
I have a Tektronix 840/DP printer on order because it is super fast (6 ppm in color), full duplex, reliable, small, low maintenance, and super cheap (35 cents per 8 x 10), and environmentally friendly, and unless you look really close, it looks like a real photograph. It has a special 1200 dpi color mode. Up close, you see all the tiny dots (not continuous tone). I may get a Kodak 8650 PS Printer for $6,500. 8x10s cost $2.50 each. Printer is 300dpi, but don't let that fool you!  The quality is phenominal; impossible to tell from a traditional photo.

Graphics card
I have the ATI All-in-Wonder. Very cool. Let's you watch TV on your PC. You can capture images from your VCR, TV, or video camera. Very cool. Can also output to a TV, but I haven't tried it. The thumbnails of all channels feature is very cool, so you can see what is on TV at a glance. Also works as an image capture board for your video camera. I use this for use in Microsoft NetMeeting.

Flat panel display
For my new home computer, I'm getting a the AGP version of SGI 1600SW with the Number Nine card. Same one Bill Gates has. Hey, if it is good enough for Bill, it is good enough for me! You need to get a special version of X windows to use with Linux and Solaris that supports this card (version 3.3.3.1 at www.xfree86.org has been modified for Linux and Solaris). And System Commander doesn't work with the card when re-partitioning drives (but otherwise you are safe), probably because it writes to VGA registers directly rather than the system BIOS.

Video camera
I have the SONY CCD-PC1 camera. Very nice design, great image quality. Top pick by reviewers.

CD recorder
I bought the HP SureStore CD-Writer Plus 7110 which lets you write a file at a time on both CD-R ($2) and CD-RW ($15) media. I use this for storing my photos, making copies of audio CDs (which seem to get scratched by my Acura NSX's CD player).

Removable storage

I've ordered the new 2G Jazz drive.

USB
If you have an old system and you want to add USB support, first save your files, remove windows, install the latest version of Windows (the CD will have "with USB support"). Then install the
CSA-6700 from CMD for $59. This PCI card adds USB ports to your system. Don't pay extra for the CMD software. You don't need it. All you need is the card.

Voice-recognition
I have Dragon NaturallySpeaking Mobile. Very cool. Highly recommended.

Links
Steve Kirsch home page