isnoop.net blog

From Tuttle SVC

If you would like to try out the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) system for yourself, follow these simple steps:

1. Download the VMware Player installer and run it;
2. Download the VMWare Image file: (Bittorrent, original, mirror) and unzip it somewhere handy;
3. Navigate to the unzipped files and double click on the ‘olpc’ VMware Configuration File;
4. Tell the player it is ok to change the system’s UUID and click through the error messages;
5. You should have a fresh simulated XO laptop. Have fun messing with it.

I’ve mirrored the 136MB image here, but I strongly suggest downloading the bittorrent if you can.

Every light fixture in my home, with the exception of those in the bathroom, is on a dimmer circuit. I’m not sure who’s idea it was, but it is kinda nice if you want to set a romantic mood by the coat closet.

Most CFL (Compact FLuorescent) bulbs come with a warning indicating that they should not be used in dimmer circuits, among other things. Always interested in saving a watt or two, I’ve kept my eyes open for dimmer-compatible CFL bulbs every time I visit the lighting section of my local hardware store.

On my most recent trip, I found and purchased two 26W (100W equivalent) dimmable CFLs at the dandy price of $10 each. I installed them a week ago tonight and they worked fantastically. They don’t dim out fully like incandescent bulbs, merely reducing to about 25% brightness at the lowest level, but they produce a pleasant white light and don’t emit any noise.

That is, until tonight.

After one full week of regular nightly use, one of the bulbs began to “click” every few minutes. This went on for only a few hours until it clicked one last time, blinked, and then went out for good. As it turns out, I may have gotten a bum bulb and I will exchange it for another to make sure. However, my hopes are fading for this early crop of dimmable CFL bulbs. With a price point around that of 20 incandescent bulbs or 5 similar non-dimmable CFLs, one should expect much better results.

Ah well. As with all new things, one should expect some flaws. I just hope these bulbs won’t burn down my home like this company’s other models were said to. Only time will tell.

My Tivo just shut down while I was watching late-night election coverage. When the machine came back online several minutes later, I was prompted with a notice about the update I’d just received. As it turns out, my Series 2 Tivo now supports WPA security (with Tivo Wireless Network Adapter).

For the sake of those who downgraded their network security due to lack of WPA support on a few lagging devices such as Tivo, I’m very glad they have rolled out this update. After begging Tivo to release this feature, I chose to buy an overpriced wireless access point and hook the Tivo up to that.

Thank you, Tivo, for coming out to support your users’ security, even if it is several years late.

Imagine you were considering your options on a $350,000 traditional home loan. Assuming you have a FICO score of 725 (US average⁽¹⁾), your interest rate might be 6.259% for a 30-year fixed mortgage⁽²⁾. At the end of 30 years, you’ll own your home outright for a total cost of about $776K–that’s $427K in interest⁽³⁾.

By contrast, a 15-year loan will net you a lower interest rate of about 6.011%. Your monthly payments will be a little bit more, but you will own the home in half the time for a total cost of about $532K–only $182K in interest.

Assuming a paltry average annual appreciation rate of 10% (US average since 1980 has been 11.28%⁽⁴⁾), your house would be worth 417% it’s original value after 15 years. That $350K house would sell for about $1.5 million. Assuming you sold it and put the cash towards a bigger home costing $1.85M, taking out a new $350K loan to cover the remainder, you would only pay another $182K in interest in the second 15 years. Sell that house after another 15 years of 10% appreciation and you bank $7.7 million dollars. By comparison, the original house would sell for $6.1M in 30 years.

The net effect of the two fifteen year mortgages is living in a much better home for half the time and only paying a grand total of $364,000 in interest while neting about $1.6M more in value after 30 years. That’s quite a difference! You might be wondering why anybody would opt for a 30 year home loan.

On the other hand, you might have figured out that the 30 year $350K mortgage with its lower payments might be the most you can afford each month; that in order to make that same payment amount on a 15 year loan, you can only borrow $255K⁽⁵⁾.

Well, that stinks. In the Seattle area, that’s 14.5% fewer houses in your price range and 20% less square footage in those you can afford (worse still if you want the same number of rooms)⁽⁶⁾. However, it’s not all bad news. If you’re willing to go the 15/15 route, your second home would be worth $434K in today’s housing dollars⁽⁷⁾, giving you 41% more selection and 22% more space than the 30 year home.

So what’s a buyer to do?

I suggest you start any home buying process by getting a pre-approval for a 15 year loan (higher payments, shorter term). Then, shop the market and see if you can find anything that will fit your needs for the foreseeable future. If you find a house you can call home, snatch it up and start building more equity at a faster pace. If you exhaust the market and can’t find the amount of house you need on your 15-year budget, go back to your loan agent and have them recalculate your pre-approval for a 30 year loan and resume your search.

If must choose the traditional 30 year loan, there is no need to fret. Your needs and budget simply lie in the margin between price ranges of these two loan types. Most of the home buyers out there fall into this range and the seem to be quite happy with it.

If you find you can fill your needs in a 15 year loan, congratulations; you are able to live well within your means and you will eventually reap considerable benefits from your good budgeteering.

References
#1 wikipedia.com - FICO info
#2 myfico.com - FICO/loan rate calculator
#3 moneychimp.com - Compound interest calculator
#4 ofheo.gov - US historical housing appreciation data
#5 equifax.com - Financial calculators
#6 redfin.com - House value mapping
#7 bls.gov - US historical inflation data

I just got home and found an unexpected package at my door. It is a Philips Senseo pod coffee maker. Despite living in Seattle and working within two blocks of no less than a half-dozen fantastic coffee makers, I’m not much of a java drinker. Honestly, I’m more of a tea man, but who am I to say no to a free coffee maker?

Rinse out machine, plug it all in, First thing after rinsing it all out and plugging it in, I put in a pod, plunked down my biggest mug, and pressed the big/two cup button.

The folks who designed these coffee pods must have done quite a bit of testing to come up with a coffee grind that can be so completely exhausted so quickly. I watched with great interest as the cup filled halfway and then the coffee coming out turned light tan and then clear in under ten seconds. After inspecting the hieroglyphs on the coffee pod holders (2), I discerned that I should have used the other pod holder and inserted two pods.

One cup down the drain.

I put my cup back under the machine, lowered the head, and pressed the one cup button. After a bit of chatter, the machine starts pumping water all over my counter. Apparently the coffee maker will still run even if the head isn’t locked in place. It may appear that you’ve shut it if the latch is down and the head is lowered, but you can’t latch it until after it’s shut. I imagine it will also spew hot water if you don’t put in the pod holder, so don’t do either of those things.

Third time’s the charm. I put a single pod into the holder, filled my cup 1/4 with milk and let ‘er rip on one cup of fancy Irish cream coffee.

I’ve never had such tasty drip coffee.

My first thought upon seeing the machine was that I’d have to spend the rest of my days buying proprietary teabags full of coffee grounds so Philips can earn a return on this loss leader machine. As it turns out, the pods are simply round mesh pouches and the two pod holder has enough space to fit even the largest of teabags.

I’m currently drinking the most convenient cup of tea I’ve ever made. I do believe this machine will find quite a bit of use in my home through the cool winter ahead.

A tip for those who might make tea in their Senseo: One typical teabag equals two coffee pods. Your results may vary, but my tea came out very potent for the first half of the process and the second half lightened out and eventually ran clear. The end result was a perfectly steeped cup made in less than a minute.

We live in a world where people are increasingly finding writing more than one paragraph to be a physically painful experience. These days, you are probably less likely to find stationary in your desk drawer than at any time since the great depression. I certainly don’t own any stationary. The closest thing I come to proper letter writing paper is a yellow notepad and several pads of graph paper.

Enter incompetech.com’s Plain Paper Grapher. You can choose from a variety of very useful lined paper generators; all sorts from graph to dots, logarithmic to polar graph paper, music notation to traditional simple lined paper and much more!

All of the paper generators have a variety of options to make your graph or lined sheet experience the best you’ve ever had. Once you’ve set the parameters, the tool quickly generates a pristine PDF for you to use once or print off a whole notebook with. All this and no ads on the final product!

This is a very good idea and it is very well executed. Kudos, incompetech.com!

Search Google for real estate. As of a recent Google update, you should see Google’s newest search integration feature. (If not, try refreshing. This appears to be in a testing phase right now.)

This new feature seems to go head-to-head with the most basic of features (mapping properties for sale) offered by real estate mapping guru site zillow.com and to a lesser degree redfin.com.

Don’t want spammers emailing you through your website’s contact link? The answer is simple: Forget email. Give the internet your phone number.

There are a number of services available which provide a cheap or free voicemail box with a number based in just about any major city. I’ve used k7.net to create my own voicemail/fax line that feeds straight into my email box.

If you’d like to reach me, feel free to give me a call any time, 24×7 at 206.666.3187. If you ever lose the number, don’t worry. You can find it on the front page of my website.

It is very uncharacteristic of Apple to have announced the iTV months in advance of release. However, if you’ve been looking in the right places, you might have noticed that you can enjoy your networked HDTV media on your big screen TV today!

Your video options are nearly limitless:
• HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface)
• Component Video
• Coax Digital Audio
• Optical Digital Audio
• Composite Audio and Video
• S-Video

The connectivity is fantastic:
• 802.11g Wireless
• 802.11b Wireless
• Wired LAN: 10/100Mbps Ethernet
• DHCP or Static IP Address
• UPnP AV 1.0
• USB 2.0
• WPA-PSK Encryption
• Hardware-based WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)
• Up to 128-bit Encryption

As an aside, I’m particularly pleased that they added WPA-PSK into a network appliance.

The idea of putting the power supply inside a device this size was brilliant, but the best part of all is the price: You can buy it now for $199, an entire 33% off of Apple’s iTV suggested retail price!

(click for larger image)

As far as speculations on whether the iTV is going to revolutionize the way home media and electronics are purchased and enjoyed, I am doubtful. The D-Link MediaLounge DSM-520 (see listed specs above) has been available for close to a year now and it has made only a little splash in the media consuming community.

This is a photo from today’s Apple press event.

Your pocket is protected.