I’ve recently been in the market for decent quality webcams so I picked up Logitech’s QuickCam Pro 5000. The webcam is a small spherical object with a bendable tail that allows you to secure it to a laptop or CRT or sit it on your desk.

I’m using Windows XP, and the software was easy to install, although you will need an internet connection to download the updated software through the Logitech website. Once the software has downloaded, the install wizard will prompt you to hook up the camera via USB when the software has installed.

I’m upgrading from a really cheap webcam that I think I got free when I signed up for Verizon DSL years ago, so the first thing I noticed was how great the video quality was comparably. The pictures are sharp and the camera is pretty good at adjusting the picture brightness accordingly in dim and back lit rooms. In addition, the built in microphone actually dulls background noise so you don’t get echoes and other nuisances when chatting.

As an added bonus, the webcam’s software technology is built to focus on your facial expressions - it will actually transfer your facial features to animated avatars like a 3D shark so if you smile, the shark will look like its smiling. It’s cute and somewhat entertaining for a few minutes.

The biggest issue I had with the webcam was there’s no manual focus, which is odd because there was with the previous model, QuickCam Pro 4000. I recently bought software that will help me catalog my book/dvd/music collection and one of its perks is that you can use a webcam to scan barcodes into the software so no manual typing. The software actually recommended the QuickCam Pro 4000 to do this, so I thought the newer model would also allow this.

Unfortunately, the QuickCam Pro 5000 is awful at focusing on anything close and there’s no way to manually adjust focus so this camera is pretty much useless for anything along those lines. Don’t bother trying to show the person on the other end anything text oriented like the back cover of a book or a printed document because the camera just won’t focus on it. It’s even worse if your printed text is on a white background as whites look horribly washed out in bright light and you can’t read them in dim light.

Overall, this is a decent webcam that is a good choice for those who want to chat with others via the web or skype. It’s not so good if you need to focus on anything close like text.

Of those Elite Tech Users, 8% are avid Web 2.0 devotees. This group is far more likely to own a digital or video camera, a web cam, and an iPod/MP3 player than the rest of the groups. They also are more likely to create and engage with video content. Nearly all (97%) have broadband connections at home or work. Not surprisingly, most are young - the median age is 28 - ethicnically diverse, and are mostly male (70%).

In contrast, the least connected group is more likely to watch TV every day and have cable or satellite service. This group is the oldest - median age is 64 - and they report the lowest levels of household income. They are more likely to be women (57%). Three quarters are white and 18% are African American.

I can’t say I’m surprised that young people are more likely to actively engage with online technology and have made it part of their lives while older people tend to prefer to do things they way they’ve always done… I wonder, however, if it’s more of an educational thing - people would like to learn more about technology but don’t have the time/resources to do so - or simply a matter of preference - ie they’re more efficient without technology.

Perhaps Blu-Ray will win the DVD wars - I mentioned awhile back that I was siding with Blu-Ray - but it seems a bit enthusiastic to say that within three years, even normal DVDs will no longer be in use.

Still, according to NewsFactor, Blu-Ray discs outsold HD-DVDs two-to-one during the first two months of 2007, and The Departed (great movie, btw!) sold 20,000 Blu-Ray discs to 13,000 HD-DVDs, so the initial numbers seem to favor Blu-Ray.

Unfortunately, I haven’t yet purchased my Playstation 3 so I have not yet been able to evaluate Blu-Ray’s quality. After realizing there was no way I was willing to pay ridiculous prices around Christmas time, I broke down and purchased a Samsung LNS3241D 32″ HDTV instead. I’ve been waiting patiently for PS3s to become more readily available ever since.

It seems that staring at a computer screen all day isn’t so good for one’s eyes. I have no problems seeing things in front of my face, but driving at night has become more challenging with the glare from headlights and the layer of dirt/smudges on my windshield. But I sucked it up and dealt. It wasn’t that bad.

It turns out that I’m a bit nearsighted, so I opted for a pair of glasses. This past weekend, I picked them up. It wasn’t really a big deal - but then I put them on and felt like I was seeing in high def.

My new glasses have lenses that are made with Crizal technology. They have a full description of the manufacturing process on their website, but as it turns out, they have various coatings applied to actually reduce the glare of night driving. I mean, things are perfectly clear. The streaks and smudges on my windshield no longer bother me. The colors seem to have more depth and everything is sharper. Sure, my vision wasn’t 100% to begin with, but wow. Looking through these lenses makes me wonder why I waited so long to get my eyes checked.

The lenses are also anti-reflective, meaning no matter what angle someone is looking at me they can see my eyes, not their refection. And so far, they seem extremely resistant to scratches.

If you’re in the market for a new pair of glasses any time soon, check out Crizal lenses.

I’m a bit of a domain junkie, in that I’ve purchased somewhere around 90 domain names, though I haven’t gotten into the domain resellers business yet. Admittedly, I have grand plans for all of them - if I ever get around to building the sites and writing the content.

I consider myself pretty good at the trial and error process of finding a good, keyword rich .com or .net domain for under $7 (I use GoDaddy.com for domain registration + search the web for a coupon to use to get domains for $6.95.)

That said, I didn’t realize how “entrepreneurs” were profiting from domain name trial periods. Apparently, there’s a five day grace period that was originally designed to correct mistakes like registrants mistyping the domain name they’re trying to buy.

Entrepreneurs, spammers, and scam artists are taking advantage of this grace period to buy domains during this period and test them out to see which ones generate the most paid search traffic. They keep those that make more than their $6-7 annual fee and give the non-profitable domains back on day four.

Speculators write software to automatically register hundreds or thousands of names. Some are variants of trademarks or generic keywords that Internet users are likely to type — or mistype. Others are names grabbed after their original owners fail to renew.

During the grace period, the entrepreneur puts up a Web page featuring keyword search ads and receives a commission on each ad clicked. Services like Google Inc.’s AdSense for Domains and Yahoo Inc.’s Domain Match help large domain name owners set them up, even as the search companies officially oppose abuses in tasting.

Addresses likely to generate more than the $6 annual cost of domain name are kept — not a high threshold given how lucrative search advertising is these days.

The rest are thrown back into the pool on the fourth or fifth day, only to be grabbed by another group of domain name tasters.

What’s crazy is that there are up to 6 million domain names tied up in this process at any give time! When one person gives back their domain, another snaps it up before it can go back on the market to the public.

The practice has spiked, with an average tasting of 1.2 million names each day in December, compared with 7,200 two years earlier, according to data from Name Intelligence Inc., which analyzes domain name patterns. Legitimate registrations made up 2 percent of the registrations at the end of 2006, down from about half in 2004.

Only 2%!

Here are the pros and cons of each as I see them:

Player Price: HD DVD wins. The players are roughly half the cost of Blu Ray at this point - HD DVD players start at $500 while Blu Ray starts around $1000. That said, the PS3 will narrow the cost gap once stores start carrying the machines. Even non-gamers may be tempted to pick up a PS3 at $599 for the Blu Ray player that comes with it.

Media Price: Blu Ray wins. Currently, HD DVDs are going for about $29 MSRP for older titles and $35-40 for new titles. Blu Ray discs are going for about $23 for older titles and $30 for newer titles. (update: although on Amazon.com, the discs are virtually the same cost.)

Quality: Blu Ray wins. Both formats are capable of High Definition standards, but currently, HD DVD players can’t play the 1080 High Definition output. Blu Ray can. (update: although Toshiba now has released a 2nd gen model that can play 1080.)

Capacity: Blu Ray wins. Blu Ray discs can hold 25GB on a single layer and 50GB on the dual-layer discs, while HD DVD discs can only hold 30GB on a dual-layered disc.

Game Consoles: The PS3 will come equipped with a Blu Ray player while Microsoft will sell an HD DVD player as an external drive for the Xbox 360. Had they decided to equip the Xbox with the HD DVD players from the start, they’d have a full year on Sony. As of now, they’re starting on relatively equal ground. This is also a toss up.

Selection: Blu Ray (maybe)? At this point, it’s probably a toss up since the technology’s so new and the selection for both is so poor. Blu Ray has a number of big studios like Disney, Miramax, Fox, and Sony supporting it. Studios like Paramount and Warner say they’ll support both formats. It looks like the money’s with Blu Ray technology, though.

Conclusions:If you’re a non-gamer, then I’d probably agree with Computer Shopper that you might as well sit this one out. Personally, I’m planning on buying a Playstation 3 once they become readily available - which may not be until March as it looks now - so I’m going with Blu Ray since it comes with my console anyway.

As it looks now, I think Blu Ray is the better technology and has the support of movie studios. It’s main problem is price, which will change when the PS3 comes out. At $499 or $599, I can see non-gamers picking up the console simply for the Blu Ray dvd player if they really want one.

That said, Microsoft is releasing an external HD DVD drive for $199 for the Xbox 360, so I wouldn’t count Microsoft out yet. If they’re supporting the format, there’s money on that side too… it’s just a matter of how much Microsoft will throw at it.

update - For an ongoing comparison of the sales numbers of the two formats, check out TheDVDWars.com. As of right now, there are currently 64 Blu Ray movies on the market and 91 HD DVDs - not a very good selection! HD DVDs are currently outselling Blu Ray, but it looks like regular DVDs are by far the most popular choice.

“In rare cases, a short-circuit could cause the battery to overheat, causing a risk of smoke and/or fire,” said the spokesman, Ira Williams. “It happens in rare cases, but we opted to take this broad action immediately.

If you purchased a Dell Latitude, Inspiron, XTS and precision mobile workstation notebooks between April 1, 2004, and July 18, 2006, you’ll be able to get a free replacement battery. They plan to launch a website, dellbatteryprogram.com, tomorrow (1AM CDT Tuesday) with the details.

I’ve noticed my Inspiron running hot whenever I placed it on anything that wasn’t wood. In fact, I’ve been compensating by running it atop a bamboo tray whenver I’m not at my desk, which keeps it pretty cool. I’m glad they’re doing something about this.

The main cause of broken laptops used to be broken screens but now, the culprit seems to be the motherboard and its integrated parts - and that’s requiring technicians to replace the entire motherboard to fix one component that goes bad.

That’s what happened to my last laptop, a Sony Vaio (GRX550), which worked fine until just after the 2 year warenty expired. The computer was equipped with two RAM slots, and one day, for no apparent reason, one of the slots just stopped working. Whenever RAM was inserted into the malfunctioning slot, the computer wouldn’t even turn on. But if you only had RAM in the working slot, it worked just fine (abite with half the RAM, so it was somewhat slower).

The solution offered was that I could replace the motherboard, which would have been a few hundred dollars. I opted for buying a new, lighter laptop with more battery power instead - a Dell Inspiron 700m.

Other reasons laptops break - problems with “latches and hinges on the chassis, lost key caps and the aftermath of drinks spilled on the keyboard.”

Source: CIO Magazine (August 15, 2006) “Don’t Be Surprised When Your Laptop Breaks”

The expert reaction to the Month of Browser Bugs is mixed, with some people thinking that making the bugs public can only put pressure on companies to release security patches faster. Others think that going public with this info will only make it easier for hackers to exploit the bugs.

According to Moore’s blog, all these bugs in Internet Explorer were reported to Microsoft in March 2006 and they apparently have yet to be fixed. Each blog entry has a button designed to test the bug, complete with a warning that it may crash your browser. I tried the FireFox one, and sure enough, my browser crashed. The site reports that the bug was fixed in Firefox 1.5.0.3 but I’m using Firefox 1.5.0.4 and it’s still there, unfortunately.

FireFox has marketed itself as a more secure browser than Internet Explorer because it uses alternative technology to ActiveX, which controls how plug-ins interact with webpages and has been known to be easily hacked.

Hopefully, browser companies will be quick to release patches to take care of these security flaws. And for those of you still on Internet Explorer, you may want to consider switching browsers.

If you’re willing to do some planning ahead of time, there are a number of online directories for hotspots including:

• AnchorFree.com - Search their free Wi-Fi directory or download it to your iPod
• Wi-Fi-FreeSpot.com - Find free public hotspots
• ilovefreeWiFi.com - Find free public hotspots via your cell phone. Just text them your location and they’ll reply with the 6 closest hotspots
• Wi-FiHotSpotList.com - An online directory of hotspots by address or zip
• JiWire.com - A Wi-Fi search engine

Keeping Your Computer Secure
Having access to the internet is great - but not when it opens your computer up to outside attacks. Here are some quick tips to keep your data private.

• Watch Out For Strangers - It’s common sense, but when typing passwords, make sure no one is looking over your shoulder.
• Enable Your Firewall - Make sure you have a firewall on your computer to prevent incoming attacks. Norton, McAfee, and Zonelabs all have good firewall programs.
• Protect The Data You Send - Firewalls are great for protecting your computer, but they don’t do much for people waiting to intercept the data you send over the network. If you have a peer-to-peer mode set up, turn it off. Also consider only checking your email through sites protected by Secure Socket Layers (SSL) - both Google and Yahoo have such security in place.
• Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) - If you want to connect to your office computer, make sure your IT department has set up a VPN so you can connect securely. HowStuffWorks.com has a great overview of what a VPN is and how it can protect your data.
• Buy Security Protection If you can’t set up a VPN, try software like JiWire SpotLock (available via Download.com). The service is $4.95/month.