For the past three weeks I have been toting around a Nikon D300 camera, courtesy of John Ratcliffe-Lee and his team at the MWW Group. While my Nikon D80 is considered an entry-level DSLR camera, the D300 is more along the lines of a mid-range offering, only bested by the full-frame Nikon D700 and the D3. That privilege doesn’t come cheap though; the current D300 Continue Reading »

Now that I have recovered from my jet lag, I have been catching up on news, the biggest story being the iPhone 3G launch that I missed. Well, not entirely - there were quite a few stores in Rome that had the new iPhone. Today I began standing in line for an iPhone 3G at the Apple Store at 7am. Five hours later I had a shiny new black 8GB iPhone 3G. Continue Reading »

It wasn’t too long ago that I was taking a look at the first Eye-Fi card: a 2GB Wi-Fi-enabled SD card that uploads pictures to configured computers and photo-sharing websites. I concluded that the Eye-Fi was a 9 out of 10. Since then, Eye-Fi has differentiated their products and now there are Continue Reading »

At the beginning of this month I wrote about my satisfaction with my new ISP, DirecPath. For only $20 per month I get a fiber line that I thought had throughput in the area of 26 megabits/sec down and 14 megabits/sec up. As you might be able to piece together from the title of this post, I was a bit wrong. Continue Reading »

Hot laptops are nothing new. Even with smaller processor fabrication, laptops keep getting smaller making it hard to effectively cool them without a large heatsink or loud fan. Case in point - my MacBook Air is a heater and it doesn’t help that the exhaust vent is angled down. I end up moving it around in various awkward lap positions while in classrooms with stadium seats that Continue Reading »

In the first part of this Going HD series I discussed the arrival of a 50-inch Samsung plasma HDTV as the core of my new HD setup. I’ve spent almost two weeks with the HDTV and I have no complaints thus far; it’s a stellar display. The only problem has been getting 1080p HD content on the display to really use it. Continue Reading »

I have found it - the ultimate computing chair/pillow contraption. It’s called the Sumo Omni and it most closely resembles a big-arse pillow and glorified bean bag. I first heard about it from Derek Punsalan a year ago and I’ve had my eye on it ever since. Unlike most Continue Reading »

Many of you have been wondering when or if I was going to impart my thoughts about the recent Apple announcements. To get that out of the way, all I have to say is that iPhone 2.0 is what the first iPhone should have been, and exchange support will be huge for waning enterprise customers off their BlackBerries. Instead of writing about Continue Reading »

Last year I reviewed the Vudu set-top movies box and noted how it changed the way I watched movies. Instead of having any preconceived idea about what I wanted to watch, I would just plop down in front of the TV and find something with the Vudu. Taking that as a segue, the Dash Express has changed the way I commute. Rather than Continue Reading »

Among the more popular posts on this blog are my DIY $200 PC posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). There are a few compromises with that route, such as it involves using a motherboard with an integrated 1.2GHz Celeron processor, which isn’t exactly good for much more than file serving and basic web browsing. Continue Reading »

Last July I first laid my hands on the then-dubbed Dash GPS navigation beta unit while visiting friends in San Francisco. As I was with a friend that had just moved there and was not familiar with the roads, the Dash proved indispensable. Naturally, so would any GPS navigation device - not quite. The revamped unit, now called the Dash Express, Continue Reading »

I’ve had my MacBook Air for 15 days now. It has been serving as my primary computer and I have used it to do everything I usually do with my MacBook Pro. I’ll cover how it has stacked up to the MBP in this review in addition to how the MacBook Air’s smaller size has changed the way I do things. Continue Reading »

Today Apple announced an updated Airport Express base station supporting the 802.11n wireless standard (technically draft n, almost a standard) that every other Apple product to date currently supports. Like all Apple gadgetry it’s sleek, somewhat overpriced and somewhat feature-lacking compared to other competitors Continue Reading »

Around the time that I started getting annoyed with AVCHD and my Panasonic HDC-SD5, Samsung and MWW approached me about testing out the Samsung SC-HMX10 camcorder. After finding out that the HMX10C didn’t use Continue Reading »

Before heading off to the Detroit Auto Show in January, I bought myself a Panasonic HDC-SD5. At the time it was the world’s smallest 3CCD HD camcorder. I loved the form factor and that it was entirely solid state, writing everything to cheap SD memory cards. I didn’t take the time to think about how it saved the HD content. Continue Reading »

Ah, the joy of an impulse buy with a high interest rate credit card. I wasn’t really interested in the MacBook Air until I started reading about it more and more last week. Then I realized I lug my MacBook Pro around everywhere and I naturally just had to get the MacBook Air. Continue Reading »

One of the main criticisms of the Nike+ iPod system is that it only works for running and similar activities. It won’t accurately track workouts on a stair-master, elliptical trainer, stationary bike and other such gym equipment. Nike and Apple both listened and have been working with gym equipment manufacturers to solve Continue Reading »

Earlier this week Apple updated the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines. The update wasn’t too crazy. Performance got a boost with 45nm Intel Penryn processors (decreased system temps being the main advantage) while the MacBook Pro now dons a multi-touch trackpad and upgraded Nvidia graphics. The only thing not really publicized by Apple is that the new notebooks no longer include the Continue Reading »

It has been almost a year that I have been shooting with a Nikon D80 DSLR camera. After taking many product review photos and dealing with uneven and blurry pictures, I finally came to my senses and purchased a cheap tripod on Amazon. It happened to Continue Reading »

It has been about two weeks since I first started writing about building your own, affordable PC that could easily be used as a file server or basic Linux/Windows computer. My first article in this series, DIY: 200 Dollar PC, went through the parts you would need while my second Continue Reading »

Since the beginning of 2007, PaulStamatiou.com has been hosted by Media Temple on their then newly launched (dv) dedicated-virtual 3.0 platform. Before that I was on the (dv) 2.0, so I’m quite familiar with their offerings. While the service and hardware itself had been great, I was a Continue Reading »

In the middle of reading something for my design of online communities class in my dimly lit room, my mind began to wander and I started counting all the LEDs in my room. Like most people my age, my room is my office as well so I have all of my personal technology there. Continue Reading »

Last year around superbowl time, I posted an article showing how my roommate and I had built a stadium seating setup for our living room. This year, we went one step further and added a 2500 lumen projector to the mix to create the ultimate home theater system on a budget. Continue Reading »

My recent article, DIY: 200 Dollar PC, proved to be quite popular with over 50k pageviews in the last few days. The Intel D201GLY2 motherboard that I linked to in the last article drove so much traffic to Newegg that the item has since been “deactivated” and gone out-of-stock indefinitely. Taking that subtle hint, Continue Reading »

I’m not one to downgrade too often but I am relieved to say that I ditched my 30-inch Dell LCD and went with the 24-inch 2407WFP-HC. You might be shaking your head in disapproval now but let me explain, 30-inches is too damn big for my needs. After the novelty of the 30-inch wore off, I found out it took up too much desk space Continue Reading »