Around this time last year, I wrote a lengthy post detailing items that incoming college students would need to get settled into their new environment. That article ended up becoming one of the most popular posts I’ve ever published and garnered lots of link love. So when several readers suggested via Skribit that I post a follow up article, Continue Reading »

There’s no doubt about it, I’m in love with the cloud. Some people might not share my fascination with storage-in-the-cloud and compute-in-the-cloud models but I can’t wait to have the same computing experience regardless of the computer or device I’m using to connect to the Internet. I’ve taken it upon myself to Continue Reading »

The next gadget in my sights is actually a point-and-shoot camera. But why the downgrade from the DSLR? Nope, I’m not looking for a DSLR replacement - rather a complement. There are just some situations where a DSLR doesn’t make sense and I’ve come to learn that in the last year. Enter the upcoming Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700. A point-and-shoot digital camera that is Continue Reading »

For the next week, I will be completely unwired as I embark on a camping trip with several friends (an electrical engineering student and three pre-law students) in the Middle of No Where, Texas (about 2-3 hours from Austin). According to AT&T’s coverage map, I won’t have much of a cell signal and paired with the iPhone 3G’s horrid battery life, I won’t be getting much use out of it. As far as geeky survival tools are concerned, I’m bringing the Continue Reading »

Earlier last week I had the chance to attend and speak at a private TTI/Vanguard conference entitled Generation Techs. Due to the nature of the conference I am not allowed to say who was in attendance but I hope to share some of the more interesting things discussed. As I told the conference organizers, it was one of the greatest experiences I have ever had. The people in 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 »

As a reminder, I am in Rome for a while attending and speaking at the TTI/Vanguard “Generation Techs” conference so there won’t be any typical PSTAM posts until I return early next week. I have been hanging out with Josh Spear and we’re wondering if you know of any interesting things to do in Rome. Drop a comment if you’ve got an idea. Continue Reading »

Many people have predicted what the future of the Internet holds. To each his own comes to mind as there are many different takes on what that future will be like. For some that future shows a vastly improved mobile web or the proliferation of open standards while to others the 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 »

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 »

Go back to 1998 and remember when you had your shiny new Palm III PDA. It was the first of its kind to sport an infrared port. At the time, the killer feature of the Palm infrared port was not turning off walls of televisions at Best Buy but rather exchanging vCards with other Palm users - wireless business Continue Reading »

Last year I had my first run-in with Verizon’s FiOS internet service. I had heard much about it and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread as it was the first application of Fiber-To-The-Home available to many (albeit FiOS is still not in that many cities). FiOS service comes in various flavors but the key selling point 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 »

Startup Riot 2008, painstakingly organized by Sanjay Parekh, went down yesterday and I must say this was the first big tech event in Atlanta that I have been to or heard about. There have been some tech events by the Technology Association of Georgia and SoCon 08 but nothing as in touch with the local tech community as Startup Riot has ever graced Atlanta. Continue Reading »

For the past few days, 17 universities throughout North America have been striving to come out on top in the final competition of a four year program. Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility is a competition setup by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors to teach real-world engineering skills Continue Reading »

Similar to how I published photos of the companies I visited during my last trip to the valley, I have some new photos to share from my recent trip. During the week I was in California I visited San Francisco, then rented a car and drove to San Diego, Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo - a journey that put 1200 miles on the odometer. Click any of the 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 »

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 »

OpenDNS, the only DNS service I trust with my Internet experience, recently rolled out several notable features including from domain tagging (also known as “People-Powered Security“) and an idea bank. The former lets OpenDNS users categorize domains by content and eventually, accurate domain categorizations make 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 »

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 »