Finally got about a good inch of snow today.

Just got this email from Costco.com. I was placed on their notify list for the Nintendo Wii, which I why I received this email. If you can’t read the screenshot, this is what it says:

Dear Costco Member,

You requested to be notified when the new Nintendo Wii Bundle is available for purchase at Costco Wholesale. This item will be available for purchase on costco.com on Sunday, November 19, 2006 at approximately 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time. The item will be prominently displayed on the homepage of costco.com until it is sold out.

Due to the extremely limited supply, we can accept orders from current Costco members only on a first come, first served basis, with a limit of one unit per household. Selected Costco warehouses will also have a very limited supply on Sunday, November 19, 2006.

Orders for the Nintendo Wii Bundle will be shipped via UPS by Tuesday, November 21, 2006. Tracking information will be available on costco.com.

We hope to receive additional quantities in our warehouses and on costco.com prior to Christmas, but we do not have an estimated arrival date, or approximate quantity at this time. We apologize in advance if you are unable to purchase this item from Costco Wholesale.

According to the store managers, there will be a bundle including the Wii and two games (Zelda and Excite Truck) for $339.99.

Edit: Got one! It never showed up on the site (link stating the Wii being available was there, but it just led to a page with some Wii games), but I learned through a forum that adding to the cart using the item number would work. I had to reload the place order page a dozen times before it went through (even though not many people could order it was very slow nonetheless). Less than a minute after I successfully placed my order the item finally shows up on the site but it’s out of stock!

Google’s birthday is on September 27th and so is mine!

Best movie scene ever made.

Warning: There is some language.

Luckiest guy in the world. He wins a car the first time, then when news reporters want him to do a re-enactment of him buying a ticket and winning, he unintentionally wins again.

Funniest one yet. Make sure you watch the whole thing- the end’s the best part.

Canon, today, released their successor to the Digital Rebel XT (350D) called the Digital Rebel XTi (400D). The XTi is to replace the XT as Canon’s entry-level digital SLR.

Canon Rebel XTi (400D)
- 10.1 Megapixel 22.2 x 14.8mm CMOS
- EOS Integrated Dust Cleaning System (!)
- DIGIC II
- 2.5″ TFT screen with 230K pixels and 160 degree viewing angles (!)
- 3 FPS up to 27 JPEG/10 RAW
- 9-point AF (!)
- No more LCD info display (!)
- When eye is placed on viewfinder, LCD shuts off
- Same body design and colors as Rebel XT
- Ships mid-September for $799 for body or $899 for body with 18-55mm EF-S lens

The Rebel XT will available rest of the year. Its price will drop to $699 for body or $799 for body with 18-55mm EF-S lens. Canon hasn’t officially announced this details have already been leaked from their new 400D webpage at the Canon UK website.

In addition, officially announced today is the new EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens.

EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens

- Same size as the EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens (!)
- Enhanced weather sealing and image stabilization
- Circular diaphragm to create more natural looking background blur, and distance information to aid autofocusing and automatic flash exposure.
- Suppresses flare and ghosting with advanced coatings and optimal placement of its 20 lens elements in 15 groups.
- A ring-type Ultrasonic Motor (USM) provides fast and silent autofocusing, while the full-time manual focus function provides maximum control even when the lens is set for AF.

The EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM will be available in November for an estimated selling price of $1,249.

Update: Canon has released the White Paper for the Digital Rebel XTi (400D) documenting specifics on the specifications. (Warning 2.3MB PDF file).

Update: Canon has put up the Digital Rebel XTi on the Canon USA website.

Update: dpreview explains the new features and specs of the Digital Rebel XTi.

Comcast, like any other business, never wants to lose its customers. If you try to cancel or downgrade your account, they’ll transfer you to their retention department. The retention department is made up of a group of employees who are paid to retain the customer at all costs. They’re even willing to lower the price of your service or upgrade your account for free, if necessary.

This morning, I called 1-800-COMCAST and pressed “4,” the option terminate/downgrade my current plan. I threatened that I would cancel and switch to Verizon FiOS unless they were willing to offer a better deal than the current $44.95/month 15MB/2MB plan from Verizon FiOS. Without hesitation, the lady offered to upgrade my plan to 16MB/1MB to slightly match Verizon without any additional cost.

Your mileage may vary depending on who you talk to, but just keep trying and you’ll get some kind of discount. If the customer service representative actually attempts to cancel the account, just hang up and call again later. I was able to save around $10 a month by getting a free upgrade, but if you don’t need the extra bandwidth, you can get them to lower the fees of your current plan instead.

Update: Over at MWYN, Mike was able to get his prices lowered to $34.99 for a whole year. Proof that this works. Post success stories in the comments! If anyone is able to get a plan upgrade and lowered fees, definitely let everyone know how you did it.

Complete the Microsoft Windows Vista quiz (answers after the jump) and get a free CD copy of Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2.

(Continue reading »)

Saw this last night and found a clip of it this morning. Funny interview.

Update: NBC got YouTube to remove it.

Mac Pro
- Dual-Dual Core 2.66 GHz Xeon 5100 Processor, upgradeable to 2xDual 3 GHz.
- 1 GB FB-DIMM RAM (2×512 MB), expandable to 16 GB
- 250 GB Hard Drive, 3 empty slots (3 Gbps SATA)
- NVidia GeForce 7300 GT (256 MB VRAM), configurable to ATI Radeon X1900 XT or Quadro FX 4500 (512 MB VRAM)
- SuperDrive (2 5.25″ slots total, 1 remaining)
- 4 PCI-Express Slots (One extra-wide, taken by GPU)

According to Apple VP Phil Shiller, the new Mac Pro is anywhere from 1.6x to 2.0x faster than the latest PowerMac G5 Quad. It is also $1100 cheaper than a Dell of the same configuration. It can be bought at the Apple Store today.

Cinema Displays
Although not mentioned during the keynote, Apple reduced prices on its Cinema Displays. The 20″ Cinema Display now sells for $699 (down from $799), the 23″ Cinema Display now sells for $999 (down from $1299), and the 30″ Cinema Display now sells for $1999 (down from $2499), representing cuts of $100, $300, and $500.

The specifications for the 20 and 23″ displays have also been bumped. The 20″ display now has a brightness of 300 cd/m2 (up from 250 cd/m2), and the 23″ display has a brightness of 400 cd/m2 (up from 270 cd/m2). Both models also now feature 700:1 contrast ratios (both up from 400:1). The 30″ display remains at 400 cd/m2 and a 700:1 contrast ratio.

Leopard Preview
- 64 bit application support extended throughout the user interface layer of the OS, allowing full 64-bit application development and deployment.
- Time Machine- a constant automative backup allowing users the ability to instantly restore corrupted or accidentally overwritten/deleted files (image below).
- Spaces- Apple’s implementation of virtual desktops.
- Core Animation
- Enhancements to Dashboard, Spotlight, Mail, iCal and Universal Access
- Boot Camp, and “next generation” Front Row, and Photo Booth bundled

Apple plans to release Leopard in “Spring 2007.” A more in-depth preview can be found at the Leopard Sneak Peek pages.

The 2006 Worldwide Developers Conference begin today. The keynote is expected to begin at 1PM EST. Already, however, banners can be seen showing that Apple is taking Microsoft new upcoming OS, Vista, directly.

Mac OS X Leopard, Introducing Vista 2.0

Mac OS X Leopard, Hasta la Vista, Vista