Epinions Recent Reviews for dbirchall

Bai Yun Hotel: Nice, though not what I expected

Thu, 8 Mar 2007 14:25:00 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - Best Western's Bai Yun Hotel in Guangzhou isn't what Internet booking sites make it out to be. In some ways, that's a bad thing, but in others, it's good. Last December, my itinerary required two overnight stays in Guangzhou a week apart, and I...

Hotel Ashok: A grand, but aging, hotel.

Wed, 7 Mar 2007 19:34:28 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - I spent a week in the Hotel Ashok in November of 2004, while attending a meeting hosted in its conference center. While I found the hotel very nice overall, its age shows, and in some ways it is incapable of competing with more recently built...

Northwest Airlines: Some limitations, but lots of good stuff, and more being added. Excellent for frequent flyers.

Thu, 8 Feb 2007 08:11:31 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - Northwest Airlines' web site (NWA.com) offers access to a wide range of useful services, including flight purchases, vacation packages, information on promotions, communication with customer service. It also promises the best fares on Northwest tickets...

Second time's the charm, in more ways than one.

Sat, 25 Jun 2005 09:22:45 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - When Canon introduced the original Digital Rebel (aka EOS-300D), I was pleased to see the price of DSLRs marching downward, but I wasn't in a position to buy one. Furthermore, I was really holding out for 8 megapixels, having once been asked by a...

I just tell them it's magic and can see in the dark.

Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:01:58 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - For most of the last year, I've been photographing meetings of various United Nations processes. Forests, climate change, sustainable development, oceans, whatever. I've photographed delegates and VIPs from over a hundred countries - even the current...

Toshiba IK-WB11A Webcam: Good for live streams, but you're on your own for the rest.

Tue, 1 Jun 2004 23:13:15 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - I've been dealing with an IK-WB11A for about a month. Man, do I ever wish the folks who bought it had read some reviews here before they went shopping! I will say that getting it set up for basic stuff and "live" use is fairly straightforward...

Good binoculars for the whole family.

Sun, 23 May 2004 03:38:30 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - I've been using binoculars as long as I recall, from watching backyard birds as a kid to comet-watching and viewing eruptions as an adult. (Okay, so my life got a little more exciting!) Right now, my family has two pairs. One pair is an aging,...

Hamilton Beach 52254 Smoothies & More 12-Speed Blender: Is it a blender, or a food processor? I'm so conflicted!

Mon, 3 Dec 2001 19:43:19 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - The Quest -

Recently, my wife announced that she was going to buy a food processor to replace her trusty Hamilton Beach blender, which has been out of commission ever since she accidentally chopped up its rubber gasket. I reminded her...

Apple Mac OS 10 (M7686LL/A) for Mac: 10.1 is X-ceptional.

Wed, 7 Nov 2001 16:34:32 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - When I told my friends I'd bought a Macintosh, they were stunned. After all, for the decade-plus I've been working with computers, I'd never once owned a Mac, and had generally been of the rather well-informed opinion, based on using them, that they...

Music To Remember The World Trade Center By

Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:45:57 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - Pictures of the New York skyline in flames appeared across America late in the evening of Monday, September 10, 2001. Yes, I said Monday. Not Tuesday, the day the World Trade Center collapsed after two hijacked commercial airliners were deliberately...

Jamba Juice: I'm being STALKED by a SMOOTHIE SHOP.

Mon, 6 Aug 2001 18:19:35 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - Growing up in the Middle Atlantic region, we didn't have "smoothies." We had milkshakes. Frappes, if we wandered too far to the north. Fribbles, if we went to Friendly's. But smoothies? Nope... not unless you mixed up some frozen fruit in the...

GTE DSL: DSL... Digital SPEEDY Line!

Mon, 6 Aug 2001 18:05:04 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - I've been a rather happy user of DSL for nearly two years now. When I signed up, the situation here in Hawaii was such that DSL required me to pay two companies - GTE (the phone company) for the local-loop connection to their central office, and a...

PC Connection Online Superstore Online Store: TEN YEARS of great service from these guys.

Sun, 5 Aug 2001 17:43:56 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - Back around 1991 or 1992, I'd dropped out of college and was living with my parents, working as a programmer and driving a delivery van on weekends. I had a lowly '286, which didn't even come with a hard drive. I had a 2400bps modem.

One...

Tcl, Tk and much, much more!

Sun, 22 Jul 2001 00:02:37 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - O'Reilly's Tcl/Tk in a Nutshell is neither the thickest nor the thinnest book about Tcl and Tk. This may disqualify it from consideration by the neophyte seeking a verbose, in-depth tutorial, or by the expert seeking a compact pocket reference...

Opera: A small, fast, stable browser for Linux!

Sat, 2 Jun 2001 15:24:00 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - Years ago, I was heavily involved with the GEOS operating system. Another user - in South Africa, I think - tired of trying to evangelize for GEOS, and got involved with a project I'd never heard of, called Opera.

A few years later, I'd...

Denny's: The Endless Pursuit of Mediocrity

Mon, 28 May 2001 06:45:13 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - In my youth, Denny's was one place I knew I could get a good-sized portion of food for not a lot of money. This alone didn't set it apart, but since it was the only place open after the local showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the...

A good first pair of speakers.

Mon, 28 May 2001 05:34:41 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - A few months after picking up a pair of inexpensive Creative SBS-10 speakers to use at work, I was issued a laptop by my employers, and decided I wanted audio at home, too. Heading off to the local computer store, I was amazed to see that for not much...

Waikiki Aquarium: I'll love it and hug it and name it TENTACLE-FACE!

Wed, 25 Apr 2001 05:17:26 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - The Waikiki Aquarium wastes little time in differentiating itself from all the others out there. "It's small," people say - and they're right. The contrasts with other facilities, though, are anything but small.

For starters, this aquarium...

2001 Toyota Echo: Everyone Likes a New Toy...ota

Sun, 15 Apr 2001 22:47:47 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - Living in a small city on a small island with a top-notch public transporation system, we usually get by without a car. Occasionally, though - one weekend a month at most - we rent one for 2 or 3 days. This costs much less than actually owning one...

And the Grammy for "Best Use of a Doorbell in a Half-Hour Song" goes to...

Tue, 3 Apr 2001 05:39:59 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - Throughout the 1990s, progressive rock and metal bands experimented, with mixed results. Dream Theater tried harder, softer, longer and shorter, and changed keyboardists like Spinal Tap changes drummers. Fates Warning tried extending their trademark...

What NOT to do in Advertising!

Mon, 12 Mar 2001 02:09:50 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - Randall Rothenberg's "Where the Suckers Moon" - also subtitled "The Life and Death of an Advertising Campaign" - is a thorough, insightful, no-punches-pulled retelling of the ill-fated relationship between a corporation and an advertising agency.
...

Cheap Audio-Visual Fun on DVD

Sun, 31 Dec 2000 20:26:02 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - It was July of 1997 when I fist heard about "Televoid." I was chatting with co-creator Scott Rockenfield at a concert by his band, Queensryche, and he handed me a promotional postcard for the forthcoming release. I knew he'd done some work with Paul...

Microsoft Windows 98 SE: All Software Sucks. This Software Sucks More.

Sat, 30 Dec 2000 07:25:01 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - Anyone from Redmond would think of me as "spoiled," but I just have a hard time understanding why someone would pay good money for something that's known to be unreliable and prone to failure.

After cutting my teeth on DOS - the last...

Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge: Great for Wildlife Photography!

Sat, 30 Dec 2000 06:32:46 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - Once every year, camera-toting hordes descend upon Atlantic City in hopes of photographing the new Miss America. They're almost certainly outnumbered - and outspent, when it comes to lenses - by the steady flow of bird-watchers and wildlife...

Do You Think Everybody's Out To Get You?

Sun, 10 Dec 2000 04:29:49 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author dbirchall - If you've ever had the feeling that the world is out to get you, and you don't know why, you'll definitely relate to this movie. As one might expect, Jackie faces off against quite a few bad guys, but enough different groups are represented that it's...