Epinions Recent Reviews for kurt_g

Not your father's radar detector

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:07:05 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - I grew up in the 70's. I remember my father had a radar detector -- a largish black box with a row of round yellow lamps on the front. As I got older and got my own car, I also had my own radar detector --...

Cheaper than a Barracuda -- but you get what you pay for.

Fri, 1 Aug 2008 00:30:25 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - Spam is a fact of life in today's world of email. I typically recommend Barracuda spam appliances to my clients, because they do a great job at filtering spam, and I've found them to be reliable. However, an antispam appliance is an expensive...

I'm keeping my XP CD's

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:27:24 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - I'm a LAN technician. I work with computers. I network 'em, I get LANs and VPN's up and running. Most of my clients, like the rest of the world, use Microsoft operating systems. In early 2007, my kids decided to conduct an experiment to...

No more falling GPS....

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:13:31 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - Like many people, my wife and I have GPS receivers in our cars. My wife has a Magellan, I have a Garmin. Mine is still mounted to the original dashboard mount that came with it. Hers was not, and that had become a problem. The dashboard...

A great value for earbuds.

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:43:23 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - I'm rough on headphones. And I won't pay a lot for them. Up until I got my iPod, I usually stuck to the cheaper end of headphones. I've never been enough of an audiophile to justify spending a huge amount of money on them. Like many...

I didn't know the Cat in the Hat was a health freak....

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:49:23 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - In this house, Daddy is the book reader. My seven-year-old son tends to read to himself, most of the time. My three-year-old daughter, however, tends to want me to read to her constantly. One of the books in her rotation is Tish Rabe's, 'Oh...

Surprisingly bad.

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:27:41 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - At one of my clients, they have the right idea on printers. Instead of ordering a different one every time, they order one printer model for everybody. That makes toner ordering much easier. They had been ordering the...

Idiot-proof backup when it works

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:37:26 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - Tape backup is the tried and true way of backing up your data -- but it's got its drawbacks. Tapes go bad, tape drive occasionally break, and restoring takes time. Meanwhile, hard drives are getting bigger all the time. Eventually, someone was...

The Vostro 200 is a good basic computer for business needs.

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:54:11 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - My clients are mostly nonprofit agencies, and I get to explain to them that their elderly Celerons are near death. At one client's, they made a decision to replace 24 desktops in one shot -- no small amount for this client. So we chose a...

The Barracuda eats spam

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 00:10:23 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - In my job, one of the things I've done for a few clients is to get them off of hosted mail and onto their own mail server. The hosting service that we had recommended began to drop off in quality, and by buying a server they could give email...

An easy to use, simple print server for your parallel printer.

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:02:09 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - Being a tech sometimes means tough decisions. I've made additions and improvements to my home network that a lot of people wouldn't bother with. Since I have been elected the Cisco guy at work, I obtained a Cisco wireless access point,...

Everything you need for Ethernet cabling -- except cable.

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:58:47 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - I received the Connectool Data Ready toolkit from work. As a LAN/WAN technician, we're expected to be ready to tackle whatever needs doing. I hadn't ever made Ethernet cables before. (I had some trouble at it at first, but I can do it now.)...

The Workhorse

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 01:03:04 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - I set up a Cisco network at home after I was elected at work to become the 'Cisco guy'. Quite a few of our clients own Cisco 2900 Catalyst series switches -- most commonly the 2950. Since I don't have an unlimited budget for tech toys, I went on...

Sleeper Hit of Christmas 2007

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 17:53:25 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - For Christmas, it's not always easy to pick gifts for the kids. For my son Alex, who has autism, it's a challenge because he isn't always interested in what other kids want, and he can't always communicate what he does want. So this year his big...

A good idea for the SOHO market

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:44:38 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - The PIX 501 is the smallest model in Cisco's PIX line of firewalls. It's primary intent is for the SOHO market. While the PIX line is no longer being produced by Cisco, replaced with the ASA devices, the PIX 501 is still widely available. Google...

Horrors from the Golden Age

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 15:55:54 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - You either like James Lileks's humor, or you don't. I do. I've been a fan of his website for years. (Which is http://www.lileks.com for those who were wondering. Mr. Lileks's specialty is to find old books, ads, and government pamphlets...

From 11 Mbps to 54 Mbps in 10 minutes

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:56:35 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - I have a Cisco network at home. This is because I'm the Cisco guy at work. I'd purchased a C
isco
Aironet 1100 from ebay, but it had only an 802.11b radio. I wanted the faster speed and better range of 802.11g...

Tassimo -- encouraging child labor

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:18:10 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - I love coffee. I have for a long time. I'm one of those people who relies on that caffeine kick in the morning to start the day. I hadn't gotten into the habit of making it in the morning, simply because that took time that could be put to...

Middle of the Road

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 20:28:12 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - I got the WD Passport as a Christmas gift from my wife. I use flash drives pretty extensively in my job; she thought the WD Passport would have a place in my repertoire. And the short answer is yes, it does. Flash drives offer easy...

The Blue and the Gray...and the Union Jack?

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 18:02:33 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - I enjoyed Robert Conroy's latest release 1
945,
an alternate history looking at the Pacific side of World War II, a great deal. So for Christmas, one of the books on my list was one of his earlier works,...

The Neurotic Messiah

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 01:14:11 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - I should open this review by offering a disclaimer of sorts. Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man is heresy. That doesn't mean it's a bad book; it's not. That doesn't mean you shouldn't read it; that is your choice. But Behold...

Not as good as the first season -- but when is it ever?

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:23:13 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - Prison Break was TV drama at its best. Edgy, often shocking, peopled by complex characters, it combined a focused story -- Michael Scofield's escape from Fox River Pentitentiary with his brother -- with twisty, turny, edge-of-your-seat...

Gripping, gritty drama

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 20:27:09 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - Prison Break is a great drama that has re-energized the prison drama. We begin in a bank, where a man (who we later discover is named Michael Scofield, played by Wentworth Miller) is robbing it. The police come, he drops his...

A good business laptop with some quirks

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:06:01 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - At work, I was issued the Lenovo 3000 N100 to replace my two-year-old Acer 4500 Travelmate. My first work laptop was an IBM Thinkpad, so I was interested to see how Lenovo had done since buying the IBM line of laptops. The answer is:...

A fine headset -- though maybe not in the eye of the beholder

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:01:55 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author kurt_g - I'm in the car a lot. I'm a pretty heavy cell-phone user -- it's how my clients and wife get ahold of me when needed. So I've been using headsets for a long time. It wasn't until a year or so ago when I first got a Bluetooth-capable phone that...