Geek Weakly »
Last week, I mentioned the Roomba robot vacuum. I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't mention that there is now a place to go if you want to take it apart and do something different with it. (Link courtesy Slashdot.)
For those of you penny-pinching geeks, there is also competition to the Roomba. It's called the Robosweep (just $39.95). Be warned, however, that there might be some very good reasons why it is just $40.
In outdated operating system news, you can now fit Windows 3.1 squarely on a single floppy disk. In case you need a slightly more up-to-date system (though still an outdated one), Windows 95 can be run in not 10MB, not 5MB, but in under 4MB of space! What will they think of next?
Personally, I run a version of Dachstein Linux from a floppy to perform DNS caching on our network - but I can't even tell you the last time I used a floppy other than there or was concerned about a storage unit less than a gigabyte. Maybe I just don't have enough free time.
Speaking of free time, that's exactly what you don't get with a cell phone. Every minute counts. For nearly three years, I've had no home phone, relying on my cell phone exclusively. Even after getting married earlier this year, I still don't have a home phone - and neither does my wife. She does have her own cell phone, however. A pretty new one, even.
Apparently this sort of thing is becoming even more common. With the advent of consumer-level voice over IP solutions such as Vonage, and the persistent rumor that cable companies are testing broadband telephone solutions and will be rolling them out soon, I'd say that the incumbent local telephone carriers may be in for a bumpy ride. If nothing else, it should be fun to watch. If someone will just come up with a base station of sorts so that I could plug in my cell phone when I get home and have service throughout the house...
