If anyone has gone to Google lately they have already probably seen the advertising for this.  There is a new mapping technology that uses actual satellite imagery instead of drawn roads and it is amazingly executed.  The name of the software is Keyhole, and it is a technology that was used during the war to show different aerial flybys of different cities in Iraq.  I highly suggest you try the software...it is simply amazing.  A word of warning though.  You need a fast processor and an even faster internet connection.  It wouldn't even be worth using if you did not have broadband. 

Keyhole software

An interesting piece of information:  Bill Gates in probably the most spammed person in the world.  Steve Balmer, the CEO of Microsoft, said that Bill Gates gets approximately 4 million e-mails a day, most of which are blocked out by anti-spam software.

Approximately 80% of internet traffic today is spam e-mail.  Now you know why your inbox is full of junk instead of e-mails from Aunt Melba.

What is the cool technology "thing" of the day.  Well this has been around for a while, but now you have the ability to link two video cards together (called SLI) to get one big super card.  Only problem, it's going to set you back a ton.  Only the high end NVidia cards will do it, and they cost around $250 a pop for the lowest end SLI cards from Nvidia.  You do the math...$500 plus the cost of the chip to connect the two.

People like my brother would have a hayday with this type of technology.  Only for the true enthusiast.  You can read more about SLI by clicking on the link below.

SLI Video Cards

April and I went to the camera store to look at both of the cameras I discussed in the last blog and could not justify the extra cost.  So we decided that we would ask my parents for the Canon Digital Rebel (EOS 300D) for Christmas.

Another very interesting thing about this camera is that it was released after the more expensive and feature rich EOS 10D.  The kicker, the Digital Rebel has all of the same capabilities of the 10D, but the firmware is just restricting the functions.

Not anymore!  Someone has figured out a way to hack the Digital Rebel to give the camera identical functions of the EOS 10D.  So now if you want to learn how to use the Digital Rebel you open up the 10D manual to learn how to use it.  Click the link below to get the firmware if you own a Canon Digital Rebel.  * This VOIDS THE WARRANTY!  You can however, load the old firmware back onto the camera, so I suppose in that case you are unvoiding the warranty!?!?!

Canon Digital Rebel (EOS 300D) hack (used to copy the functionality of the Canon EOS 10D)

Enjoy!

I don't have any cool web things to show anyone today.  I have been looking at digital cameras and I am really excited about the possibility of getting one.  I want to retire my Sony consumer camera and go with a Prosumer Digital SLR.  SLRs are just cameras in which you look through the viewfinder and you are actually looking through the lens itself.  Anyways, the toss up is between the Nikon D70 and the Canon Digital Rebel.  Here are some specs on the two cameras.

Nikon D70

Canon Digital Rebel

At this point I am leaning towards the Canon Digital Rebel because it is about 300 dollars cheaper and according to some of the camera shops it has a little bit better image quality. 

If you know anything about these cameras let me know how you like them by adding a comment.  Thanks.

This was a good weekend.  Friday night we went to Shooters East with all of the softball gang.  We had a ton of fun!!  It was really great seeing all of them again.  We then got up early Saturday morning to head down to my parent's house.  That night we went out to eat at Grandy's (for those of you who don't know what that is, it is basically like KFC but to me it's much better) and did a little shopping.  I got many ideas from Kaitlin about what she wants for Christmas.  She is going to be the easy one to buy for, basically she likes everything. :)  Sunday we went over to Clinton to visit with Mark's Grandma.  She made us chili and cherry crisp for lunch.  It was really good!  We played Uno, 3-13, and Skip-bo.  We went to dinner at Monical's (a really good pizza place) then we were on our way home.  It was a ton of fun to play all of the card games.  That is one of the major things that Mark and I love to do with his Grandma. :-D  Now we are home and it's another week of working.  Have a great week!!

I thought that I would start writing blogs about cool stuff that I find online.  This is just too good to pass up.  Are you sick of using Microsoft for a browser (Internet Explorer) or E-mail (Outlook or Outlook Express)?  I was stuck with using them until I could find a replacement browser that would work great.  I have tried Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Opera.  None of them were really all that great.  Look no farther.  Mozilla has come out with Firefox 1.0, which is a browser that was created to directly compete with Internet Explorer, and let me tell you, they give them a run for their money.  You can add extensions and easily customize Firefox.  It's just fantastic software and you should at least give it a try.  It is 100% free!

We have just been really bad about adding blogs lately, considering we are a third of the way into November and April and I have neglected the site. April and I have been over helping the parents out for the past week or so with something that will have a surprise unveiling at Thanksgiving. Speaking of Thanksgiving we are going to have 22 family members at our house. That is going to be crazy! The food is going to be great like always, so I can't wait for that! In other news Halo 2 was released today. I really want to get it but X-mas is just around the corner, so I can't splurge on myself. April and I already know what we are going to get my parents for Christmas, so that's 2 people down, and too many more to count that are left. It's amazing how fast time is flying by these days. When I was a kid everything seemed like an eternity. We are almost upon 2005. I remember when I didn't think we would ever make it to 2000. :) Well anyways, things are going well. I am still physically exhausted from working at my parents house, but hopefully everything will be completely done in the next couple fo weeks. Bye all.