Reviews by Friends of foxyfarmer

bkovacs says "Not a bad 'life' but it's a little too long" about Dan In Real Life

bkovacs — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 02:33:36 GMT

I somehow ended up with the movie Dan in Real Life, despite not particularly liking the work of two of its stars, Steve Carell and Dane Cook. By the end, I was a little surprised that both were pretty good in this little movie, a romantic dramedy with a family twist.

Dan in Real Life starts out with Dan (Steve Carell), a "Dear Abby"-style newspaper columnist who finds that it's easier to answer questions about other people's lives than it is to live his own. His three daughters are driving him crazy as he shoves off for a holiday visit to his parent's home in Rhode Island. Once there, he falls hard for beautiful and mysterious Marie (Juliette Binoche), only to find that Marie is his brother Mitch's (Dane Cook) new girlfriend.

Meanwhile, there's lots of family activities and meals, most of which drive Dan crazy either from contact with Marie or the antics of his relatives. Dan tries to stay on an even keel through it all but he gets more frazzled as the days wear on. Getting set up with...

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bkovacs says "Simple case makes for a quick installation" about Sabrent (SBT-EKU25) USB 2.0 External Drive Case

bkovacs — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:26:57 GMT

I recently got a case for a spare IDE/PATA laptop hard drive, and it failed in about three weeks. I therefore looked for another case and found the Sabrent SBT-EKU25 2.5-inch IDE Hard Drive Enclosure at a nearby computer store for $10. So far, this is a nice little hard drive case.

What it is

The Sabrent SBT-EKU25 2.5-inch IDE Hard Drive Enclosure fits standard 2.5-inch laptop hard drives, as long as they conform to the older IDE (also known as "PATA") standard. The case consists of two pieces: an aluminum box into which the drive is inserted and an end cap that contains the interface electronics for the drive. The end cap has a pilot light and a single standard USB port for connection.

Inside the box for the Sabrent SBT-EKU25 2.5-inch IDE Hard Drive Enclosure was the aluminum case, the end cap, two tiny screws, a vinyl sleeve for the case, a USB cable, instructions, and a CD disk with software and drivers. The device also included a tiny screwdriver.

The Sabrent SBT-EKU25 2.5-inch IDE...

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bkovacs says "Terrific accessory for running/charging an iPod or smart phone" about Kensington - USB Car Charger

bkovacs — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 01:08:33 GMT

My wife recently got a fancy smart phone, the Samsung Moment. Immediately, we realized that she'd probably be using the phone a fair amount in the car (while I drive), since it can get on the Internet to look things up. That meant that it would be smart to find a way to run and recharge the phone in the car. The cellular company sells a car adapter for $30 but I figured out a better way: the Kensington USB Car Charger, which cost only $10 at a nearby computer store.

What it is

The Kensington USB Car Charger is a small black plug that fits into a car's cigarette lighter. The end sticking out into the car has a standard USB port. According to the Kensington USB Car Charger's package, this port is capable of delivering 5 Volts at 700 milliamps, easily enough to charge and even run my wife's Samsung Moment. It's probably also enough to run an iPod or iPhone, and it's certainly enough to recharge either of those two things.

Although the package shows that there is a pilot light next to the USB...

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bkovacs says "Good hard drive for the older laptop computer" about Samsung HM160HC 160GB 2.5-inch IDE/PATA Laptop Drive

bkovacs — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 22:54:35 GMT

I have a five-year-old laptop computer that came with a 60 GB hard drive. Although the computer generally worked fine, it had a couple of minor problems related to its Windows XP operating system. After all, the OS had been updated over five years, and the computer has had two different anti-virus packages running on it. That's a sure way to make a computer sluggish and occasionally ornery, which this computer was.

A solution was to reload the operating system and if I was going to do that, I wanted to upgrade the old 60 GB hard drive to something bigger. The catch was that this laptop is so old that it uses a hard drive connection standard called IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics), a standard that has been out of fashion for... well, five years. Please note that IDE means the same thing as PATA (Parallel AT Attachment), and that the "AT" in the middle of PATA refers to the now-ancient IBM AT computer that was state-of-the-art in 1987. We're talking really old technology here.

So I went...

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bkovacs says "This movie really left me "Up In The Air"" about Up in the Air

bkovacs — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:46:42 GMT

I usually like George Clooney in movies and the previews for Up In The Air looked good, so I went to the cheap matinee at the theater. I'm glad I did, as Up In The Air was a good movie, even if it had a vague and not particularly satisfying ending.

Ryan Bingham's (Clooney) job is to visit people at work and fire them. He is good at it, hiring his service out to weeny bosses who don't have the guts to do the firing themselves. Ryan flies all over the country and has accumulated millions of frequent-flyer miles, and is closing in on his goal of 10 million miles. He loves all the perqs he gets at the airline, hotels and car rentals.

He also loves the bachelor life, especially when he meets Alex (Vera Farmiga), a fellow frequent flier who shares Ryan Bingham's travel sensibilities. The two quickly spark a relationship that starts Ryan thinking that maybe flying solo isn't as much fun as it used to be. At the same time back at Ryan's home office in Omaha, a hotshot young business analyst named...

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bkovacs says "Cars and comedy" about Top Gear

bkovacs — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:16:23 GMT

My oldest brother got me interested in a British car show called Top Gear and it's become a favorite in my home. Produced by the BBC in the UK, Top Gear is shown in the US on BBC America -- I've found that new shows are usually on at 8PM Monday nights.

Top Gear features three middle-aged but usually surprisingly childish men (Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May) talking about, driving, trashing and daydreaming about cars. Many episodes have an unusual challenge, which run the gamut from bizzare to spectacular. In the show I watched last night, the hosts had a race to see which could get to the magnetic north pole faster: a dog team or a Toyota Hilux pickup truck. (The Toyota won, but not by much.)

What makes Top Gear really distinctive is the humor on the show. It's funny to the point where I mostly consider Top Gear to be a comedy information show about cars. Jeremy Clarkson has a biting take-no-prisoners wit that is sometimes too sharp for my taste but is often right on the...

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bkovacs says "A sports movie about rebuilding a country" about "INVICTUS"

bkovacs — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:14:22 GMT

Invictus is not a great movie but it is a good movie. It starts as Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) takes over as the president of South Africa, in an orderly change that few scarcely dreamed would happen. Mandela immediately cuts off any talk of reprisals against the former white government and invites the remaining white staffers in the building to remain a part of his government. This includes assigning four white policemen to Mandela's security detail, which infuriates the the black captain who now runs the detail.

At the same time, the Springboks (South Africa's rugby team) are playing badly. The team is hated by black South Africans, who cheer for whichever team opposes the Springboks. The rugby World Cup is coming up in a couple of years and it will be hosted by Sough Africa, so Nelson Mandela has an idea: Can the Springboks be turned into an icon of a new inclusive South Aftrica? He reasons that whites and blacks cheering for the same team will be an important step to drawing...

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bkovacs says "Maybe, man" about Yes Man

bkovacs — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 01:36:08 GMT

The premise for Yes Man is excellent: What if you said "yes" to everything and where would that lead you? And there are a few good things in Yes Man about this uplifting concept, enough to make me think that we should all say "yes" a lot more often. However, Yes Man ultimately becomes just another chance for Jim Carrey to mug his way through a script that veers a little too silly for my taste.

Carl Allen (Jim Carrey) is a bored and boring bank loan officer when a friend drags him to a seminar on learning to say "yes." Skeptical, Carl decides to give it a try and quickly has some pleasant and rewarding adventures, not the least of which is going for a wild ride on the back of Allison's (Zooey Deschanel) motor scooter. He soon starts a tentative relationship with Allison and his fortunes at the bank change as well. Carl learns that it is hard but rewarding to say yes, and this is the film's strong point.

Of course, Yes Man is a Hollywood film headed by big star, so there must be some silly...

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bkovacs says "Cheap hard drive enclosure failed after three weeks" about Inland Pro USB 2.0 HDD Enclosure

bkovacs — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:17:02 GMT

I recently upgraded the hard drive in an older laptop and that left me with a perfectly good 60GB 2.5-inch laptop drive. This drive used the older PATA (also known as EIDE) interface, which is rapidly becoming obsolete. I wanted to get a case into which I could put the old 60GB drive so that I could use it for general storage needs, and the local computer store just happened to put such as case on sale. I bought an Inland Pro USB 2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure (stock #08411) for just $6.

What it is

The Inland Pro USB 2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure is an empty case that can house a standard 2.5-inch laptop hard drive. This Inland case has the electronics necessary to convert the drive's "parallel ATA" (PATA) interface into a standard USB port. The case came with all the parts necessary to house the hard drive, including the actual case, screws and a two-foot USB cable.

Assembly

The hard drive enclosure kit came with instructions but they weren't necessary. I had the 60GB hard drive mounted in the Inline...

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bkovacs says "Arrrr! Is anyone out there listening?" about Pirate Radio

bkovacs — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:37:06 GMT

There is a great story to be told about pirate radio stations off the coast of England in the 1960s... but Pirate Radio isn't it. Instead, Pirate Radio is a laid-back comedy about hijinks at an ocean-going pirate radio station, set in the 1960s. The ship and broadcasting equipment look believable enough and the script is fun, but you should never think of this as anything approaching the actual history of any particular pirate radio station.

In the mid-1960s, England's only broadcaster (the BBC) refused to play rock and roll. Pirate radio stations popped up in the waters off England, far enough away to be in international waters. However, they beamed their signals squarely at England and they were quite popular with young people. (Heck, the Beatles all listened to various pirate radio stations at one time or another.) Pirate Radio tries to capture some of the flavor of the time, particularly the absurdity of the BBC's refusal to play some of the all-time great British rock and roll acts,...

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Jolie says "buyuggsboot.net is a scam! Ugg Boots from China that are fake." about www.buyuggsboot.net

Jolie — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:22:46 GMT

Background on Buyuggsboot.net

A friend of mine at Viewpoints recently passed along a site called www.buyuggsboot.net. She found it online. www.buyuggsboot.net is a web site that sells all styles of Ugg Boots at discounted prices.

We werent certain if www.buyuggsboot.net were the real or not. But after a thorough review of the site, we thought it was legit. Buyuggsboot.net looks like a reasonable reseller of Ugg Boots. The page is designed well, the pictures look authentic and they make claim to having the real deal. They also consistently site throughout the web site having customer satisfaction commitments.

To add to the thought it was authentic, the pricing seemed good but not amazing. As you probably know a typical pair of Ugg Boots cost about $110. On Buyuggsboot.net the cost was $89.00- approximately a $20 savings. Seemed like a good deal, but they werent so cheap that I thought it could be scam. As an aside, last year Nordstrom had a similiar sale on Ugg boots so the pricing seemed...

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