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I just got a set of Sennheiser CX300 earbuds. When I originally got my iPod, I ditched the Apple earbuds for some better Sony earbuds. The Apple earbuds are disappointing. But those Sony earbuds recently died after a long life which predated my iPod. Being a bit picky about sound quality (yes, uncompressed cd’s would be ideal on an iPod if memory were unlimited) I decided to try these Sennheiser earbuds. I am pleased!

It appears that the list price is in transition from $89 to $49. But I found them on Amazon for $30, and there are other suppliers that carry them at various discounts.

They sound better and are more comfortable than my old pair of $30 Sony earbuds, and leave the Apple earbuds in the dust. These are a definite step up from the usual consumer earbuds, but are still at a consumer price. They have a sound that I would describe as full, detailed, clear, and pleasant. The box advertises “bass-driven sound” and I do find that the bass is almost too much. On my other earbuds I used to run the iPod EQ as “Bass Booster”, but with the Sennheisers I put the iPod EQ as “Bass Reducer” to keep it flat, or as “Off” if I want the bass to kick. The bass, lack of a tinny sound, and presence is very dependent on a sealing fit. The earbuds come with 3 different sizes of rings for the earbuds for your ear canal. Sometimes on a big yawn an earbud can come unsealed and the bass drops off dramatically. I haven’t tried any strenuous physical activity with them yet, but they fit me well. Because of the seal effect, they do offer good isolation from ambient sound. In fact, my family has taking up to sneaking up on me from behind while I’m listening at my desk because they like to see me jump. One good tip with the asymmetric cord is for the cord section from the split to the right ear to be worn behind your neck – it is less apt to get tangled on something near you. The cord is made of a strange rubber that never wants to get completely unkinked, but that is just a nit.

I definitely like these earbuds, especially at this price point. Read the comments below for some caveats.

Be a small part of history, and get some cool software while you do it. Firefox is about to release version 3 of its browser, and they want to set a world record for the number of downloads in a single day. Get a good thing, and help out nice people along the way. The day is June 17th, 2008. If you want more information, go to the web site where you can pledge now and get an email reminder when it is available.

The road recently implanted a nail in one of my tires, and the tire was sufficiently worn that it wasn’t repairable. After 40k miles, it’s not unexpected. So time for a new set of tires. Option A is to visit my neighborhood tire store and see what they have. Option B is to see what I can find on the net. Of course, the shipping cost for a set of 4 tires from a net supplier would be prohibitive. And also would be the trouble finding someone to mount them.

But I found the Tire Rack. There are four things that I was pleasantly surprised by.

First, they have lots of review data performed by themselves and comments/ratings from customers. This info is very helpful. You can see how tires are rated on a number of criteria. That helps you balance criteria for what is important for you (i.e., snow/ice performance vs. road noise vs. tread wear). Unless you have a lot of knowledge of tires, I found this to be invaluable in helping me make a purchase choice. They have a really good database of automobile info, so just select your car and they will tell you exactly what the OEM tire is, and list the other tires that match that size. You can see how the tires are ranked for each category (based on ratings, not sales popularity).

Second, they have a lot of articles on general information in the Tech Center area. Everything from air pressure principles to a vibration diagnosis flowchart. They are concise and understandable. It’s really good education. Even if you don’t buy tires from Tire Rack, read these articles.

Third, the shipping cost was way less than I thought it was. For my 4 tires, there were shipped via FedEx (not overnight) at a cost of $40. They arrived in 3 days. I had them delivered to my house. Even with the shipping cost included, I saved $130 on the set versus buying them from the local store. They didn’t arrive in a box, just bundled together with a strap and a shipping label affixed right to the tread.

Fourth, the local tire store was happy to install the tires I ordered via the net. They have a usual fee of $25 per tire for mounting, balancing, valve stem, disposal, etc. That’s twice the charge as if I had bought the tires from them ($12.50), and they also didn’t include lifetime rotation/balance. I just put the new tires in the back of my car, and drove it to the store, and asked them to do the work. The tires I got are asymmetric (there is a particular side that needs to face out), and the installer at the tire shop mounted one of them backwards, so I had to ask them to correct that, which they recognized as a mistake and corrected.

All in all, making a tire purchase on the net, doing it in an informed way, and having the installation performed locally went better than I thought. I’ll do this again next time.

I was recently doing some minor repairs on both my cars, a Honda and an Acura. It always seems like the parts from the dealer are priced extraordinarily high. But I’m also reluctant to get aftermarket parts for everything, sometimes you need the real manufacturer part.

So if the Internet is so great for finding everything at a great price, does it apply to automobile dealer parts? In this case, I found two places that do. They are Majestic Honda and Acura Carland. I have successfully gotten authentic dealer parts from both at about a 30% discount from the MSRP. I also noticed that my local dealer is a bit above the MSRP, so it is an even better deal for me. One appears to be based in Rhode Island and the other in Georgia, so I don’t know if they are related to each other.

Both offer exploded diagram pictures for each part category, so even though the pictures are grainy you can generally find what you are looking for. Yes, there is a significant shipping charge, but it will still be less than the local dealer unless you’re getting something small.

I’m not affiliated with these folks, but did want to let others know about them and that I had a good experience. I plan on using them again next time I need dealer parts.

I had been listening to the podcasts that had only “the call of the week” highlight, but now the entire hour-long episode is online for free from NPR. Woohoo! Not only can you learn about car repair, but you can laugh out loud while you do it. This is one of my favorite shows on radio. Thank you, NPR. No more having to schedule my Saturday around the scheduled airtime. I’ll have to increase my contribution to my local public radio station.

I live in an area where mosquitoes are common. You don’t want to be outside at dusk without repellent, or you will get eaten up. And I hate mosquito bites and the itches. A bite will bother me for 2-3 days. I am better at dealing with pain than itches. Thank goodness for DEET to keep the nasty critters away. In the event that repellent doesn’t work or I didn’t put it on, there is another alternative: After Bite.

After Bite is a liquid that you put directly on the bite after it has occurred. It reduces the itching. In my opinion, it really reduces the itching, depending how soon you put it on. If I notice an itch coming on within a few minutes after getting bit, and I put on a couple applications of After Bite, the itching generally goes away in less than an hour, and the swelling also goes down. This all may sound like a TV infomercial, but the stuff really does work for me, seriously. Of course, don’t scratch the bite area even with this treatment.

From what I can tell, the active ingredient is ammonia, it’s not an anti-histamine like Benadryl or an anti-inflammatory like Cortaid. I don’t think it smells as bad as repellent, and I wouldn’t have guessed that ammonia would have this effect, I can just say that it works for me. I have found After Bite at Eckerd and Target, so I would assume you should be able to find it at similar retailers. In the stores it’s generally located next to the repellents.

Hmm, maybe the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding was on to something with the Windex…

This may not be in the “inexpensive” category, but it is good to find one that works well.

We use a lot of rechargable batteries in our house, and in a few places we use standard alkaline or lithium batteries. When you have 50 batteries in a desk drawer, sometimes the full ones and the empty ones (waiting for the recycle bin) get mixed up, especially when the kids have been in the drawer. I’ve had a number of battery testers, but they never seemed to work well, especially the inexpensive testers.

The testers I like apply a load to the battery instead of simply measuring the voltage without a load. I bought the ZTS Mini-MBT9R for $30 from Thomas Distributing who included a free case.

What the product description doesn’t quite say clearly is that there is an included test lead wire (similar to most multimeters) that is used when testing non-9V batteries. For example, if you have a AA battery you want to test, you touch the battery’s positive terminal to the tester and then touch the test lead to the battery’s negative terminal. It’s not extremely ergonomic, but it does work. The test lead can be tucked into a slot around the case’s seam to store it.

Unlike the previous ones, I believe I’ll be using this tester for quite some time to come.

I was just in France for business, and extended a couple days to do some sightseeing. While in Paris, I went on a guided tour with a group aptly named Fat Tire Bike Tours. Consider this a review. No reservations were required, I just showed up at the designated meeting point on the day I wanted. The guides are outgoing college students from the US (mostly from Texas), so they are easy to understand and humorous.

The bikes we rode were what I would call beach-style cruisers, with big handle bars and sitting upright. Compared to my mountain bike, it was like moving from a sports car to a boat car, but I did get used to it after a while. So when they say “fat tire”, they don’t mean mountain bike. When one of the participants got a flat tire midway through the tour, the guide was able to fix it right there on the spot.

The tour was about four hours long. We went at an easy pace, and stopped midway for a snack and rest at an outdoor cafe (food not included in the tour price). We were able to see an amazing number of sights in those 4 hours, and I was very pleasantly surprised at how the bikes made it quick and easy to get around town. I think it is much better than what you could do on foot or on the Metro. Of course, we didn’t have time to go inside the buildings that we saw, but if you want to do that then this tour would be a great introduction / orientation to whatever you’d like to do on your own in-depth. There was plenty of opportunity to visit with the other participants, especially since they all spoke English, and compare notes on their experiences in the country.

Their shop where we started and ended the tour was set up for visitors, with free bathrooms, ponchos for 1 € (it was sprinkling that day, and they even offered to buy them back if unopened), free Internet access, snacks for sale, etc. The tour itself was reasonably priced (24 €), I never had the feeling I was being ripped off. In fact, it seemed to be quite a good value. The tour was well executed, the equipment was good, and all the staff was really nice.

They also offer specialty tours, such as “Paris at Night” and tours on Segways. I would have loved to have taken the Segway tour, but I would be in trouble if I did one without my wife who is a big Segway fan.

The tour was a lot of fun and an excellent way to spend your time in the city. Based on my experience, I give these folks a big thumbs up. If you find yourself in a city where these tours are offered, give them a try and you may be pleasantly surprised.

Do you like to cook and do you enjoy good food? I don’t mean snooty, haute cuisine cooking, but good tasting stuff that is easy to do? If so, then you need to take a look at America’s Test Kitchen. They run a lab to discover the best and easiest way to prepare a dish, and they test equipment to find what works best and has the best value. Everything I’ve tried from them is quite good. They also produce a television show for PBS that is fun to watch. (As an aside, I think PBS beats every other TV network, no contest. I send them cash contributions. Come on, the rest of you freeloaders.)

Every time I watch their show on TV my mouth is watering, my stomach is growling, and the dishes look doable by regular people. I even bought the cookbook which came with a free DVD set. In my opinion, their recipes are noticeably better than most others, and they are tuned to be easy. What more could you ask? (yeah, except for them to visit my house and cook for my family – I mean Bridget and Julia, not Christopher )

Lots of screens on mobile devices, how to protect them from getting scratched without spending a fortune? iPods, cell phones… heck, even the case for my iPod has a screen area that gets scratched. The best thing I’ve found so far is the Premium Screen Protector Multipack (SKU 3177WW) from Palm. I got mine at Staples for $20.

What the Palm website doesn’t tell you is that these are not custom fit just for Palm devices, you need to get a pair of scissors and cut them for the device you want, even if you have a Palm. The package comes with 13 sheets that are about 3.5 inches by 2.6 inches (after you trim off the printed info). This is more than big enough to cover any mobile device screen, and can handle about 3 iPod nanos from one sheet. No, you can’t do the entire face of a video iPod, but you can do the screen area (you do have a full body case, right?). At about a buck and a half a sheet, it’s pretty good deal, as long as you are patient with the scissors. Measure from the bottom right corner to stay away from the printed info, else you will have the printed info on your screen; I’m not sure why Palm actually printed stuff on the protector itself instead of just on the peel-off backing, but you lose only a quarter to half an inch of height and width. The protectors are quite strong with not too much glare, and appear to come off with just the right amount of effort. The package also comes with a cleaning cloth and a straightedge to help minimize air bubbles during application.