Brian Gongol
We had a talk with Charlene Montalbano with US Telematics about their new program called Vivee, which offers text-to-speech conversion for your cell phone or PDA.
Jim Stogdill of Stogdill's TV and Appliance came in to help give us an overview of the new kinds of television sets available. With the rise of flat-panel TVs and the coming mandatory conversion to digital in 2009, everyone is going to be dealing with these questions:
| LCD |
A background lamp is regulated by the liquid crystals. First introduced in 1981. Generally the best option in the 20" to 42" range.
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| Plasma |
A phosphor-based display that is excited by an electronic discharge. First introduced around 1995. Probably the best-choice best in the 50" to 60" range.
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| DLP |
Digital light processing. Tends to be deeper than the other technologies.
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| Ceiling-mounted projectors | These can be done with either LCD or DLP projectors. Often the best choice for very large screens, since they aren't as susceptible to breakage. Can be hidden or retracted, making them less distracting to the layout of the room. |
The reason you'll either have to get digital receivers (or converters for your analog TVs) by February 2009 is that the FCC wanted to consolidate the broadcast media onto a smaller share of spectrum space using digital technology so that they could auction off the spectrum to new media companies.
We also tried to help Willie Farrell with fixing his daughter's computer, and the first two steps were to line him up with AVG Antivirus and Spybot Search and Destroy. See Willie at the Funny Bone in West Des Moines tonight.