Diagonal width and depth of a TV

People are obsessed with getting the biggest TV, measured by diagonal width and the thinnest TV that they can afford. Of course anyone who knows even a bit about TV’s knows that you can actually an optimal TV size based on the viewing distance in your setup. THX standards are that the back row of seats have a viewing angle of 26-36 degrees. My understanding is that movie theaters standardize on 30 degrees. If your TV is too large for the distance between the screen and the viewer, your angle will be in excess of 36 degrees. That’s a bad thing.

Screen depth is nothing more than a novelty in most cases. Even the larger TV’s on sale today will mount easily and are no more than a few inches at worst (mostly plasma’s). Your paying a lot of money for something you can only see if you stand at the right angle, normally with your face pressed against a wall.

MHz (now GHz) clock speed of a computers processor

This is one of my favorite myths. Apple was right, clock speed really isn’t a good indicator of computer performance. This was true 10 years ago, and it’s even more true today. Most of the time a computer slows down because of memory limitations. When a computer runs low on RAM it uses the slower hard drive (swap). At this point the memory and the disk I/O are the bottleneck, not the CPU. Almost nobody knows what their disk I/O is. Few know how much RAM their computer has or what they really need (hint: today you want 2 GB per physical core).

Bus speed? Number of cores? HyperThreading enabled? 64-bit (makes more of a difference on Mac than Windows since most still run 32 bit)? Turbo Boost?

I’ll take a slower Intel i7 over an Intel Core 2 in most cases. Especially true on a laptop where the integrated graphics will mean better battery life.

In most cases Microsoft’s Windows Experience Index, part of the Windows System Assessment Tool in Vista and Windows 7 is a better benchmark for performance than CPU clock speed.

MP (Mega Pixels) camera resolution

This is another pervasive myth. The higher the MP rating on a camera, the better the camera. It’s largely false. The greater the MP, the larger the file size. It also means you’ll need more memory cards or higher capacity ones to take the same number of pictures. In most cases you’ll end up reducing the picture anyway since no printers out there is printing 12 MP of data onto a 3×5″ piece of paper. Your monitor doesn’t support that resolution either.

The biggest factor in camera photo quality is the lenses. Most consumer grade cameras, especially on the cheaper side use terrible plastic lenses, or low-grade glass at best. Optical grade glass and lenses are expensive. Plastic is cheap.

Most cameras do OK in well-lit situations, they suffer in low light situations. A larger sensor will often (but not always) do better in these cases (large sensors can matter in many ways). A cheap LED used for flash can also be problematic when its color is really off, this is common on cell phones and cheap point & shoot cameras.

The last reason your photos likely don’t look good is because most cameras automatically write JPEG files to your memory card. That’s really nice and convenient, but remember JPEG is a lossy format. Data is lost just between the sensor and your memory card. RAW however uses more space on your memory card but ensures that the whole photo is saved. Then you can save as JPEG on your computer and choose how much data you want to sacrifice for a smaller file size. TIFF can do fine as well. Many people (and almost all professionals) fire up Photoshop or another photo editor and do some basic corrections to get the photo how they want it. Just a few tweaks by someone with a good eye and it can make a bad photo look very good.

Getting a high MP camera just means you’ll be spending more on memory cards, it doesn’t mean you’ll take better pictures.

24kt Cabling

Would you want anything less than the highest quality gold connecting your consumer grade electronics? Of course not. 24kt all the way!

Truth is, if you have consumer grade gear, you’ll likely get no benefit from these insanely expensive cables, than from the cheap stuff on MonoPrice.com or Amazon’s house brand with no mention of what purity the gold plating is. Your equipment isn’t that sensitive if you bought it during a 4th of July sale at a national chain and got a coupon for 50% off 1 DVD with your purchase.

The reason gold is used for the connector is that gold has good conductivity but doesn’t corrode. Silver is actually best but tarnishes which could impede your connection. In most cases aluminum, steel, or copper will do just fine and never corrode on you.

In many cases those generic cables are made in the same factories as the brand name ones. They just don’t carry the branding and marketing hype.

Make your internet faster with 802.11n

802.11n is up to 300Mbps! Your old 802.11g is only 54Mbps. ‘n’ comes after ‘g’ so it’s better! You’ve seen that before. Just remember this: Most consumers even in good areas have connections that burst at up to maybe 20Mbps. Unless you have some serious broadband you won’t see any benefit speed wise. 802.11n does have better signal strength thanks to MIMO, assuming you hardware supports it, and you actually need it. Most devices that support both 2.4GHz and 5GHz aren’t dual band. Instead they are selecting one or another which doesn’t help as much as a true dual band access point. Most people won’t see anything other than placebo effect at best. They may have faster CPU’s but generally speaking they shouldn’t consume much CPU anyway. My 802.11g averages around 1-2% with a fair number of firewall rules.

5Ghz can benefit some folks, as can faster local network access if you move lots of data within your network. For most people however the benefits just aren’t there today despite what the numbers will make you think. It’s a Ferrari in a traffic jam at best.

Linen thread count

Linen lately is all about the thread count. The higher the thread count, the better quality and strength. Largely this is actually true, at least when taken at face value. Of course there’s diminishing return somewhere around the 300 mark. Truth is that many actually lie about their thread count. Shocking right?

Conclusion

People buy things and make insane purchases simply based on a number which they presume is all-encompassing and correlates with quality. In practice however, this is often not the case.

If you ever find yourself fixated on a number when shopping for something, stop and wonder if you’re falling for this trap. Marketers use this very effectively. Just a little digging about what the number really represents will generally show you that the number is a marketing decoy.

What did they find? It’s actually the $500 OPPO BDP-83 inside a new case. Literally. They put the entire chassis inside, not just the components. Then they did some audio measurements and found they also matched. Not just close but identical.

The Lexicon BD-30 is THX certified while the OPPO BDP-83 is not, however THX certification requires paying licensing which OPPO Digital declined to do. People who bought an OPPO BDP-83 apparently got a THX worthy system for a fraction of the price though Audioholics deputes if the device is totally up to par.

This reminds me of the $500 ethernet cable. Or Gizmodo’s case against Monster Cable.

Lots of people assume a higher price tag equals better quality. That’s often not the case.

[Hat tip: The Consumerist]

Most household items are surprisingly simple to repair. Thanks to automation at the factory, everything has been pretty much broken down to LEGOs in complexity. Simple modules that are interconnected to form products. This technique also allows them to use the parts in multiple models hence lower cost of production. But every so often one part breaks rendering the product to be a giant paperweight. From home appliances to your computer, it really doesn’t matter what the product does.

What’s really needed is easier access to parts. Every manufacturer’s policies vary, but in many cases it’s extremely difficult to find parts. When you do your often paying hundreds of times what that tiny piece of plastic is really worth. Of course it’s still sometimes cheaper than replacing the product, but not by a huge margin.

This should really be law:

• Standard Screws – Products should be assembled using standard screws. No more proprietary heads. In situations where a screwless design is used (iPod for example) explanation of how to open should be available.
• Parts breakdown – Every product should either include on paper, or upon request from manufacturer a list of all parts in the product with part number.
• Easy Access To Parts – Replacement parts should be available at cost + 10-15% + shipping & handling. Keep them affordable and easy to order. It should be either through the manufacturer directly or via an authorized agent, via phone or online. Parts should be available for a minimum 3 years after the last warranty expires for home electronics. Home appliances should be longer, I’d say 10 years. If the manufacturer provides repairs themselves or service parts to authorized technicians the parts should be available for as long as they are to service centers, whatever is longer.
• Warranty Disclaimer – Should state what are “user serviceable parts” and can be replaced within warranty, and that anything else will void the warranty (it’s your problem not theirs).
• Hazards Warning – Should warn of any obvious and non-obvious hazards within the device, such as capacitors that can contain high voltage even when unplugged (yes, newbie, it common, and I’m sure it hurts if you make that mistake), chemicals, or sharp objects. Ideally devices would color code such hazardous parts, and perhaps things that need to be disposed of specially such as batteries.

By making things easier to repair, this would ensure that people can conserve money by not replacing products because of one small problem. This would also be a major environmental win because people can conserve and avoid filling landfills with mostly working products. This is especially true for electronics.

So far the only one who seems to come close to meeting my guidelines is IBM/Lenovo. They make it very easy to order replacement parts (though it’s hard to find the page). They also have excellent diagrams of the whole product exploded so you know exactly how it goes together. This makes owning a IBM/Lenovo product a lot cheaper since you can just order the replacement part as needed. If your under warranty they seem to have no problem shipping replacement parts if your comfortable installing and don’t want to ship your laptop out for repairs (which sucks, trust me).

A close second is LG. I’ve ordered replacement cell phone parts a few times. No diagrams or assistance from them, but their parts # is very helpful in identifying the actual part every single time. Just give the model number and explain the part. Required overnight shipping which added significantly to the cost, but overall not a bad deal.

NordicTrack isn’t bad either. I was able to order a replacement controller and turn a seemingly dead-as-a-doornail treadmill into a perfectly working treadmill in a matter of minutes. Nice diagrams on paper, and online ordering process was pretty painless. That simple replacement saved significant cash and kept a heavy treadmill out of a landfill. Price of parts weren’t too bad either.

For those who suggest eBay, that’s really a last resort. Your essentially buying salvaged parts of unknown quality or origin. If you treat your stuff well, why put in some part that’s likely been tortured by a previous owner to the point where the product was sent to salvage? Low cost replacement parts are the way to go. Also prevents bogus counterfeits, buying damaged goods.

That would go a long way to helping people save some cash, give companies a new revenue model (10-15% above cost is a pretty nice margin), and help the environment all in one sweep. Some companies are already much closer to fully complying with this list than others. That just proves to me that this is a reasonable proposal. It’s insane to replace something because of one small piece.

Image From Lenovo

There was an underlying message in that confession: If you buy more, we’ll be nicer to you. So please buy accessories.

I’m not calling it a hoax, but I do have to admit I’m cautious when reading these. I’ve seen them on several sites before. Either way it’s worth a read, and likely mostly accurate. But I can’t help but wonder if they are really as genuine as they sound. Many legitimate organizations have fallen victims to hoaxes before.

Just remember: Not many things on the Internet are what they seem. All that is printed is not fact. The barrier to entry isn’t high.

Want to know how much you’ll be paying? There is a formula, but I’ve got a cheat-sheet to help you out. Simply find your browser/platform and look at the filing price. Click to see the full screen and get all pricing. I did this myself between 6:40 and 7:00 PM EST today. Took a little while to crop and get it all together. Yes they are real. No photoshopping done. Note that free filing is offered in certain cases and not in others (which I presume is the offering as part of the free filing program).

Want to get the biggest deduction on filing your taxes with TurboTax? Just look below for the best deal.

For more great financial tips keep an eye on this blog. Next time we’ll talk about how my 401(k) is also incompatible with my browser, and since I used the contact form to mention the bug, it now warns me on every visit.

I’d love to hear Intuit’s explanation of why they are serving different products to certain browsers, and why they are charing different prices in some cases. Amazon tried something like this based on user profiles a few years ago, and it caused some trouble. You can find some information on that by searching Google for amazon price fixing.

Is it legal to make the Free filing option less visible to some users? Hard to say. There is an agreement with the IRS in place that facilitates all that. Didn’t see much about promotion or hiding the offering.

Images in various browsers/platforms can be found below on this post.

Safari (Mac)

IE (Win)

Firefox (Mac)

Firefox (Win)

Opera (Mac)

Opera (Win)

Most software and hardware products these days are updated after release through software updates to enable features that either weren’t reliable enough to be turned on when released, or weren’t possible (waiting for standardization, licensing, testing, certification, etc.). It’s not at all uncommon.

It’s no secret Apple has been shipping computers for several months with 802.11g/n cards, but calling them 802.11g. Presumably all it takes is a firmware upgrade, and it’s ready to go. Now it appears that because of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) [pdf], they are required to charge a small fee to enable the feature because:

…supposedly prohibits Apple from giving away an unadvertised new feature for one of its products.

The logic in a way makes sense, but this raises a lot of business ethics. If an update enables added security (such as changing a default in a software firewall), does the software developer need to charge an upgrade fee according to US law? What about when Microsoft added support for WPA2? Presumably at least some of the buts utilized were in Windows prior to that update.

Here is an even more twisted example: Starting this spring with the new Energy Policy Act of 2005 in effect. Daylight Savings Time has changed. It starts earlier and ends later. For accounting and legal purposes you must correctly date your records, for example in Quicken/Quickbooks, or even timestamp on email could also be important. Does Microsoft need to charge for this upgrade to comply with SOX? Remember, this patch isn’t a bug “fix” since nothing was “broken” (the functionality was correct). This patch adds support for the new Daylight Savings Time. Hence it’s technically a [boring] feature to an existing product (Windows). Just like enabling 802.11n.

But what about Nintendo Wii or Playstation III which will presumably be getting firmware updates along the way to enable new features. I’m pretty sure Sony would be bound by the same laws. Not sure about Nintendo since it’s traded on the Nikkei Stock Exchange.

Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer. I hope the Apple lawyers messed things up here and really misinterpreted the law. Since this is pretty messed up. I have a good feeling we’ll be learning more about this in the upcoming weeks.

Update [01/19/2007]: It’s Apple speaks: It’s $1.99.

Update [01/20/2007]: It’s not SOX, it’s GAAP causing the issue. CNet discusses.

1. I can’t imagine what the insurance must be when you have a vending machine with hundreds of dollars in iPod and iPod related gear in a giant box. I’m pretty sure it can’t be good.
2. How many would be willing to spend that type of money like that? Return policy?

Just strange.

I’ll let you all in on a little secret. For the next 30 x 6.022 x 10²³ days, you can get Firefox completely FREE! No ads, no spyware, and no spam! Just download here.

What’s the catch? Enjoy the internet, and perhaps tell a friend .

Ok, but seriously it’s pretty sad to see people scamming innocent internet users. Just remember when you tell people about Firefox, to give them an official url (getfirefox.com, mozilla.com, mozilla.org), and tell them it’s 100% free.