Handy feed of latest deals on Netbooks

Here's a nice site that keeps track of all the latest deals and special offers on Netbooks: dealnetbooks.com. There's an RSS feed too. Very handy, easier than sifting through Slickdeals or Edealinfo, and updated several times a day.

They also have some good reviews of netbooks at the companion blog, netbooked.net. Technically-minded and fluff-free information.

I for one am now leaning towards the Asus Eee PC 1000HE. It gets great reviews in terms of keyboard, battery life, build quality, and overall performance, and it's got built-in bluetooth. And deals to get it for $360 with a 2gb memory upgrade keep popping up and then selling out quickly. So I'm pretty tempted spring for it.

How to tether your Moto Q as a modem *in Windows*

Previously, I figured out how to use a Motorola Q smartphone as a modem under Linux. I use Linux all the time, but for the benefit of others I got around to figuring out how to do it under Windows XP as well.

What netbook should I get?

I've decided I want a netbook, one of those diminutive, cheap laptops that are all the rage these days.

How to use your Moto Q as a modem

So, I have the awesome (and now-discontinued) Spring SERO phone plan, which basically gives me unlimited text/data/everything for less than I paid for Verizon's cheapest plan. The only problem I've had until now:

How to tether my Motorola Q phone to my computer, so that I can use it as a modem when I'm not in range of a wireless network?

I read a whole lot of stupid forum posts on this topic, mostly by seriously confused people, and I was under the mistaken impression that (a) it's really hard to do, (b) it requires special software, and (c) Sprint has removed the features enabling tethering from the phone.

Well, it ain't true. In the course of a few hours, I figured out not how to tether my Moto Q in two different ways: first, using a USB cable, and second, via Bluetooth. So I'm going to explain how to do it both ways under Ubuntu Linux 8.10. It should be pretty much the same under other Linux variants.

My digital camera advice

A bunch of people are asking me what digital camera to get. So here are my suggestions (reliable reviews linked in bold, good prices in parentheses).

Alaska... is that for real??

Well, the Democrats won pretty big last night, with a few astonishing exceptions.

Did convicted felon Ted Stevens really keep his Senate seat, and equally sketchy Don Young his at-large congressional seat???

Apparently they both won... un-effing-believable, especially given that the polling seemed to strongly indicate that both corrupt politicians would lose to their Democratic challengers.

Looks like Oregon Republican Gordon Smith has also managed to keep his Senate seat, despite the long odds in a Democratic wave. He, of course, is a moderate Republican and hasn't been tainted by any scandals, so it's less shocking, but no less surprising given the polls going against him.

Palin gets pranked

From The Huffington Post, with the audio!!!

The AP reports that a Quebec comedy duo, posing as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, have successfully prank called Sarah Palin.

Okay, this is certainly not the highest form of political discourse we have, but it is so freakin' funny. My favorite parts are the incredibly, brazenly ridiculous pop culture references in French. So here's my annotated transcript with translations of the hilarious French bits.