Orange Nike Soccer Cleats – Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly II Elite

If you watched the  FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa you will have noticed the orange soccer cleats of the soccer superstars. Read more

FIFA World Cup 2010 – US TV Schedule

All games are broadcast on ABC/ESPN, and ESPN2.

Read more

FIFA World Cup 2010 Wall Chart Downloads

Below are some links to the most popular free Wall Charts for the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa.

All Charts are FREE: Download PDF>>Print>> Enjoy

Read more

Cheap calls to Germany

Acculinq.com offers great international rates to Germany (from the US), starting at 3.9 cents per minute.

Here is how it works: Sign up for an account at AccuLinQ. com, add a $ limit (for example $50) to your account and your are ready to go. The $ limit is just there to prevent abuse; should somebody get a hold of your access code (like your teenage daughter) you only lose $50.

At the end of the month you get charged a $1 monthly fee plus the calls you made, plus access fees.

In order to call somebody, just dial a 1-800 number from your home phone or cell phone, wait for the prompt, add the German phone number and you can talk to your friends and family.

The quality of the call is pretty decent, only in rare cases you get a busy signal (like on mother’s day). The normal rate is 3.9 cents per minute to a landline, to a cell phone it is  25 cent per minute.

You can select up to 3 numbers from which you are planning to call -> “Select Access”, which gives you the cheap rate of 3.9 cents. If you call from a phone that is not on the list the rate doubles to 7.9 cents (->Non-select access).

Here is a summary of the charges:

• $1 activation fee (one time only)
• $ 1 monthly fee ($ 2 if statement mailed) *No fee will be charged if zero usage for billing cycle
• 60 ¢ per call from a payphone (FCC mandated)
• Other Taxes
• TX Residents: Add applicable State taxes

Gateway-Laptop MD2614u Review: Powerful But Far From Perfect

Gateway MD 2614u $549 Best Buy

Features

The Gateway-Laptop (MD2614u) with AMD Turion X2 Dual Core is a  Laptop for people with a small budget: $549 at Best Buy. It has some features that not every Entry-Level laptop can offer: 15.6 “True 16:9″ (1366×768) format, which lets you watch movies without the black bars on the top/bottom of the screen. If you are planning on using this laptop as an entertainment device you will love this format, however since your screen is now wider but shorter, web-browsing will consist of more scrolling. But Gateway has a solution for this: Vertical Scroll, which is on the right side of your Touchpad. Just move your finger up to scroll up, and down to scroll down.

Other features are the HDMI port, which lets you connect your laptop to your HDTV or newer monitors, the built in Webcam (1.3 megapixel), or the ATI graphics card which has 256MB of dedicated RAM.

Windows Vista 64bit

The AMD Turion X2 Dual Core 64 processor (compare to the Intel Core 2 Duo) is fast but doesn’t drain your battery too fast. An interesting fact is that the MD2614u runs Vista 64 but only has 3G of RAM  (upgradable to 4G). Windows Vista 32bit only supports up to 3G of RAM, but the 64bit version supports 3G and more.

Also, the sales guy told me that MS Office 2003 does not work on Vista 64, which is incorrect. Office 2003 (x11) is supported. Please Best Buy, train your sales people – or go back to the commissions- based sales system. Check the Microsoft Vista Compatibility Website to check if your applications are supported.

Drawbacks

Here are some things that are not that great: It’s the keyboard, stupid. I just can’t get used to the keyboard; in order to give  the laptop a modern and hip look, Gateway organized the keyboard, so that it fits exacltly into a rectangle shape. But the designers forgot to think about ergonomics. I have a hard time hitting  the correct letter in the row  where the letters QWERTY are located. Misspelled words are the norm. And the clicking sound of the keys is annoying.

The finish around the keyboard is glossy and you will see every finger print. The illuminated media buttons are confusing, I haven’t figured out how to use the volume button. With 7.1lbs this laptop is not really a laptop anymore, rather a desktop replacement.

Conclusion

Just by looking at the price and the specs (see below), the MD2614u seems to be a winner. But the unusual keyboard is a factor that should not be overlooked. It’s like buying a nice looking car with a powerful engine that constantly steers to the right.

After owning this laptop for about two  weeks, I  returned it to Best Buy, spend $200 more and own now an amazing laptop with a great keyboard. See my review for the HP DV5-1235dx

Related Links:

CNET Laptop Buying Guide

Gateway MD2614u

Laptop Model	Gateway® MD2614u
Operating System	Genuine Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit) with SP11
Processor	AMD Turion X2 Mobile Dual-Core Processor RM-72 (2.1GHz, 512KB x 2 L2 Cache, HyperTransport� technology @ up to 1600MHz)
Hard Drive	250GB 5400RPM SATA hard drive4
Memory	3072MB 667MHz DDR2 Memory
Wireless Network	802.11b/g/Draft-N Wireless LAN
Application Software	Microsoft Works 9.0, Microsoft Money Essentials & Microsoft� Office Home and Student 2007 (60-day complimentary trial period)3
Chassis	Chassis with ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics with up to 1919MB of HyperMemory� and AMD M780G Chipset
Digital Media Software	Microsoft Windows Media Player 11, Cyberlink Power2 Go�, & Cyberlink� LabelPrint�
Dimensions (Box)	13" (H) x 17" (W) x 6" (D) or 330mm (H) x 431.8mm (W) x 152mm (D)
Dimensions (System)	1.3"-1.70" (H) x 15.2" (W) x 10.4" (D) or 32.9-44.3mm (H) x 387.2mm (W) x 264.6mm (D)
Display	15.6" High-Definition Widescreen WXGA Ultrabright Display (1366 x 768)
Expansion Slots	ExpressCard Type 54
External Ports	(4) USB 2.0, VGA Connector, v1.3 HDMI Connector
Keyboard and Mouse	Full-Size Keyboard, Synaptics Touchpad with Vertical Scroll
Media Card Reader	5-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader (Memory Stick, Memory Stick� Pro, Multi Media Card, Secure Digital, xD-Picture Card)
Modem	56K ITU V.92 ready Fax/Modem (RJ-11 port)
Multimedia Buttons	Illuminated Multimedia Touch Controls
Network	10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port)
Optical Drive	8x Multi-Format Dual Layer DVDRW and DVD-RAM featuring Labelflash� Technology6
Security Software	Symantec Norton 360 2008 (60-day trial)5
Weights	7.1 lbs. (3.2 kg) system unit only