Slashdot Mirror

You need to think about what you want to be able to accomplish with your universal remote with the equipment you have. Devices like a Tivo have remote features that do not factor into a lot of universal remotes control designs; like a '30 second skip' button in addition to the Fast Forward button. With most universals you would have to make a choice as to which function you will assign to the 'FF' button.

I only have to juggle three components; RCA TV, Panasonic Receiver/DVD/CD/Tuner, and a ReplayTV with my universal remote. After buying and shelving about 5 different universal remote controls I've settled on the RadioShack 5-in-1 Remote. It the only remote that come close to duplicating the special functions of the ReplayTV. The key was having enough generic buttons that can be programs against the 'real' remote or the ability to reprogram the existing button for different functions. The RadioShack was the only remote to offer enough buttons to be satisfactory. It is the remote my wife uses 99% of the time but I still prefer to juggle the Replay and Panasonic remotes to retain full functionality. My conclution about a mixed brand system like I have is that only a programmable remote with the LCD screen would truly replace them all but I do not like them because of the lack of tactile feedback.

It certainly is cheaper than purchasing new headphones, and if you're not going to use them anyway, then why not give it a try?

I'm looking for a very, very small case. Something that would fit a regular sized hard drive, a mini-ITX via board, a slim PSU, and that's it.

I going to assume you're not a Canadian, in which case I don't know if you can get Roots equipment, but if you can, I have to recommend the Roots laptop backpack. I don't know if it would do an especially good job of protecting your laptop if you dropped the thing, but it does do an excellent job of preventing you from dropping it in the first place.

Unfortunately, I can't find a link to a website with a pic, but just check out the nearest place that sells Roots stuff. I got mine at a Radio Shack, but Radio Shack's website doesn't mention it in any search results. My bag has lots of pockets, a sleave in the main compartment for my laptop, and, I think most importantly, really comfortable, really durable shoulder straps. I almost never find myself carrying it on one shoulder 'cause it's so much more comfortable on two. Also, the straps are attached so securely that I can't imagine them wearing out before I'm too big and fat to wear the bag. I usually carry around my laptop, a mouse, a mousepad, my power adapter, a 10- or 15-foot network cable, and several schoolbooks. There's plenty of room left for a whack of CDs, a digital camera, or maybe even a USB keyboard so you can skip the tiny laptop keyboard. It's an excellent bag and I'll never carry my laptop in anything but a backback (and hopefully this backpack).

Ian

I was going to point you to my favorate, Active Home. Don't bother. I guess X10.com owns them now. Radio Shack sells X10 stuff, Sears used to. I get enough stuff at estate sales and garage sales that I haven't bought new in years. People sell used X10 stuff for under $1 per module, I find a few every year.

There are several membrane only keyboards on the market but most are too mushy. the "Virtually Indestructible Keyboard" from Grandtec has semi-solid key tops so you know when you have pessed the key far enough unlike others on the mrket that have keycaps as mushy as the sides of the keys. Radio Shack and Best Buy have carried then in their stores so take a look. BTW this message was typed on their black USB verion.

Why are they deciding who gets to broadcast over what frequency.
It's not like they could stop you if you decided to start transmitting with a bunch of stuff from Radio Shack?
What's this country coming to?

Radio Shack sells a Kodak CX6200 for $100. Check here

...but hopefully the colleges are putting a little thought into their designs for the dorms. While it's true that outlets are usually in short supply, you can still be up an electrical creek without a paddle if all the outlets are on the same (underpowered) circuit.

A lot of apartments suffer from this problem as well no matter what their age... I have lived in an apartment that was over 20 years old, and it had a total of three ten-amp circuits for the entire place (not counting the circuits for the appliances which are pretty much dedicated). This was not exactly optimal for supporting five PCs and their peripherals along with a SUN Ultra 450. I've lived in newer (5 years old or so) apartments that had the exact same problem.

It's my opinion that the best thing you can do is go to Radio Shack and invest in one of those Circuit Detectives. Use that to determine what outlets correspond to which breaker, and how much power you have through that breaker (the ratings are printed on their for your sanity). Once you have that figured out you can begin learning the fine art of load-balancing on your outlets. "Let's see, I have 2 amps for my PS2 here on circuit A, and 3 amps for my TV on circuit B, and 2 amps for my PC on circuit A...."

Ummm...how about this "prior art"?

For those interested, this company sells this technology for home use for over 15 years already.

Heh! I worked in a commission based store right across the border from MA. Right next to a liquor store too, which drew a lot of people. Of course, the best people to sell to were the people who were already drunk. :)

Just my 8%-meals-tax worth
RickTheWizKid

The answer is none. None more wrong.

Uniden Phones, such as this one, are 5.8 up and 5.8 down.
I can't guarentee the Panasonic 5.8 is 5.8 up and down, however, the 2.4 Panasonic I own does not interfere with my home network.

Uniden Phones, such as this one, are 5.8 up and 5.8 down.
I can't guarentee the Panasonic 5.8 is 5.8 up and down, however, the 2.4 Panasonic I own does not interfere with my home network.

Uniden Phones, such as this one, are 5.8 up and 5.8 down.
I can't guarentee the Panasonic 5.8 is 5.8 up and down, however, the 2.4 Panasonic I own does not interfere with my home network.

Raido shack has a patch for this however.

It really makes me wonder why recording studios spend millions of dollars researching these things when all it takes is one person to post this to kazaa and defeat the whole purpose of the encryption.

I guess this is why I am a CS major and not a business one.

This is the book. The Beginner's Handbook of Amateur Radio, 4th Edition. I believe this is the right book.....

In the 1980's Radio Shack used to sell an FM transmitter that you could wire into your car radio. The range was good enough to transmit from vehicle-to-vehicle. We were in high school at the time and the number of radio stations in town were limited. Therefore, if we were lucky enough to be on the road within a couple of car lengths from someone we knew we could broadcast an obnoxious message through their radio if we guessed what station they were listening to. The girls did not seem to appreciate our unauthorized transmissions. ;)

Radio shack has a nice page about different batteries.

RadioShack sells both kinds.

Lithium ion batteries ... uhm, exist but I know nothing about them. They have advantages over NiMH but don't come in the common form factors I mentioned above, and are more expensive.

> Analogue freq dial thingies

That's so 80's. Newer transmitters use digital tuning that is very frequency stable. RadioShack and other places sell transmitters like the irock or AudiaX quite cheaply, and these work much better than the old analogue freq dial thingies.

I went through a similar search process about a year ago. We got bids from several vendors and we eventually ended up choosing this one. It's turned out pretty well for us, but it doesn't have the visual management you are looking for. In that case, you may want to try this. I hope it's worth more than doubling your price, though.

I went through a similar search process about a year ago. We got bids from several vendors and we eventually ended up choosing this one. It's turned out pretty well for us, but it doesn't have the visual management you are looking for. In that case, you may want to try this. I hope it's worth more than doubling your price, though.

I do, but it's not a toy. It's an old beat up Realistic TRC-214 3 channel CB Walkie T with "Push to Talk" still clearly stamped on the transmit button, which is amazing since almost every other marking on it is wore off from sitting in my pile of misc electronic junk. This thing is at least 15 years old.

I can't find the manual for that model, but here's an example. A lot of the Walkie Talkies have Push to Talk on the transmit button.

Look Here

Today, thousands of Radio Shack and other electronics stores were all raided by the US Marshalls service for selling and/or manufacturing "anti-circumvention" devices as prohibited by 17-USC-1201 - the DMCA.

Early reports indicate that the items that are causing these retail outlets such grief are commonly known as patch-cables.

According to Harvey Buttnut, well known computer geek, these patch cables can be used to pipe the analog audio from a CD player into the audio input of a computer - allowing the computer to make a recording of the CD with minimal quality loss and no more copy protection.

Lawyers for Sony Corp. at the law firm of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe confirmed that it was their investigation that led to the raids on these stores. Apparently, the lawyers' son had accidentily purchased a DRM protected CD from a music store and wanted to play the content on a portable MP3 player.

Each pixel on this Samsung must be massive.

Actually, they aren't that bad. check out the link:

link

Actually, they aren't that bad. check out the link:

link

I knew I should have gone with the infrared headphones

If you're going to be storing files on your watch, you might as well listen to music at the same time with one of these.

You can buy one for the low price of $129.99 USD at your local Radioshack.

Not only does it function as a watch, it also plays mp3 files (4 hours of play time on one AAA battery) and stores data (by way of usb mass storage device).

You get a choice of wearing it on the GripClip cradle, wriststrap, or lanyard. Much more convenient than just a watch.

It works without drivers in winXP (or newer, when we get newer) and MacOSX.
Best of all. Because it acts as a USB mass storage device it works under linux. Simply compile in the usb drivers, usb mass storage drivers, FAT files system drivers, and scsi generic drivers and your ready to go (after a simple mount =)

It even includes the AAA battery =)

PC Speakers are reasonably inexpensive. Just get a second set for the second comp for $9.97 at Radio Shack.

Well... the only good way to break a ground loop is using an isolation transformer. Radio shack sells one for less than $20. You just plug the audio from the computer in one end and then from the isolator to the stereo on the other side.

To test whether you do indeed have a ground loop, get a cheap 3-2 prong cheater plug (you plug a 3-prong cord into it, and only 2 prongs come out the other side) thereby eliminating the ground on your computer (best to put it on the powerbar, since your connected monitor and printer, etc... will also make the connection). If when it's plugged in through the cheater the hum goes away then it's a ground loop and the isolator should fix it. Do not leave the cheater plug in as the solution since having ungrounded equipment that was designed to be grounded is really unwise.

Here's the Radio Shack part link.

Panasonic DVD Recorder .. I bought one of these bad boys at their original retail of $700... still well worth it. At $400, only a few months later, it's practically a steal. Media's still fairly expensive, about $3-$12 per disc, in singles.. though I haven't looked around too much for multi-packs.. I mostly have just been using 1 or 2 different DVD-RW discs with it...

Do not dismiss X10 (the technology) just because some lame company has hijacked it and promotes the use of the products for illegal surveillance (yes, making a recording of you trying to boink your drunk and ugly date without her knowing is indeed illegal).

There are plenty of good companies to get X10 products from without going through X10.com. Smarthome and Radio Shack are a couple.

It's a shame X10.com chose the sleasy marking route because it really has tainted a pretty decent and useful technology.

-S

And just for kicks, here, is RadioShack's home automation section on the online catalog.

I have equipped my parents home with an X10 based system and all of there light switch modules and appliance outlets (all the in-wall variety) came from Radio Shack with only computer interface and software comming from online. It's been four years and no problems yet.

Save money, stick a thermistor in your joystick port, one end in pin 1, the other in pin 3. ~10 lines of perl to monitor temp.

Has anyone tried the $199 Oreck Air 7? Oreck claims is cleans an average sized bedroom every 10 minutes. It seems a lot better than the Sharper Image models. Fan, filter, ionizer, plus charcoal to get rid of odors.

I'm also considering the Honeywell Environizer (also $199) from RadioShack.

Any suggestiosn?

- Jeff

Here, add one of these to your cart. :)

Yeah, its overkill for a device usign less than 10 watts, but hey, you could plug 3 or 4 environizers into one. :) Hope this helps.

Ok, time for bed for me now, have to open my RadioShack in 5 hours...

Yeah, they have put out some good stuff. (Heck, we actually got the FCC to approve the FRS radios) But as of late they have thought up some really *DUMB* stuff. Gold plated fiber optic cables for example... The pay is ok if you can manage to sell a minimum of two cell phones and one satelite system per day, otherwise its just another minimum wage job. :-/

the link

Clickable link here, sorry. :)

The latest version of the top of the line project kit from RadioShack.

No more 25-in-one, 50-in-one, 75-in-one, or (the holy grail), the 150-in-one Electronic Project Kit.

They still sell them, though they are not nearly as good as the ones sold ten years ago (I had one then).

You don't need a high end universal remote unless you are obsessed with touchscreen remotes.

As somebody else already mentioned, Radio Shack has a $60 touchscreen universal remote. You don't need a high-end remote just to get touchscreen, either.

My remote control costs almost as much as my TV set.

Of course, I don't watch that much TV, so it may seem like a waste of money to me...

Just my 13-inches-worth...
RickTheWizKid

My remote control costs almost as much as my TV set.

Of course, I don't watch that much TV, so it may seem like a waste of money to me...

Just my 13-inches-worth...
RickTheWizKid

Radio shack has already released a patch for these cds.

I don't own that many consoles, but I have used this device both at home and at work. I have hooked up a DVD, VCR, Cable box and NES to the same TV. No problem. To make it really easy (for the ones who can't remember numbers) you can even label what each number is connected to. Simple.

The only problem I can see is when the kids want to disconnect the console to take to a friend's house.

Those headphones sound great. I couldn't find the actual product you named (PRO-35) on Radioshack's site, but is this the same thing? They seem similar, but I know so pitifully little about audio gear. Thanks!