Last weekend I was digging through the attic to get Christmas lights. It was time to start fixing the ones that are not working anymore. In the container of lights I have these boxes that plug into the wall and allow me to turn the lights on and off with a remote control.  On the outside of the box it says “Plug-N-Power”. I think I bought them over 20 years ago.

Plug-N-Power is still around today. You might know it as X-10. After all of these years they use the same protocol that works over your house wiring.

I always get a chuckle when I look at those boxes because I can remember when I built a circuit from a Radio Electronics magazine. It was supposed to send Plug-N-Power signals over house wiring from a Commodore 64. I wanted to build it so I could create a program on my Commodore to control my parents Christmas lights.

It was a dicey circuit since it was mixing 110 AC with the “user port” of the Commodore. I started working on it - I think around October of - hmm I think it was 1989. It took me until right before Thanksgiving to finish

Aside from the holidays coming in, computer stores are desperately trying to get rid of old inventory with the expectation that new processors and desktop solutions from Intel shall be soon hitting the market. We have been hearing much buzz about Intel’s new chip such as the Intel Corei7 and chances are people will start looking for them these holidays to put their bonuses to good use. The problem is how do you get rid of the old ones?

For one, price drops and cheap computer packages are bound to be spreading like crazy. People may be looking at the new Intel Corei7 processors but make no mistake about it, customers are not about to let good deals pass. Pairing these discounted desktops with fast moving products such as NVIDIA video cards or large capacity hard disks are bound to be aplenty as people are looking to upgrade old computers for faster and powerful ones offered today.

So are the customers going to bite? Surely they will. The new processors will be out and one thing that people are expecting are price drops. The new Intel Corei7 is not expected to come

Tis’ the season to jolly up your desktop with Vista Christmas icons. This set of 25 icons are perfect for getting in the holiday spirit. Incredible quality icons.
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