Archive for the ‘Electronics’ Category

Guest review by: Justin Lowmaster

I opened the DCS-932L camera and was greeted by the camera, two cables, and a packet with the CD, a quick install guide, a big orange paper on how to contact support, and some GPL, GNU licence papers. There’s a minimum amount of paper here, so not a lot to sort through to find what you need.

Setup is fairly simple. My wireless router does not have WPS (WiFi Protected Setup) so I just plugged the camera into the router with a CAT-5 cable (included) and into the wall socket power cable (included.) I inserted the CD, and clicked Start. From there I entered in a device password, which is sadly limited to 6-8 characters. This is likely due to the fact it’s probably stored on the device itself and there are hardware limitations to encryption. After answering a few simple questions, you are able to make a mydlink.com account. Here, there was also a limitation on the password. I’m not sure what it allows, other than it must be at least 6 characters. I tried to make a 12 character password with all manner of characters. It said it was invalid, with no explanation. I made the password 12 characters of upper and lower case letters, and numbers. This worked. Not as good as I’d like, as it is allowing access to my home, but it’s not terrible. It could probably be longer than 12 if I wanted. I can only hope is stored properly in the website (not that I have much hope in that.) Be sure to complete the process after clicking the activate link in your email before trying to access the camera via website. I’m fairly certain you could even skip the mydlink.com account creation and set up the camera to work on your own domain and gain access via the web without needing to trust the mydlink.com site.

If your router supports it, the camera also supports WPA-PSK / WPA2-PSK  wifi encryption (and if your router doesn’t, get a new one.)

Another issue I had was my Firefox browser with NoScript and my Chrome browser blocked access to the camera page from the website for security reasons I wont get into here. It’s easily bypassed by going to the direct IP address while on your local network.

The site dashboard allows you access to several cameras if you have more than one.

The camera itself, and the features, are very nice. It comes mounted on a stand with a wide range of motion and can be mounted on a wall if you wish. We found a suitable location in a room that allows us to see almost the entire room. You can flip and/or mirror the image in the software settings if you need to as well.

The microphone is also of good quality, and you can hear what’s going on in the room. The night vision auto activates if the light is low enough (or you’ve pointed the camera down enough that the ceiling light wont reach it.)

The software features accessible through the camera page are fantastic. There is motion detection which allows you to select certain regions of the view to watch for motion, while avoiding where (for example) the cat normally walks. You could have it look for an opening door, but not worry about the floor.

There’s a zoom feature, but it’s only a digital zoom, so the quality isn’t great when zooming.

You can raise or lower the image quality and resolution so if you need the live stream to take up less bandwidth, you can do so, or raise it for high quality images.

There are many more options, such as email and FTP access to store images, scheduling to turn the camera on and off automatically, and the ability to link the camera to a web domain name you control.

Overall, aside from a few concerns on the passwords, which I am sensitive to because I am a security enthusiast, I think it’s a fantastic device. The myriad of options and settings are very nice, and the price is about right for what we got.

If you are interested in purchasing the D-Link Systems DCS-932L mydlink-Enabled Wireless N Day/Night Home Network Camera you can find that it’s $119.99 &  ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping at Amazon.

Disclaimer: My husbands review through the Amazon vine program of  the D-Link Systems DCS-932L mydlink-Enabled Wireless N Day/Night Home Network Camera is available at Amazon.com.

No kitchen is complete without a good kitchen scale. I’ve personally been looking for one for several years now. Why so long? Well, I first wasn’t sure what kind of scale I exaclty wanted and second because a lot of kitchen scales are usually space hogs and due to living in a small home I don’t want to over clutter the place.

I do a lot of baking and cooking and I know that having a good scale can make all the difference when trying to be a little more accurate when it’s called for.  Other reasons are because I know scales are great for nutritional needs. Needs like  counting calories and portion control.

I was pretty excited recently when I was contacted to review a Eat Smart digital Kitchen Scale! This scale comes in numerous colors but I went with the burgundy red because it matches all my other kitchen appliances perfectly.

I’m pretty impressed that there is a lot of big packed into this compact sized kitchen scale! For instance this scale is extremely easy to use. This scale comes with 2 AAA batteries and also has a three minute auto-shut off feature to maintain the battery life.

There are two buttons one for on/off and tare. Now if you don’t know what tare means, basically it’s a feature that eliminates the weight of a plate or whatever else you may be weighing something in so you can get a precise measurement of your ingredients.  And the other button on the scale is “unit” where you can messure four different units: grams / ounces / pounds / kilograms.

Included with this scale is a EatSmart Calorie Factors guide which makes Portion control and calorie counting super easy to figure out!

Like to listen to music or podcasts on the go? If so, you might be interested the chicboom, a key chain speaker system by chicBuds.

The chicboom Keychain Speaker Ball isn’t too big, it acutally fits in the palm of your hand. It can be connected to any electronic listening device since it has a 3.5mm stereo jack.

I was able to review one of these for myself and chose the design with the bird and flowers on it. There are also animal print cubes in pink and blue &  Blue Water and Grey Crackle speaker balls.  I found all the colorful styles quite stylish and very chic!

As soon as you get this product you are going to want to charge it by using the included usb connector cord. At full charge, the speaker boom offers up to 4 hours of play time per charge.  I like that it can be charged via computer with no need for constantly buying batteries.

This 2-watt speaker may be little but it offers big noise! I’m loving the great distortion free quality! The size of size of this speaker is total bonus too. I can easily add it to my keyring, hook it to a purse or backpack or wherever, and I’m ready to go!

Buy it: The chicBoom Keychain Speaker sells for only $29.99 and can be found online at Chic Blvd.

-Win it - 

How would you like to win a chicBoom Keychain Speaker of your choice?

To Enter: Visit chicBoom and let me know another product that you like!

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Giveaway running till 03/22/11 . Winners will be notified shortly afterward by email. Please respond within 48 hours or you forfeit your prize to another participant. USA/Canada only.

DISCLAIMER: My thoughts are mine own opinion and have not been altered by anyone else. I did not receive any compensation for hosting this giveaway or review other than the sample above mentioned.