Most digital music players come with terrible headphones, that much we know. But how do you go about finding the right headphones for you and your digital music player? Well, the fine folks at PC Mag have some tips for you, including making the important distinction between earphones and earbuds, sticking to your budget, and links to tons of reviews.

Me? I do a lot of gaming at home with voice, so I rock a pair of Sennheiser PC-350s at home; I love them because they transmit excellent voice quality but also sound fantastic when I’m just listening to music and not using them for chat. At the office, I have a pair of active noise cancelling Panasonic RP-HC500s, which I don’t think are available anymore. I had to pay a premium for both of them, but they’re both excellent headphones. When I’m on the go, a simple pair of Sony MDR-EX71SLA Fontopia earbuds suits me just fine.

Don’t just take my word for it though – the PC Mag review is rich with reviews of more headphones than the ones I just mentioned. Check it out!

[ PC Mag :: How to Buy the Right Headphones ]

If you’ve been paying attention on the Web today, you’ve probably seen this going around, but if not, it’s pretty freaking awesome. The level of effort required to make this intricate case mod must have been immense; far beyond anything I think I could possibly have put into something like this. The bot looks completely perfect, and is still a perfectly functioning system running Windows Vista!

Seriously, the creator must have a garage full of – or at least access to – a wealth of really high end manufacturing tools!

[ EnglishRussia :: Russian Wall-E Case Mod ]
[ Gearlog :: DIY Wall-E Case Mod ]

See that screenshot? That’s actually a partial list of some of the Firefox extensions I have installed on my computer right now, that I’m using as I write this. It’s by no means an exhaustive list of the extensions I’ve found, tested, recommended, or even like, but they’re the ones that I absolutely can’t live without at home, and immediately install as soon as I get a fresh install of Firefox going.

But what do they do? I’m often asked by friends what Firefox extensions I simply can’t live without, either at home or at work. Well, let me run them down for you and what each one of them does. Some of them are useful and I’m at the point where I start doing things in Firefox assuming they’re there–even when I sit at someone else’s computer, and others tweak and improve the user interface in ways that really only I enjoy. Either way, take a look at them all below the jump.

Continue reading 10 Firefox Extensions I Can’t Live Without…

If you didn’t know, 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy! The slogan is “The Universe, Yours to Discover”, and I couldn’t agree more.

Granted I’m coming from the mindset of someone who studied Astronomy and Physics primarily, but I can’t express to you the wonder of the Universe around you when you look up at the night sky and see the billions and billions of stars and other objects, imperceptibly far away but massive in size, glimmering and shining down on you.

It’s a natural next step to want to look at them more closely: to examine them in their largest, most intricate glory as you can possibly see them from so far away. And you don’t need a huge, high powered telescope to do this (although your local community college or University may have an observatory or planetarium you can visit), in many cases a good pair of binoculars and a good clear sky are all you need to engage with the universe beyond our own pale, blue, little world. I know sometimes I explore the heavens just as a reminder of how small we are – how precious every moment of our lives are, and how small and truly tiny our worldly problems are.

Share the love, do some exploring, and experience the stars. Do something special for the International Year of Astronomy!

[ 2009: International Year of Astronomy ]

(image courtesy of Lifehacker)

If you’re not reading Lifehacker, you should be; it’s full of tips, tricks, and suggestions that make you want to drop everything and start your own DIY project. One LH reader went ahead with it, and tweaked an old laptop to be an under-the-counter PC for occasional Web video watching in the kitchen and recipe lookups, not to mention music and other goodies:

Brian uses his saucy setup to pipe music to his kitchen via Pandora, view his Google Calendar, and get a look at the news. He needed a lightweight operating system that would support Flash, and ultimately settled on the much-beloved Puppy Linux. A little tinkering, two coat-hangers (which he used for mounting the laptop), and some elbow grease later, Brian’s put together a very cool kitchen computer.

Very cool – and goodness knows I have a ton of old useless laptops. Maybe I should give this a try!

[ Lifehacker :: Build an Under-the-Cabinet Kitchen PC from an Old Laptop ]