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As you may or may not be aware, Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron is just 11 days away (as of this writing). I’ve been running the beta for the last 20 or so days and so far I am very impressed with it.

I’ve had a couple of small hiccups with the integrated intel video and my widescreen monitor, but this is nothing new. A quick installation of ‘915resolution’ and I was up and running in widescreen once again. The built in Intel graphics work very will with the integrated compiz fusion graphic features enabled by default. Hardy Heron exibits a level of polish that is on par with OSX. The extra graphical features are not of the gee-whiz variety, like OSX, they provide a pleasing and integrated level of animation into the desktop.

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Last week, Mike Holmes from HGTV Canada’s Holmes on Homes received an Honorary Doctorate of Technology from BCIT.

He was a crowd hit at the Winter 2008 convocation ceremony. He even wore his “Holmes on Homes” brand cover alls, and steel toed boots undeneth his robe, which is pretty funny.

After about a month of usage, here are my initial findings on what you can expect in terms of battery life from your Pentax K100D Super digital SLR camera.

Using the set of Alkaline batteries included with the camera I was able to take approximately 90 shots with about 60-75% flash usage.

I also picked up two sets of 4 Energizer Lithium Ion single use batteries. I plan to keep these as the emergency set in my camera bag. I expect this set to perform close to, or exceed the anticipated number of shots in the manual. If I were to take a long trip, I would also consider picking up a set or two of CRV-3 Lithium batteries as these are supposed to yield 1000 - 1100 shots.

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This receiver is the second MPEG-4 based receiver released by Bell. Based on the spec’s, this unit will be replacing the 6100 model. The cool thing about this new unit is that it is not a PVR, but it will become a PVR later this year when Bell releases new firmware activating the USB port! This will allow you to connect an external hard drive or an Archos 605 and 705 portable media player.The 6141 HD receiver comes with the PVR remote, and an new EPG (electronic program guide) allowing you to view up to three days of programming on the screen at one time.

Output ports include: Coax, Component, S-Video, Optical, HDMI.

Inputs: 1x Satellite In, OTA Antenna

USB, and Ethernet for future use.

If you have the new 6141, please feel free to post a comment with your experiences or questions.

ExpressVu HD subscribers will be happy to know that we will be getting two new HD channels that we can subscribe to!

Bell ExpressVu is the first to launch the new Super Channel, and starting on November 2nd, ExpressVu HD subscribers will be the first to preview the new set of stations until November 22nd.

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