billboard

The struggle to get a job can warp the mind.

It can make you disappear into a cold, hard shell, so much so that those closest to you don't quite recognize your outer shell at all.

Yet Brandon Stuard, as he watched his wife struggle to find employment, decided he couldn't just gaze upon her pain: he had to get everyone else in Toledo, Ohio to gaze upon it too.

So, without his wife Holly's knowledge, he bought a rather brightly illuminated double billboard for $700 and allowed her mini-resume to shine.

It displayed a large picture … Read more

Generally, for network storage needs, I would recommend getting a dedicated NAS server, such as the Synology DiskStation DS1511+. However, if your needs are limited to casual usage, such as sharing documents and streaming music and photos, then a router with built-in network storage capability -- one that comes with internal storage or can host an external storage device and shares that with the rest of the network -- fits the bill better.

While much inferior to a NAS server in terms of features and especially performance, some routers actually have more to offer, in terms of storage, than one might expect and may just be what you need. In any case, getting a router of this type plus an external hard drive is a lot cheaper than a dedicated NAS server.

Following is a list of five top routers with built-in support for network storage that I've reviewed in recent years. … Read more

N600 routers are the first true dual-band routers on the market, capable of delivering 300Mbps Wi-Fi speed -- based on the dual-stream (or 2-by-2) setup of the 802.11n Wi-Fi standard -- simultaneously on its two frequency bands, 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The marketing term "N600" basically means "Wireless-N standard with a combined bandwidth of 600Mbps."

In layman's terms, an N600 router comes with two built-in Wireless-N access points. Wireless clients connected to one of these access points (a client can only connect to one access point at a time) will have a ceiling speed of up to 300Mbps. In reality, the real-world sustained speeds of wireless routers vary a great deal, depending on the environment, distances between router and clients, and the frequency band.

In my experience, N600 routers generally offer about 60Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and about 140Mbps on the 5GHz band, within 75 feet or less. And while these seem much lower than the 300Mbps ceiling speed, they are more than fast enough for most applications, including high-definition media streaming. In fact, 140Mbps is about 50 percent faster than a wired Ethernet connection. Farther out, from 150 feet or more, a Wi-Fi connection is generally only good for accessing the Internet and mild networking needs. You can find out more about the basics of home networking here.

Since the dual stream is currently the most popular standard of Wi-Fi used in clients, getting an N600 router is probably the best value for your money. This is because the speed of a network connection is determined by the slowest speed of any party involved, so if you get a faster Wi-Fi router (such as an N900 router), you might not see any benefits at all if none of your clients support the higher tiers of Wi-Fi speeds.

Below are the top five N600 routers among those I have reviewed in recent years.… Read more

When you gotta go, you gotta go. Sometimes, when you gotta go, you get to make beautiful music using an electric guitar urinal.

Guys need incentive to aim into the bowl, especially after a long night at the bar. Billboard Brasil created the Guitar Pee, an electric guitar/amplifier/urinal, to tour around Sao Paulo drinking establishments.

Here's the process. Drink a lot. Run to the restroom as the "Under Pressure" bass riff plays in your mind. Discover a guitar/urinal. Whiz on it to trigger some shredding electric guitar solos that would fit right in on a glam metal album. … Read more

Photofunia is a ridiculously simple photo effects app that lets you drop your photos into funny and interesting scenes, similar to those you might find at an amusement park photo booth. If, say, you want to see what your face might look like on a billboard in Times Square, Photofunia has an effect for that. How about on the cover of Esquire Magazine? Photofunia's got that covered, too. With an incredible number of effects available, the possibilities seem endless.

To get started with Photofunia, just fire up the app and start looking for an effect you like. You can … Read more

When it comes to executing with ruthless efficiency on a plan of attack, few companies hold a candle to Apple. And the Monday announcement that Apple had sold 3 million iPads during the new product's first three days of availability is just the latest reaffirmation of that well-deserved reputation.

So what gives with all the iPad 2 billboards still adorning our byways and highways? Each day, I pass by the iPad 2 billboard (pictured above) which faces our offices in downtown San Francisco. Get into a car and head south on highway 101, and you'll spot a couple … Read more

It was clear from CES that 2012 is going to be a year of major changes in home networking, considering the availability of the new 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard. While it's rather complicated to figure out all the differences between Wi-Fi standards, it's quite easy to equip yourself with the best as long as you follow this regularly updated list of the Top 5 networking products currently available.

This time around, the list includes the two first 802.11ac routers on the market and three cream-of-the-crop N900 Wireless-N routers. Any of these routers is able to transform your home network into something you might not have imagined possible before, thanks to features, speed, or both.

This list is sorted by the review date, starting with the most recently reviewed.… Read more

It's hard to imagine anyone shedding tears over the loss of a billboard, but a lot of San Franciscans may find their eyes watering up if, as reported today, the much-loved Yahoo sign along Interstate 80 is taken down next month.

According to a report on The San Francisco Egoist, the Yahoo billboard will be no more as of next month. The report quoted Clear Channel Outdoor Vice President and General Sales Manager Jon Charles as confirming the sign's imminent removal.

A call by CNET today to Charles was not returned.

There are few signs in the United … Read more

Lady Gaga's new album "Born This Way" sold more than 1.1 million digital and physical copies in its first week and set a new record for digital sales, thanks in part to a pricing scheme from Amazon.com.

Testing the waters of digital music prices, the retail giant offered the pop singer's new album for a mere 99 cents for one day on Monday, May 23. Hoping to lure more than the usual Lady Gaga fans, Amazon threw in 20GB of cloud storage as part of the deal. After technical problems due to overwhelming demand on that day, Amazon tried once more last Thursday, offering the 99-cent MP3 version of the album for a single day.

Boosted by Amazon's retail push, "Born This Way" hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 1,108,000 copies altogether and making it the 17th album to sell a million in a single week since 1991 when Nielsen's SoundScan started tracking such data, according to Billboard.

Amazon itself accounted for more than 440,000 of the total 662,000 digital downloads of "Born This Way," according to Billboard.… Read more