If you find yourself balking at the price of computer cables, try monoPrice.com. They’ve got some really good deals, particularly if you’re looking for longer cables than your local stores tend to offer.

While working on a good number of computers every day that require a number of standard security and diagnostic software, I decided that using CD-Rs was entirely too time-consuming and wasteful. Instead, I’ve purchased a thumbdrive, which for those unfamiliar with the technology, is simply a general name for any small, removable drive built using flash memory and that can be plugged into any available USB port.

The particular thumbdrive I purchased is Sandisk’s 1GB Cruzer Mini. While most consumers could probably get away with one of the cheaper 128MB, 256MB or even 512MB thumbdrives, I went for a full gigabyte due to the large number of files I tend to move back and forth between machines.

The Cruzer Mini is nice and small, though if I was going to make another, similar, purchase, I would probably look for a USB drive that had a strong loop in order to attach the thumbdrive to my keychain.

I have to admit, I was pretty skeptical about this movie. While I love superhero movies, even the campiest ones, the previews released during the production of Batman Begins didn’t exactly impress me.

I’ve never been a fan of the all-black costume, for example. I personally would have preferred to see something with at least some contrasting grays along with the black in keeping with the common Batman comic costume, as well as perhaps some cloth woven across the top of the body armor. I’m still not keen on the idea of a thicker, rubber-like material around the neck, as I feel someone involved with the amount of hand-to-hand combat that the character of Batman would encounter would prefer as much natural head movement as possible. Still, as filmed, the costume serves the character well.

And then there’s the Batmobile. When I first saw photos of the Tumbler, I thought it was outright silly looking. However, in action it’s a pretty spectacular vehicle and easily my new favorite Bat vehicle. The Tumbler is like most of the tech in this movie, it seems silly at first, but works well enough within the confines of the movie that it seems natural for the director’s vision of the Batman world.

I had also been skeptical about the amount of star power in this movie. I feared that it would be hard to see famous actors like Michael Caine as anything other than himself, but he actually won me over to the idea that he’s Batman’s faithful friend and butler, Alfred, just like Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman did as Gordon and Fox. Though I didn’t always buy Christian Bale’s “Batman voice”, he seemed to fit both Bruce Wayne and Batman better than any of the previous actors in the role. Katie Holmes was better than her current acting reputation, but the real star of the movie for me were Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow and Liam Neeson as Wayne’s mentor and eventual enemy.

The action sequences were great, though I hope the inevitable sequels don’t keep this film’s technique of shooting every fight scene using nothing but close-ups and jump cuts. The sound effects, on the other hand, was perfectly loud and meaty. The Tumbler in low gear is a thing of horrendous beauty.

Overall, this isn’t just my new favorite Batman movie, it’s also my current pick as movie of the summer. Even if you’re just a general action fan with little obsession over the Batman character, this is a must see to add to your warm weather film nights.

For those of you dealing with the wait for the June 22nd release of Battlefield 2 by spending untold hours with the recently released demo, you might want to take a look at this BF2 Demo Tweak Guide to help your system’s performance.

And for owners of Geforce 4 cards, which the demo officially does not support, you might be interested in this forum discussion on some successful techniques employed to get the game running on those video cards.

It’s not uncommon for our part of Painesville, Ohio to get a blackout or two as the hot, muggy weather becomes more common in Northeast Ohio and everyone turns on their air conditioners. Last Friday, however, we had a brownout, which resulted in everything that was left plugged in suffering from a severe under-voltage for several hours.

While my computers were protected by an Uninterruptable Power Supply, or UPS, with under-voltage protection that was programmed to shut them down after five minutes, I had forgotten to plug my 19″ Viewsonic A91F+ into a protected socket. After full power was restored several hours later, I discovered that the monitor would no longer power on.

I replaced the Viewsonic on Saturday with a Samsung SyncMaster 997DF 19″ flat-screen CRT monitor. At $179.99 from Best Buy, it really wasn’t a bad deal, performing on par with the $249 Viewsonic.

Still, I’d highly recommend everyone consider looking into a UPS for home use. Surge protectors really don’t offer all that much protection outside of a particular type of over-voltage and do nothing to protect your electronics from temporary power sags and under-voltage.

The BBC has a news story online about a prankster group calling itself the “Guardians of the Planet Earth”, which has managed to steal a Dalek prop on display in a Somerset, England tourist attraction called the Wookey Hole Caves.

The Dalek comes from the long-running British science fiction series Doctor Who, which explains why the ransom note demands further instructions from the show’s main character, the Doctor.

Along with the ransom note, the Dalek’s “plunger arm”, referred to in the letter as it’s “destructive mechanism”, was left at the scene of the theft.

Colin Baker, who played the 6th Doctor from 1984 to 1986, is currently in contact with the attraction’s officials and may be used to send a message to the so-called kidnappers.