Doing my part to help revive the economy

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 by Dave Winer.

Once again I have some money burning a hole in my pocket and I want to blow some (of course) on electronic gadgetry. And, as always, I turn to the readers of this blog for advice.  

1. Is there a Linux or Windows equivalent of the Mac Mini? A headless, keyboardless, mouseless computer that doesn't cost too much, that isn't made by Apple. I already have three Mac Mini's, I love them, but I find myself interested in, even lusting for, an Asus EeeBox. Have you tried it? Do you like it? Any other choices? 

2. For the same application, I've been thinking about getting a gamer platform, with a really fast CPU and lots of RAM. (An aside, the application is processing lots of text, which involves relatively little net traffic and doesn't require a persistent IP address. No need to pay Amazon $90 per month when I could buy a cheap computer for $300 and be done with it.) 

3. I bought a Panasonic wifi webcam a couple of years ago, and it was pretty good, but it stopped working (maybe dropping it a few times had something to do with that). I want the same functionality without the wifi. I'm looking for Mac software that samples the built-in camera every minute and saves the result to a file. From there, I can write scripts to push it where I want it to go. Surprised to see this functionality isn't something Apple provides, but near as I can tell, they don't. 

4. Still thinking about getting the FlipCam. That was the thing I didn't buy last time I tried to kickstart the economy. (Update: I ordered the FlipCam today.)