Atro-Phex Thermogenic Supplement Review

BSN's Atro-Phex is one of countless health supplements targeted at those who are struggling with weight management. While my situation with weight management isn't as critical as others, I still have that extra bit of fat that I am looking to get rid of. When diet & training fail to respond, or respond slowly, many people turn to thermogenics in order to speed up the process. This review is going to assume you already have a basic understanding about health and health supplements, so I won't take the time to explain thermogenics or what various ingredients are. Like all fine print notes say, the use of any thermogenic should be combined with proper diet and exercise for best results. Thermogenics are not magic pills (unfortunately) so without a bit of dedication to a change in lifestyle, not even BSN's Atro-Phex is going to make much of a difference.

I completed the box of Atro-Phex about a week prior to going on vacation for the holidays. The holidays never help with weight loss goals, but I can tell you that prior to the holidays, I used Atro-Phex and ate pretty healthy food. I did not see much of a difference from taking 2 pills twice a day. They gave me a tiny bit of a stimulant feeling, and I was less tired throughout the day, but in terms of the desired effect of weight loss, I didn't really see it.

I think it's probably best to just forget the supplements and focus on nutrition and exercise. Yes, yes, this isn't what you wanted to hear, but the truth be told, we still do not have our "magic pill."

High Definition Over The Air

Introducting the SHARP DR-510 720p High Definition Home Theater Projector.



This is the first projector I've ever owned, but I've spent the better part of a year with my eyes open for the project that I'd give this designation. About 3 weeks ago, I finally found it. This Sharp projector made the score card on all of my minimum standards for what I wanted in a projector. 720p native resolution, HDMI output, keystone correction, and DLP technology. It runs a bit large, at just over the size of my college chemistry book (which is a beast, let me assure you) and about as heavy, at a nice 8.8 lbs solid. The projector has average luminosity, at 1000 ANSI lumens; I would have prefered closer to 2000, but having the projector run only $800 was a fantastic deal.

So let's begin the review of the projector itself. It is stunning, to say the least. There is no automatic keystone correction, which I was disappointed about, but at least it offered manual correction! This comes in handy because it actually allows you to position the viewable image almost anywhere within the projected space. This is VERY good because this projector produces an extremely LARGE picture. At only 9 feet away, it is speced to put out a 100" diagonal image. I have it sitting about 13 feet away from the wall. This image bleeeds off the wall edges. But with the manual geometric keystone, I can specify exactly where I want the image, and shrink it to actually fit on the wall. So it actually does quite a nice job. The inputs the projector has is quite nice, with at least 6 inputs, one for HDMI, two for HD Component, one for composite, one s-video and one for VGA. 720p is quite acceptable, too, for screens of this size. However, once you start getting over 100" diagonal measure (which I currently have) you really do start to wish you had even more than 720p... 1080i or 1080p would do wonders with images this size.

The size of the image this projector gave out was unexpected for me, but thanks to the manual geometric keystone, it wasn't a problem. Another thing I wasn't expecting was the fan noise of this projector. It's slightly loud under the default settings, however, you can set it to "MOVIE MODE" which cuts the noise in half. If you put up a decent home theater sound system, you won't be able to hear the fans over your speakers.

So I'm currently playing the poor-college-student-card and projecting my image onto a bed sheet. I picked up the highest thread count, whitest, queen-sized bed sheet from Walmart and fixed it onto my wall using cuts of styrofoam blocks. I used the styrofoam blocks because there were things on the wall, such as a thermostat, firealarm, and door bunts. The styrofoam gave it just enough space away from the wall to keep the sheet even, and hovered just over these miscellaneous objects. The bed sheet is only 300 count. In the future, I may take a trip to Bed Bath & Beyond to find a better sheet... one made out of slightly more reflective material, and of a higher thread count. For those considering this same route, get the highest thread count you can find, because even 300 bleeds a lot! I think you could use 300 as a rear-projection screen, it bleeds so much!

But all in all, I am very happy with the purchase. I am not looking forward to the moment, some 2000 hours-of-projector-use into the future when I have to shell out $300 to replace the lamp, but until then, I've got a nice home theater with a screen about 150" diagonal to enjoy.

ARF, signing out.

Projectors in handsets

The Scoop
Perhaps one of my most anticipated technologies to enter into the mobile handset market... the mobile projector!



Read: http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/20/hands-on-with-texas-instruments-cellphone-projector/

This is exciting because it means more power in the palm of your hand. To clear up some questions that some of the (moronic) users of engadget made at the bottom of that awesome article:

* What you see is NOT what you get - it is a proof of concept model which means it exists to show that it is possible, and that it is possible under a certain umbrella of criteria. (IE; small enough to fit in your hand, good enough for a target audience [business solutions?], etc.)

* That "phone" in the video and pictures is NOT a real phone. Watch the video... listen carefully... the attendant even says "it's not a real phone." It's only a shell. I seriously doubt Texas Instruments is about to start making their own cell phones. They will most likely cell the components to other manufacturers who specialize in the cell phone department, such as HTC, Motorola, Nokia, etc.

* The proof-of-concept will obviously get better. The Engadget article even said that TI has an LED version of the projector which already offers improvements over the model they had at the fair.

Where I Want This To Go
I want HTC to pick up one of these projector chips/lenses and integrate it into the successor to the HTC TyTN II. Ideally, the next HTC phone in this class should carry a CPU chip with twice the power, bluetooth 3.0, a 5 MP camera, a mobile projector, wireless n and better internal drivers. They could, in theory, push such a device out (metaphorically) tomorrow. And if they could manage to do it for around $700 retail unlocked, I'd be in line to buy one. Can you tell I'm an HTC (and specifically, HTC TyTN II) fanboy?

-Alex