When buying a new television, be careful about picking TV’s with LED backlighting – not all of them are what they appear. LED backlighting is one of the newest technologies used to improve picture quality and power efficiencies in flat screens. They’re used in LCD TV’s to produce the light that shines through the screen. Until the last year or so, all LCD’s were backlit using cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL), which are similar to flourescent lights.

Samsung was one of the first television manufacturers to offer LED’s to replace CCFL’s as the main backlighting source. The main advantage was a much brighter and smoother backlighting – no more “bands” or “waves” of brightness when the LCD is showing a dark picture. Moreover, the first LED backlit televisions had “local dimming” or the ability to turn off portions of the backlight to produce very dark blacks – always a weakness with LCD’s compared to plasma TV’s.

Originally, Samsung’s  950 and Sony’s XBR8 models both included LED backlighting with local dimming. However, things changed this year – Samsung introduced new televisions that had LED backlighting, but introduced in a cheaper, less featured package.

These are called “edge lit” LED backlit televisions and make up their 7000 and 8000 series televisions. The LED backlighting has moved from behind the TV to the edges. This has two detrimental effects on picture quality – the backlighting is not as uniform throughout the screen, and the backlight is incapable of local dimming. However, this type of backlight does produce VERY thin televisions, and are cheaper that full LED-backlit TV’s.

Be aware of this change, and make sure you know what you are getting. Samsung is rumored to launch a 9000 series television which features a full local-dimming LED backlight.

Toronto Life has a list of bargain wines under $10. All are from Italy and represent a good bargian:

• Mezzomondo 2007 Salento Negroamaro
• Bosco Eclipse 2005 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
• Casal Thaulero 2007 Sangiovese
• Farnese 2007 Daunia Sangiovese
• Farnese 2007 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
• Mezzomondo 2008 Merlot Rosato
• Montalto 2007 Nero d’Avola Cabernet Sauvignon
• Ogio 2007 Primitivo

Autotrader, arguably the best site for buying and selling used cars in Canada, is allowing people to list their cars for free. The listing will only be shown on the Internet and will not be published in their print publications. Take advantage of it now!

The only problem with the free listing is that there are numerous fake ads now. If you are shopping for a car, and a deal seems to be too good, it’s likely a fake and that is collecting email addresses or phone numbers. So be careful out there.

For a while now I have not republished the LCBO release list. It’s available to everyone on the LCBO site and wasn’t really adding much value. Instead, I’ve posted a list of products they chose to highlight. This more limited selection will probably be more interesting to you. This release’s highlights are all red old world wines:

• Château De Lancyre Vieilles Vignes Pic Saint-Loup 2006, Midi, France, $29.00, RP 91
• Domaine De Mourchon Grande Réserve Séguret 2006, Rhône, France, $29.00, RP 91
• Pelissero Piani Barbera D’Alba 2006, Piedmont, Italy, $25.00, RP 90
• Barone Ricasoli Casalferro 2001, Tuscany, Italy, $49.00, RP 92
• Cérvoles Celler Cérvoles 2005, Costers del Segre, Spain, $32.00, RP 91
• Cellers Sant Rafel Solpost 2004, Monsant, Spain, $29.00, WS 92

Did Weblogs just suffer a massage outage? This blogging network which includes Autoblog, Engadget, Blogging Stocks and WoW.com had all their blogs go blank for a period of time tonight. Now posts are showing up but dated from the 21st. It appears they are restoring/republishing their old posts.

I wonder what caused the outage. Anyone in IT knows that fixing production failures in the middle of the night is no fun.

For the past year or so, I’ve exclusively filled up at Shell stations using premium. While Shell 87 Regular has 10% ethanol, their 91 Premium contains no ethanol.

Now why would I be so adverse to a gas additive that is seen as “environmentally friendly” and that raises octane ratings on fuels? The simple reason is that most car nerds long ago saw empirical evidence to the contrary. Now, that evidence is being substantiated by more mainstream media – today it was the New York Times.

Drivers of BMW’s and Mini’s seem to be the most succeptible to damage. From bad fuel pumps to damaged fuel lines – attempts are being linked to the ethanol content in gasoline as the cause. These are still not completely proven, but with enough anecdotal evidence from the forums, it’s enough for me to stay away.

In my own driving, I’ve noticed that ethanol-blended gasolines, like Sunuco 94, gave my cars bad mileage. When I had a turbocharged Audi car I appreciated the octane boost over 91, but the mileage suffered.

For as long as I can, I’ll try to keep the car filled up with ethanol-free gasoline. Canada soon is going to mandate ethanol content in our gas, so this might not last very long.

Ginza Sushi is a new sushi place that opened up at Bay and Bloor, across the street from Pusateri’s. It replaced the old Eggstacy Bar and Grill.

Sushi here was reasonably priced, comparable to Ashi Sushi and Sushi Inn. My friend and I shared one of the sushi combo platters and I was impressed by the size of the sashimi, there was very nice larger cuts to eat. Everything was fresh and the service was good.

Ginza is part of a chain of sushi restaurants that started 13 years ago. However this new location caters to a different crowd by opening later and offering a selection of martini’s. I have yet to try their delivery service.

There seems to be an abundance of sushi places in Yorkville. Let’s hope Ginza manages to tough it out. With a location a little out-of-the-way compared to some of Yorkville’s sushi staples, it remains to be seen.

Ginza Sushi
1255 Bay Street
647-351-0238

This weekend is Doors Open in Toronto. This allows you to go into buildings that are not normally open to the public and look around. Bring comfy walking shoes and some bottles of water. The weather is usually warm and the lines are usually long. The City has a website for Doors Open and also a shortened list of buildings. A PDF file of all the buildings to print out is also provided.

This is one of the last times to see Don Jail before it’s turned into a hospital. Also the CBC building is providing an event from 10am-2pm with their celebrity hosts. Check it out!

Firefox is a great browser, I’ve been using it since it went official and use it everywhere I’m allowed (work prevents anyone from installing it on their hardware). Universe Firefox posted some browser tweaks that greatly improve the speed of the browser.

Firefox has version 3.5 in beta right now. No release date yet but try it out and submit bug reports so that they can improve it before it gets released. It should have the new javascript engine that makes full-featured pages load really quickly.

Facebook has a feature called Lexicon Search. It allows you to search for the number of times a word is used on everyone’s Facebook Wall. Try it and see.