Category: Misc-Tech

I always think I have uses for decommissioned cell phones, but they just pile up in a storage bin tucked away in a closet. Ok, lets send these guys back the great bit beyond. From left to right: LG …

The last time I needed to mass convert some music files was about 10 years ago when moving some bootlegs off of optical media onto a network drive. Ripping a CDs worth of lossless SHN files to WAV …

Freed up some space in the bedroom and put our old living TV on the wall. I wouldn’t try to chin up off the mount, but it was plenty strong to hold a TV though. The wire hanging down offends my OCD …

Be nice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAq3RYFbTIA

I was considering replacing my aged computer speakers. So I went to amazon and searched for Computer Speakers and sorted by rating. The first hit in the list turns out to be folks selling the speakers …

Wanted to print out 10 photos. Here’s the workflow: Import pictures from camera into Photos app. Cull out the photos to print. Fix up brightness for printing. Crop for printing. Print. Reset router …

Not an app I use every day, but it really hits the spot when I do need it. Its about 99% less hassle than using my real world scanner and about 90% faster to boot; worth every penny. Readdle is a …

Yikes! Important lessons and takeaways learned from a mistake in our Ruby code that proved costly for Code School. Source: How a Bug in My Ruby Code Cost Code School $13,000

Send Me to Heaven, for the days when your cell phone won’t stop ringing. Source: smth

Mercy me, that’s a lot of stuff jammed into that tiny package. After not wearing a watch routinely for a few years now, I not tripping over myself to get one. Apple Watch 2015 Teardown on Thursday …

So, recently I started putting together a home music server. I got all the basics up without too much hassle, but didn’t get around actually installing music collection. After getting back to it, I …

I used to keep all my music on my mac, but after downsizing to a smaller (but zillion times faster) SSD drive, I can’t seem to jam everything in any more. So, I’ve been using a portable 500Gb USB …

Review: A New Laptop from Dell Makes the MacBook Air Look Huge. Wow, that’s pretty nice actually. Unfortunately, its not Dell priced. For about the same amount of money, I’d probably stick to Apple.

Yes, please! MacMall | Ergotron WorkFit-A, Sit-Stand Workstation - for Apple 24-414-227.

Yeah, only software developer nerds will get it… Apache Subversion to Migrate to Git.

Was pretty sure somebody would try this… Modern TV built into a space age case. Pass. Newegg.com - Seiki 22" Class 1080p 60Hz Retro Design LED TV - SE22FR01.

Yes, the future is now. I love old Radio Shack ads. Your iPhone replaces the roomful of equipment found in this 1991 Radio Shack ad | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

Vizio Wins 4K at CES With 120-Inch TV, $999 Model. Yeah, that’s 120" 4k TV and a 50" 4k TV for $999. Not a 120" 4k TV for $999.

Vim.js - JavaScript port of Vim. Yep, vim, in your browser. I only messed around with it briefly, but it seemed competent enough to cover the basics. via

Adam from the Mythbusters demos his sweet mechanical spider.

Maybe I should start wearing a watch again. “Apple Picking” crime wave targets watch-less iPhone owners | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

Oh, and Windows XP still has a 31% market share. Ugh. Windows 8.1 overtakes Mac OS X 10.9 among desktop OS users | Microsoft - CNET News.

Step 1, store passwords in plaintext. Hack of Cupid Media dating website exposes 42 million plaintext passwords | Ars Technica. Really? in 2013, someone still does that? via

Remember when laptops didn’t have built in Wifi? Here’s my iPhone 4s next to my buddy’s relic Wifi pc-card…

Yep, that about covers it. Loads of other great content on that site too. Front End Dev Reactions — When I Fix a Bug Nobody Else Can Figure Out.

New FAA Guidelines Permit More Device Use, All The Way From Take-Off To Landing | TechCrunch. Woo hoo! Now you don’t have to pack that paper book just for take off and landing. via

Dell offers fix for Latitude 6430u laptop computers that smell like cat urine | syracuse.com. Thankfully, my Macbook doesn’t smell like cat urine. Just everything else in my office at home. Mental …

Microsoft to Windows XP users: your operating system is a major security risk | Microsoft Windows - InfoWorld. If you’re still using Windows XP, please give Ubuntu a try. You’ll likely curse a little …

Nerdcommenter Language specific block comments. Oh, yeah, that’s much better.

command-t Quick file searching. Similar to Fast Open in Komodo. Installation is slightly annoying (needs ruby and ruby-dev to configure, and c compiler to build.)

Fun chat with Grant Imahara from Mythbusters on his life, education, and career.

Turns out there’s a lot more Mario Paint Composer covers. Here’s some Skrillex.

Kinda makes my head hurt. via

Coding Horror: The CODE Keyboard. Interesting. Wish there was a way I could test drive it.

Silly, but fun! Mini classic Macintosh created with Raspberry Pi, runs System 6 video.

I’ve been putting off some look and feel updates to my blog for a while; Mainly, because I’m too time constrained (and/or lazy) to set up a development environment to mess around with. I’ve been …

 15 Impressive Mac Decals You Can Actually Buy.

hilarity… life of a stranger who stole my phone:. via

 Mac 101: The history of the Command key “pretzel” | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

So, last week I went my everyday ATM and notice that they swapped out the hardware. The previous generation had the cool feature that allows you to feed in printed checks (like payroll, etc) without …

FYI, I’ve got a couple of iPod touches for sale on eBay at the moment if anybody is into that kind of thing. Have at them: 3rd Generation 8Gb 4th Generation 16Gb Update: 2013-06-09 10:11pm. 3rd …

The Mrs recently told me she wanted to throw her computer out the window. She does most of her day to day computer stuff on an iPad, but uses a trusty (and a little crusty) Dell Laptop with Ubuntu for …

So, my friends <2 year old Dell laptop recently cashed itself in. Smell of toasted electronics and pretty much dead to the world. Speculated that it was a power problem and that data was probably …

I think my phone is ill. Typed in a text message, sent it, put the phone back to sleep, and slipped it back into my pocket. 2 minutes later, the vibrate function starts going off continuously. Hmm, no …

Google Street View Hyperlapse | Labs | Teehan+Lax. Stitching to together Google StreetView images into a movies. Loved the 3d effects with the clouds. via

File that under fun stuff you can do with about $2,000 worth of Legos. via

Petition | Google: Keep Google Reader Running | Change.org. Lets tell Google that Reader is worth keeping.

Google Reader Axed, Shutting Down July 1st | OMG! Chrome!. Wow, that’s a surprise. I’m one of those loyal users in the declining user base. Guess all good things must come to an end.

So, track star Usain Bolt has his own high end headphones? Lets just stop the madness now.

Its no iPad just yet, but pretty impressive out of the gate.

Google engineers found over half the bugs in Microsoft’s latest security update | The Verge. Interesting read.

color.hailpixel.com · Swatch you doing?. I think this will be my new color experiment tool. via

What is someone going to stop doing when they start using your product? by Jason Fried of 37signals. A different way to see things.

Came through my feed again, and still makes me giggle… https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat

If you really want a Microsoft Surface, get the RT; but only if you want gotta have something Surface.

Dude, you’re getting a $50 computer: The reinvention of Dell | Fox News. Interesting. Not sure I like the approach better than Ubuntu’s take it with you strategy to just have a dock for your phone on …

Pretty cool. Beyond the normal data center porn, I also liked when a disk fails, they erase it then crush it.

Recently my DVR has been acting up. Its been working 100% fine, but I’ve been hearing the tell tale signs of hard drive or fan failure. Last night, in the middle of the night, it was the white noise …

For Amusement Only: the life and death of the American arcade | The Verge. Man, I spent a frightening amount of money on video games as a kid. I remember dedicated family friendly arcades like Time …

BBC News - CES 2013: The tablet that turns itself lumpy. By lumpy, they mean buttons that grow out of the normally flat touch screen. Interesting stuff.

Upcoming Lego Mindstorms EV3 to include iOS support | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog. Want!

Sony launches the 5-inch, quad-core Xperia Z into the battle for best 1080p Android phone | The Verge. Usually android phones aren’t nearly as sexy as iPhones, but this phone comes close. All that …

When I upgraded the hard drive in my Mac earlier about 3 months ago, the same drive was $100 more than the current price. They also had 520Mb SSD for around $400 that looked super nice.

Pretty slick mockup of a completely transparent iPhone. Also shows behind the scenes making of. Fun stuff!

iPhone etiquette from Janelle Hofmann - Business Insider. Definitely keep this on the ready for the day when my kids become cell phone eligible.

So, I’ve had a trusty (and slightly crusty at this point) Brother inkjet MFC around the house for a few years now. Print quality is good enough (both text and photo), scanning works well enough, and …

Getting an Early Start - Cheezburger. and yes, that is a real book. I should pick up a copy for the kids.

‘Damn You Auto Correct’ Unveils 11 Funniest Texts of 2012. Some how, these never get old. Oh, great, now I have to check in on Autocowrecks.

Pogo Plug Pro File Server | eBay. Works fine, just doesn’t fit my needs.

What’s All the Fuss About Evernote? Should I Be Using It?. As a recent convert to the Evernote fold I found some more good tricks in there. Not sure about the GTD strategy though.

Redeem iTunes gift cards with iTunes 11 and your Mac’s camera | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog. Slick!

After noticing that my contact list in Pidgin was a lot shorter than usual, I figured out that I wasn’t connecting to Google Talk anymore. Some where along the line, I forgot to update my Pidgin …

Three Panel Soul » Archive » on Legacy Code. Yep, that’s about right. (via)

The Magic Skittle Sorter. Ah, memories. I remember back to high school, in my Principles of Engineering class, where we tried to build a similar device for sorting marbles using FischerTechnik kits. …

SQL Fiddle. Interesting. I’ve known about jsfiddle for a while. Didn’t know there was an SQL equivalent. Wow! it even lets you pick between different database engines (Mysql, Oracle, Postgresql, and …

Why Did SquareSpace’s CEO Haul Diesel Up 17 Flights of Stairs? Anything Less Would be ‘Lame’. In a related note, I was still getting responses to support emails withing 30 minutes during the crisis. …

GNU Wget. Needed to quick download a copy of a website. Quick google led me to wget, which makes the operation a simple one liner. Unfortunately, its not part of OSX command line tool kit any more. No …

Hurricane Tracker: View the 2012 storms - Weather | NBC News. A cool interactive tracker for Hurricane Sandy as it lines up a path through central New York over the next few days.

Not really. Helping cellmate set up new PC laptop with Windows 7. Internet Explorer crashes on first run. Pure awesome. Also, the process for activating a student edition of an Adobe product is about …

Geek Humor - Google+. Yep, that’s pretty accurate.

…to the tune of $7.5 million dollars. Guess that explains why I had a ginormous charge (~$158) from Dreamhost on my credit card statement this month. (mental note, guess I need to get some more …

Meet PermaTabs, a little hack that allows you to have tabs that can’t be closed. After installing it, just right click on the tab and turn on the Permanent Tab option. It also persists across …

Yes, I’ve visited the dark side; I needed to see how the other half lives. I get invitations from Microsoft all the time to attend their Developer Events. The location (Carousel Mall) and pricing …

Last night, I had two tasks for my FC5 project: Get a Parallels VM machine for Windows XP rolling.Seemed to kick off OK after having to remember how to use Parallels’ VM setup utility. A false start …

I’d love to ditch XP completely, but I still have a few things that I need windows for. My master plan is to run FC5 as the primary OS and use XP in a Parallels virtual machine. I’ve messed around …

Monday, I took a day off to concentrate on some chores that never seem to make it off my to do list. On of which was replacing the OS harddrive in my primary PC at home before its impending failure. …

On my daily run through digg, I spotted that the Windows Vista RC2 was now available to everyone (formerly it was available only to folks who signed up for the beta testing program.) I remembered that …

Haven’t had time to sit down and do any writing lately, between work, exercise, visiting relatives, and some side projects. Exercise-wise (man, that’s a nice domain. nuts, its already taken.) I’ve …

If you’ve been getting xp auto updates, it will start to download itself automagically in the background. Supposedly, this is supposed to not interfere with general operations, but it ground my …

After trying Doom 3 on my new Dell, with an almost twice as fast CPU (2.8Ghz), 25% more memory (1Gb), and a fresh Windows XP install, I was pretty disappointed with the performance. It was playable, …

My new Dell Dimension 4600 (2.8Ghz P4) desktop showed up yesterday. Picking up the shipping box, I was pleasantly surprised that the case is much lighter (a bonus when I need to shlep it from my …

News.com has an article about FTTP, aka Fiber-to-the-premises, coming soon from Verizon. Other than the benefits of potential speedup (they plan to offer 5Mb, 15Mb, and 30Mb pipes), they might add …

When I was shopping for a new cell phone recently, I was really lusting after a Handspring Treo 600. But, it at $500, it was pretty much out of my cell phone budget. So, I thought I’d have to settle …

When you transfer your existing phone number to Vonage, you need to fax them a Letter of Authorization (LOA) and copy of the first page of your current phone bill. Easy enough. So, dropped the pages …

Since I don’t have nearly enough projects going at the moment, I thought I’d throw another into the mix; switching my verizon phone line to a Vonage digital setup. My cable modem provider, Time Warner …

Duh, timezone is relative to server timezone, not local. Guess my host is somewhere in the central timezone. Hmm, that’s kinda funny. I never even thought about where the host was located before. Ah, …