Day: April 6, 2006

Now you can Blue Screen a Mac

bsodimac.jpgSince every techie site in the web-o-verse is covering this, I’ll just pick one and let you dig for more info from there. With the announcement of Apple’s Boot Camp, you can now easily load Windows XP on your X86 Mac.  Some sites are reporting the the Vista install and Debian install processes start up, but those same people have been a little gun-shy trying the full install. No word, therefore, on whether you can actually get other operating systems running, but it looks promising.

[tags]Mac, Blue Screen, XP on Mac X86[/tags]

Portable media players are finally getting close to affordable

Samsung-yp.jpgWell, at least close to what I consider affordable. You can now pre-order the Samsung’s YM-P1 portable/personal media player for only $370 according to the Samsung page. And it’s t3h sw3ck-See.

The YM-P1 features a 16M-color 4″ TFT widescreen display, 20GB of storage, MP3 / WMA / OGG / AC3 audio playback, MPEG-4 / DivX / WMV video playback, JPG / BMP photo viewing, line-in video recording, voice recording, FM tuner, SDIO memory card and expansion slots, USB host functionality, and a 15-hour battery life (6 hours for video). The domestically released YM-PD1 includes the addition of T-DMB TV reception.

[tags]Samsung, PMP[/tags]

Self-parking car from Toyota in US soon

(via Engadget)

I know sooooo many people who need this.  It amazes me how much trouble people have parallel parking.

Vehicles that are able to parallel park themselves while drivers sit and relax behind the wheel are coming to the United States, according to a Local 6 News report.

New Toyota hybrid cars are now available in Britain with a $700 “parking assist” option.

Local 6 news showed video of a driver sitting and allowing the car’s steering wheel to turn on its own as it pulled into a tight parking spot on a London street. The reporter never touched the wheel as the car parked itself.

[tags]Self-parking car, Toyota[/tags]

Your guide to all shoe tying knowledge

(via MAKEzine blog)

tie-shoes.jpg

If LatticeLacing18.jpgyou find your shoelaces just don’t have to pep they used to, maybe you are tying them wrong. Why not visit Ian’s shoelace site and learn how to to a better job with those shoelaces?

Slipping Shoelaces?
Do your shoelaces always seem to come undone? If so, you’re probably tying a “Slip” knot, and one simple change to your technique will turn it into a “Reef” knot that stays secure. Note that my “Ian Knot“, the World’s Fastest Shoelace Knot, forms a secure “Reef” knot!

[tags]Shoelaces, Knots[/tags]

Don’t like it? Get out!

That’s the message from the Australian government to Muslims who might prefer Sharia law to the democratic law Australia currently lives under.  It is my opinion that we Americans should take the same stance with people who live her that don’t like our style of government or our national language.  But I’m sure that’s just crazy talk on my part.

CANBERRA AUSTRALIA: Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown.

[tags]Australia, Muslims, Good leadership[/tags]

Comcast can’t tell what day it is?

If you love to complain about bad service, you really should visit The Consumerist.  I’ve posted enough stories from the site, though, that if you were going to visit, you would have by now.  So maybe I’m wasting bits suggesting a visit now.

Regardless, there is a new story up at The Consumerist that I particularly like, and felt the need to highlight.  In this tale, Jenna has a problem with her cable box from Comcast.  This should be easy.  One just needs a visit from a tech to replace the box (assuming, as is the case in this story, one can’t or doesn’t want to take the box to the Comcast office).  Being unavailable for an earlier visit, Jenna and her husband schedule a Saturday tech visit.  Only things don’t work out that well.  The techs show up Thursday night when no one is home.  Jenna reschedules for Saturday again…

I hung around all morning on Saturday waiting for a tech, and at 2 I called the Comcast helpline. The guy who answered looked up our record and said that we’d instead been scheduled for Friday and the tech had reported that…drum roll…no one was home. I explained that this was the second time in a row their helpdesk had been unable to determine what day “Saturday” is, and I was less than pleased at having wasted a morning waiting for a repairman. He said that he would put me down for a “VIP” call, which meant that I would be put at the top of the repairman’s work list, and he would get to me some time that day. So I waited the rest of the day.

No call back, of course, but another visit is scheduled.  Only it doesn’t seem to get better.  Poor Jenna.

[tags]Comcast, customer service[/tags]