I wish Dell wouldn’t use weird connectors for their laptop hard drives. I opened up an HP laptop and there was no unusual connector, it was straight IDE. Two of the laptops I have gotten from Krissy’s dad are missing the converter from IDE to some proprietary thing. Now I get to troll around on eBay and bid ninety-nine cents and pay six dollars in shipping on these things. I can’t wait for the UPS ground to get from Florida to California. Let’s see how long it takes.
My father-in-law works at a great place for finding abandoned computers. Organizations for higher learning are constantly ditching old computers and things that have only minor problems with individual components. He got me three Dell laptops that have only minor problems. I only have a single hard drive for the three of them, so that’s obviously a problem. One of the laptops is missing the connector for the hard drive as well as the hard drive itself. One of them has a problem with the keyboard where the “8” key only works if you twist the display a little bit. That’s obviously a contact problem somewhere. My hope is to get at least one of them working so that Krissy and I can each have our own laptops instead of sharing one.
tovid is a set of scripts that makes it easy and painless to convert any video you can play with mplayer to a DVD compliant video and even create a DVD structure to burn onto a disc. These video conversion scripts are amazing. I have used them to convert a PowerPoint slide show that I exported to an AVI file of pictures from my mission in Germany. It’s great to finally get this out of a proprietary format before I can no longer play it. It was created by the missionaries in the Mission Office and was synched up to music.
To get tovid and to learn how to set it up, just go to http://tovid.wikia.com.
Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video is one of the greatest music videos of all time. Check out what happens when you throw LEGO in the mix!
I wish this guy would have used a better camera so that things in the foreground weren’t outof focus. Still, I would love to see more work by these people.
According to a blog post a new airless tire with spokes may soon be released for use on consumer automobiles. No more flats? Easier home replacement? I say lemme at em! Thanks to Randy for pointing this story out to me.
I was not aware of this before now, but apparently the Wii might run a version of the Linux kernel. It will also be updatable remotely. From an interview on Nintendo’s website:
Wii is the first system from Nintendo that we can continue to be involved in (via operating system updates) after the customer buys it. This means that Wii will greatly expand and diversify the ways in which people will enjoy games in the future.
This could be exciting. I just hope they don’t use this as a way to ruin everyone’s fun with regards to homebrew games, etc.
Those most likely to pirate music are between the ages of 13 and 17. That same age group shares something else in common. They can’t get a credit card on their own. Why is this important? You need a credit card to purchase music online. You can’t buy MP3s at the music store. Kids don’t want to buy CDs. I think if there were an easy way for kids to buy music online then they would do it, but only if it were easy to buy individual tracks. This won’t stop music piracy, but if they could get a song easier and faster by buying it and they already knew they liked it, then they would buy it. I think kids just want to try out music without getting burned. Everyone has bought at least one CD that you thought you would like and after trying it twice you just couldn’t stand it. Is there a solution to this problem?
I’ve finally made the decision that I’m going to sell my Gamecube. The sooner the better, I figure, as far as getting money for it goes. I am saving up to buy the Wii as soon as it comes out. I will try to have enough money by then for at least one extra controller and nunchaku and at least one extra game. The way I see it that’s about $325. I am already up to $110 allocated for the Wii. Nintendo appears to have the upper hand with their next console release. The anticipation of the Wii is incredible. I’ve been evangelizing it like crazy and everyone I talk to about it seems really excited. It will be interesting to see if Nintendo can push this one into the mainstream and shake off their kiddie image.
Krissy and I rarely order pizza, but on kind of a fluke we’ve ordered pizza twice in the last two weeks. The first time we ordered was for just the two of us. We both like Pizza Hut so I decided to check out what sorts of specials they have at pizzahut.com. You have to create an account at either site before you can order. I was impressed that they were able to find my address and which restaurant services our apartment because it is in a relatively newly developed area. The controls for ordering made what could have been very complicated process rather simple while still allowing for maximum flexibility. I was able to pay for the pizzas using a credit card online. All I had to do once they arrived was sign the receipt.
Lst night we ordered pizza for the family we’re taking care of. They usually buy from Dominos, so I hopped online to see if I could order using dominos.com. Their interface is a little bitty clunky. It looks like a website designed in 1998. It failed to find both my home address and the address of the family we were with. It isn’t surprising that our apartment wasn’t in the database, but this house has been here for years! I don’t know how the credit card processing works because we paid in cash. They were very fast and prompt delivering exactly on time. I take off points, though, for popups used for no reason.
If you want to order pizza online you can choose whichever you like best, but I think I’ll stick with Pizza Hut.
Digital Restrictions Management, or DRM, forces people to buy the same sond over and over again or be forced to do things the way that others dictate. Click on the link to find out more!
Recent Comments