Lost in translation? pupil-rubbing machine.
We are constantly bombarded with emails from Chinese manufacturers, touting all kinds of strange products, I kind of think these are small operations trying to emulate the success of others, but not there just yet. Although I am sort of intrigued by this "eye massager"
Hooks into your USB port, then what? I don't want to end up on the church lawn clawing my eyes out. They need to provide more details. Can I wear it in the bathtub?
Labels: advertising, China, computers, oddities
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Like a keyboard but it's not.
I recently discovered that (at least in Windows XP) There is an "On screen keyboard" option. If your keyboard acts up sometimes (I had one of light-up keyboards that turned out to be krap) - Try this;
Start menu->Select Run->Type OSK->Press OK
You will get a virtual keyboard , you can use your mouse to type on it. Makes me wonder what other treasures are hidden in that beige box by my knee.
Labels: computers
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Mouse balls get a new life when Midge and Barbie take up dodgeball
My sister is selling a computer and wants to know what you would use to *permanently* delete data on the hard drive, without reformatting.
I have never tried to do that. By the time everyone in the house has had a go at a computer, the thing is ready for the scrap heap. The last one actually made smoke when it fried out.
I have several old hard drives in the garage, want to find some tinted resin stuff to pour in the top, put rubber feet on the bottom, those high-tech coasters make excellent Christmas gifts. Perhaps we could make floppy disk cookies too. Nobody steal my idea now.
Labels: arts and crafts, computers, homemade gifts
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No need for second toolbar of links on Firefox?
I was looking for a "Second Icon Row" add-on for my Firefox browser, but this guy had a better way... just delete the text part of existing icons, it saves tons of room... But some items on my toolbar have "blank page" icons so now I need to find out how to have a library of substitute icons to use for those.
For instance, I have a quick link there to a B&B the wife and I are going to next week, I could put a tiny cottage icon there.
My apologies for losing track of who originally said this; I think it was from one of those "Lifehacks" pages.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Bookmark the site on the bookmarks toolbar
>Right click the link
>Scroll down to Properties
>Delete all text from the name:field
After which all that remains is the site's very own icon that by default
doubles the available real estate on your BM Toolbar space without placing
extra burden on your available RAM or having to deal with the inexplicable
effect some extensions are known to cause.
Labels: computers, lifehacks
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Ebay shipping problem fixed
We were having a problem where Ebay multiple-item orders were being charged $4.99 per item for shipping, instead of $4.99 for the whole shipment.
Of course this involves me having to come up with a workaround, all the while bowing and scraping like the chastised waiter on Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It annoys the customer and makes us look like we either don't know what we are doing, or worse yet it makes us look like we are pulling a fast one.
Anyway, turns out the problem was as simple as unchecking a box on one of the shipping settings screens at my web store provider's site.
That thing is truly cumbersome and puzzling to me, it's a Rube Goldberg contraption, and I always hesitate to monkey with it. I think that's how they like it.
Again I apologize to those who were temporarily thwarted in their purchasing efforts.
Labels: computers, webstores
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Does it work? Flock Browser
Checking out this Flock browser, supposed to make blogging, posting to flickr, etc. a lot easier- Looks like it does that, and I like the intro screen that presents your recent sites, etc. without any tweaking first. It made me a bit leery at first, took a long time to install (by modern standards) and seemed to be doing a lot of fiddling with my computer's internal dials and switches.
Does seem to run faster than Firefox though. More on this later.
PHOTO: Teresa at the Everett "Sausage Festival" in 05. I thoughtfully included porta-potty row in this picture.
Blogged with Flock
Labels: computers, photos, software, Teresa
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All systems go
One of our ecommerce vendors had this to say;
At approximately 2:30am PST we experienced a failure in the core SAN (Storage Area Network) of both the secondary controller, and a single disk in the primary mirrored set. The problem appears to be with the backplane of the SAN controller, not necessarily with the secondary controller per se, but the primary controller is unable to speak with it.Translation; someone spilled Diet Coke into the computer rack. Or, it's the catastrophic converter, knowwhatimean?
Labels: computers
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Thirteen ghosts and a zombie computer
I just got an email from a "Paul Smith" regarding "The Late Dr. Everett's estate" - It instructs to open a PDF attachment.
I'm sure everyone here knows not to open an email attachment even from someone they know, unless they had previously arranged and know for sure what's inside. Virus spreaders are always coming up with new technological and psychological tricks. I am ashamed to admit that I almost opened that one, but if I inherited something I'm sure that I would be notified by US certified mail as is the accepted procedure. Besides, with my luck I would have to spent the night in a decrepit haunted mansion as a precondition.
Labels: computers, spam
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The web of tommorow IN YOUR BRAIN!!!
A woman switches on a tiny wireless chip that has been surgically implanted behind her ear, which then synchs up with the Web wherever she is in the world. The simple thought of logging on to the Internet triggers the system to turn on and connect to the Web. She could be on a bus or at the beach and from all outward appearances she's just staring off into space. But she sees a three dimensional artificial world before her that she can manipulate any way she chooses by mere thought alone.
YABUT... What's to stop her from using it while she drives a car? (Assuming we get to have cars in the future) - Another worry, what if they let GUYS use this technology? I'm not letting my daughter ride the bus with guys who have mental images of SEX in their heads all day. Oh crud- OK I'm not letting my daughter ride the bus.
What's to stop corporate spammers from using this connection to make you salivate every time you see their product?
And there surely would be a multi-tiered system where the rich people will get the nice systems with full access and fully imbedded, while us common folk will be walking around with Commodore 64's duct taped to our heads, only able to use clunky word processing software and play Zork adventure games. There would probably be some kids who download a ringtone that won't shut off, having a seizure at the bus stop.
Already demonstrated in the lab is the ability to cause a computer to react to thought alone. Duke University neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis works in the field of BMI (brain-machine interface). In an experiment involving a monkey, a computer and a monitor, Nicolelis and his team successfully caused the monkey to communicate with and control a robotic arm through its brain's neural signals alone.
Can we trust lab scientists with this much power?
We know the military is already working on this; they suffered a minor setback due to the actions of Matthew Broderick and Helen Hunt, but you know they won't give up until we have a big war between the MACpeople, and the PCpeople. I figure the Unixpeople already have these interfaces but they are evolved beyond making war. OH CRUD I just had another thought- (hate it when that happens) If the scientists at the food companies get ahold of this, I shudder to think of what I will be eating. Excuse me- (HON Where are the Cheetos??)
(Story from an email via "Site Pro News" by Jason O'connor of OakWebWorks.com)
Labels: brains, computers, military industrial complex, technology
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