Ready, Aye, Ready

Link: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/02/18/somebut-not-allof-th.html

Anyone who has been into a computer components store in the last five years has seen these monstrosities: poorly rendered or airbrushed genre art (typically fantasy or science-fiction) placed prominently on a cardboard box that has nothing more interesting than silicon chips in it.

Naturally BoingBoing has put together a gallery of their favourites.

(Via Wired)

Link: http://gizmodo.com/343686/iphone-starbucks-ordering-screens-look-like-the-real-thing-precede-apple-patent

I have a sneaking suspicion I know at least one person who would buy an iPhone specifically for this app were it ever realised...

(Via Engagdget)

Recently I've had two minor complaints that were dealt with in a way I felt was wrong. It's not that the people involved were rude or difficult but simply that their initial reaction was not what would have been easiest or most appropriate.

Full story »

Recently I got my hands on a Freecom MusicPal, a rather cool little internet-radio aware alarm clock. I'll probably get around to writing a review once I've had it running for a few weeks and worked through its idiosyncracies.

Full story »

Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/w00kie/sets/180637/

The concept is cool: take a picture of the space behind your computer, place it appropriately onscreen, and then take another photo of the result so that it looks as if the screen isn't there.

It's entirely impractical, but it does look great.

(Via Gizmodo)

Link: http://community.livejournal.com/wow_ladies/838090.html

Funny post about the problems of scheduling a family life around World Of Warcraft.

(Via Kottke)

Link is to an entertaining article from dating site Lavalife on various, uh, problems people have encountered on St. Valentine's.

It's much funnier than the similiarly named "I Love Valentines" from the same author which appears to be a standard "Do This" requirements note.

Anyway, love ya, D!

(Update 2008/02/15: link purged as it now points to an article on where to have sex; interesting, but somewhat misleading for the purposes of this post...)

Link: http://www.teenbuzz.org/

Over on his Facebook page, Ritchie made an offhand comment about still being able to hear 17.4 kHz. My first response was "huh?" The second response was a little smarter, involved Google and thus resulted in the link above.

So, now I know the word "presbycusis" and feel a little smarter. However, I also now know that I've lost the ability to heard much about 15 kHz which leaves me a bit sadder. Still, at least it gets rid of that annoying hum from the flyback transformer on older CRTs. Win some, lose some.

Link: http://lifehacker.com/software/mac-os-x/how-to-mount-a-windows-shared-folder-on-your-mac-247148.php

I suspect this is old hat to most but the link is to a how-to on mounting remote Windows file systems under OSX.

Leopard (Tiger too) does a decent job of allowing you to locate via the Finder machines on local subnets and workgroups. However it never displays other machines that may be accessible. Under XP or Vista one always had access to the Network Neighbourhood which would display a wider range of options or the "Start" menu where the UNC path could be entered. Under OSX it's a little less obvious.

But it's not hard. The short version is:

1. Go to the Finder menu
2. Select the "Connect to server"
3. Type in "smb://192.168.0.1/" where that IP is replaced by whatever the machine is called. You can also include a path or an administrative share (like "C$") at the end of that string to go directly to the location.
4. Authenticate yourself.

To be fair to Apple, the process is documented in their online help but it's a bit obscure. You need to first know the terms you're looking for and then you need to understand what they say. It's not point-and-click easy here. For what it's worth, the other connection strings available are AFP (AppleTalk networking), SMB/CIFS (Samba/Windows file share/Printer sharing), NFS (UNIX network filesharing), FTP and VNC.

PocketGear just sent out an email advertising one of their regular promotions. It was (as one might expect for this week) Valentine's Day themed. The kicker was in the title of the email:

Subject: Spending Valentine's Day Alone? Try Astraware Solitaire!

Nasty, but rather accurate too...

Link: http://funtasticus.com/20080110/a-selection-of-perfect-ads/

As the the title says. I'm not sure all of them were actual adverts so much as people's concepts though.

(Via Kottke)

Link: http://www.lawnbott.com/products_view1.aspx?id=6

I liked the idea of the Roomba enough to buy one. I love the idea of a lawn mower that works the same way too, but for $2500? That just hurts.

(Via Engadget)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPgV6-gnQaE

"Dude; it's coming from inside our house!"

(Via Wired)

Link: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/31/new-tsa-requirement.html

I never really did like flying and it's getting progressively worse dealing with American airports. It shouldn't be too long until my entire carry-on luggage is composed of smaller bags to be run through security independently.

While traveling this morning I surprised to find out that TSA is now requiring that you remove all electronic devices from your carry-on bags, including cables etc. and place them in a separate bin to be scanned at the security checkpoints.

Link: http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2710

Submitted with no further comment.