Has the power light on your 2Wire wireless dsl router gone solid red? It’s highly likely that your router is just fine, but your power cord has blown a transistor/fuse/actuator/flux capacitor (or something…). There are a few forums that explain how to bust open the box containing the plug, identify the problem, and fix it for a few dollars, but most people are not going to be that brave (after all, who wants to plug that back into a power outlet after doing some Frankenstein-like tinkering, not me).  Instead, take your plug unit into a GameStop and ask for a PSP power cord.  Gamestop sells a non-OEM PSP power adapter that matched the voltage and amp specs for my 2Wire unit for around $14.99, which is obviously a lot cheaper than the $100-ish dollars your broadband provider would charge you for a replacement router.  If the power specs aren’t the same, don’t buy it, but mine matched and it worked LIKE A CHARM! Thanks for all those on all the forums out there who came before me and reported this trick works.

Investigators from the State of Iowa have now found the Emerald Ash Borer in one county in Northeast Iowa.  While fears of the spread of this tree-infesting insect have been prevalent for years, this is the first sighting of the bug in Iowa.  The Emerald Ash Borer feeds on the leaves of ash trees, but their larvae burrow underneath the bark, stripping and killing the tree as they eat and grow. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is now recommending that people do not plant ash trees.  Hit the jump for recommendations from the DNR for existsing Ash trees.

“PROTECTING YOUR TREES

Promote good health: Minimize known stresses to trees, such as parking vehicles on their roots. Avoid projects that could disturb the roots. Don’t landscape or plant around the base of the tree. Water trees during long dry periods.

Insecticides: At this time, the DNR is not recommending trees in Iowa be treated with insecticides to prevent Emerald Ash Borer infestations.

Planting new trees: Officials advise against planting new ash trees. Find a list of alternative trees at www.emeraldashborer.info/replacement.cfm

WHAT TO DO IF YOU SPOT INFESTATION

• Take distance and close-up photos of the tree to show symptoms. Collect any adult beetles or larvae in a closed container. Contact the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (515)725-1470.

• If you spot suspicious firewood call the Iowa DNR at (515) 281-5918.”

What do you think Iowans, will you be replacing your Ash trees now, or taking your chances?

Source: Des Moines Register

Do you feel guilty when you sneak that donut?  Do you imagine your wife giving you a dirty look as you lick the frosting off of your fingers?  Well, you don’t have to anymore.  Holey Donuts! is a company based on the East coast that has developed a line of great tasting, low fat donuts and will ship them anywhere in the country.  These donuts are so low in fat and calories compared to their competition that they actually advertise the nutritional differences as an up-front part of their brand strategy.  One prominent example from the Holey Donuts! website compares Holey Donuts! Chocolate Crumb Donut to Krispy Kreme’s Chocolate Iced-Filled Cream Donut and Dunkin Donuts Frosted Old Fashioned donut.  The Holey Donut! brand desert is 1/2 to 1/3 the calories and 1/6th to 1/8th the fat.  You might be reading this and wonder whether something so much lower in all the bad stuff (the traditionally good tasting stuff) could taste good.  I can tell you these donuts do taste good.  My personal favorite is the Low Fat Cinnamon Bun Middles (so gooey and good with a bit of apple filling in the center…mmm!).  Now these donuts are not cheap, mostly due to the shipping cost as they come packaged frozen in dry ice, so you would probably want to order several boxes at a time.  Think of them as a gourmet treat, but one that isn’t going to be a belt-buster.

Check out Holey Donuts! website and read their interesting story.

The NY Times has taken on the massive challenge of analyzing and untangling Facebook’s privacy settings.  I’m not sure they’ve untangled those options enough for users to fully understand what they are up against if they want to keep their information private, but hey, at least they gave it the old college try and make it look pretty scary in the process.  See here for the horror that is Facebook’s privacy options map.

Source: New York Times

Tweetdeck is my favorite stand-alone desktop Twitter client, but I’ve been complaining about its iPad app for several weeks now, due to its propensity to lag significantly in pretty much every way after a day’s use.  Tweetdeck’s support forum for the iPad continues to show no known issues…hmm.  Tonight, I was overjoyed to see their iPad app update in the App Store. The release notes promise a fix for “performance degradation over time.” I sure hope this update does the trick, because I’ve yet to find another iPad Twitter app with as many features for that magic price of FREE.  Fingers crossed.

Families and teachers rejoice!  Youtube has filled a gap in their service by adding the option to upload a video that is viewable by non-Youtube account holders, but is not accessable to the public via search results or in user pages.  Essentially, to view the video, you either have to be the account holder, or have been provided with the URL.  This should be a great option for teachers to communicate with their students, and for families to share video without making them public or requiring the recipient to create a Youtube account (which, prior to today, were the only ways for others to be able to view Youtube videos).

Source: Youtube, CNET

Today, Google added a useful new feature to Gmail, essentially allowing users to drag and drop images into new emails.  There are no labs features to enable, simply drag the image in, resize it on the fly and you’re done.  Once caveat is that this feature is available only when using Google’s Chrome browser for now, but Google promises to bring the feature to other browsers soon.  This is a great addition to an already great product.  Thanks Google!  Hit the jump for Google’s full release.

Full Blog Post:

“Recently, we launched a feature that allows you to drag an attachment from your computer right onto Gmail.

I’ve always been a fan of the inserting image lab, so I naturally wondered if it would be possible to combine the two.

Today we’re launching a feature that allows you to drag images from your computer into a message. You don’t have to have the insert image lab enabled for it to work. Just drag the image in, resize it if you want, and send.

Currently, this feature only works in Google Chrome, but will be coming soon to other browsers.”

Smartypig is an online savings service that in my opinion has really improved its users’ chances for savings success.  Essentially users link their bank account to Smartypig and set up one or more savings goals.  Savings goals each have a specific time horizon, which is used to set the amount of the automatic monthly transfer from the user’s traditional brick and morter bank account into the Smartypig account.  The interest rate is very competitive compared to traditional brick and mortar bank rates (2.01% as of the date of this article with a increase to 2.15% scheduled for mid-May 2010). Smartypig is on the bleeding-edge of social media integration with users able to share their savings goals with friends and family through Facebook and Twitter with the hope that others will contribute to help reach their goal.  Smartypig was officially launched in the Spring of 2008 by a couple of entrepreneurs with the help of a few corporate investors including Westbank based in Des Moines, Iowa. Smartypig accounts are FDIC insured.

I’ve used Smartypig for almost a year now and am very pleased with the system.  While I don’t share my savings goals or ask others to contribute, I do like the fact that the funds transfers are automatic and take place without any action by me other than the initial setup.  Savings goals can be stopped at any time with funds either transferred back to the linked brick and mortar bank account, transferred to a prepaid debit card, or transferred to a retailer gift card with retailer discounts of up to 12% built-in with retailers like Best Buy and Amazon.com on board.

If you’re looking for a great way to save money for that shiny new car or Coach handbag, I strongly recommend Smartypig.  Let me know in the comments what online savings account you use and why.

After trying several Twitter extensions for Firefox, one has risen to the top as my favorite – Echofon.  Echofon is a standalone program for Macs and iPhones, but they’ve also graciously allowed users of other OS’s to get in on the fun.  The Echofon extension is installed as a button in the lower right corner of the Firefox window and shows you a number of unread tweets.  Once you click on the button, a window pops-up with a list of your follower’s twitter updates.  you can reply, retweet, retweet with comment (my favorite), star a tweet, open links in the background, manual refresh, and more.  There are a few themes to chose from including black, Mac, Windows XP  and Windows Vista/7.  There is even support for multiple twitter accounts.

For those needing a change of pace from their current Twitter client or the Twitter webpage, give Echofon a try.   Let me know your favorite Twitter client in the comments!