"I think you'll like it."

Myvu PMV-1003i: Some Brief Notes

2009-11-09T16:13:00.004-06:00

This isn't a review, just some observations on this nice for the price little device. (Wasn't that a 'They Might Be Giants' lyric?

For those of you googling a bit about it, I did not see mentioned that the USB port on the iPod connector is passthrough for sync and charge, and works with a standard mini USB cable.

This means with the myvu glasses connected to your iPhone, and a standard USB to mini USB cable, you can sync and charge your iPhone or other device that uses the iPod connector. I sort of guard my iPhone cable, I'd rather lose a mini USB that you can get anywhere for a thruppence. Of course, the PMV-1003i does not work with the iPhone for viewing videos. Less cables to carry.

This means you can also supply power to your iPod and the myvu with almost any sort of device or battery pack. Handy, as the myvu is powered by the iPod, and the iPod battery gets used a lot quicker from playing video anyway.

Some complain about the contrast and brightness. On mine, the left eye's LCD display is more washed out than the right.

To help contrast and brightness, you could cover the front of the glasses with a cut to fit piece of low tack tape. It's a feature supposed to let you sort of see through the glasses at the same time but it washes out the display a bit. They are so thin, you can just look over the top or under the bottom if you need to.

I picked up a nearly unused one for $45 and for that price it's a nice piece of tech to have. If only it didn't work just with the iPod 5th generation...but then again I couldn't have picked it up for $45.

Oh, you Star Wars Nuts!

2009-11-09T10:29:00.002-06:00

Pretty funny: A TaunTaun sleeping bag. For the half-frozen young Jedi in training at your house.

'Community' Clip: Chevy Chase trades barbs with Joel McHale

2009-11-07T20:55:00.007-06:00

This is an awesome sandwich. Chevy Chase and Joel McHale trading slamming yet dry insults at each other. Insults so barbed, they may cause you internal hemorrhaging.

Smoothie And Margarite Machine Bargain

2009-11-06T13:28:00.003-06:00

I got one like this a few years back for $30.

What got me to make this post is the fact I had a friend who got one of these:

Now, I'm envious, but the Back to Basics falls within my budget. It has three things that make it a great deal in my book: a stirring stick that goes down through the center that you stir around while it's blending (nothing gets stuck in the pitcher) , a power spout at the bottom that turns on when you want to drink your creation, and a great warranty.

I had to get a replacement for my motor, and something else minor had broken, so they just sent me a whole new one after asking a few questions on the phone! So now I've got spare parts from the old one. Haven't had any problems with the replacement. IIRC, the warranty is 3 years. (!)

Oh, and Cheri, feel free to invite me for margaritas so you can show me yours. As a gadget dood, I'd like to get to play with one. I've seen them in the department stores, but they never give demonstrations.

If HEB can give wine samples, why can't they give margarita machine demos?

Stomache Ulcers: The Big Kids' Disease

2009-11-06T08:02:00.002-06:00

My daughter who's 10 is a pain to get up in the morning. I know, right?

So I got her an alarm clock.

I hear it, I wait a little while (mine's set for the same time), and go to check on her. She's up and dressed for school and watching TV upstairs!

Later I hug her and her hair is wet.

'Did you have a shower this morning too?' I had told her last night she should have one but I myself had forgotten.

"Yes."

'Wow, you got up that quick and did all that?' (I'm so impressed!)

"I woke up before my alarm clock."

'What!? Why did you do that?!' (You don't know my daughter. This is unusual.)

"I woke up and then couldn't go back to sleep because I was worried about sleeping through my alarm clock."

They grow up so fast! That's a big people worry. Next, she'll start making her own black coffee in the morning and going through her Power Point presentation before work.

Another rough weather day

2009-11-05T17:00:00.000-06:00

Where's your summer heat NOW Houston?!

A Story

2009-11-04T09:09:00.003-06:00

I was enjoying a guilty pleasure (People of WalMart.com) and saw:

I'm sure this is either Kid Rock or Jay from 'Jay and Silent Bob fame'.

It reminded me of a story (doodley doo, doodley doo <=-distant memory sound effects)...

We were looking at houses in Oklahoma City back in 1998 when we were moving there. We looked at this one house just because it said it had a secret room. You know you want one too.

Well, the house wasn't what we wanted but we did come away with a gem of a story: The room was concealed by having a door that was covered in faux cheap paneling (yeah I know, right?) so that the seams met just so.

We pushed it open to reveal a room filled with skulls.

Yes, skulls.

Evidently this person collected skulls of all sorts. I don't remember all the varieties but here's the FTW part: on a table by the door was a CATALOGUE to a company that SELLS skulls.

Bonus to the FTW, it was also located in Oklahoma City.

Here, I believe, is that company's website.

(Dang, shoulda got this one in before Halloween.)

Santa! I love Santa!

2009-11-04T09:06:00.001-06:00

I found it when I was digging out the Dia de Los Muertos decorations. I had moved it out of the way and not put it back. It's a childhood thing, and that's going back to at least the 70's. An ode to made in America plastics (it's so old it doesn't even say where it was made!). I love all the little details, like the lumpy sack and the present on top. (Don't say it). If you smell it closely, you can smell memories of Christmases past and what used to be a legal plastics additive no doubt. And notice Santa has a whip? You'd never get that past PETA these days. Don't want the kids to think it's OK to spur the reindeer on.

Quick and cheap last minute Halloween Costumes

2009-10-28T14:03:00.004-06:00

I found this link today. Good stuff. A few examples:

Dress normally. Pin some socks, dryer sheets, hand towels to your shirt. Static cling.

Carry around some paper. If someone asks what you are tear one up. What are you? A paper shredder.

Wear a t-shirt with a large ? (question mark) on it. Tape popcorn to it. What are you? A pop quiz.

World of Warcraft Tip: Can't see 'Consecration' effect for Paladin spell?

2009-10-26T21:32:00.004-06:00

Can't see the ground glowing under your Paladin when you cast 'Consecration' while playing World of Warcraft? Hit 'ESC' then go through the menus: Video-=>Effects-=> enable 'Projected Textures' by checking the box.

Kinda makes it hard to see when the spell effect is up without that huh?

Chris Farley and David Spade's DirecTV ad

2009-10-26T19:52:00.002-06:00

Some say it's exploitative. Well, what in Hollywood isn't? As a fan of 'Tommy Boy' and the Farley/Spade duo, I don't mind.

To me, the line at the end of 'It never gets old.' sort of honors his memory. And the movie 'Tommy Boy' was the duo at it's best, or close to it. A modern comedy classic.

Tupac's still releasing ablums, why can't Farley and Spade do a reminiscent commercial?

A Feel Good TV Show

2009-10-23T14:33:00.003-05:00

(Click pic for large size.)

'Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?' making you feel less than adequate? Let's take it down a notch.

PETA collides with NOW: Thousands injured

2009-10-23T14:09:00.005-05:00

"Playboy Playmate of the Year Jayde Nicole (L) and Playmate Joe Garcia (C) serve veggie hot dogs as part of an event put on by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)"

Where is NOW now?

Oh, the humanity. I guess it's ok to exploit the poor Playmates, but not the stuff that goes into hotdogs.

Can't they grow them in a vat by now?

The hotdogs I mean, not the Playmates.

Which brings me to my next comic...

theroblog Original Comic

2009-10-23T12:57:00.003-05:00

(Click for larger.)

Sometimes I have (what I think) is a comic-worthy idea...I kinda wish I had a drawing tablet. Lord knows I have every other peripheral. Penny Arcade watch out!

Microsoft Opens First Retail Store in Scottsdale, AZ

2009-10-23T08:53:00.004-05:00

My first thought was: "Snobsdale, Arizona?!". To wit: I have some experience in the area. At the end of 2005, I was at a Christmas party in Snobsdale for Mesa Airlines. That's another article entirely.

Let's see: no parking to be found, $5 for a BOTTLED beer that wasn't even cold, and THE TAP WAS BROKEN. Ok, aren't you supposed to be a high end glitzy club in Scottsdale? The finger food was extremely 'meh' as well, but that could have been 3rd party.

A town for sizzle, not for steak.

Plus I know a few Scottsdalers...and I will take the high road on that.

Keep it.

So, what I'm thinking is, wouldn't Scottsdale be more the province of the Apple elite?

(And I hate that about the Apple brand, they make darn good stuff and I'm a fan, but get off your high horse. It's a real turn off.)

All I'm sayin' is, to me Microsoft / PC is something of the province of the build your own PC to the level you want crowd. Be it $2000 worth of graphics cards in SLI with a quad core CPU and 16 gigs of RAM, or a little crapbox with 2 gigs of RAM, leftover hard and optical drives with onboard video.

Hack it, change it, do what you want. Windows will work on it.

Apple is more for the buy it, it works, I'll keep it for 7 years until I'm forced to upgrade or my cat pees in it. Or, 'look at how much money I've spent on less actual hardware with a cooler design'. (Another peeve of mine.)

I'm not doggin' on either concept, I have both 'brands'. Two iPhones, iPod Video, Macbook, HP Laptop, Dell PC, and a couple of homebuilt PCs.

All I'm saying is, Microsoft, you don't have to be Apple. There's a place for you. Get your own thing. You're not going to find it in Scottsdale.

Somewhere in independent-minded Texas perhaps. Want cool and independent? Austin. Plus I hear there's a major PC manufacturer headquartered there.

Barnes and Noble Nook eReader: I wish I had a hands on review, so somebody send me one!

2009-10-22T12:31:00.003-05:00

I've recently sold a few of the Sony PRs-505's on Amazon, I've used various PDAs and software (Palm, Microsoft, iPhone) for reading books over the years, and I actually owned and used a dedicate device: the REB-1100. Google that stuff if you want and I'll wait here. Remember Smartmedia cards? 128MB max capacity children. I had a voluminous 64 meg card...ah, memories. No pun intended.

With such things, my fancy has returned to eReader devices. (iTablet, Apple?)

Anyhoo, the new shiny to my eye is the Nook, from Barnes and Noble.

In years to come, we'll laugh at its black and white only paperlike screen, and wonder why they didn't make the whole thing color, like the touchscreen at the bottom.

Well, enough future and past tense wistfulness. In short, this thing looks to have the goods. It's all over the Kindle, from all directions. 3G? Course. WiFi? Check. Design? Dittoes. Memory slot, cool color browsing on the bottom, and the list goes on.

Since I don't have a Kindle or a Nook (someone send me review units please) I'll just have to say that it appears from what I've seen, my vast experience as a Gadget guru, and some tea leaves I just read, the Nook *IS* the Kindle killer, as long as Johnny 'Corporate Suit' Lawyerpants doesn't burden it with DRM, and resultant restrictions and rear end pain.

Here's a chart of features: (click for fullscreen)

What I hope to see change is the text to speech feature added (for accessibility), and Word doc compatibility. Although you can just use CutePDF to print PDFs anyway, it would be nice to be able to email a Word doc to someone's Nook.

What really could set it apart would be the ability to load Android apps and have them display on the screen at the bottom! Weather, headlines, stock, sports scores, games, you name it. Click a link at the bottom to say, a NY Times article, and read it at the top on the high res epaper.

Not only would that extend readability and features, but you might get some crossover purchases from the smartphone/laptop crowd.

In summary, it looks like a thoroughly thought out and and richly featured device.

Now someone send me a review copy. Mine to keep? Why, that's so nice of you B&N!

The official site: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/

How to burn a DVD from a DVD Media Player Document

2009-10-21T09:47:00.003-05:00

This is a simple one. Just right click on the DVD Media Player document file and select 'Show Package Contents'. Then you will see the VIDEO_TS folder. Now you can burn it in Toast or other DVD burning software.

I recommend dragging it out of the package onto the desktop, and then from there to your burning software. You can put it back in the package after you are done. Anecdotal evidence from me, YMMV.

iTunes 9 not Recognizing iPod Video, Classic, and others?

2009-10-20T09:16:00.002-05:00

My iPod 5th Generation model MA002LL/A is not recognized by iTunes 9 (fix it Apple!) and it would only show up as a drive on Macs and on Windows Vista.

I restored it a few times on both the Mac and the PC, changed the assigned driver letter in Vista, waved a live chicken around, etc.

I've tried Intel and Power PC computers OS X, both running iTunes 9.0.1 (9) builds and Vista on a PC runing 9.0.1.8 (so some curious naming conventions for updates) and nothing.

Also the Power PC is OS X 10.4.11 Server. The Intel Mac is 10.5.8. The PC is Vista Ultimate.

The only version that works is iTunes 8.2.1.6 on XP Home SP3. It connects and syncs fine.

So, guess what, I think we can safely say iTunes 9 is broken with older iPods! There's no way it works fine with 8, and does not work on iTunes 9 across all that hardware and software.

Fortunately, here's the link to the older versions of the software.

For Mac, you can downgrade as follows. WARNING: Back stuff up. I have not tried this yet but see not reason why it won't work.

1) Quit iTunes.

2) Delete iTunes from your Applications folder.

3) Go to your ~/Music/iTunes folder. Delete or rename the "iTunes Library" file.

4) Open the "Previous iTunes Libraries" folder and look for the backup of your old pre-9 library; it should be dated at about the time you first ran iTunes 9. Copy it back out to the ~/Music/iTunes folder, and rename it to "iTunes Library".

iPod Video Repair 5th Generation. Some notes.

2009-10-20T08:23:00.007-05:00

The thing that threw me off on this repair is that this iPod is not recognized by iTunes 9. (Separate post on that HERE.) I replaced the drive with an 8 gig Kingston Elite Pro Compact Flash card. 133x speed. It was on sale for about $20 at Fry's.

Like this one:

They also make a 16GB and 32GB like these.

Note that the price per gigabyte gets cheaper as you go to a larger capacity. The 32gig is only 3 times as expensive as the 8 gig. I got my iPod in a broken state so I didn't want to spend too much to find out it's very broken instead of slightly broken.

Plus, if you get a 32, then you've got an extra 2Gb over your old Video. It's expensive, but now it's shockproof and easily upgradeable. Just plug in a new card.

What you will need is an adapter like the one I got to adapt a Cf card in place of a 1.8" hard drive.

The one I bought is slightly different. PA-CF18Z is what mine is labeled and I've seen them around the internettube. It's probably not important, there isn't much in the way of electronics, it's mainly a physical interface.

I won't bore you with the details of this conversion any more, as you can find that all over. But in summary:

1. Kingston 8 gig Kingston Elite Pro Compact Flash card 133x. $20ish
2. PA-CF18Z CF to ZIF 1.8" adapter. $2.28 shipped from China. (I do not think a Microdrive is a good fit for this adapter, too thick. But who's going to use that?)

And if you get it showing up as a drive but not in iTunes, I'm sure Apple will fix it sooner or later. C'mon, we're on iTunes 9.0.1 and the minor stuff (that works in the OLD VERSION) should be fixed. That's a Microsoft move!

Why did I do the conversion? Simple. The hard drive in it died. Now I can take it jogging without that fear, enjoy longer battery life, and enjoy easy upgrades down the road.

Quick Review: Sun Crystals vs. Ideal sweeteners

2009-10-14T09:59:00.005-05:00

Sun Crystals: Bitter. Blech. Do not want. Why did you do this?

Ideal: Yessss. Cool on the tongue, tastes great right out of the packet. Better aftertaste than sugar, if you can believe it. FTW.

"It is as sweet as sugar, but has 40% less calories. While a gram of sugar has 4 calories, a gram of granular xylitol has just 2.4 calories. Chemically speaking, xylitol is a 5-carbon sugar alcohol. Six-carbon sugars like fructose and glucose are absorbed quickly and stimulate insulin. Xylitol is absorbed more slowly, without stimulating insulin or increasing blood sugar. This makes it an ideal sweetener for diabetics, who need to keep blood sugar under control. And good news for teeth: The sugar-alcohol structure cannot be used by cavity-causing bacteria in the mouth. Finnish studies comparing use of xylitol-sweetened vs. sugar-sweetened chewing gum and tooth decay show dramatic reductions in cavities with xylitol gums. Even more interesting, xylitol appears to inhibit growth of bacteria that cause ear infections."

Neither of these is calorie free, they just use such a small serving size that they can say it has no calories. But, xylitol/Ideal = 40% less calories and tastes better than sugar, with the other benefits? Win.

3D Computer Games: Why don't we have this already?

2009-10-14T08:58:00.002-05:00

This is from last year. This guy has invented cheap head tracking for the PC using a WiiMote and some infrared LED's.

Basically, what that means is the computer can track your head movement and make it appear as if your monitor is a window into a 3D world by adjusting what it displays based on how you move your head.

Just as if the view out of a window would change for you based on how close you were to it, how you moved your head, etc.

Just watch:

Now imagine combining this with some 3D glasses that made it appear that what you saw through the window were 'real' 3D objects?

Why don't I have this already?

People of Wal Mart: All your mullet are belong to us

2009-10-11T10:24:00.002-05:00

Click to zoom in on this kids legendary mullet. This was in a casino arcade room. A class above Wal Mart. It looks like that kid from 'Home Improvement'.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

How many progress indicators do you need?

2009-10-10T10:17:00.001-05:00

I got this on my iPhone. Count 'em, THREE progress indicators on the
screen at the same time. Sorry for the landscape mode.

OS X Server 10.4.11: Can no longer login to ftp

2009-10-06T17:19:00.001-05:00

http://lists.apple.com/archives/macos-x-server/2006/Jun/msg00308.html has the answer.

I spent some time chasing this one. I couldn't login anonymously or with a user login. AARG.

Turns out, you shouldn't leave Server Admin running, as it can corrupt the ftpaccess and ftpaccess~

I'm also wondering if running the 10.4 admin tools on OS X 10.5 caused it. Running Server monitor 1.5f6 on OS X Client 10.5 crashes instantly. Both versions of Server Admin (the one on my server running OS X Server 10.4.11 and my laptop running 10.5.8) are the same though.

After deleting those files a couple times and restarting the ftp service, it works again. I also wiped the log file at /Library/Logs/FTP.transfer.log

How to Return A Netflix DVD if you lost the Mailer

2009-10-05T19:17:00.006-05:00

I found someone thought of the same thing I did, and scanned in a pic of the return mailer. What I've done is just printed that out and changed the address to my closest distribution center, which is Houston. That address, which Netflix gave me, is

PO Box 4465
Houston, TX 77210

I also wrote a note to the postmaster assuring them that this was the correct address for the nearest Netflix facility.

This is confirmed to work; Netflix received my disk in the normal time.

I've got an idea: Netflix should make it so that you can go to their website, put in your zip, and it will automatically generate a mailer envelope with the closest center on it.

You print it out, tape it up, and return it that way. I was just on the phone with Netflix and made this suggestion, so where's my cost savings check?

If you call 1-866-716-0414 they will give you the particular address you are looking for.

Of course, if you lost the white sleeve the disc goes in, you'll need to follow the instructions on Netflix's site.