People are stupid

This is the 6th person from my school to die in the past year. This time a friend of mine. She decided to commit suicide by overdosing.

I saw her last weekend and she seemed fine and happy.

Windows Genuine Advantage

Just a quick blurb.

Well I was about to download Microsoft Windows Defender. Then I see that WGA needs to validate my copy of Windows so I’m like crap, what should I do. Hmm I do I look for a hack or download it on another PC. Then after a couple minutes I come to the realization, I have a valid copy of Windows XP MCE! Ha. Why would I worry about WGA if I have a valid copy of Windows. Was just stuck in the mindset of using a hacked/cracked copy. It’s nice to finally be legal.  I just installed the Firefox plugin from MS, restarted Firefox and went to download and it said valid and just downloaded.

Is WGA really all that bad except for the false positives?

Using an external display on an Apple iBook

I just got a new PC and a 17″ Acer LCD display recently. So I’ve been using my iBook and PC on a KVM switch. My PC is set to 1280×1024 resolution and the iBook maxed out at 1024×768 which is it’s native resolution. Problem was that it looked really bad at that resolution on a 17″ LCD that can do better. I wasn’t able to find any information on how to disable the iBook’s LCD and have it just use my 17″ LCD at an increased read. So I just went on experimenting. Screen Spanning Dr is required to enable clamshell mode. The follow is the process on how to do it.

To do this, plug in the external display. I had them mirroring if that made a difference. I closed the iBook and it automatically went to sleep. Then using an external keyboard, wake up the iBook while it’s still closed thus going into clamshell mode. Voilà the iBook’s LCD is disabled and the external display is on. Then crank up the resolution! Mac OS X looks beautiful at 1280×1024 res. I suggest leaving the iBook open to prevent overheating. The LCD will still be off. The iBook is made to dissipate heat through the keyboard.

Large size

Launch of FradyLan

FradyLan is my lan-party and gaming blog. Check it out.

http://fradylan.wordpress.com/

MySpace is now secretly targeting preteens!

Look closely at the MySpace front page as of the time of this posting. Notice the Bratz ad? Bratz is paying MySpace to place that on the front page on MySpace gets money for it. Whats wrong with this? Bratz besides being a slutty toy for preteens is on a site that is for people who are 14 and older. MySpace says they are determined to get rid of any under-aged members to help protect them against predators and indecent content. This got hypocrisy all over it!

The link the ad goes to: http://www.myspace.com/bratzmovie

Oh and did anyone catch the Palm Treo in the picture? Pretty sexy.

May 15th’s gas boycott

I can see why people want to do something about this outrageous gas prices but  boycotting gas stations for a day isn’t gonna do a thing.  Currently here in NJ it is around $2.91 a gallon.  The national average is $3.50 a gallon I hear.  The boycott won’t improve a thing unless done right.  Think of it this way, imagine the boycott was for a week.  Every doesn’t buy gas for a whole week.  Once the week is up, most people will be out of gas and need a new tank full.  Gas companies aren’t stupid, they will want to charge even more they day everyone starts buying a new tank of gas.  The only way to get prices to change is to just use less gas.  Avoiding buying gas for a day just makes people feel a little better but it’s not doing anything.

On the Official Palm Blog, they posted some info on National Bike-To-Work Week.  Basically what it calls for to stop using a car to get to work when other alternatives can be used.  Bike to work, bike to train, or take a bus.  Not something that can be done in all areas but definitely a good idea.  If I could, I would do it too.

More info here.

iPod screen and battery replacement

I recently did a repair for a coworker’s iPod. The LCD screen was cracked so I offered to replace it for him. Order a new LCD and better battery on eBay since the battery probably wasn’t so good anyway and it was cheap. The following is pictures and how I did the repair.

Before beginning, turn off the iPod and have it on hold so it doesn’t power back on. The battery and the screen came with plastic tools to open the iPod. Plastic so there are no scratches. They worked decently but I needed the aid of a flathead screwdriver to get it open. I was very careful not to make any dents or scratches, I was successful!

Be careful not to break any the cables when taking apart the iPod.

Carefully unplug the cable to the metal half of the iPod and the harddrive.

Unscrew the 6 Torx5 screws on the mainboard.

Lift up the black pice on the connector to the LCD and clickwheel ribbon cable and slide out the cables. Next unplug the battery. Note the notch on the battery plug so it can only be pulled out on an angle. Do not force it too much or it will break off.

Removed the LCD and placed in a new one. Now I was ready to install the new battery.

The new battery was difficult to get in because the wires came out too far to the right and was squishing against the side. I was able to press them closer together. Wires went under the mainboard like the original battery and plugged in.

Put the iPod back together in the reverse order and it worked and played music like new. Only problem I ran into was the new LCD did not have a backlight.(from older iPod I guess) I’m going to complain to the seller and hopefully get it resolved. Otherwise the battery and LCD work.

Whoa! Palm, has a new Linux OS

PalmInfocenter is reporting that Ed Colligan, CEO of Palm, Inc has annouced that Palm has been working on a Linux operating system with Palm OS for several years.

Link to the article at PIC.  Below is an excerpt from the article.  As for me, I am a bit surprised that they have been working on it for so long.  They even stated for having no interest in Linux in the past.  Future Palm devices will be powered by Linux at it’s core and have Palm OS 5 Garnet compatability layer.

Today at Palm Inc’s Analyst Day, Palm CEO Ed Colligan officially announced that Palm will deliver a new Linux and open source based mobile computing platform combined with Palm OS Garnet technology on new products later this year. The new platform was just announced at the Palm Analyst meeting and details are light at this point and still coming in. Read on for some slides and more information from the presentation.

The platform is described as a “new foundation for Palm.” It will combine aspects of Palm OS Garnet and a Linux core. Palm plans to “evolve” the Palm Developer community to the new platform.

Colligan highlighted and stressed a few points about the new platform. He continually stressed the importance of the user experience citing the ability to have an instant on, highly portable device with great battery life. Other highlights included greater hardware flexibility and the ability to handle simultaneous voice and data, two key ares which have hampered the traditional Palm OS in recent years.

Another key aspect would be the device’s web browsing experience. Colligan said Palm is focusing highly on connected web applications and web services built around mobile devices. He cited the ability to easily backup and restore over the web, delivering software and device updates over the internet and wireless software distribution. The recent Opera brower licensing agreement is likely tied to this new platform.

Colligan also revealed that this was a new platform that Palm has been working on, in house for a number of years. He stated that Palm would not license this new OS to outside hardware companies, meaning this will be a Palm exclusive platform.

This is a separate project from Palm Inc and is not related to the ACCESS Linux Platform, which is being developed by ACCESS, formerly PalmSource. Many of the technical software and hardware details have yet to be announced.

It’s been a while since I posted

Life is going well. Work is good and now I have my friend Ryan working with me. Just keeping busy. Do not worry, I have a few draft posts that I’m getting ready.

In 2-3 days I will be posting about repairing a 4th generation Apple iPod. Upgrading battery and replacing cracked LCD. It belongs to a coworker.

Not all youngins’ are bad

I’m not in a good mood. It may not seem like a big deal to some but this sort of stuff just drives me crazy. I get anxiety attacks from this sort of thing. My friend Tom(18) and I(17) were out at a gaming cafe for a couple hours. After that we drove just down to the next plaza over to the pizza place. After eating we decided to go for a walk around to let our bellies settle so Tom and I walked around to just talk and chill. We were in a Pep Boys parking lot and saw this shopping cart near the back with some stuff in it. We went up to the shopping cart to check it out. It was just some old wet boxes and torn garbage bags. Looked like stuff from the store that either an employee picked up and put in the cart or a customer just dumped there. Well it seems some employees were watching us in the parking lot so we decided to walk back to the car which was a bit of a distance. We were about to get into the car and a white truck with a Pep Boys employee in it came to us and started asking us stuff and said they already called the cops saying we dumped garbage in the shopping cart. I was like “huh?” I said it looked old and wet but he didn’t seem to care. Knowing that the cops were coming we agreed and didn’t want to have a problem. I asked where the dumpster was. And we walked over there quickly and as we were walking over the man in the white truck nearly hits Tom with the truck. It doesn’t help that he is deaf so he can’t hear something like that coming. So we got over there and we picked up the stuff and pushed the cart to the dumpster in the back of the place and pushed the cart back to the front of the place with the rest of the shopping carts. Right before we left we walked back to the five employees waiting outside in the corner of the parking lot to say it’s done. The man says “don’t you ever do that again” and such. So we left and got back into the car and drove back down to the gaming cafe.

It just ticks me off that people just assume that young people always cause trouble. He didn’t even check my story but I restrained myself from arguing. Tom just wanted to get it done with and not say anything back. The freaking garbage was wet from the rain and why would we walk all that distance to dump a couple bags of wet garbage bags and boxes that originated from Pep Boys! We don’t do drugs, smoke, drink, or do anything like that. Both of us are members of AFJROTC and we volunteer in the community.