News for morons: lawnmowers can cut you!
I came across this report on Gizmodo today. The story is about one of those new robotic lawnmowers being recalled, detailed in the following excerpt:
Posts about hardware, software, or the tech industry itself
New washer and dryer
Our washer died about a week ago. It was a Maytag Neptune frontload purchased in late 2000, so its failure was more or less inevitable. The point of failure was in the control panel: the washer locking mechanism blew out, which caused a cascade failure in the control board. Repair would have been $600-$800.
Linksys RV016 and Motorola SurfBoard 5102 modem = sad network
A couple of weeks ago I added a second network service provider to my home. The idea was to improve my home office internet access speed and provide redundancy. My thinking is that it is unlikely that both a cable broadband service from Shaw and ADSL service from Telus would both be down at the same time. Things, unfortunately, haven’t worked out quite as planned…
A decade later, and Wireless networking still sucks
I would love to have a no-compromise wireless network in my home. In this imaginary scenario, I would be able to put a computer anywhere in the house, even carry one out onto the patio, and get something approaching gigabit Ethernet speeds. Heck, I’d even be happy with half that: 300 Mbps… or even a really reliable true 100 Mbps link- that would be nice.
Unfortunately, after about a decade of living with wireless, I can say that surprisingly little actual progress has been made. Using wireless still means giving up network performance…
My patience wears thin…
I like experimenting with my computers and network gear. It is even fun sometimes when things don’t work properly at first, so long as I can work out a solution.
But even my patience with technology has its limits. Late last year, for example, I more or less “gave up” (at least for the time being) on Vista and Windows, and switched to using a Macintosh as my primary machine. What has me on the warpath now? My network… and specifically my Linksys/Cisco gear, and even more specifically my Linksys RV016 router/switch.
One remote to rule them all…
Our home entertainment system currently requires a lot of remote controls. One for the TV, one for the DVR, one for the amplifier, one for the Apple TV device I just bought, and one “universal” remote that tries (and fails) to control them all.
The irritating thing, of course, is that several of these remotes claim to be “universal” in some fashion. But invariably something doesn’t quite work correctly: the universal remote won’t switch the amp’s audio sources, the DVR remote won’t change the TV’s video inputs… and none of them are very elegant. I’ve been keeping an eye on the Logitech Harmony remotes for a while, and finally decided to take the plunge: I’m now the proud owner of a Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote 
Fujitsu to make bigger “fast” laptop drives
I’m pretty happy with my Macbook Pro. But on the day I bought it, I started planning upgrades: I’m a geek, after all.
The first thing on my list- upgrade from the default 2 GB to 4 GB of RAM. That was done about a week after I bought the machine. Second on my list: a larger and faster hard drive. 120 GB of storage on a 5400 RPM drive is nice, but 240 GB at 7200 RPM… that would be just the ticket.
Wouldn’t you know it…
I just completed a completely unnecessary and unintentionally expensive upgrade to my main gaming computer. Of course, this means it is time for something to unexpectedly break and need replacing.
The upgrade that wasn’t…
I decided late last year that I was going to take the year off from the computer upgrade process. That doesn’t mean that I planned on absolutely zero upgrades, but that I would defer the “big stuff”. This came after a tremendous amount of hassle and fuss trying to get Vista and my 2006 PC upgrade working to my satisfaction, and after the satisfying experience I had with my MacBook Pro.
But things change… and the upgrade that wasn’t going to happen, did…
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