DISQUS

Apple has always sold an iMac with a 17" screen to educational institutions for $899. This isn't really news. They've done it since the eMac was discontinued.

I have a Palm Centro that I have had to hard reset once because the Handmark application caused a reset loop.

Other than that, it's been rock-solid stable. I'm extremely pleased with the device.

I'd love an invite!
tylergpuckett@yahoo.com

Thanks in advance

Judie, ah that makes sense if you don't want to mount it, just let it sit freely.

Why does this thing have those "wings" on it? Do they serve any purpose at all?

Could you run a program like CoreDuoTemp and give us temperatures of your laptop?

A BIG concern with passive "coolers" like these is that they actually insulate heat into your laptop, causing it to overheat, possibly dangerously.

I'd really like some temperature tests before I seriously consider purchasing one for my PowerBook. Thanks!

In NC, we have deep fried Oreos, deep fried Bananas, deep fried Moon Pies, etc. Pretty much anything that is available is deep-fried at the local flea markets and fairs :-)

Does it require rechargeable batteries, or will standard AA cells work in a pinch?

Happy Birthday!

That also came to my mind. Older revisions of IDE only recognized 128GB. Did your enclosure originally come with a drive installed? It is possible Maxtor used an older rev of IDE in order to cut costs, thinking nobody would take out their drive to insert another one?

That still doesn't explain it working fine with Maxtor-branded drives, though...

You might try putting the drive in a desktop using an IDE cable and performing a low-level format.

If you want to stay on the Mac side to sync, try PocketMac's PocketMac. They have a lite version that does pretty much everything you'd ever need to do for $15, with the pro version being $40 I think. Mark/Space's Missing Sync works well too. Both products interface with iSync, so it works very nicely. It stinks there's not a free way to do it that I'm aware of, but these companies to a great job.

I actually use cron jobs and rsync to backup to an external drive. It works well. I'm not sure if cron and rsync are installed on Windows, it is on all UNIX-like OS's like OSX and Linux, though. It doesn't use a proprietary backup format, it just syncs files. Seems like the best way to go IMO...

Very cool device! Definitely VERY useful when you have a cell phone, a PDA, an iPod, and a Bluetooth headset you need to keep charged on a dorm room desk (as do I) :)

So true...why do we have any kind of insurance, really? We may need it, we may never need it.

Getting back to your point, if the phone broke let's say three months in, you'd still have the manufacturer's warranty (unless you did something outside warranty coverage). I've never bought a smartphone (I have a cheapo Palm z22 and an even more cheapo Nokia 6102i). To me, I think the insurance isn't worth it when you have cheapo phones, because many times the deductible is more than a comparable phone would be. For instance, I'm pretty sure I could get a Nokia 6102i off eBay for less than $50. It all depends on your circumstances, I guess...

Ah, but you have to consider this: was paying the $5.99 every month plus the $50 deductible cheaper than buying a new phone? They really make a killing on us; between contracts, insurance, and exorbitant rates, EVERYONE in the cell phone business is getting rich...

I'd be willing to argue that Ethernet is more prevalent than USB in older machines. I know a ton of older laptops and even desktops that have 10 or 10/100 Ethernet jacks and no USB (or only USB 1.1) ports.

I guess I'm talking from the perspective of a Mac: All recent Macs have USB, Ethernet, and FireWire ports. With Macs all you have to do is plug them up with an Ethernet cable (crossover or straight-through) and it automatically sets up a LAN. Firewire works the same way. Macs even have a Target Disk Mode where you can connect both Macs with a FireWire cable, boot one into Target Disk Mode, and it will appear as a removable drive on the other machine.

Could you not just buy (or make) a Crossover Ethernet cable? They're definitely not $60 and all they require is setting up a peer-to-peer LAN between the two machines to copy files. Of course, that only supports 100Mbps (unless both machines has Gigabit Ethernet support), so it may be slower than USB 2.0 (though I doubt it, USB 2.0 has a LOT of overhead associated with it). Another alternative is connecting the two machines with a FireWire* cable, which in this case will act just like a Crossover ethernet cable, and will work at 400Mbps (which, in spite of it's lower number, is faster than USB 2.0; there's much less overhead with FireWire). *FireWire == IEEE 1394 == i.Link

Do you use Akismet? It seems to be pretty good in terms of fighting spam, at least on my blog; I get a good amount of spam comments, but not too many legit comments, and Akismet is pretty good at catching the bad stuff. Also, are you running the latest version of WP? If you're not using 2.1.2, then you need to upgrade. The latest version has more security features that help block spammers.

Charlotte, NC has Traffic (but only for interstates: I-77, I-85, I-485, and I-277). It doesn't seem to be terribly up-to-date, but it's good enough. In Charlotte during rush hour, roads like South Boulevard and Harris Boulevard tend to be more congested than Interstates, especially during the morning rush hour, so I think Google Maps Traffic should also include traffic info for roads in towns as well. It looks like Charlotteans should watch the local news or visit the local news' website before heading out, since Interstates normally have some minor merging delays, but they normally don't become a "parking lot" like South Boulevard and other major roads.

I love your comment at the end: My lawn mower doesn't run! Hah. It's so amazing how you can fix his remote control without too much difficulty, which absolutely bewilders him, and he's able to fix your lawnmower without too much difficulty, which bewilders you. Simple definitely is a relative term. :)

:) No hard feelings intended.

Microsoft is about to double the Zune's market share by giving away 50 Zunes ;)

Mitchell, Thanks. I hope I didn't come across as holier-than-thou or anything else, I was just trying to point out some misconceptions. Indeed, a lot of people are under the impression that iLife should be the be-all, end-all suite for users. If it was, they wouldn't make Shake, Photoshop, Aperture, Final Cut Pro, or even Final Cut Express or Dreamweaver. I see you've switched to Mac entirely minus games, congratulations :). I think that in a year or so we'll see more games ported to OSX natively much more quickly because of the Intel chips, it'll be much easier to port them over.

Also, there is an application that is supposed to allow you to read and write to NTFS drives. I haven't tried it, as I'm on a PowerPC Mac, but it's worth a shot. It's located here: http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/ and called MacFUSE. :)