The Magic Smoke

Well, that was fun. My current laptop, an old 12" aluminum Powerbook G4, has been a workhorse for about 6 years now. I briefly tried replacing it with an Asus eee, but the Xandros linux on the eee was so locked down it wasn't worth my time.

So, of course, right after I return the eee, my Powerbook decides to get revenge on me. The power adapter, which has seen better days, began to smoke near the actual plug at the laptop. A couple of the wires had finally frayed their insulation and shorted, melting the plastic housing them. One quick unplug-and-shutdown later, and I was offline until I could get a new power adapter.

I've now got a new MacAlly power adapter, which is a sight cheaper than the official Apple one and seems to work just as well.

I'll work up a review of the Asus eee shortly, long with several game book reviews that will likely go up on RPG.net.

Nice chrome.

Google has unveiled their own web browser, Chromium.

The concept was to strip off all the "chrome," aka unnecesary menus and visual effects that most apps have. The second concept was to revolved around the "web app," such as Gmail, Google Docs and other web applications. It will use Google Gears to actually "save" the webapp to your computer so you can run it offline.

So far, it looks really cool, and I hear its quick. It has a few really neat features, such as: each tab is its own process, so if one tab crashes it doesn't take the whole browser down with it; inline search, like Safari; Firefox's spell check; "private browsing" mode; and a thumbnail view of your sites, similar to Opera's "Speed Dial" function. The developers describe the browser as drawing on the best features of today's web browsers, and they hope their open-source code will be used to improve other browsers.

The downside is that it's beta. From what I've read, having each tab really takes up way too much memory; and there's no real bookmark manager in place. Plus, they're still working on MacOS X and Linux versions.

Firefox 3 Download Day

Firefox 3 is to be released on Tuesday. Check out the link above to see all the new features!

iPhone 2.0

Apple has unveiled the new iPhone. Available in July, the new phone has 3G data and drops in price: 8 Gb for $199 or 16 Gb for $299.

The new software features can be downloaded to the orginal iPhone for free on the release date, and iPod Touch users can upgrade the software for $9.95.

Cheapskates

Blah. AT&T set an absurdly low MMS file size for their prepaid phones. My nice 100k photo got cut to 3k. And my phone doesn't use standard USB, so I'd need a special cable to get it offloaded to my computer.

Beer good! Napster bad! FIRE BAD!

Napster has opened their DRM-free MP3 store. Quick glance, it looks pretty cool. The store has an iTunes-esque interface, but it's all run in your browser with AJAX-y goodness. The selection looks good, too, so this might compete well with Amazon. I've already found a couple songs Amazon didn't have (Monster Magnet FTW!).

And All That Could Have Been…

I know I've been going on and on about the new Nine Inch Nails album. It's not just because I really like the music. Trent Reznor has always been a big technology buff, and his recent experiments have shown he's on the ball when it comes to modern social networking. Case in point: Nine Inch Nails Ghosts Film Festival. Since the Ghosts album is released under the Creative Commons license, you can reuse it for non-commercial purposes. Reznor is running a context on YouTube where people can submit their films/videos that include music from Ghosts. There's no actual prize, but the ones that NIN likes best will get highlighted, which is likely to look very good on a resumé.

To go with that, all the tools to remix The Slip album are now available on remix.nin.com. Since it's also under the CC license, you can reuse it too.

The Slip

I absolutely adore Nine Inch Nails. The band has been one of my favorites since I first heard them back in the early 90's. Trent Reznor, the creative force behind the group, has done a lot of very interesting projects. Last month, he released a brand-new set of albums online: Ghosts I-IV. The first album is free, and the rest can be purchased in a variety of formats for either online download, or physical CD. The entire set is licensed under the Creative Commons Share-alike, which means you can freely distribute it and re-use it for non-commercial purposes.

Now, he's released a new NIN album online entirely free: The Slip. It's also under the same license, and can be downloaded in many different formats.

Week recap

Wow, busy week! Things got a little crazy for me, so very few updates. The short-short version is that work has become a very uncomfortable place for me. Our director is really being aggressive, and I don't appreciate it. So, looking for another job.

I bought a new phone. My old one was pretty sad (MIDI ringtones, no java, etc.) so I decided it was time to upgrade. However, I'm not bringing in enough cash to justify an iPhone. This one runs $100 retail, but I got it for $40 refurb from AT&T GoPhone. Yes, I use a prepaid phone. I don't talk enough to justify spending $30+ a month for a cell phone. This way, I pay $25 every 3 months, and I've still got more talk time than I really need. Though I may eat up the balance with Twittering now…

Blogger will now do "future dated" posts. So, you can set a post for some future date/time and it will show up then; or, you can post immediately, then set a future date for the post, and it will permanently sort to the top (or until that date comes).

Google has a cool new app that will turn Google Image searches into a screensaver. Macintosh only.

You can embed a Guitar Hero widget on your page and play online. It has a leaderboard and everything, with three songs to play right now.

DVR-ness

Well, the replacement DVR came in. Turns out, it's working fine. It's our Sony receiver that's on the blink. It works just fine with the input from our Xbox 360 and PS2. But nothin' from the DVR. Possibly a converter board burned out. For now, we've got audio running to the tuner and video straight to the TV over an S-Video cable.