Lose or have stolen your laptop–or desktop, for that matter? You can register the serial number with the Stolen Computer Registry. That great system you just picked up on eBay for next to nothing? Check it against the registry; if something seems too good to be true…
Tag: tech
The DVD/CD Shredder from Alera Technologies destroys the data layer on DVD and CD discs, making the data unrecoverable.
Pretty much any size DVD or CD is handled, including 120mm, 80mm, and even Business Card size. It’ll set you back $39.99.
I’ve been saving quite a few CDs to send off to be recycled, and for the CDs that actually contain old personal data, this might not be a bad idea.
(via Macintouch)
As of this morning, our household is free of computer CRT monitors. Last night, we purchased a NEC 17″ LCD for my wife’s PC. With just a slightly smaller viewable area than the 19″ CRT she was using, she now has more desk space, along with the LCD’s crisper, easier-on-the-eyes view, and low power consumption. The NEC joins my Apple 15″ LCD as the household desktop monitors. All other systems in the house–PowerBook G4/500, iBook/300, and IBM ThinkPad–are laptops.
At 400 megabits per second, FireWire is 40 times faster than 10Base-T Ethernet, and 4 times faster than 100Base-T. The only Ethernet spec faster than FireWire is Gigabit Ethernet (1000Base-T), now standard on all Macs, but still an option for many PCs (like FireWire).
Today, Apple released a preview version of IP over FireWire, useful for networking and clustering solutions. It can even be used for temporary connections to the internet using Internet Sharing. It’s interesting if for no other reason than that of future possibilities in networking.
Proving they have too much time on their hands, as well as what PCs are really good for, it’s the NeuHausPlatz 200NC. NC stands for “no case.” This is an oldie, but a goodie.
Steven Frank, co-founder of Panic Software, has an early analysis on why Microsoft’s new TabletPC initiative is really nothing new, and in many ways, like the Palm OS, is still inferior to the discontinued Newton platform from Apple.
Steven’s point, and one I concur with: since you’re not really getting anything new or innovative, go buy a Newton on eBay and save about three grand.
The latest stable version of Chimera was released a couple of days ago, and I am falling further in love with this browser. Powered by the Gecko rendering engine (of Mozilla fame), it is a Cocoa-based web browser, only for OS X.
It is fast. Wicked fast. Scary fast. It blows IE away in rendering pretty much all of the sites I visit. MacUpdate.com loads blindingly fast. MacMinute appeared instantly. Did I mention it’s fast?
It shares some of my favorite features with its Mozilla brethren, as well. Tabbed browsing is just one of the coolest things to hit web browsers since standards compliance. No more multiple browser windows littering the desktop! And built-in pop-up ad blocking is a godsend.
If you’re running OS X, you owe it to yourself to give Chimera a try.
Personally, I have long maintained that HTML belongs in browsers, not my email client. One of the reasons I use Mailsmith is that it never shows HTML in my email, stripping it in to plain text, if possible, and at worst keeping it as an HTML attachment I can open in my browser.
Scot Hacker wrote an excellent article that sums up all of my reasons why you shouldn’t use HTML in your email, and he offers tips on several email clients/services for turning HTML formatting off. Bookmark this one, boys and girls. (Thanks, Lee!)
Courtesy of Neil Gaiman, and like Neil, it made me smile: McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Windows Messages, as if Rewritten by Scott, This Guy Who Bullied Me in the Second Grade.
To be honest, it made me, and a couple of my coworkers, out-and-out laugh.
The iPod is one year-old today. On October 23, 2001, Steve Jobs held a special press event to announce that Apple had produced the best digital music player in the world. My own iPod will turn one next month (thanks again, sweetie!).
[via MacMinute]