Subject: Compensation for heartache
To: Microsoft
From: Pete Peterson

Hi Microsoft,

My name is Pete, and I have been doing work on the web for about 10 years now. Although I do not blame you (Microsoft) for the active use of Internet Explorer across the inter webs, you did however produce this atrocious piece of software. The versions have been steadily getting better, but, there is this thing called the a “standard” for web delivered information which would be great if you could find time to read them and apply them to how Internet Explorer renders web pages.

Here is a web address (also called a URL) for reference: http://www.w3.org/standards/

As I mentioned before, I don’t blame you (Microsoft) for the hundreds of thousands of people who still use your archaic browser (specifically IE 6), but since it was you that produced it, I feel I should be compensated for the countless hours spent in hacking html, css, javascript to get your browser to display the way it should. Not to mention all the aspirin, ibuprofen, coffee, Valum, whiskey that I have had to consume in order to endure having to work with this shoddy piece of ether that has been the bane of my existence since I decided on this career path.

I believe that $5000.00 is fair. Please enclose a check payable to Peter Peterson. No hard feelings.

Regards,

Pete

————————————–
My customer support id for this message is 1135554260
please feel free to follow along.

[EDIT]

I recieved a response from Microsoft regarding my gripe:

For replacement media or hardware please contact the Microsoft Order Desk by calling (800) 360-7561. Their hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 5:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. Pacific Time.

Please note this is an unmonitored alias. If you have further questions for customer service please contact us by Email: https://support.microsoft.com/contactus/emailcontact.aspx?scid=sw;en;1208&ws=orderautoreply

Thank you,
Microsoft Customer Service

I guess they aren’t going to pay me.

So, I’m not that big into lists. But on occasion, I have been known to organized. So here I present my top 5 favorite *free* Android apps.

Swype (http://swypeinc.com/index.html) Softkeyboard replacement. This is one of those things where it just makes sense. I was not too thrilled with the softkeyboard on my HTC Hero. With this app though, I look forward to having to type on my phone. Its quick, simple and fun.

Timeriffic (http://code.google.com/p/autosettings/) I use my phone as my alarm clock, and I was in the process of writing my own app to control the settings on my phone based on time of day, when I came across this app. It does the job very well, and can have multiple profiles, for say, the weekend, vacation, etc. My phone all but turns off at night, and automatically sets the ring tone volume, and notification volume back to normal at a decent hour.

Cubed (http://abrantix.org/rockon.php) Link is to producer, not the actual app. This player is top notch. Great interface, and impressively well done for a free app. This IMHO puts my phone on par with my iPod. (for the features of music play).Cubed Music Player

Dolphin Browser (http://browser.mgeek.mobi/) The built in browser is good, but Dolphin is better. Gestures, and a slew of other great features make this my browser of choice. I’m interested to test out Fennec (Firefox Mobile) when it comes out, it might be a contender for this spot.Dolphin Browser

Layar (http://layar.com/) Search + Location Aware + Augmented Reality . Points you in the right direction for whatever you are looking for. This thing is awesome! I’ve used it often and is one of the first apps to get showcased when talking to anybody about my phone

Runner ups (Yelp, Wapedia, Google Voice, Replica Island)

Clayton Boyer is a wood worker, or a conductor conducting a symphony comprised entirely of the wood section.

He is also a clock designer and a bit of an engineering marvel in my opinion. His clocks are masterpieces that rival convention and inspire oohs and awes.

Bird of paradise

The designs vary from intricate to simple elegance. His designs are also up for grabs. He believes that most anybody can re-create one of his creations by following his plans which he sells through his website.

I am a moderate tinkerer, and my skills at wood working are fine for general carpentry. I know my way around chisels, lathes, hand saws, and a myriad of power tools; I would be dubious at my ability to complete one of his designs.

He even has a section for the über determined, the masochists’ corner. He will only sell you the plans for one of these clocks if you have successfully completed one of his more “basic” designs. So there you have it. A challenge.

If I wasn’t already up to my ears in projects, I would definitely attempt one.

If you are like me and just into admiring and imagining how one of these art pieces would look in your home or office, here is a Youtube link for several of his designs in action.

Clayton Boyer’s clocks in action

There is also a Flickr gallery of some of the completed clocks done by others.

Clocksters completed works on Flickr

Links:
http://www.lisaboyer.com/Claytonsite/Claytonsite1.htm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisaboyer/sets/72157622224676987/

I’ve been playing with a browser I found by accident in Android Market for about a day now, and I’m quite impressed. I was happy with the built in browser, but this one gives customizable gestures, tabs, and a whole slew of popular sites, and social links as a catalog of bookmarks by default. Its interface is well thought out, the tabs can hide to give up that valuable real estate.

The browser even supports multi-touch for the cynogen builds, which I haven’t tested, but I am willing to bet it makes the power of this little browser that much more awesome.

I would highly recommend this browser to anybody, especially if you are a web junky like me.

Dolphin Browser (Social&Smart) was developed for Android by MGeek. Get it in the Android Market or use your scanner here or through the official website: http://sites.google.com/a/mgeek.mobi/browser/

I recently became the proud owner of a Sprint HTC Touch, and as such I wanted to protect the screen from getting scratched up. But my not-so-fat wallet protested at the $20 for commercial screen protectors.

I mean, it is plastic right? $20 is a lot in my opinion. But even if you do go that route, it is still cheap insurance. I chose to find my own way, and I came across this article on instructables.com http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-your-own-screen-protector./

I added my own spin on things, since I didn’t want to use the soapy water solution.

After placing the tape, I used a credit card to smooth it from one end to the other to lay it down while removing air bubbles. Worked out pretty well.

After its placed its just a simple step of cutting the excess off…

And that is it. You just protected your gadget for free (if you had the tape laying around like I did).

I hope this helps some of you. With today’s economy, we need more tips like these.

I begin this post with a dilemma: Your wireless router is on one end of your estate, and your nerd-o-phile self wants to get online whilst on the other end of your estate, which is in fact out of wireless range.

Lets imagine for a second that your wireless apparatus is working fine, and there are no hard lines to run from one side of you house to the other.
Now, lets discuss your options in this hypothetical scenario.

Option 1: You could run some cat-5 to all corners of your property/home.

Option 2: You could move your modem and router to a more central location which would also involve running more ethernet cable to your computer(s) unless you moved those as well.

Option 3: You could hack one of your old routers to make a wireless repeater, there by expanding your wireless range and raise your geek factor by at least 2.
I don’t know about you, but, option 3 sounds the cheapest, and the most fun and rewarding. I have been facing this exact dilemma for some time now, and finally got around to doing something about it.
I decided to use a linux based firmware that has been around for some time and has a big community of followers and developers, which means that information is abundant; DD-WRT.

DD-WRT replaces the software on your router with a chock full of features you might expect to find in $400-$600 units. Depending on your router, the process of installing it can vary, make sure you find a detailed write up on installing it on your particular model.

Mine is a Linksys WRT-150N v1.1, a fairly new model which was replaced by my Airport Extreme (I needed wireless printing, storage). Here are the steps I took:

Step 1

Download the software, which in my case was version 24-mini, and version 24-std-generic. (First the install the mini, then upgrade to the full standard version)

Step 2

Using the web administration, I upgraded the firmware and told it to use the mini dd-wrt I had downloaded previously.

Its documented, but I had a hard time getting it to work with Firefox, so I used Safari, and it worked out pretty well.

After the update, I followed the instructions (DD-WRT Wiki) and reset my router, then updated to the full standard version. Here is what the web interface looks like:

Step 3

Configuration. For this I followed the instructions also from their wiki. You have to tailor the instructions you your network setup, in my case I had both routers WPA protected and had the repeater set to use DHCP.

I set up my repeater to repeat the SSID of my main router and set the password in the wireless security tab (which is AES encryption, in case you are using Apple hardware).

Then I set up a virtual device, which is the repeater I will use to connect to.

Then just set up any security you might want. You could leave it open as a hot spot and keep your network safe behind your primary router.

Step 4

Test it out, in my case I had to make a few changes to some IP addresses, but I got it working in short order.

Now I can get online no matter where I’m at. Especially usefull when I want to stream music while I work on my hot rod.

Now my useless router has been given a new lease on life, and I’m loving it. Geek it up!

PS There is a danger of bricking your router, but there are ways to resurrect it if that should occur. Just be careful, and follow the instructions.

Bionic eye

While this procedure isn’t for everyone, it shows some promise for those with degenerative eye diseases. There is an implant behind the eye that receives data from a camera and microprocessor mounted on a pair of glasses.

His wife is pleased with the progress and goes on record to say:

“I’ve taught him how to use the washing machine and away he goes. It’s just the ironing next.”

How long before he starts feigning blindness again?……
“Honey its time to do the laundry”
“Oh, my implant must be acting up because everything looks pink!”

Hopefully this will lead to better cochlear implants, that at the moment are very invasive, and have been known to have some adverse side effects.

All in all this is a good year for technology in the medial field, earlier, a student in England gets a bionic arm and has some amazing results here is the video:

Care of TechEBlog

Link to original Bionic Eye story: BBC: Bionic Eye

Mozilla labs has been working on some very interesting stuff lately. Here is another one that looks very promising; Bespin, a web-based text editor and developer tools. The idea is simple but the potential is huge. If you can maintain your projects server based and collaborate with others without the need of specialized synchronizing software, well, that would be sweet.

Imagine a web based text editor that is extensible and customizeable as firefox it self. TextMate + Vim + SVN all in one package. I for one am excited about this little gem.

Introducing Bespin from Dion Almaer on Vimeo.

I played around with it, and while it still lacks a lot of the finer points that might make this an extremely useful tool, it is impressive none the less. I can’t wait to learn more about it.

I recently tried my hand at creating a Hackintosh (for research). These are my findings.

I had an old system that I had built some time ago, it was running Windows XP 64, I pretty much stopped using the system when I got my Macbook Pro a little over a year ago. Here are some general specs on the machine:

iDeneb OSx

Motherboard: Biostar NF4ST-A9
CPU: AMD 3400 (2.2 GHz)
Memory: 1GB DDR @ 400MHz (generic)
HD: 250 GB Sata (Seagate)
Video: NVidia 7500 GT 512Mb
Monitors: 2

I succesfully got OSx 10.5.5 Leopard installed and running on the machine with no problems! Everything works great including; sound, dual monitors, ethernet, usb. Pure awesomeness.

First I tweaked the bios to make sure that AHCI was enabled. Easy.

Then I popped the OSX DVD in and let it start up in install mode. Easy again. (I used an (ahem) copy of OSx of the iDeneb flavor that didn’t require any previous patching or tweaking)

Once in the installer, I just selected the options that suited my system and let it rip.

After an hour, the install completed.

The only hickup here was that I had to reset the admin password and then log in as root and create a user account.

I’ve just stumbled on a cool new plugin for firefox from the folks over at mozilla labs. Personas lets you theme your firefox with a wide array of different styles (see the screen shot). I’m sure there is a way to make your own, but I haven’t gotten that far yet.

I’m a customization nerd, so any chance to tweak and mix up my everyday apps is a good thing.

Download it here.

Also if you haven’t already you should definately get hooked up with the coolest add on so far, Ubiquity. You can get a run down of what it can do on lifehacker.