News stories the mainstream media missed : 02/25/11**

Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* Here’s the factual part: 100 watt bulbs are soon to be no more, so Hasbro is having to re-design their EZBake oven toy line to accommodate this. Pretty straightforward, right? Well, I expect any moment now the wacko far right brigade to whip something like this out… THOSE LUNATIC ENVIRONMENTALISTS HAVE TAKEN AWAY SUZIES MINI BAKE OVENS!!! COME ON AMERICA!! TAKING CHILDREN’S TOYS? WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?? [UPI]

* It takes thousands of dollars and years of research to come up with the idea that a man’s happiness is based on “how little criticism he gets and how much sex he gets”? OK, is there a Nobel prize for the AH DERRRRRR finding of the year? [HUFFINGTON POST]

* INTERNET FREEDOM BILL IS GOOD COMRADE! HAS PRETTY NAME! DISCONNECT INTERNET TO KEEP BAD PEOPLE AWAY FROM GOOD PEOPLE OF HOMELAND AMERICA! MOVE ALONG NOW GOOD CITIZEN! [CNET]

* And finally, scientists have determined that our universe may have bumped into another one fairly recently. Great. So our insurance rates are going to go up? Look, scientist dudes, kick this “universe size and age” thing to the back burner, and get going on the gravity/warp drive thing! Priorities!! [NEW SCIENTIST]

** Actually published Monday because, once again, my new Kindle ate up my weekend. Damn you Amazon!!!

The last launch of the space shuttle Discovery

With all the fires burning in the world, hardly anyone noticed today was the final launch of the space shuttle Discovery. Just another forgotten technological miracle, over 30 years old now, making its’ last incredible leap into space.

You’ve got to click to see it fullscreen.

Although watching this launch was great, the quote in the CNN story from NASA’s administrator Charles Bolden sums up my overall feelings about NASA and the shuttle program.

“”What is not acceptable is the fact that the most powerful nation in the world, the United States of America, finds itself in a situation that we didn’t do the proper planning to have a vehicle in place to replace [the] shuttle when it lands its last landing,” Charles Bolden said.”

All I can add is I hope the crew has fun up there and comes home safe.

TIL : Royce is a famous Japanese chocolatier company

Royce Store

Royce Store

Today I Learned Royce is a famous Japanese chocolatier company! You know, for years I was the only real holder of the “Royce” title. Then some ninja master starts some fancy fight club thing, and before him there was some car company that rolled with it, and now there’s even a Prince Royce out there! Did I miss a meeting somewhere?

Anyhow, Royce chocolatier makes and sells fun stuff like chocolate potato chips, marshmallow chocolates, coffee bean chocolate (my only kind of chocolate!) and a lot more “normal” chocolate varieties that look pretty awesome.

They’ve got stores in Singapore, China, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines so far. Some stores look more “upscale” than others, but it’s still awesome to see that name up on neon/billboard signage.

What really impressed me about the company is their criteria for working on the food production line. It’s much more strict than any kind of food assembly place I’ve seen on the Food Network.

Royce Store #2

Royce Store #2

“Before entering the production line area, everyone is required to wear a factory uniform and shoes before passing through an air tunnel which removes dust. Adhesive tape rollers are then used to ensure that no dust remains on the clothes. Finally, hands are to be washed and disinfected. No one may proceed to the production line until he has strictly completed this process. ”

Unfortunately they are “not able to ship products outside Japan for individuals” so I’m out of luck for getting a firsthand taste test for now.

So in case any Royce chocolatiers ever drop by this site… 私はあなたのビジネスは常に成功することを望む!!

Amazon Kindle leather cover with light review

I’ve always been a believer in the “you get what you pay for” motto. The Kindle leather cover (with light) is a great case in point. It’s slightly more expensive than most of the other Kindle covers out there, but it’s completely worth it.

Kindle Leather Cover With Light 01


The case itself is a high-quality leather, and feels like it’s one of those $100+ personal journals you can get at the nicer stationery stores. The “close” strap is bungle-like and flips over and away with ease using the attached non-silding leather tab.

Kindle Leather Cover With Light 03


Installing the Kindle is easy. You actually anchor it into the cover with the mounting posts on the side of the Kindle (which I never noticed until I got the case!) Just slide the bottom of the Kindle into the case at an angle…

Kindle Leather Cover With Light 04


…rotate it up, move the top case tab down a little, and align the top mounting post over the top tab. Release the top tab and it click-locks securely in place! I’m extremely confident the Kindle won’t fall out out of this case!

Kindle Leather Cover With Light 05


The real genius of this case design is that the Kindle powers the light source! There’s no batteries or micro get-a-paper-clip switches to toggle and mess with. The light source is on the back upper right of the case…

Kindle Leather Cover With Light 06


…and to activate it, you just pull out and extend the light. The lilght is mounted on some strong but flexible hard plastic and will only switch on once it has been fully extended and only if the Kindle is on and awake.

Kindle Leather Cover With Light 07


In the dark, the book light is awesome. Just awesome. It lights the Kindle perfectly, and I can read just like I am able to in a chair near a basic one-bulb home lamp. This photo just doesn’t do the awesomeness justice.

Kindle Leather Cover With Light 08


The Kindle is turning out to be one of my favorite tech gadgets in recent memory. It has completely blown away the iPad for reading and I’m finding more things to do with it every day. Adding the Kindle leather cover has, to paraphrase a Spinal Tap quote, just turned this baby up to 11.

Five out of five stars.

Kindle Leather Cover With Light 09

Wednesday DailyBooth recap : 02/23/11

I like the idea of taking a simple photo every day of something new. So every Wednesday (starting today) I’m going to sync up the daily photos I posted on my DailyBooth page.

This week…

#Lipton Tea is trying too hard with their latest bottle art. (Feb 23rd)

Lipton? You're trying too hard.

Lipton? You're trying too hard.



Old colorful gumball machine. (Feb 22nd)

Old colorful gumball machine.

Old colorful gumball machine.



Fast food fix! (Feb 21st)

Fast food fix!

Fast food fix!



Newest tech: #Kindle 3G + WiFi. The #iPad 30% “only through us” BS was one of the big reasons for getting this. (Feb 20th)

Newest tech: #Kindle 3G + WiFi.

Newest tech: #Kindle 3G + WiFi.



My Ploom travel kit with “gold” and “naked”. (Feb 18th)

My Ploom travel kit with "gold" and "naked".

My Ploom travel kit with "gold" and "naked".



Action desk shot. Sad. (Feb 18th)

Action desk shot. Sad.

Action desk shot. Sad.

Apple iPhone suggestion #987

I found something (else) Apple can do to improve on the iPhone.

Let’s say I want to email a client a photo. Right now here are the steps I need to take on my iPhone to do this…

  1. Launch the camera app
  2. Take the photo
  3. View the photo
  4. Send the photo to the email app
  5. Compose the email in the email app
  6. Send the email

Hey Apple, how about this…

  1. Open the email app
  2. Take a photo WITHIN THE EMAIL APP LIKE I CAN DO IN THE MMS APP while I’m composing the message
  3. Send the email

Apple designers? Hello? Is this blog on?

Connecting to a MacBook’s Internet Sharing from a Kindle

A couple of days ago I brought home a Kindle from Amazon (the WiFi + 3G version). So far I’m absolutely nuts about it.

Kindle! Kindle! Kindle!

Kindle! Kindle! Kindle!

It does just about everything I wanted in a e-book reader and it’s much easier to take with me than the iPad. I’ll post a full review after I’ve used it for a month or two.

Anyhow, I was trying to connect it to my MacBook Pro with Internet Sharing enabled, but the Kindle would not connect to the MacBook.

After digging online a bit, I found the solution on a Kindle forum. You have to manually set up a Kindle’s connection if you want to use a Mac’s internet sharing because the Mac implementation of DHCP sucks giant nards of doom. (There’s a more technical reason, but that’s the gist of it.)

To connect a Kindle to a Mac that is sharing their internet connection, press the MENU button on the Kindle and go to SETTINGS. From there, choose WiFi settings and highlight the MacBook’s internet sharing name.

From there, you need to choose to set up the WiFi MANUALLY. Keep the security settings on WEP, but instead of DHCP, choose STATIC.

Then fill out in the following…

IP : 10.0.2.251
Subnet : 255.255.255.0
Router : 10.0.2.1
DNS : 10.0.2.1

TIP : Don’t forget on the Kindle you can press ALT-Q to enter a 1, ALT-W to enter a 2, ALT-E to enter a 3 and so on. (ALT-P is a 0)

Once I did that, the Kindle was on the wireless network downloading everything I wanted!

One final note – that last part of the IP can be anything from 220 to 254, but it’s better if you pick something high.

Thanks to ElkAintMoose and Obijohn for hammering this mess out.

Bypass the iPad passcode lock by restoring to another iPad

Let’s say you want to see the contents of somebody’s iPad but there’s a passcode lock on their device. There’s an easy way around this if you have a second iPad with equal or larger space you don’t mind erasing.

You will need access to the computer they sync their iPad on and about 20 minutes.

First, on the iPad with a passcode lock, connect it to the computer it usually syncs to and let iTunes load it on the sidebar. When the iPad appears in iTunes, check to make sure the “Encrypt iPad backup” is not checked in the OPTIONS section, and then right click on the iPad and go to BACKUP. This will create a current image of the passcode locked device that we’re going to restore to the second iPad. (NOTE: You don’t need to know their iPad passcode for the backup to work.)

iPad Bypass 01

While the iPad with the passcode is backing up, take the second iPad and go to GENERAL / RESET and ERASE ALL CONTENT AND SETTINGS. This will ERASE EVERYTHING and you will be warned two times about this before the iPad starts to wipe everything. (You should back up the second iPad on its’ own computer so you can restore it to it’s original state later.)

iPad Bypass 03

The format will only take a moment, and then you will see the “connect to iTunes” icon on the second iPad’s main screen.

iPad Bypass 04

When the iPad with the passcode lock is done backing up, disconnect it from the computer it was syncing to and connect the second iPad that has the “connect to iTunes” icon on the main screen.

When you connect the second iPad, you will be prompted by iTunes if you want to restore from a previous image. Say YES and choose the iPad name with the passcode lock that was just backed up.

iPad Bypass 05

In a few minutes, the iPad will be restored and restart. iTunes will then restore a few programs to the iPad and then finish.

iPad Bypass 06

iPad Bypass 07

After the iPad is finished syncing, the iPad will ask “would you like to set a passcode now?”. Say LATER and you’re in! You will have full access to the formerly passcode locked iPad’s apps, settings and documents!

iPad Bypass 08

NOTE : Some apps don’t back up their files locally, but require you to re-download content from their servers. Fortunately, everything will be clearly marked inside each app for re-download, and usually under a “restore all purchased content” button.

I’ve found you can re-download everything (and even make brand new in-app purchases) without needing to re-enter any kind of login or password from the original passcode locked iPad.

This isn’t a hack of any kind. It’s just that passcode locks on iPads don’t to squat. The only way to keep your iPad (somewhat) secure is to encrypt your iPad backups at the main iTunes window under OPTIONS.

iPad Bypass 09

A password encrypted backup will prompt for a password before restoring to another iPad and keep this trick from working. (But if you have access to their iPad and computer, you can always de-select “Encrypt iPad backup” beforehand and make a new backup and this trick will work just fine.)

UPDATE : This trick works for iPhones as well.

UPDATE #2 : If you try and make a purchase direct from the iTunes store, you will be prompted for the password from the original locked iPad to confirm the credit card information on the iTunes store.

RT Tuesdays : 02/22/11

Every Tuesday I re-post all zee tweets that didn’t originate from this blog just to keep everything in sync.

This week on Twitter…

Fast Food Fix

Fast Food Fix



  • Newest tech: #Kindle 3G + WiFi. The #iPad 30% “only through us” BS was one of the big reasons for… http://dailybooth.com/u/7za4o (19 Feb)

Kindle!

Kindle!



Ploom Travel Kit

Ploom Travel Kit



Ploom Reload

Ploom Reload



  • Diet zen: There’s always another option. It may be tough to find or hard to experience, but there’s always another option. (17 Feb)
  • End of an era. A German company now owns the #NewYorkStockExchange. Expect lots of “For Rent” signs in NYC soon. http://bloom.bg/i1VV3X (15 Feb)