TECHdodo

I have been a huge fan of Google Voice since it was Grand Central. I am always recommending it to everyone, but it has been a problem up until now, because they couldn’t just go sign up for it because it was opened to the public yet. Now, it is open to the public, so anyone can go get an account.

I highly recommend you do so. Google Voice is a great service.
It provides you with a virtual phone number. You can then forward that number to up to six other phones at once. When anyone calls the virtual number, all the other phones ring simultaneously and you can just pick up whatever one is available.

So, for example, you could forward it to your mobile phone, your home phone, and your work phone. You hand out the Google voice number instead of your other three numbers. When someone calls you, all three of your phones ring. If you are at work, you can take the call on your work phone. If you are at home, answer your home phone. If you are out, answer the call on your mobile phone. After answering, you can even transfer the call back to one of the other phones. So, if you are outside and answer on your mobile, you can walk into your house, hit star on your mobile and transfer the call to your home phone without the other person even known.
It also allows you to make free phone calls anywhere in the country. You can either initiate the call from a website, or by dialing your Google Voice number from any landline, just like you would dial a number to use a calling card, and then following the steps to make the call.

That is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much the service can do. Voicemail, sms, numbers from different cities than were you live, etc. etc. etc.

If you have somehow missed Google Voice up to this point, now is the time to go get your number.

As I believe certain tablet computers are way over priced, I have also believed for a long time that standalone ebook readers have been way overpriced. Not anymore. Today, the Nook released a wifi only version of their ebook reader device for only $149. Prior to this their cheapest price was $249 for their 3G version. The 3G version has also dropped in price to $199.

In response, Amazon also lowered the price of their Kindle to $189. Now we are talking. Now we are getting some competition. Considering a paperback is in the $8 range, and a hardcover can set you back $35, this is getting a device dedicated for ebooks into a price point any serious reader shouldn’t have to think seriously about.

I use my old Nokia Internet tablet for reading ebooks, but I know an eink display would provide a better experience. If reading ebooks is your real goal, getting into that $150 price point is a major achievement.

Personally, I myself probably still wouldn’t buy one because of the DRM issues. If I buy a book, I should be able to read it and when I am finished anyone else in my home should be able to read it without having to buy more than one copy or lending them my device while they read it. Then when everyone in hour household is done with it, we should be able to lend it to anyone else who we know who wants to read it, as long as we are not also reading it at the same time. That is how real books work. That is how real CDs and DVDs work. That is how ebooks should work. The Nook does have a lending feature, which is a huge step in the right direction, but it is my understanding that the restrictions on what you can lend and who you can lend it to and how many time you can lend it, make it pretty useless. At $149 though, and with the ability to read non DRM books on the device, it might still be worth getting the hardware for its own merit.

I could see breaking that $150 barrier making a lot of people who were sitting on the fence about buying an ebook reader finally taking the plunge. I have been a fan of ebooks for nearly a decade, and finally I believe they are here to stay.

Has your cat/ferret/rabbit/vacuum cleaner severed the cable to your Wii sensor bar? Have no fear it is relatively simple to fix.

Inside the Wii Sensor cable there are two wires. All you need to do is get these reconnected. The only problem with this is each of these wires is coated with an insulator, which you can’t really see, or at least it is not immediately obvious looking at them.

The Fix
Cut out the bad section of the cable and remove maybe an inch of insulation from each side exposing the inner wires. They look like they are bare metal as there is no plastic sheathing on them, but they are actually coated with an insulating non-conductive layer. To make the repair, you need to get rid of it. Take a lighter and apply flame to the end of each wire. It is actually flammable and the wire will catch on fire. It is burning off the insulator coating. Blow it out before it reaches the end of the wire. This gives your exposed wire an exposed area at the tip, while keeping an insulated piece of wire at its base. Do this for both pieces of wire on both of the pieces you need to join together.

To make a really nice repair, you can use a piece of shrink tubing to cover the repair when you are finished. You can pick this up at Radio Shack. This is  optional. If you are going to do this though, make sure you slip a piece of the tubing over the cable before you join the cables together. Then, once they are joined you will be able to slip it into place.

Now all you need to do is join the ends of the cables together. They are different colors, so just connect them to the matching color. on the other piece of cable. Just twisting them together should be good enough, but you can solder them together for an even better connection.

Now, cover over the sections where you joined them with something non conductive to prevent them from shorting together. Electrical tape, or shrink tubing.

I like to lay the repaired wires against the side of the cable in opposite directions. This keeps them even more separated and less likely to ever have a short. Cover over the repaired area, either with your shrink tubing, or with some electrical tape. Plug it back into your Wii, and it should work as good as new.

It wasn’t even a month ago that I questioned Apple’s policy about having to create an account with Apple, even if you paid cash, in order to buy an iPad.

Apple said it was an authentication process, required for users to use their iPad anyway, and it would keep people from buying more than two iPads, which would keep them available for their customers. I thought it sounded too big brotherish to me. My concern was about privacy. You couldn’t get an iPad without providing Apple with your identity. Good for Apple to be sure, but what do you get out of the deal? You shouldn’t need to provide your identity just to use a computer.

Well, I hate to say I was right, but I was right. Part of the authentication process required you to provide Apple with your email address and now, those email addresses have been exposed on the web. 114,000 ipad owners, and perhaps many many more had their email addresses, which they had to provide to authenticate their  iPad, have been exposed.

This is a common theme. Companies that you think should be able to protect your private information don’t. You think a company like Apple or AT&T will keep your information secure, well don’t count on it. This is one more example of a company making victims out of their own customers for their own gain.

Are you having cannot read disc errors on your Wii? Not sure what to do about it? First I will give a little history on the issue I had, and then, give instructions on the steps you can take to troubleshoot problems you may be having.

History of the problem

Our Wii has had issues reading discs for a long time. Nintendo customer service is actually quite good, as long as your device is still under warranty. We had no issues at all until we got our first dual layer disc, Super Smash Brothers Brawl. When we got that disc, it worked most of the time, but once in awhile, it would halt or not load, and we would get an error that the Wii couldn’t read the disc. I read about the problem online, and quickly found I was not alone. A lot of people had the problem and sent their units in for repair. Our problem was not really repeatable though. There wasn’t really a way to make it happen all the time, so I thought if I sent it in, they might not even see the problem.

A while later I noticed it couldn’t read Gamecube discs either. This was repeatable. It couldn’t read any Gamecube discs at all. Since it still had about a month of warranty left, I sent it back to Nintendo with the hopes that whatever they did to fix the Gamecube discs problem, would also fix the dual layer disc problem, and it did for quite a while. Then, a few weeks ago, we picked up Sega All Stars racing. This disc seemed to have more issues than other discs in the past. Right out of the box, it would give errors, but if you ejected the disc and stuck it back in, you could usually get it to the point where it would play. Sometimes you had to take it out and put it in a dozen times to get it to start. Once the race started though, it didn’t seem to have problems, presumably because it was no longer reading data at that point. Read the rest of this entry »