Posted on January 16th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
“Badass Lego Guns,” by Martin Hudepohl; $30 from No Starch Press, nostarch.com. Somewhere, some place, all the time, there are people doing strange things with Lego blocks. In this case, we have an industrial designer in Germany who has put together some Lego guns. They are not deadly, since they fire only rubber bands or plastic Lego blocks, but you could still hurt someone if they hit an eye, so adults should watch over children’s play. Ninety percent of the book is filled with detailed drawings of the construction steps. The ultimate is a Lego assault rifle that can fire a stunning 1,200 rounds of Lego blocks a minute.
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Filed under: books, how-to, kids | Comments Off on NO STARCH LEGO GUNS
Posted on January 15th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
Skyfire enables iPad, iPhone and Android users to play millions of flash videos from the web that otherwise do not play or play very poorly on mobile devices. Starts at $3 in the app store.
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Filed under: Apple, apps | Comments Off on PLAYING FLASH VIDEOS ON YOUR IPAD, IPHONE OR TABLET
Posted on January 14th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
Markup.io is a free tool that lets you mark up a website with notes and then click “publish” to get a unique web address that contains that page with your notes. It works right in your web browser so there’s nothing to download.
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Filed under: Internet, Internuts, web | Comments Off on MARK UP A WEBSITE WITH YOUR OWN NOTES
Posted on January 13th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
ScienceFiction.com has news about movies, TV shows, games, books, comic books and technology from the viewpoint of sci-fi fans. We were alerted to a Twilight Zone marathon and a new download service from Sears.
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Filed under: Internuts, science, web | Comments Off on SCIENCE FICTION
Posted on January 12th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
Quora.com is a place to get answers to questions like “What business books should I read?” Or “What is recursion?” Or “What does Steve Jobs’ office look like?” It asked us to connect to our Facebook or Twitter account and then to choose topics we wanted information about. We saw questions our friends had asked or answered, with more links to their friends.
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Filed under: education, how-to, troubleshooting | Comments Off on Q&A
Posted on January 11th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
When creaky old computers slow down and become prone to errors, people sometimes rush out to buy new ones. That may be overkill. All they need is a good “utility” program. Our new favorite is “Tune-Up Utilities 2011,” from tune-up.com. Note: Ignore the program’s “registry cleaner.” Skip it and use the program’s other utilities, since registries don’t get dirty and fixing them can do more harm than good. The program has an “undo” function if something goes wrong. Tune-Up is a $40 program that speeds up your Windows computer. It fixes errors, recovers mistakenly deleted files and shreds files you want to delete so they’re deleted forever. In the process of doing all this, it makes for faster start-up, shut-down […]
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Filed under: computers, troubleshooting | Comments Off on COMPUTER TUNE-UP
Posted on January 10th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
The Kobo eReader is great if you want a smaller device to fit easily in your pocket or small purse but it doesn’t have all the features of the Amazon Kindle.
(CLICK UNDERLINE BELOW HEADING FOR MORE.)
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Filed under: Amazon, books, digital, wireless | Comments Off on THE KOBO EREADER
Posted on January 9th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
About 50 iPad rivals were on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The 10.1-inch Motorola Xoom tablet got CNET’s “Best of Show” because of its fast dual-core processor, compatibility with the fastest 4G cellular network, its front-and-back facing cameras for video chatting, and its HDMI-out port, for connecting the tablet to a big-screen TV. The latest tablets from Acer will come in three sizes:4.8-inch, 7.1-inch and 10.1. All will use Honeycomb, the latest version of Android. CES also displayed a lot of cameras, from the Polaroid sunglasses with built-in camera worn by Lady Gaga at the show to video cameras contained in goggles. We liked the Casio Tryx. It has a handle that can double as a tripod or […]
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Filed under: cameras, computers, electronics, tablet | Comments Off on CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW WRAP-UP
Posted on January 7th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
The next version of the iPad will be here in three or four weeks, possibly Tuesday, February 1. So says Kevin Rose, founder of Digg.com, whose new newsletter, Foundat.io/n just broke the story. The iPad 2 will feature a retina display and front/back cameras, just like the iPhone 4. The front/back cameras allow real time video chatting. The “retina display” means the pixel density is so high, your eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels. Everything is sharper. The newsletter Foundat.io/n costs $4 a month, though the posted articles will appear for free on the website Revision 3, a week or so later. More info at KevinRose.com.
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Filed under: Apple, apps, iPad | 1 Comment »
Posted on January 7th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
An impressive app is now available on the Nissan Leaf electric car and soon to be available on Ford’s Focus Electric, announced today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Here’s how it works: You’re at home and it’s 15 degrees outside. You don’t want to get into a cold car, so you whip out your smart phone and warm your car to 68 degrees. Since the car is still plugged in, you’re not draining the battery. In summer, on a 100 degree day, you tell the car to be cool when you step in. It’s all done by way of an app provided by Airbiquity, the same company responsible for the OnStar system and Ford Sync, a service […]
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Filed under: apps, environment, mobile, trends | Comments Off on A LEAF INTO THE FUTURE
