Archive for the 'Nerd stuff (technology)' Category

Portable music player — avoiding an iPod?

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

My trusty old Rio Karma is nearing the end of its useful life, so I’m starting to think about an upgrade.

The ‘easy’ solution would be simply to buy an iPod. Since I’m looking for something with more than 20GB of solid state (not hard drive) storage, the ‘best fit’ iPod for me would seem to [...]

Danish wind-powered generator self destructs

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Apparently this happened when this brakes on this “windmill” failed during strong winds. Quite amazing and frightening.

Travels with Vista – security suites

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007

I know that not everybody believes in so-called Internet Security Suites. These collections of security products are designed to keep your net-connected PC free of nasties such as virii, spam, spyware, adware and the like. It is sometimes suggested that these products are, in fact, unnecessary bloatware, and that the operating system (particularly if it’s [...]

Re-Karma-fied

Saturday, June 9th, 2007

The replacement parts for my broken Rio Karma digital audio player arrived (from Karmalimbo in Canada), and the beastie is now repaired and working as well as ever.

Here’s how it all came together.

First, a picture showing the bits of my Karma after I’d opened it all up to find the problems (broken volume control buttons). [...]

More gold in old computers than in gold ore; same for copper!

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

Every ton of discarded electronic equipment contains 17 times more gold than a ton of gold ore and 40 times more copper than a ton of copper ore. Amazing. More here.

Thinking about a colour laser printer? Watch out for running costs…

Wednesday, May 16th, 2007

On a number of occasions recently, it would have been really handy to have a colour laser printer at the House of Nerds, in order to produce business-quality colour printouts.

I thought seriously about buying one of the nifty little Samsung CLP-300N devices ($A599 RRP, available for less than half that price at IT Estate). Then [...]

Nerd without Karma

Tuesday, May 8th, 2007

It’s not as bad as it sounds, folks.

My companion on my early morning constitutionals – an aged Rio Karma digital audio player – has died. The ‘increase volume’ button failed. By the time I figured out what the problem was, it was too late – I’d already turned the volume down.

Nerd goes to Sydney CeBit: disappointing

Monday, May 7th, 2007

Last week I took myself off to the CeBit IT industry trade show, held in the Sydney Exhibition Centre (SEC).

Posting from Microsoft Office Word 2007

Tuesday, April 17th, 2007

This is neat. Microsoft Office 2007 knows how to post to a WordPress site. I’ve prepared this post by typing into Microsoft Office Word 2007, and simply pressing the ‘publish’ button.

It just works!