My Applecare ran out a few weeks ago and as expected my blackbook stopped working with Mary using it. Just like her white Macbook. I tested the HDDs. Docked it into a Thermaltake Black Widow BlacX docking station and it wouldn’t mount. Picked up a new Seagate 320GB and the blackbook is back up. So I think new HDDs for all Macbooks, including her Mary’s dad. Apparently Apple has shipped a batch of bad HDDs from Seagate with FW 7.01. Apple is at fault, and Patti and Mary are off the hook.

Why is there not a recall on this?

Add to that they released details about the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0, which finally has MMS and cut & paste features. Why only now? To keep up with the Palm Pre. (slated to release this summer—Yay competition) Mr. Jobs said that MMS was not needed when the iPhone has such an intuitive email interface. What made you change your position Steve? Is the Pre the new heir apparent? Now it seems that Apple is chasing down Palm rather than the other way around. I need to trademark “Palm Pre Killer” before it becomes the new buzz word.

Recently, my father downloaded a trojan virus thinking he was downloading a virus scanner. He was fooled by an ad that claimed his computer was infected and as a result of the trojan, one of his credit cards was exploited. Luckily he was quick to catch it before it got any worse. My parents, like most people, are not as tech savvy as the scammers, giving them a huge advantage.

Aside from virii and computer hacks, there are people who still use some old fashion trickery to gain access to your private files, your home, etc. I’m going to share with you a few known scams and hopefully you don’t fall victim to any of them. (If you’re wondering, NO, I have no conducted any of these scams. I just happen to be street knowledgeable on a few things)

Secure Passwords

Have you ever forgotten your email password and had to answer the secret question to retrieve it? People typically pick a secret question that is familiar to them and easy to answer: “What’s your favorite movie?” or “What town did you grow up in?”

Well guess what, chances are that the answer can be found on your MySpace or Facebook where users typically share a lot of private information. Fortunately a lot of these social networking sites do offer some type of privacy by only allowing friends/contacts to see your profile. But you never know who’s shady and who isn’t.

Craigslist Robbery

You’re selling something on Craigslist and a potential buyer readily accepts your selling price and wants to pick it up today. You exchange phone number and the location of the item—which is most likely at your home. Then the buyer responds that he is on the way there now! Whoa! Wait a minute. You’re still at work and you tell the buyer you won’t be home till later in the evening. Good job. You just told the person you’re house is unguarded for the next X hours.

Your best bet is to meet up with potential buyers at a neutral location. This way they never know where you live and what else you have for the taking. Keep in mind that this scam extends beyond Craigslist to other places like your local newspaper classifieds, but Craigslist is the cyber-breeding ground for thieves.

Help a Nigerian Out

Another scam that stems from Craigslist. You’re selling something and the potential buyer is willing to pay you more than you are asking for via money gram, check etc. The buyer only asks that you wire the overage to a 3rd party in Nigeria—RED FLAG! If you don’t already know, scams and money laundering is in the top 5 of the nations GDP.

Sadly, I think my love for the brand is slowly wearing thin. All good things come to an end right? In the last two years, I have had a…

• Desktop G4 with a mysterious glitch that hoses the OS X installation every few days (This included 2 months of visits to the Genius Bar only to suddenly have them drop support as my AppleCare expired. Stall tactics maybe?)
• 3rd generation iPod HDD bite the dust
• 2G iPhone and BlackBook fry each other when connected
• A randomly freezing 2G iPhone (the replacement for the above)
• and recently a White MacBook with a dead HDD

It’s time to say enough is enough. But where do I go from here? Replacing the iPhone will not be too hard with the plethora of supposed iPhone “killers” out there. The iPod? A Microsoft Zune? That thing is just one step away from being shelved next to their ActiMates. My Mac computers? I’ll always be forced to at least have one to continue supporting my Mac based clients. 

It’s going to a long and obscure road ahead while I transition to a more dependable brand. Hello Nintendo? You’ve never disappointed me. Any chance OS X will be homebrewed on the Wii?

Bertrand Leroy has released this free nifty little app to control your WowWee Rovio from your iPhone. While it is a little barebones in features, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

Using the default web interface on Mobile Safari can be quite frustrating with the unresponsive buttons and start/stop type operation. Rovio Driver utilizes the iPhone’s accelerometer to control forward/backward movement, while a swipe across the screen rotates the Rovio on its axis. And double tapping the screen will adjust the camera head position. It’s honestly a very intuitive use of the iPhone’s UI. 

There are a few little quirks and hopefully Leroy will tend to them in future releases.

• The video only works when you are in play mode. That also means that the accelerometer is functional. So if you want to watch from a stopped position, forget it. 
• Currently there is no way to adjust the video quality. Set at best quality, there is a considerable amount of lag, even when operating within my LAN. There is a slider control for speed on the settings page, but it doesn’t seem to do anything.
• The settings screen comes up every time you access the app. It’s a bit of a nuisance as I don’t think many people need to adjust this at every launch. Also there doesn’t seem to be a way to get back to this screen without closing/relaunching the app.
• Over the edge network, the lag is so great that it’s unusable. Perhaps 3G iPhone owners have better luck. 

All in all, I say it’s the start of a great app. Keep it up Leroy!

After 3 months of use, I think it’s time to revisit this product and give my thoughts to how it has stood up to the test of time. My initial post on Wi-Ex’s Cell Phone Signal Booster Dual Band YX510 PCS/CEL explained how to install it, but I never covered how well it works or any pros/cons. 

I’m not going to go into how to setup/install the extender, as I’ve done that already. What I want to talk about is how well this product works. Before using the extender, I had at best 1-2 bars on my iPhone in any area of the basement. With it installed, I now have full signal strength. While the manufacturer suggests having line of sight to the base, I have no problems receiving signal in different rooms in the basement. Keep in mind that my walls are made of 2×4s and drywall. I highly doubt that signal will travel through cinderblock.

Once in a while, my signal indicator on my phone will drop to 3 (of 5) bars, but after a few seconds it will jump right back to full strength. I’m not sure if this has to do with my signal strength dropping from the receiver antenna mounted on my roof, or the base unit dropping the signal, or just my iPhone acting up. Regardless, it has never caused any calls to drop. So I’m not concerned about it.

I have used multiple cell phones simultaneously without causing any issues. So that’s a big plus for households with multi-cell phone users.

The base unit sits next to my wireless router and I have not noticed a drop in signal from either device. They do operate on different frequencies, but it’s worth noting when you have two devices next to each other that is emitting some type of signal.

To conclude, this product is definitely worth the $299 for those who need signal in certain areas of the house and cannot sacrifice moving to areas that do. My clients are impressed with my improved call quality and I no longer have to go outside to take a call.

Pros

• Extends signal to odd areas of your home/office.
• Different versions of the product for different carrier signals.
• Plug and play setup, no need to toggle switches, mess with software
• again…it extends signal to odd areas of your home/office.

Cons

• $299 price is not for everybody.
• It’s an extender, not a booster. If you have no signal to begin with, it’s not going to do anything for you.
• Installation may require you to go out to your roof. 

Recently picked up WowWee’s Rovio to watch the house and keep tabs on Oreo from a remote location. Despite some negative feedback, I have to say that it does exactly what I expected it to. Maybe I’m not a robot geek and don’t mind some of the Rovio’s shortcomings.

The webcam quality is average at best. You can’t see anything in dim lighting, in fact I had to turn on the brightness setting to max in order to make even ambient lighting visually acceptable. The attached headlight is useless. Although some resilient owners have made modifications to increase the lighting. Plus the headlight’s location is on the body, not on the motorized head. Speaking of, the head does not move freely up and down, it only has 3 available positions with the latter pointing straight up at the ceiling. Don’t know why I would want that.

Rovio’s software does tend to crash fromtime to time, which is certainly a problem if you’re away for days at a time. Luckily I work at home and I only need to go to the main floor to reset it. For the rest of the working class stiffs, you may come home to find your Rovio out of power or stuck under a table as it tries to navigate its way around your home. Supposedly the TrueTrack navigation is supposed to help Rovio find its dock and follow its pre-programmed paths, but simple things like chairs and tables can easily give it problems. Which you would hope it would do a better job considering the short battery charge anywhere between 15-45 minutes on a full charge.

	Having said much of the negative aspects of the Rovio, it does serve it’s purpose as so long as you realize that you are getting pretty what you paid. First it’s admin interface is web based. So there’s no need to install software that is necessary to run Rovio.
	That also means you can easily log into your Rovio with your iPhone or PDA. But for some odd reason, the interface opens very small in the corner of Safari Mobile. You can obviously zoom into it, but whoever wrote the HTML code for it needs to look over his/her work. No big deal.

You can add extra TrueTrack beacons to expand its range. Currently I don’t know where you can buy these, so this point is moot. But it’s still something to note.

And most importantly is that it is a webcam on wheels. Being that my dog doesn’t like to stay in one location, it allows me to look around rather than just have a fixed camera.

Pros

• Maneuverable webcam
• Web based interface
• Pre-programmed paths
• Active community for mods

Cons

• Cost – $300
• Webcam quality is poor to average
• Battery lasts less than 1 hour on full charge
• Limited to 3 camera head positions

If you have spotty wireless cell phone signal in your home or office and want to get rid of those dead zones, look no further than Wi-Ex’s Cell Phone Signal Booster Dual Band YX510 PCS/CEL. Play close attention as the name is misleading. It is not a signal booster, but rather an extender. To even consider this product, you need to at least have a strong signal within reach, preferably on the roof or outside a window, far from obstruction.

My home office is in my basement, where little to no signal is present. So many times have I repeated, “Can you hear me now?” to my clients. A few hours on Google and Amazon led me to Wi-Ex’s product. After lightening my wallet of $299, I was all set to install it. 

The first thing you need to do is find a good wireless signal. This is where you will place the pickup antenna that will provide the signal to the base unit. Personally, I found the best signal right outside my door, but I still went ahead and placed it on the roof of my home. Next is running the line from the antenna to the base. I already had some TV cable running into my basement, so I routed the cable the same way.

Finally connect the cable and power to the base, cross your fingers, and fire it up. Instant full signal strength.

EDIT: After 3 months of use, I’ve provided a pros and cons type review here.