Yummy Wakame Weblog
Archive: Gadgets
Swipe credit cards with your smartphone
Squareup is brilliant! So handy — I would say even crucial — for flea-market vendors, Craigslist sellers, at garage sales and for other small business needs.
The tiny card reader that plugs into your smart phone via the earphone jack is free. All you pay are transaction fees (which you do anyway when you accept credit cards). There’s no contract – just pay as you go.
Warning: Smartphone Apps May be Spying on You
As you may have guessed I don’t have the most massive privacy concerns. However most people do, and this might interest you…
An examination of 101 popular smartphone “apps”—games and other software applications for iPhone and Android phones—showed that 56 transmitted the phone’s unique device ID to other companies without users’ awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone’s location in some way. Five sent age, gender and other personal details to outsiders.
iRip for iPhone and iPod
What a life-saving app this is! My laptop was stolen about a month back and I lost my whole iTunes library. Who seriously can be bothered to keep burning those backups to DVD?
So for the past month Ive been unable to sync my phone with iTunes because my new iTunes library was empty and I’d made no backup of the original. I loved the audiobooks, ringtones and tracks on my phone so much I considered never syncing again. But today I found iRip which has imported all my files from my iPhone back into iTunes. And I mean ALL! I would hug it if I could I am so happy!!!
iRip is now FREE! So download away.
Other inferior apps are charging around $20 to do a crappier job at it. The Little App Factory – you guys rock!
*** UPDATE ***
Oh, so it does ask me to register half way through, to get all my tracks. Sneaky sneaky! However, I am still glad to pay the $20. The app worked perfectly!
The Lightest Laptop Stand I've Eyeballed
My 4 years old laptop is a blustering old mule that runs hot and heavy all the time when its not groaning under the weight of PhotoShop, Outlook and Dreamweaver. I can’t afford a new laptop yet (I’ve been saying this for years) because I spend more time travelling and farting around in the sun than working. Really, I love what I do, especially if it involves socks, and I would do it all for free if I didn’t have to eat… but I also work just enough hours to afford to eat really well and play. But I can afford a stand to allow airflow, and it would be nice to have the screen raised to eye level, its just that they are so bulky…
My new coffee shop friend Gabrielle was sporting an orange set of laptop legs that had me completely intrigued – a friend of hers makes them. So I just bought myself a purple set in celebration of purple and the end of my eternal quest for the lightest portable laptop stand with adjustable height. I held one and it felt like nothing was in my hand. Yay for this ingenious design! And YAY FOR PURPLE!
Free iPhone DIY Tech Fixes and Advice
I had a bit of a scare tonight with a jammed iPhone that would not boot and being miles away from an Apple store I was out of options. After doing the whopping big update to v 2.01 late tonight the wifi router with remote hard drive went down, along with it my connected iTunes library causing iTunes to crash, right at the golden moment while the phone was updating and rebooting. Oh noooo! Even after I struggled with cables in tight spaces and resurrected the network by plugging directly into the router to get iTunes up again, the phone wasn’t even unrecognisable. The best my laptop could offer was that my shiny phone was an “unrecogniseable USB hub that may be malfunctioning”. iTunes had even folded up its usual iPhone parking space as if its own child had never played in its yard. A reboot of the laptop yielded no change. Plugging the iPhone into the power outlet didnt help either. The frozen Apple logo wouldn’t go away. I wondered if the battery could last long enough to drive down to an Apple store in the RV some time this week. It seemed unlikely. I was tired, defeated and sadder than I was the second day of school.
Then a simple search into Google, namely “iphone frozen unrecognizable won’t restart” yielded a wonderful surprise:
Restart a Frozen iPod or iPhone and
My iPod / iPhone won’t mount or update. Bingo!
(Note there are sadly some adult ads on the side that may offend some)
Lots of super simple advice to follow. And after my iphone rebooted a few times and was plugged in and out a few times it finally remembered who it was and what to do next.
Finally I can go to sleep without worrying about having lost a quarter of my brain. Good night all!
A backpack that converts into a home!
With a whole new wilderness walking adventure on the horizon I’m looking into really simple ultra-lightweight backpacking solutions. With a relatively petite build and the need to carry my own sleeping bag, mat and possibly a tent, with food for 5 days as well as the usual gear, its essential to pack the absolute essentials and to try to find items that are not only light but have multi uses.
I already have a huge sweet spot for useful gadgets and gear that morph into something else I need, and I will be bringing a Light My Fire Spork, but the Powerpac 2000 System takes first prize! Such an incredible invention. It’s a pack that uses your ground pad and sleeping bag and converts onto a shelter. I am SO blown away…
This link shows pictures of everything you can pack into it and how it looks with your shelter erected, but perhaps the best way to understand how it works is to check out this link which is the more stripped down gearskin version.
Make camp or break camp in a minute. Your gear is bundled together — no separate stuffing, rolling, or bagging your camp. Eliminates empty spots in pack and condenses your gear making it easier to carry.
Best of all, the whole system can weigh in at as little as 5lb if you opt for ultra-light bivy, closed-cell foam pad, and an ultra-light sleeping bag. Using standard backpacking gear, you’d probably be looking at 3lb for a pack, 5lb for a tent, 2lb for a sleeping bag, and 1lb for a pad — a whopping 11 pounds for those four items alone.
Read the full article »Comments Off
AQUS Toilet System
There are so many innovative and easy ways to save the earth’s fast dwindling fresh water supplies by reusing grey water in your home. Take this amazing contraption for example:
The AQUS System is an innovative water conservation device. Simple to install in almost any bathroom and requiring minimal maintenance, the AQUS is hardly noticeable. In a 2-person home the AQUS typically saves 10-20 gallons per day, or 5,000 gallons per year, of metered fresh water.
QUAD – Samsung's Pen Concept
I’m pretty excited about this pen, still under development… or at least it was one of 32 design works displayed by the graduating students of the Product Design department of SADI. The QUAD Pen has an electronic sensor in its tip that records every movement into a tiny memory chip within the body. The best part is you can write on virtually ANY surface, even the air, unlike the FLY Fusion Pentop Computer which requires special paper (the ad is a bit misleading about this).
Its important to note that these sorts of pens are unfortunately not tablets for wireless on-the-fly drawing like tablet pens. That would be truly great. The data thats stored in the chip is later transferred to your PC. It would be great if Samsung could make a pen that draws like a tablet and works on Macs too.
Help Save Japan’s Dolphins!
More than 20,000 dolphins and porpoises are being slaughtered each year and their meat, containing toxic levels of mercury, is being sold as food in Japan, often times labeled as whale meat. Send a letter to President Obama, Vice President Biden and Japanese Ambassador to the United States Ichiro Fujisaki urging them to address this issue »
February 2012 / January 2012 / December 2011 / November 2011 / October 2011 / September 2011 / August 2011 / July 2011 / June 2011 / May 2011 / April 2011 / March 2011 / February 2011 / January 2011 / December 2010 / November 2010 / October 2010 / September 2010 / August 2010 / July 2010 / June 2010 / May 2010 / April 2010 / March 2010 / February 2010 / January 2010 / December 2009 / November 2009 / October 2009 / September 2009 / August 2009 / July 2009 / June 2009 / May 2009 / April 2009 / March 2009 / February 2009 / January 2009 / December 2008 / November 2008 / October 2008 / September 2008 / August 2008 / July 2008 / June 2008 / May 2008 / April 2008 / March 2008 / February 2008 / January 2008 / December 2007 / November 2007 / October 2007 / September 2007 / August 2007 / July 2007 / June 2007 / May 2007 / April 2007 / March 2007 / February 2007 / January 2007 / December 2006 / November 2006 / October 2006 / September 2006 / August 2006 / July 2006 / June 2006 / May 2006 / April 2006 / March 2006 / February 2006 / January 2006 / December 2005 / November 2005 / October 2005 / September 2005 / August 2005 / July 2005 / June 2005 / May 2005 / April 2005 / March 2005 / February 2005 / January 2005 / December 2004 / November 2004 / October 2004 / September 2004 / August 2004 / July 2004 / June 2004 / May 2004 / April 2004 / March 2004 / February 2004 / January 2004 / December 2003 / November 2003 / October 2003 / September 2003 / August 2003 / July 2003 / June 2003 / May 2003 / April 2003 / March 2003 / February 2003 / January 2003 / December 2002 / November 2002 / October 2002 / September 2002 / August 2002 / July 2002 / June 2002 /
Site Map { snoop snoop dee doop! }
Freelance Portfolio: Latest Portfolio » About
Expertise: My Background » My Coding Standards » Testimonials » Accessibility & SEO » Custom WordPress Template Design
Love & Karma: Discount for Non-profits & Charities That Love » Environmental Policy » Ethical Policy » Sharing the Bounty » Site Credits
{ 2002 - 2012 © yummy-wakame.com | all rights reserved }
