Archive for the 'Misc' Category
Remember when we were kids and our school projects involved paper, glue, and scissors and that was about it? If you had plastics and metals, or wood shop, you got to make some cooler stuff, but for the most part, nothing more than trinkets to give mom and dad for their birthdays that wound up in some landfill within a year. Well, young Ralph has got something mom or dad surely won’t be tossing any time soon…if they’re lucky enough to get this cool project!
Ralph has created a car from an “iPod”. Really, mom helped out on Adobe Illustrator and printed out the iPod mockup but Ralph put it all together and entered his car into the Pinewood Derby. Speed isn’t the only thing this bad boy has. Nope, the iCar is sure to be the talk of the derby for years to come with its cool looks that really look like the real thing. I kept finding myself looking at the LCD screen for something to appear. It’s just that sweet.
Ralph’s mom was nice enough to even leave directions and examples on her web site for other iCar wannabes. Excuse me while I go grab my print job off the network printer…
[Thanks Fletch!]
The poor little iPhone brother. No one seems to want the little guy. Seems everyone saw the “deal” in just paying an extra $100 for twice the storage. Since that’s what everyone ended up doing, Apple has decided to say good-bye to the 4 GB version of the iPhone. While supplies last, party people, you can grab a 4 GB iPhone for $299 from Apple. The promotion is on the bottom right of the Apple Store web site and all you have to do is click and pony up the Visa.
Now the big question is when can we expect the 16 GB iPhone?
Otter Products, LLC. is wild about otters and proud to support the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s latest exhibit. Wild About Otters is a dynamic and interactive display featuring 10 freshwater otters and species that share their habitats. The exhibit illustrates the importance of clean water and conservation of lakes, rivers and oceans.
“We are thrilled to take part in such a great cause,” said Curt Richardson, CEO of Otter Products, LLC. “The Monterey Bay Aquarium provides a great resource for educating people about this incredible species.”
This $3.6 million exhibition, scheduled to continue through 2010, shows how otters need clean water to thrive. High-definition video clips, interactive graphic panels, touchable models and other displays tell each otter’s story and share conservation messages about the global importance of clean water.
“As the symbol for our company, the otter serves as an inspiration with its fun, active personality. We look forward to playing an active role in the exhibit to help protect otters around the world,” explains Richardson.
OtterBox will be giving away 200 complimentary tickets to Wild About Otters as well as donating sale proceeds to the aquarium during the year. The company plans to give away cases to visitors on “World Ocean Day,” June 9, as well as attend and donate cases during “Otter Days,” September 22 and 23.
By teaching about the history, native habitat, favorite foods and otter behaviors, visitors will make a connection with these special creatures at the aquarium.
SvenOnTech receives tons and tons of press releases daily. After a while, your eyes glaze reading the subject lines, but once in awhile, something breaks it up for you. Sometimes it’s a great new product being released, or it’s some interesting invention, or maybe just some industry news. But once in a great while, you get a fun one. Like the one that came over our Inbox today with the subject line that read:
PC Tools Leap-Frogs the Competition by Acquiring World-Class Behavioral Malware Technology
Leap-frogs the competition you say? Was it from some awesome R&D? Or from a boy-wonder you hired from Berkley? No? Oooh, it was the Microsoft way, you BOUGHT the competition!
“This acquisition is a part of our long term plan and underwent a rigorous evaluation process of best in class products; considerable attention was given to how the Novatix team and products would build synergy with PC Tools’ offerings,” said Michael Greene, Vice President of Product Strategy. “This is a major deal for us.”
Ya, I bet it is a major deal for you, Michael. 
PC Tools is known for it’s anti-virus software and today, known for making one really funny – yet honest – press release headline.
It seems technology is about to prove that technology is not the reason for the global warming Earth is experiencing. Automobiles, coal burning factories, and aerosol cans are not the reason for our half degree celsius temperature increase in the last twenty-five years. Nope, now with Mars heating upand Neptune warming up, too, it seems a bit hard for many well known scientists to agree with what they once did. In other words, many respected people of science no longer believe that people are the reason for Earth’s global warming.
Botanist Dr. David Bellamy, a famed UK environmental campaigner, former lecturer at Durham University, said “global warming is largely a natural phenomenon. The world is wasting stupendous amounts of money on trying to fix something that can’t be fixed.”
Climate scientist Dr. Chris de Freitas of The University of Auckland, N.Z wrote, “At first I accepted that increases in human caused additions of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere would trigger changes in water vapor etc. and lead to dangerous ‘global warming,’ But with time and with the results of research, I formed the view that, although it makes for a good story, it is unlikely that the man-made changes are drivers of significant climate variation.”
With more examples of others now changing their mind about global warming, the U.S. Senate has made available its findings that steered it toward not passing a heavy-handed business punishing bill this week. It’s an interesting read and may add more credence to article such as this about Gore’s movie that may be soon labeled fiction.
Every once in a while, you look at something and at first glance surrender it do absurdity. Then on closer inspection, you realize that in fact, a jewel indeed lay beneath the murky mud of silliness. Well, I have such as a one for you all and it has to do with our favorite search engine, Google.
Everyone knows that Google is a simple all white page. That white seems to be burning more fuel than black backgrounded screens. In other words, the white Google uses about 74 watts of energy on your display versus the 59 for the black version Google. Now, Mark Ontkush has gone and figured out that with all of us hitting the Google site as much as we do, that if we were to have a black version, we’d save — ready? — 3000 Megawatt-hours a year. Don’t mean much to you? Didn’t to me, either. In terms of greenbacks, we’re talking $75,000 in energy conservation. Wow!
No Fletch, this doesn’t mean I want all black web pages. 75k is small price to pay for a good looking web site. 
Everyone gets meatloaf (spam from friends and family) that consists of jokes embedded in a hundred e-mail enclosures because AOL still doesn’t get how to forward a message. Sometimes, though, some meatloaf has some worth and today I got one that really made me chuckle (CIMS: Chuckle In My Seat.) There was another one that read “Forgive Your Enemies – It Messes with Their Heads” that got an LOL.
Anyway, thought this was somewhat on topic and it cracked me up so I thought I’d share the love.
Astraware is pleased to announce a new way to buy games and applications from their online store due to customers’ requests for alternative payment methods. Many customers either didn’t have the particular types of card Astraware accepts or they didn’t have a credit card at all, and so requested that Astraware accept PayPal® as an alternative to cards. After a bit of nifty integration work from David Oakley, Astraware’s CTO, PayPal® is now live on the Astraware website.
“We get almost as many requests for different ways of paying and changes to our site as we do for developing different games – the number of PayPal requests has been steadily increasing over the last year until it was our most frequent request,” said Howard Tomlinson, CEO of Astraware.
“PayPal’s Express Checkout system was easy to integrate into our store’s checkout and also easy for our customers to use,” said David Oakley, CTO of Astraware. “For people who already use PayPal it significantly reduces the amount of information they need to provide to buy our games.”
Customers who choose to pay with PayPal® instead of the usual checkout system will be redirected to the PayPal® site to put in their login details and confirm the transaction. Once completed the site will instantly redirect the customer back to the Astraware website to complete the transaction and the customer will receive their registration code on screen there and then so they can start playing the game immediately. Their code will also be emailed to them as usual so they can keep a record of their transaction. Customers who are familiar with using PayPal® should hopefully find this will be just like their experiences at other sites!
The initial roll-out of this enhancement is for purchases of Astraware developed and published products, so the option to use PayPal® won’t be available at the checkout if customers have added one of the titles (from the Astraware Lifestyle catalog, for instance) that Astraware resells for other companies. All being well, Astraware hopes to extend this service across all products on its site in the near future.
For more information on Astraware accepting PayPal®, please visit the Astraware website at http://www.astraware.com.
If you’re in the market to buy a new Mac Pro, then you may want to head over to Silverado Systems as its sweetening the deal to an incredible tower computer with some free stuff. Silverado Systems is celebrating four years of business and it want to give YOU the present. Purchase a Mac Pro with AppleCare between now and the end of March and Silverado Systems will give you at no additional charge Airport, Bluetooth, and wireless keyboards/Mighty Mice in your order! If you’re looking to get a MacBook Pro (with AppleCare), then you’ll get a free Booq PowerSleeve valued at $100.