Category: Technology

My Tetris DS Friend Code:

474442
211912

Occasionally I find myself working with a Mac owner who is not near their computer, and can give me little more then a processor class and a physical description of the machine itself. Enter Mactracker. It’s a nifty little tool with all sorts of information on every Apple, Motorola, PowerComputing, and UMAX Mac ever released, as well as iPods, scanners, printers and other Apple accessories.

The information it provides includes:

• Processor speed
• Memory
• Optical drives
• Graphics cards
• Ssupported Mac OS versions
• Expansion options
• Photographs
• Startup and shutdown sounds (not really useful, but fun)

Mactracker’s product database updates itself automatically, and the authors seem to be fairly active in terms of adding useful features to the software itself. For instance, they recently added a timeline feature which shows all the products cataloged in the order they were released, broken down by year. I consider it well worth the 18MB of hard drive space if you ever have to deal with older Macs.

Apple, Mac, Mactracker, tech support, UMAX, PowerComputing, iPod, computers

On or around September 15th of this year, the powers that be at my work place disabled IMAP and POP access on the “lab” network that our bench machines (completely unlocked for testing purposes) are attached to. Since then, I had become frustrated with using webmail to access my personal email and set about finding a workaround. VNC is an obvious solution and work beautifully after I set my router to forward ports 5800-5810 and 5900 through 5910 to my computer.

Enter the Complications

My computer, out of the box, liked to go into standby mode after a short period of time. Since I pay for my electricity, and the time to wake up from standby is just a few seconds, I’m okay with this. The problem is that the computer has to be on for VNC to detect the incoming connection. I decided to try out Wake On Lan, which has existed for as long as I can remember using computers, but something I’ve never worked with. I opened up port 7 on my router and downloaded a nifty little windows WOL utility from depicus.com. For reference, I use the MAC of my computer, the internet IP address of my router and 255.255.255.255 as a subnet mask when sending out magic packets.

WOL seems to work erratically. Most of the time, I send the packet, wait 15 seconds and then I can VNC in. I can then shut down the computer, send the packet again, and VNC in again. But some days I send the packet and can’t VNC in and I have no idea why. Everything seems okay when I get back home. It’s as if the magic packet was never sent. For now, I’ve been leaving the computer on when I head to work and then shutting it off remotely when I’m done with it. But if anyone has any suggestions, I’d like to get things working consistantly.

Computers, Networking, remote computer management, VNC, Wake On LAN, WOL

UPDATE As of 9/12/05, these chairs have returned to their original pricing, and are not such a sweet deal.

Last time I mentioned things I was purchasing, I caught flak from Mike D for promoting my place of work, but this time the product I just bought it from an organization that I have no vested interest in.

My cube neighbor Steve and I ordered Furniture At Work® Hampton Leather Executive Chair from Office Depot. Order 2 and you qualify for free shipping. Use the coupon code 45036047 and you get an extra $20 off, so if you have a friend who wants one, you can pick it up for $30 each – shipped.

The current status of the order says it will be delivered tomorrow. Everyone I’ve spoken with thinks this date is highly suspect, and I’ll agree with them unless I get sent a tracking number tonight. Either way, I’ll post some (and by some, I mean one because I’m lazy) picture(s) and might mention if it’s comfy later on.

Office Chair, Furniture, Office Depot

From /. [Slashdot.org] Opera, my favorite web browser, is celebrating it’s 10th anniversary. As part of their celebration, you can get a free registration code. If you’re worried about privacy, you can just give them a fake email address and copy the code off the confirmation screen.

I guess I can take Opera off my Master Wish List [MasterWish.com]

More Info

• Press Release: Opera Software 1995 – 2005: Celebrating ten years of browser innovation
  

Opera, Web Browsers, Computer Software

Arriving today:

The box needs a bit more RAM and I’ll be throwing a higher end graphics card in it at some point (but with DVI on the motherboard, my only real complaint is shared video memory), but I’ve already got a DVD burner, so no worries about the base CD-ROM drive.

Work can can not end too quickly.

UPDATE 11:56am – The machine arrived and is in working order. I ran Dead Pixel Buddy and display seems to be perfect. I snapped a picture of it setup on my desk at work (which is it’s temporary location until 5:30pm):

Today UPS delivered my Sony DVD+/-RW DL Drive from PC Connection. Sad to say, it’s my first ever DVD drive. Sadder to say, I have no computer in which to install an IDE optical drive. While I haven’t used this new drive, I have seen the same model in action at work, at it performs like a trooper (after you update the firmware, anyway). Also you get the option of a futuristic beige/silver bezel or a sleek, professional black bezel, although if it is the biggest PITA to switch. This is a “while supplies last” item, and for $39.95 after rebate, plus shipping it’s a steal for a brand-name drive with these specs in a retail box.

On another note, Hypothermia, which aparently has butt-tons of give-aways (since that’s all I ever see them do), is doing a donation drive for Child’s Play an organization set up by the dudes at Penny Arcade that gives video games and video game systems to children’s hospitals. Oh, and your $5 donation gets you a chance to win a sweet-ass Penny Arcade themed gaming powerhouse of a computer, if you’re into that sort of thing, or need some incentive more then a warm cuddly feeling to donate a few American dolarini’s to a good cause.