Category: Tech

How To Change A Dell DJ Battery

On By Michel McDonaldIn Music, Products I Like, TechLeave a comment

I just posted this video on YouTube.  It’s sort of a tutorial on how to change the battery in a Dell DJ-20.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svD_W3PCrSc

I got this for Christmas in 2004 but it didn’t actually arrive until the middle of January 2005 so technically the day I got it is when the warranty started.  Over the next year the battery would start to die so when I charge it it’s supposed to have 8 hours of battery life but that started going down more and more until it wouldn’t even turn on at all.

I called Dell about getting a new battery but since my warranty had lapsed (they never contacted me to renew it, I didn’t think to call them because I thought I had a 2 year warranty, that’s what I chose when we bought it through their website) so they refused to help me.  I told the person I was talking to that I basically had a $318 paper weight.  The guy said yeah I understand but without a warranty there is nothing we can do.  I asked about buying a new battery, they wanted like $75 for a new one.  I couldn’t afford that.

So it sat in a drawer until September 2008 when I wanted to start riding my bike for exercise.  I didn’t want to ride without my tunes so I went on eBay and found a battery for a Dell DJ-20.  Unfortunately it was .50mm too wide and it would’ve ended up costing me more than the battery was worth to send it back so I said screw it, I’ll make it work.

In this video I will demonstrate how to remove the old one and put in the new one.  Although mine I couldn’t put it in so I had to tape it to the back.  But it works and that’s all that matters.  I actually put the Dell DJ into a neoprene camera case to protect it.

I don’t know why but when I was video taping myself doing this my hands all of a sudden got so shaky.  I was kinda afraid of breaking it when pulling the old battery out even though I had to put it in for this video and then take it back out lol.  I knew what I was doing because I did it before but I got nervous all of a sudden I guess.

Anyway, for those people who have been searching for this, here you go.  I would’ve embedded the video in here but it just looks better at the YouTube website since it’s widescreen.

Eye Video Camera

On By Michel McDonaldIn TechLeave a comment

Filmmaker shows off eye-mounted wireless video camera – Source Dvice.com

Check this out.  This filmmaker invented an eye mounted wireless video camera that he can plans to use to film a documentary.  He lost an eye as a child and so he has a prosthetic eye.

This would have a very good use for blind people, that is if it had a chip that attached to the brain so that the blind person can see everything that the bionic eye can see.  They could remove the blind eyes and put in 2 prosthetic eyes with the camera installed into them.  I don’t see how you would be able to move the eyes though so I don’t know how that would work.  Although, they could just remove 1 eye because you probably only need 1 good eye to see.

I can see some other uses for this like for example video making, since it’s wireless you can have it recording to a hard drive in your pocket like the size of a USB drive then when you are finished recording you can put it on your computer to edit.

But the con side of that is you could be intimate with someone and they won’t know that you are video taping and then you could put it all over the internet and that person would be humiliated forever.

But, I can also see a good side.  If you are robbed at gunpoint or maybe even killed the police can look at the video to see who robbed and or killed you.

Piracy would be so much easier with this too.  People would go to the movies and be video taping it with their eye, they’d have to keep real still, don’t sneeze.  Then put it out there for all to see.  Same with concerts.  It’s bad enough that there are too many pirates out there stealing money from the movie industry by selling illegal DVDs, I can just imagine that they would find out that they are using a bionic eye then they would have an eye scanner all over the place so you can’t record.  But what if you are blind?  What then?

There are many pros and cons to this and I’m not exactly sure if this will ever happen but who knows, it might be sooner than you think.  I’m sure it will cost several thousands of dollars and it will only go to those who can’t see and there probably won’t be a hard drive for video taping but more a chip attached to the brain for blind people to see.  That’s fair enough.  If they knew it could be used for illegal purposes then they would become illegal to have very fast.

Aptera Electric Car

On By Michel McDonaldIn TechLeave a comment

I just watched a story on Fox News about this new 3 wheel electric car that is coming out this October.  It only goes 100 miles on an 8 hour charge.  It has solar panels on the roof to keep the inside of the car cool and it keeps the motor cool while it’s parked.  The news reporter showed how durable it is by banging on the top of the frame (before painted) with a really heavy hammer (looked like a small sledge hammer) and it didn’t dent and there wasn’t so much as a scratch.

www.aptera.com

This is basically a commuter vehicle.  It can have 2 passengers so you can pick up a co-worker and drive to work everyday and not spend 1 dime in gas.  But how much electricity does it use every night?  Does it use as much as a refrigerator or a computer or what?  I looked at their FAQ section, they won’t disclose any of that, probably because it does use a heck of a lot of electricity to charge.

There are electric car parking spaces though in some places.  There is an Amtrak station in Lancaster, CA with like 3 or 4 electric car only parking spots.  What you do is you plug it in then I guess put dollar bills in it and let it charge while you are commuting on the train to work.  I guess.  But I’m sure as soon as it becomes the norm for people to have this car there will be more electric parking spots available for employees so they can charge while they work.

Edit: Found it…  Here is a quote on the Live page on the right side at the very bottom of the list of functions of the car.

Plug-in
Okay, almost time for bed. You can be proud of yourself because the 100 miles you have driven since you unplugged this morning only cost you about $0.50. And, just think, tomorrow morning your Aptera will be waiting for your next big adventure.

That’s pretty impressive don’t you think?  And the seats are recycled from plastic bottles.

Recycle
We just think this is cool, but the fabric your seat material is made of prevented bottles from ending up in a landfill. How about that for being environmentally responsible.

Amazon Kindle 2

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Kindle, TechLeave a comment

In my previous blog about e-books I talked about the pro’s and con’s of e-books.  Well, most of the day I’ve been obsessively researching e-book technology and I have to say that I’m really excited about the future.

E-books use e-ink.  They don’t hardly use any power so the battery lasts a whole week.  You turn it on, press the menu and find the book you are reading, and by the way it shows in that menu the page you were on so you don’t have to find where you were at, it keeps it bookmarked from the last page you were reading.  Then you click the book you want to read and start reading.  Once that page is loaded it stops using any of the power from the battery.  You can have it sitting there for an hour on that page and it won’t use any power.  Once you press the button to turn the page then it uses power to turn the page then you see the words change and then no more power usage.  The battery will last basically a week before you have to charge it at all.  And when you do charge it, it takes about 2 hours to charge.

If however you are flipping through the Amazon website and flipping through pages of a e-magazine then yeah, it’s going to use a lot more of your battery and it will probably last 2 or 3 days before needing charged.

I love the idea of waking up every morning and the newspaper is already downloaded on your kindle.

It would also be good if the catalog companies would deliver their catalogs directly to your Kindle so that you don’t have to 1, wait for them to come in the mail and clog up your mail box and 2, waste paper when you throw it out.  This way you can flip through them then delete the file when you are finished reading it.  That is if you decide you want to, you can keep it if you want.

Another thing I want to obsess er um I mean discuss is the hard drive.  The previous Kindle 1 from last year only has a 256mb hard drive allowing you to store 200 e-books but the new Kindle 2 has a 2GB allowing you to have a hell of a lot more.  I don’t know exactly how many but it’s a lot.  Can you just imagine maybe in another year or 2 when they come out with the Kindle 3 it might have 2TB.  Then you will have a crap load of books and magazines and newspapers.  You won’t ever have to delete anything because you will have tons of room.

As I said in my last post, I’m waiting for it to be cheaper, in color and have touch screen.  Well, I watched a video today of the guy who invented Amazon talking to Martha Stewart and she kept mentioning color e-ink and he said it was in the labs.  Not their labs but in labs period.  Well, I’ve been seeing e-books with color e-ink so I know it is possible and I’m sure in Kindle 3 it will have color e-ink.

My other issue is about the touch screen.  I think it is a lot better than buttons.  I saw an e-book from Dvice.com that was touch screen, all you do is press and drag the page and it turns the page, or you just press the right side of the pager to flip it.  And also when you are on the website trying to buy a book you touch the screen for the keyboard and it comes up so you can type the name of the author or book title.  I think the Kindle keyboard is just too much.  Although it does have more of a use than just buying books, you can make notes in your books.  You can also highlight sentences.

Skype Video Phone

On By Michel McDonaldIn TechLeave a comment

The future is now people!  It finally happened.  A company has come out with a video phone that you can use to make free video phone calls.

Here is a demo.

It looks like you can make Skype to Skype voice calls as well as video calls.  The other person doesn’t have to have this device as long as they have Skype on their computer and a webcam.  And I saw on the demo that you can also make calls to landlines and cell phones.

It either plugs into your DSL/Cable router or you can use it via your WiFi connection at home.  It comes with a battery so maybe you can take it with you when you are on vacation and your hotel has WiFi access.

It does have a hefty price tag on it.  $299.95 but I’m sure in time that price will most likely go down.  It may have a small screen, 800×480 Pixel 7” TFT-LCD, but what are you expecting?  If you are using Skype to make video calls on your computer you will know that it’s 320×240 which is way smaller than this gadget.  And it has headphone jack so you can have a more private conversation.

Just think what you could do with this.  You could connect with friends and family and not just talk to them on the phone but actually see their faces too and if you hate to travel for business it could be used for meetings.

Since it’s a free video call what would be really cool is to call someone on their video phone at Christmas time and just have it running and have the camera looking at the kids who are opening presents.  This way the people who couldn’t come can watch the kids playing.  And whenever someone wants to come say hi to the person on video phone then they can walk over to it.

You can sit it on the dining room table and be eating while the person on the other side is also eating.  This way you will be sharing a meal.  The possibilities are endless.

Fidgit

On By Michel McDonaldIn Blog, Games, PSP, TechLeave a comment

Sci Fi channel has come out with a new website for gamers.  They seem to cover every platform, genre and every thing related to gaming.

http://www.fidgit.com

I try to look at everything for the PSP.  I just want to read everything I can about new updates and the future of the PlayStation Portable such as new features like when they added Skype and Internet radio.  This website doesn’t seem to have anything after July 2008 and right now it’s near the end of September.  I don’t really see this being a major source of news for me for the PSP right now but it is nice to have another source of news for the game system I love.

Dream

On By Michel McDonaldIn Dreams, PSP, TechLeave a comment

I have the weirdest dreams. I had to blog this before I forgot it. I am already starting to forget most of the dream but the main thing I want to write about is that we were running around and we had these duffel bags and my duffel bag had a camcorder and my PSP and my house keys inside it along with clothes and whatever, I don’t know what else actually.

Anyway, we stopped carrying them and at some point we were passing where we left them and they were gone and I said our bags are gone and Darrin looked at me like OMG WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO NOW!!!! And I turned to him and said “don’t worry, this is just a dream. I will wake up and that stuff will be where it’s supposed to be.” Then when I did wake up I was like whew hehe. But I find it strange that I knew that it was a dream so I chose not to stress over it in my dream.

Kodak Printer

On By Michel McDonaldIn Products I Like, TechLeave a comment

Ok, today Darrin printed a couple of things and the ink levels have not changed at all. This means that the print head WAS the problem and I’m glad we didn’t give up and just get a new printer, that I went to Kodak’s website and complained and got a new print head sent to me. Thank goodness.

XP Antivirus 2008

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, Scams, Tech1 Comment

I was looking at a website and it said that I needed to download active-x or something to view a video and we had to go to the grocery store real quick. When we came home I noticed Norton Anti-virus was going nuts saying it was blocking a virus and I saw this program running called Antivirus XP 2008 on my screen saying I had all these viruses on my computer and wanted me to click something to get rid of them. I knew something was wrong because I didn’t install that program and for some reason it wouldn’t allow me to uninstall it through the control panel. I used the laptop to search for it on Yahoos search engine and found this:

http://www.xp-vista.com/spyware-removal/xp-antivirus-2008-removal-instructions-xp-antivirus-2008

Please, take a look at the pictures and memorize them so if this happens to you then you will be able to arm yourself. You don’t have to bookmark this site or keep the email if you don’t have this issue but just remember to search for it through a search engine so you can be able to get rid of it. I was able to get rid of it but I had to follow the instructions on this website. I hope for your sake you don’t get this but in case you do make sure you get rid of it right away. Oh, one of the things you will notice is that your screen will be blue or maroon, your wallpaper will be gone. That is a good indication that you have problems.

Update: After I went through all the steps to remove this thing I went to lay down on my bed to watch TV and I noticed that it went to the Windows Login screen so I got up and clicked my name and went to see the screen saver settings, I right clicked the desktop and clicked Properties and there are 2 tabs missing.  Desktop and Screen saver.  They are gone!  I don’t know how to get it back.  If I have to reformat my hard drive I’m gonna be pissed.

Another update: I get these email supposedly from CNN.  They are usually 1 line emails with a link and I clicked it to see the video for a news story and it said that I needed the active x thing and that is what happened.  I was trying to see a news story.  I am not going to click any of those emails ever again and just assume it’s a link to a virus.  My Norton is still finding virus’s left over from that and deleting them.  So, if you get emails from CNN make damn sure they are really from CNN and not a fake website.  Just go directly to CNN.com instead just to be safe.

Kodak

On By Michel McDonaldIn Products I Like, TechLeave a comment

Well, today I received my new print head with a complimentary black ink cartridge, color ink cartridge as well as 5 sheets of 4×6 glossy photo paper. My printer is back to normal again. I hope it lasts this time.

I’m satisfied with Kodak. It’s a very good printer as I said before and I love that the ink is so cheap, that was the selling point you know? Darrin was ready to just go out and buy a new printer and I was like no this one cost you a lot of money, I’ll just deal with it. But why should I just deal with it if the problem can be resolved by emailing Kodak and asking them what to do? As I said, I’m satisfied.