Larry’s Things .net

http://www.torontohydro.com/electricsystem/dataincentiveprogram/index.html

http://www.solarac.com/ultracooled.htm

but is probably referring to a product made by this company:

http://www.coolerado.com/

http://www.buildinggreen.com/

The following is just a documentation of what I did to clean the trackball module of my blackberry.    The reason for cleaning the trackball was because it refused to move downwards.   Left, right, and up worked ok.  Follow and apply these steps at your own risk.  Death and dismemberment may spontaneously occur!   Even the act of reading further can seriously affect the curvature of space-time in your immediate vicinity and may also cause further death and dismemberment.   You have been forewarned.  

Each picture can be opened for a larger version.

  Look closely at the silver trackball ring,  you’ll see that there’s a small space surrounding the silver ring and the body of the phone.  It’s just enough to stick your fingernail in to pry the silver ring out.   Very carefully pry it out while changing sides frequently.   Before removing it completely, I noticed that the silver ring only has 3 prongs (NOT FOUR!!) ,  remember where these prongs are positioned, and also notice that the prongs fit into a slot.   REMEMBER that these prongs have to be seated into these slots…   trying to put the silver ring back on without aligning into the slots will bend+break the prongs - I already made this mistake!

Once it has been removed, it will reveal the trackball module.     It can be easily popped out just by flipping the phone face down into my palm.   <— don’t do this yet!    Very carefully flipped it into my palm and made note of how the module was oriented,  this will ensure that I put the module back in properly.

Notice that there are 4 small roller things.   Take note how they are positioned!   Because after you remove the metal clips, they can easily pop off.   They are also magnetized, so they tend to be attracted to each other.   In order to remove the metal clip,  I had to use something sharp, like a swiss army knife.   Use this sharp instrument to carefully lift the metal clip off the plastic tab.

The pictures below shows the rollers and ball completely free from its’ housing.   I then used some mild cleaning solution like soapy water or windex (basic ammonia based window cleaner) and some tissue to clean the individual components.   I do not recommend using any strong cleansers which might melt the plastic.

Put everything back together.  (and using the previously made notes on how things were oriented) .

 Et viola,  the trackball is working again.

http://www.importgenius.com/

http://freshmeat.net/projects/unison

http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/info.html

Looks interesting…

Symptoms:   Suddenly stopped connecting to a known wifi site (named “X”).  When trying to connect, it says that it has connected, but no proper IP address is issued.   The airport config shows the message of”Airport has a self-assigned IP address and may not be able to connect to the Internet” Properly shows list of available wifi sites, and is able to connect to all other wifi sites.   Tried deleting all relevent pref files and resetting the PRAM, with no effect.  Solution:  The laptop was banned for some reason to connect to the that particular wifi station.  It probably triggered some security filter and caused that particular “Mac” address from connecting to that network.   Temporary solution is to change the mac hardware address to a slightly different one.On OS X leopard and on newer machines, the procedure is not as simple as on earlier versions.Typically, just typing in :ifconfig enX ether 00:e2:e3:e4:e5:e6 would work… however on OS X , one must try to connect to a non-existent wifi site and immediately click on cancel, then use the command above to change the mac address .   You might need to specify an encrypted non-existent wifi site for this to work (I needed to do that).Once you’ve set your system to another mac address, I was then able to connect to that wifi site.

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=24540

Don’t know who this Neil Poulton guy is… probably someone supposedly in high fashion design.   Anyways,  what’s more important is how to open this case, as there’s no screws at all to hold this box together.   The box is essentially held together by some hidden molded tabs, and is somewhat tricky to open.   What I used to open is just a spatula and a bunch of expired transit cards.  Pictures are as follows:

You’ll basically be trying to push these holding tabs out of their anchor points, shown in this picture here:

Slide spatula into slit at bottom of drive.

With the spatula holding it open, slip the cards in.

Repeat for the other side, and carefully pry the inner case out, using the spatula.

This looks very promising:

http://www.gfi.com/eventsmanager

http://bumptop.com/

Update:  Aug 4, 2010

Apparently, they’ve been acquired by google.   The software is no longer available for download.

The default settings on RealVNC do not work with connecting to a mac remotely, make sure to change these 2 settings in “options” before connecting:

Colour level –> Full

“Render cursor locally” –> set off  (no checkmark)

/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -restart

Rumours floating around that the makers of the umpc OQO, might be going bankrupt.    Not verified, but they’re also not giving out RMA’s and also returning repair requests.   Oh well, better start hoarding spare parts then.

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Greetings,

We want to thank all of you for choosing Build Your UMPC for your UMPC needs.  This brief newsletter is to provide an update on the release of the OQO 2+.  We have been informed that the 2+ will not be released and all pre-orders currently on file will be cancelled. 

We also will not be receiving any new OQO inventory.  Any remaining inventory has been discounted and posted in our Open Box/Clearance section on our website. 

If there are any questions, please email us at info@buildyourumpc.com. 

Regards,

Build Your UMPC Staff

www.BuildYourUMPC.com

Wimba

http://www.wimba.com/

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