Category: Geek

When I travel I wear what I call my travel watches. They are cheap digital watches which no one would want to steal in case I get mugged (don’t ask). For the past 2 years I’ve been using my Casio calculator watch but I recently decided I wanted a watch that could at least tell me the temperature. So after a bit of searching I decided to get the Timex Skiathlom. Its a very rare and strange (i.e. ugly) looking watch from the late 80’s. I used to have one back in 1990 and I figured I would get one. I had forgotten the name of the watch but after a bit of help from a Timex forum I managed to find the watch on eBay in excellent condition. It cost me around KD10 which isn’t too bad. Since there is barely any information on this watch online, I decided to scan the manual and take a clear frontal shot so that if anyone searches for this watch in the future they will find at least some info.

So if you’re interested in the Timex Skiathlom owners manual and a high resolution picture click [Here]

Kuweet.com is like KuwaitBlogs.com except instead of tracking local blogs it tracks local tweeters. A lot of people in Kuwait have recently jumped onto the Twitter bandwagon including politicians so Kuweet is a nice site to be able to keep track of all their tweets without needing to have your own twitter account.

What is twitter? I think the easiest explanation is that its like blogs except every post is limited to just 140 characters.. perfect for people who don’t enjoy or have the time to read a lot of long posts. [Link]

Note: If you have a twitter account and want to be added to Kuwait just follow @Kuweet

Aramex dropped off my Konia Auto S3 rangefinder today. It turned out to be a lot smaller then I expected, maybe around half the size of the Yashica Electro 35 GSN which I got last week. I actually bought this camera because it was going to be small since Nat will be using it and its small enough to fit into her hand bag. Now we just need to find something to shoot!

I’ve started experimenting with Twitter, trying to figure out why people use it. I already set myself up with an account and I’ve started posting there. I even installed a twitter application on my iPhone so now I am posting to my twitter account through out the day. If you want you can check it out by going to twitter.com/mark248am

I don’t know how many people are aware of this but Amazon has a service called Mechanical Turk which is basically a web service that pays people to perform tasks. These tasks can vary from anything like writing essays or short reviews to finding stuff for other people. The amount you get paid could be anything from 1 cent to hundreds of dollars. You as a person can either ask for a task to be done and offer money to whoever completes the task OR you can flip through what tasks are available and do them and get paid.

For example, last week I posted about this cool Amazon app on the iPhone where you can take a picture of an item, send it to Amazon and they will find the same product for you on their website. Well Amazon lists these pictures as tasks on Mechanical Turk and offers 10 cents to anyone who finds the link to the same product on Amazon.com.

Since I already spend a lot of time on Amazon I’ve actually been accepting a lot of tasks. So far I’ve found a Motorola phone for someone, an LG plasma, Xbox games, Sushi rice, mugs, books, oven and a ton of other stuff for people I don’t know in return for just 10 cents a find. So far I think I’ve made like $3. There are tens of thousands of tasks available on Mechanical Turk but I only work on ones called “Find the product for sale on Amazon.com”. They are EXTREMELY hard to find and work on since they are very popular easy tasks and usually by the time it gets listed someone else already agreed to work on it. I’ve found a way to get these jobs easily but I won’t be sharing it so other people don’t use my technique.

Its pretty silly, the money is very little but honestly when you’re bored online and it can be really fun since you never know what you will have to find next. Here is the link to the Mechanical Turk website. [Link]

Mastering the Internet infomercial from 1994. Comes in 3 volumes! [YouTube]

Cedric Delsaux is a photographer that is famous for his Star Wars series and his latest portrays Star Wars characters in urban environments. Really cool stuff, follow the link to see some more pictures. [Pictures]

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I’ve always wanted an Apple TV but I couldn’t find a use for it. I had XBMC (xbox media center) running on my old Xbox and it was doing more than fine. I’ve already posted before on how XBMC is the best media center software in the market and Apple TV really stood no chance to compete… until now. Ten days ago a hack was released that would allow the installation of XBMC on the Apple TV. It’s a very simple process, you just install the hack onto a usb memory stick, plug the stick behind the Apple TV and just reboot. It then takes around 30 seconds to install XBMC and thats it.

What are the advantages of XBMC on Apple TV over XBMC on the original Xbox?
1) Apple TV is quieter since it doesn’t contain a loud fan like on the Xbox
2) Connects via HDMI or Component cable while XBMC is only component
3) Can play 720P movies while XBMC can’t
4) The interface is snappier since Apple TV is a faster machine
5) It looks better and takes up much less space
6) Integrates with iTunes on my main server

I am so satisfied with Apple TV now that I’ve already unplugged my old Xbox and placed it in storage. If you don’t have an Apple TV Amazon sells them for KD60. Here is the [Link]

If you’re interested in setting up XBMC on Apple TV here is the guide I used. [Link]

In case you didn’t know already, XBMC is a media center software that will allow you to stream practically any movie format from your main server. Also as a side note, the right arrow key on my MacBook just stopped working awhile ago, I think its a sign I need to get the new MacBook.

Update: If you want to try out XBMC its also available for Windows, Mac’s and Linux. [Download]

Note: XBMC does NOT run on the Xbox 360, it only runs on the original Xbox.

I installed Mac OS X on my MSI Wind today and its running perfectly! The installation went very smooth and everything is working fine including the wifi, webcam, bluetooth, ethernet port and sound. I really didn’t think OS X would run so well on the Wind, I love it! I am actually so happy with the Wind now I am going to be selling my Asus Eee 900. I tried installing OS X on it today also but it was running really slow so I just went ahead and installed the dreadful Windows XP. Its running much better but I prefer OS X over XP any day so thats why I am going to be sell it. I will be losing money on it since the price of it has dropped since I got it but since I got the MSI Wind for free I don’t mind. The thing is I really don’t have the need for two ultra portables in my life and the fact that the Wind is running OS X means I will always choose it over my Asus.

If anyone is interested in installing OS X on the Wind all you need to get it working right is a Dell wifi card. I purchased the Dell 1490 from eBay for $15 with shipping.

Update: My Asus Eee 900 is now listed for sale in the forum [Link]

I took my MSI Wind to Munich with me as my travel laptop and it turned out to be a really practical alternative to lugging my MacBook around. Its much more lighter than my MacBook and its also thinner and smaller so it fit easily into my small carry on travel bag and it also wasn’t a pain to carry around. My biggest problem with the Wind is the fact that it runs Windows XP which I hate.

That problem is going to get solved very soon though. It turns out I can install Apple’s Mac OS X onto it which is what I am going to be doing very soon. I ordered a new Dell wifi card from eBay for $15 with shipping to replace the standard one that comes with the MSI Wind. The Dell wifi card works with OSX while the standard card doesn’t. I am also going to be upgrading the battery to a 6-cell which will make it last twice as long. Finally I am going to be upgrading the RAM from 1GB to 2GB, not because I really need to but because it costs only KD7 to do. I am now just waiting for the wifi card to arrive in the mail and once it does I will do the install and post my feedback on how the MSI Wind runs with OSX.

I passed by an Apple retailer in Munich today to check and see if by any chance they had the new iPod’s in stock. Turns out they will get them at the end of the week which sucks for me since I would be back in Kuwait. While at the store I spotted the Cinemizer which I posted about back in May. There was a working display model which I got to play around with. Watching a video through the glasses felt like I was sitting in a dark room with a large TV in front of me which was pretty cool. The glasses were comfortable to wear and I think it would a lot more practical watching a movie with these glasses then off my tiny iPod screen. But I think I looked really weird standing in the store with these glasses on. Imagine the reaction you would get from strangers if you wore your sunglasses while on the plane. Now imagine the reaction you would get wearing these thick ugly frames with wires running out of them… [Link]

Ok this post is a bit geeky but I just found it too unbelievable not to post. The site contains this crazy zip file thats only 42KB in size but when expanded uncompresses to 4.5 petabytes! [Link]

1 petabyte = 1000 terabyte

Simply the best video game ever! [Link]

I have an old PIII 500 with 256MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive lying around which I wanted to give to someone. I didn’t want to install Windows on it since the person isn’t very good with computers and always ends up getting viruses and trojans installed on his system. The computer was going to be used for Internet browsing, chatting on MSN and Yahoo and copying and view pictures from his digital camera. I decided to install a Linux OS.

The first Linux OS I installed was the latest version of gOS which was released two days ago. From the screen shots it looked like a really friendly and easy to us version of Linux and thats what I was looking for. After installing it I realized that the operating system was running very sluggishly on this really old computer, it wasn’t going to work.

I then remember I had bookmarked a website from Digg which had a list of Linux distros that were meant to be run on really old computers. I went through the list, did some research and in the end decided to try two different ones, TinyFlux and Wolvix.

I tried TinyFlux first and although it ran really well the user interface wasn’t very friendly. I then decided to try Wolvix and not only did it perform really well but the interface was fairly friendly looking with a Mac like dock at the bottom and large friendly icons everywhere. I decided to stick with Wolvix and after playing with it for an hour I think its pretty impressive for an OS thats under 250MB in size. It has Firefox, a music player, video player, photo viewer, and a whole bunch of other softwares all included and there is a ton more I can download all for free.

This is actually the best part of Linux, its free and the majority of the software for it is free. Another good thing is you can try out the OS without installing it, you just run it straight from the CD and if you like it you can install it if not you just eject the cd, reboot and you are back to your old operating system.

If you want to check out the list of Linux distros for old computer click [Here]
For gOS click [Here]
and for Wolvix click [Here]

This is a cool software that works on some Nokia phones. Say you get a phone call while in a meeting, all you need to do is flip your phone over and it will give the caller a busy tone and put your phone on silent. You could also just put your phone on silent by flipping your phone over anytime and taking silence off by flipping it back. Currently only works on the N95, N95 8GB, N93i and N82. [Link]