You hear it in the news everywhere — more and more companies are shifting their IT work overseas. Software companies are firing all their U.S. based developers and hiring foreign firms to build entire product lines (after the U.S. employees are duped or cajoled into training foreign workers).
With all of this going on, why isn’t there a movement — at least in the commercial software space — to label software as “Made In America, by Americans”? I for one would rather spend my money supporting fellow American developers.
There seems though, to be this anti-American current in the world. It’s almost as if any product so labeled would be doomed to failure on the international market simple because of the word America. What I want to know is what’s so wrong with being American? — more later.
Do you have an 802.11g (Airport Extreme) network? Fast isn’t it? Except when you have 802.11b (Airport) devices on it. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could perhaps connect an old candy iMac or one of the original flat-panel iMac’s via 802.11g (Airport Extreme)?
Well, you can!
Linksys has sold an 802.11b <-> ethernet bridge for some time now. It’s typically been used to connect gaming systems like an xbox or playstation 2 to a wireless network.
Because of this demand, they actually made a game specific adapter, both for 802.11b, and 802.11g (WGA54G). However, I don’t think either of the game specific adapters have much in the way of game specificity.
They do have a product aimed at non-gamers, the WET54G. It looks like it has one advantage - the option of Power Over Ethernet (POE).
It looks like either one of these devices should get your ethernet, non-airport extreme mac hooked up via airport extreme!.
I discovered something rather handy this weekend. For awhile now I’ve been using a share on my windows box for my Mac to store backups.
Well and good, except I hate, absolutely despise, having to use the Finder connect item to mount the drive.
I’ve know for awhile you could drag folders and such to the dock, on the right hand side near the trash, for shortcuts. I’d even occassionaly put a drive there — but never a network drive. Well, I tried it, and it works great!
It turns into a shortcut to mounting the drive if it’s not mounted, and opening the drive if it is. In fact I’ve put all my drives down there and turned off their display on the desktop — very sweet! Now only if there was a way to put my superdrive there and only have it show up when something’s mounted or for the name/icon to change when a different, or different type of disc is inserted.
The more I use OSX, the more I like it, but the more I seem to find missing things.
I went on a search this afternoon for a replacement battery for my Kodak DC4800 digital camera. I found the stock (1100mAh) battery at Circuit City for ~$30. I found a slighty higher rated replacement (1200mAh) at Battery Plus for close to $40. That’s just insane.
I found online merchants selling higher rated batteries (1300mAh - 1400mAh) for $18-25ea. I knew I could do still better though.
I went on ebay, found someone auctioning a brand new, 1350mAh compatible battery, bid on it, and won. Including 2nd day shipping it ran me a total of $13. Rock on ebay!
I’ve always had an idea how dependent we are on electricity. At least I thought I did. There are so many things we take for granted.
Our power went out on Thursday, September 18th at about 4:30PM EST. Our power came back on on Wednesday, September 24th at about 8:00PM EST. We were without power for a little over 6 days.
Our phones went down on Saturday, September 20th. We just got cable television and internet service back up and running on Tuesday, September 30th.
On the whole we were very lucky. We never lost water, and we have gas for hot water and cooking. And, as I write this, Dominion Virginia Power is still working on restoring service to several hundred people.
There are many things on my to do list that have been thrown all out of whack by the power situation. I will try and get on them as soon as possible. Please be patient with the image gallery and wedding photos. I have over 150 still to scan!
Beyond the normal things I tend to think of like television, computers, internet, etc., there were some other things we really missed having. Now, I know we had it good, ok? We didn’t have to power medical equipment, or anything like that, and don’t take it as whining — I just have more appreciation for some of the little things in life than I used to.
- refrigeration
After several days of no power, our ice reserves ran out, and we were forced to either throw out our food, or cook it. So we took it over to some friends who had electricity and fed a bunch of people. After several days a cold soda was all Bonnie or I could think about.
- laundry
No power means no washer and dryer. Fortunately we have friends who did some for us (thanks Kel!), and there’s a 24/7 laundry not too far away that had power back pretty quickly.
- can opener
A minor annoyance to be sure, but when you’re living off of spaghetti-o’s and soups and other canned goods that have a long unrefrigerated shelf life (when not eating out), opening those cans… well, let’s just say I could see opening case causing more cases of reptitive stress injuries than using a computer keyboard.
- bathroom fan
Oh my goodness… do I have to say anymore? I understand why outhouses were OUT of the house now!
