Now, we’ve never been to this “Hall of Presidents” at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida (our parents instead taking us to real, disused dungeons and battlefields for family entertainment), but we’re thinking about heading down there today — not because the newest animatronic addition — President Barack Obama — has just been unveiled, but because his likeness is so… unlike him, so incredibly, terrifyingly creepy (and yet still impressive all the same). Yes, we’ll pop all of our closest friends’ children into the van and take a fantastic voyage down to the southern tip of our great nation just to see their reactions to this horrifying robotic educational presentation. What better way to celebrate our nation’s independence? Come to think of it… maybe our parents weren’t so bad after all. Videos of Obamatron and of the President himself recording audio for it after the break.
Netbooks are netbooks. Usually based on Intel’s Atom chipset, and generally not that fast. What you gonna do? Well, I upgraded the SSD in my Hackintosh. Not just to bump the drive from 32 to 128GB, but for SPEED.
The drive is one of few things easily upgradable on these devices. On the Dell Mini 9, its a matter of removing two screws on the back plate, and two screws that hold the drive in place (which, if you’ve never seen a netbook SSD drive before, looks more like a RAM module.) The 64 and 128MB modules take up the space reserved for the WWAN card, so don’t go that route if you have WWAN.
While I was able to restore my Mac OS X Time Capsule backup, it wouldn’t boot til I used the DellEFIbootmaker (allows you to boot into the drive you just restored) and then ran DellEFI to restore the partition to a bootable condition. Oh, the Leopard install process which you use to restore won’t read off of a Time Capsule, so you have to copy the restore file to a USB drive before hand. Anyhow, none of this is the point.
Look at how much faster the writes are, especially the random ones. The only sacrifice you end up with is a bit of big block read performance.
It’s a bit of a shame the stock SSDs had these compromises in the first place, though. If you’re buying a netbook, its worth checking the forums for results like these on the models you’re interested in, and perhaps buying a low capacity stock model, and upgrading to an aftermarket drive later. (The Super Talent drive I tested wasn’t cheap, though, at $200 for the 64GB model and $380 for 128GBs.) Kind of ridiculous next to the cost of a $200-$300 netbook, I admit. *shame*
One other thing to consider: The runcore SSD upgrades for netbooks have little microUSB ports on them, so you can load up and back up files/images from another machine. Handy for Hackintoshing, for sure, but I think they top out at 64GB, taking up only a single wide form factor. [Super Talent Dell Mini 9 SSD]
Get out your Bill Gates commemorative calendars folks, ’cause it looks like we now have a few more dates to mark off on the road to Windows 7 availability. While Microsoft still isn’t saying anything official itself just yet, a number of different sources are reporting that the company has set July 10th as the date for the final gold build of Windows 7, while the big release to manufacturing date is apparently on track for July 13th. Of course, things could still change if there’s a major bug or other problem encountered, but barring any disasters, that’ll likely be the same build that finds its way onto your PC this fall.
We already knew Heinz was developing a USB-powered and possibly portable mini microwave, but now we actually get to see how it works. You guessed it, just like a microwave.
It’s supposedly going to be battery-powered upon release, letting you take it outdoors for a quick bean injection no matter where you are. And having a microwave on your desk? That’s living, my friends. [TechEBlog]
Now, we’ve never been to this “Hall of Presidents” at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida (our parents instead taking us to real, disused dungeons and battlefields for family entertainment), but we’re thinking about heading down there today — not because the newest animatronic addition — President Barack Obama — has just been unveiled, but because his likeness is so… unlike him, so incredibly, terrifyingly creepy (and yet still impressive all the same). Yes, we’ll pop all of our closest friends’ children into the van and take a fantastic voyage down to the southern tip of our great nation just to see their reactions to this horrifying robotic educational presentation. What better way to celebrate our nation’s independence? Come to think of it… maybe our parents weren’t so bad after all. Videos of Obamatron and of the President himself recording audio for it after the break.
…NASA Flashes a Full Moon…Disney Buys a Piece of Another Lifeless Rock…Move Without Moving (aka How To Get Fat Fast)…iPhone Screens Fixed at a Store Near You…
These beautiful hi-res shots of the Moon appeared after the camera on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter started shooting two days ago. On one hand, it gives me a tingle that the Moon is once again in our sights, but on the other hand, hey, it’s the damn Moon—Pink Floyd told us everything we need to know about it. (”It’s all dark,” for instance.) I figure we move on to some new celestial body. [Wired]
Remember Asteroids? That game with so much story, it caused JRR Tolkien’s nephew Froederick to exclaim, “My uncle has been upstaged!”? Well, Disney bought—wait for it—the movie rights. Yes, there will soon be a movie of Asteroids. Why am I even bothering to tell you this? Because you will probably see the trailer first here, embedded on Gizmodo. I am not proud of that, but you know it’s true. [Slashdot]
Reason Why We’re Doomed #84713: Treadway motorized footwear. Yes, some designers are hard at work contriving a way to keep you from using that fine leg musculature God gave you to walk “the last mile.” I for one resent this, not just because so many Americans are already so heavy they make the people in Wall-E seem fit, but because, as somebody glued to a chair all day, I relish being able to get out and walk. So hear me now: I will never wear your damned motorized shoes. Ever. Except maybe once. [Unplggd]
People who will remain nameless who broke their iPhone screen a few weeks after someone was nice enough to give them their old iPhone (you know who you are) will be relieved to know that Apple Stores are now replacing screens on location. This is not 100% confirmed, and seemed like too minimal a rumor to run as its own post, but it is good news for certain people, because it means you won’t need to ship your phone off to a repair facility and wait. (Hint, hint.) [MacNN]
While prepping for our nation’s independence, we came across this excellent explanation as to how most basic fireworks function. The clip takes about a minute of your time and will imbue you with impressive knowledge for this July 4th. [HowStuffWorks]
Remember that guy who uber-hacked his Eee PC with a GPS, Bluetooth, draft-n WiFi, FM transmitter, SDHC card reader, modem, USB hub, 2GB RAM? Well, we got one more for him. This enterprising gentleman, fed up with suffering through the three-finger scroll of his Eee PC 901, integrated the trackball of his Apple Mighty Mouse into the netbook’s palm rest. Of course, this took some time and effort: in the end, the trackball leads had to be unsoldered from the mainboard, the trackball itself soldered to the mainboard, and the whole shebang installed under the surface of the netbook itself. But you know what? It works. That is, until the Mighty Mouse itself craps out — as they have been known to do. Still, it’s all in a day’s work for a heroic modder. Right? Hit that read link for the step-by-step, but not before you peep the vid after the break.
No artistic ability? Let a friendly robot force your hands into drawing a realistic self-portrait of yourself.
Jen Hui Lia’s Self-Portrait Machine takes your picture and then guides your hands into drawing your own portrait. You slip your wrists and index fingers into the straps, hold a pen and the machine does the rest.
It’s sort of gimmicky now, sure, but imagine the next generation of this thing: instead of a picture as the source, it uses your brainwaves to put down whatever you’re picturing in your head on paper. Who needs talent? [We Make Money Not Art]
I thought this was some kind of bird hunting device sitting on top of a massive forest. In reality it may be your next vacation destination. And you will need the largest thermal airship to get it up there.
This is a canopy raft, an enormous set of nets held together with inflatable tubes that act as an structural frame. It can be placed on top of forests so people can camp, accessing the ground below using a hole and ropes. Apparently, the are so light that the trees don’t get harmed at all.
To place them on top of the trees they need a ship capable of handling such a large volume. In this case, they use the AS-300, the world’s largest thermal airship. [Gilles Ebersolt via Deputy Dog]
Netbooks are netbooks. Usually based on Intel’s Atom chipset, and generally not that fast. What you gonna do? Well, I upgraded the SSD in my Hackintosh. Not just to bump the drive from 32 to 128GB, but for SPEED.
No artistic ability? Let a friendly robot force your hands into drawing a realistic self-portrait of yourself.
I thought this was some kind of bird hunting device sitting on top of a massive forest. In reality it may be your next vacation destination. And you will need the largest thermal airship to get it up there.
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