Geek Rant dot org » Hardware

What’s your smartphone doing in the background?

daniel — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 01:14:17 +0000

Fascinating analysis of what goes on in the background on an iPhone or iPad as you listen to the radio or open a few (mostly Australian) apps — both in terms of bandwidth wastage, privacy and security: Secret iOS business; what you don’t know about your apps

Not that I’d expect Android to be much better; it’s all in the hands of the web/app authors, after all.

(via Kornelis)

Gateway computer, circa 2000

daniel — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 21:23:15 +0000

Was clearing out some papers on the weekend and found this: an order form for a Gateway computer from June 2000. I can hardly believe I used to spend that much dosh on buying computers.

I seemed quite impressed with the spec when I ordered it.

That computer worked until 2005, when its (custom) PSU died.

Comparison of costs: 1995 vs 2000 vs 2005.

To this day, the speakers that came with it (from “Cambridge Soundworks”) are still going strong, even though their beige colour doesn’t match all the black stuff.

Why is it so hard to figure out what’s wrong with an appliance?

josh — Wed, 18 May 2011 07:31:04 +0000

Yesterday morning the house suddenly went black – except for the oven clock, which made it clear that the RCD had been tripped. I went out and reset it, and then the fuse for one of the electrical circuits tripped. After resetting that and having it not trip again, I checked a few suspects out and discovered that my washing machine was dead. With a full load of water. I powered it off at the wall and went about the rest of my morning, later siphoning it empty. Checking again showed it still dead.

The next day I pulled the user interface off the front to diagnose which module had blown (fearing it was the notorious front panel), and in powering it up to check with a multimeter it came good. Ish. It mostly worked, but ended up lighting up the display in a way that was clearly an error code, and various combinations of functionality checking seemed to me that the agitator motor wasn’t working.

I suspected that the error code could tell me what exactly was the cause of the motor not working, but finding a Fisher & Paykel MW058U service manual is no easy task. Finding the model number is surprisingly easy – wiggle the machine forward and on the back, helpfully slapped on upside-down is the full details of the machine (why it couldn’t be printed on the front panel art is beyond me).

Reading the manual made it clear that something bad had happened (one of motor wiring bad, motor bad, motor controller bad), and phoning a helpful call-out tech I discovered I could expect something around $300 to repair. This is half the price of a new machine… so I guess we’ll go with repair. As an aside: if I can provide a broad diagnosis, or at least model and error codes, why can’t some firms even provide a guesstimate on cost?

iTunes not up to date

daniel — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:08:20 +0000

Downloaded the latest iTunes 9.2.1.

Installed using the less-bloat method (for people like me who just want to use it to manage an iPod):

Extract the components from the iTunes setup EXE…

AppleApplicationSupport.msi /passive
Quicktime.msi /passive
iTunes.msi /passive

All good! All up to date!

I decided to fire up Quicktime and make sure none of its stupid tray icons were configured to run all the time, wasting my memory and CPU. What do I find?

Quicktime is out of date — it tells me. It’s only 7.6.6, and you should be running 7.6.7.

Oh, bravo Apple — can’t even keep their own software up to date.

Who’s eating all the old computers?

josh — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:11:26 +0000

It’s hard rubbish here at the moment, and having just had a power supply fail on me leaving me with no spares, I thought I’d go scavenging. PC components are mostly interchangeable, I’ll just grab a handful of computers and pull the bits I need, and toss the rest out with the hard rubbish.

But someone’s taken them all.

Not only they, they’re cutting the cords off any CRTs lying around. I suspect scrap-metal hounds (copper in the power and video leads), but I can’t be certain because there seems to be a lot of steel things that weren’t snaffled.

Who’s taking the old computers, and why? Also: how do I lay my hands on a power supply – don’t tell me I’ve actually got to buy one!