Plugged into the net – Technology, gaming and Apple news
As my last post for 2005: Happy New Year to you all!
I hope you all had a good year, and will have a great 2006. As for me I have a lot of exams to look forward to 
in July and I will have to do a lot of studying. Apart from that it should be the best year yet!
This is really cool! I’ve seen many Mac Mini’s fitted into cars, but nothing this professional. It is truly amazing.
This guy went all out in his setup, putting the following into his 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee:
- Mac mini
- Xenarc 700 TSV
- Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse
- BU-353 USB GPS
- Carnetix P1900 and P5V adapter
- RadioShark USB
- PowerMate
- 2 Hubs
- GPS mapping via Route 66 and RoadNav…
- Salling Clicker on Treo 650 for controlling Mac through phone…
- Bluetooth DUN over Treo for Internet access. [TUAW]
You have to see the pictures. It really is sleek and uber cool!
2005 has been a banner year for gearheads, with more hot gadget launches than you could shake a USB cable at. But there’s a great chasm separating pre-launch buzz from real-world performance, and not all gizmos live up to the hype. Here’s a look back at the most anticipated product launches of 2005. Some were hot, some were not, and we made the call.
It includes such things as the PSP 
, Treo 650 , iPod , Xbox 360 , Gizmondo 
and the Game Boy Micro . Check out the link for the full list and info.
Jonathan Ive, the guy at Apple responsible for the cool designs of the iPod and iMac, has been awarded a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for his wicked designs and uber cool ideas. Well Done! The CBE is just under KBE (Knight Commander of the British Empire) he was close to getting knighted. Don’t worry Steve, you’ll be knighted soon.
The rest of the New Years Honours list is mainly dominated by people who helped in clearing up the mess after the London bombing in July.
Since the launch of the iMac in 1998, Mr Ive has driven the design of almost every piece of Apple hardware. Landmarks include the original iMac, iBook, Power Mac, PowerBook, Mac Mini and iPod.
And every one of the things he designed look fantastic. All that talent, no wonder Apple hired him. Microsoft need to get someone like Ive on their team to design Vista, because it just looks like a re-badged XP.
A man who woke up and found his head bleeding, drove to work and left a note for his boss before going to the hospital to find he had a bullet lodged in his brain, authorities said.
When Glen Thomas Betterley, 53, noticed the blood Thursday morning he asked his girlfriend if she had struck him. Emma Lorene Larsen, 65, said no.
Betterley went to Halifax Medical Center emergency room where he learned he had been shot in the forehead.
While Betterley was being treated, police called Larsen and heard a single gunshot. When investigators arrived at the home, they found Larsen dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot to the head. [USA Today]
This is really weird. How could he not feel or hear that he had been shot? How deep was he sleeping? And then there is the story of his girlfriend who comitted suicide! Interesting to see what kind of strange things go on in the world.
This one definitely falls into the at-your-own-risk category: A beta version of Windows Live Messenger 8, nee MSN Messenger, has been available for download from Microsoft.com for some time now, but without an invitation to the private beta test it has been impossible to use, until now. The trick is to use a recently-released “proxy patch” to fool the MSN network into thinking you’re running version 7.5, thus allowing you to log on without being part of the private beta. Pretty clever, but dont’ blame me if it messes up your system. Once again, try it at your own risk. [Download Squad]
With the latest version of WordPress arriving today, I took it upon myself to upgrade the mini Blog to WP2.0. After battling some errors it works, well sort of. I have some problems:
Fixed – On the archives page the live archives doesn’t work. The text is all capitals, too big and overlaps each other. See for yourself. This appears to be an incompatibility with the WordPress theme I use (K2) and WordPress 2.0 itself. The creator, Michael Heilemann, is working on an update which should be out soon. Fixed - Some code in posts and/or pages doesn’t seem to show up, and when it works and I edit the post/page the code disappears. This isn’t too much of an issue but it is quite annoying. Fixed – For some reason WP glitched up, where the time would be shown as if I had changed the time zone, when it remained at GMT. This meant that posts were either not showing up or had the wrong timestamp.Other than that I like WP2 and I think it has been a great improvement. Good work guys!
The BBC has released an interesting list of things that we learnt (as humans) over the year that we didn’t know. These are my personal favourites:
3. While it’s an offence to drop litter on the pavement, it’s not an offence to throw it over someone’s garden wall. [details]
6. WD-40 dissolves cocaine – it has been used by a pub landlord to prevent drug-taking in his pub’s toilets.
11. One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed. [details]
23. In America it’s possible to subpoena a dog. [details]
It really has a lot of funny, unusual and interesting facts. Definitely a worthwhile read.
The closest to an official price that we have got is that it will be under $299, definitely. Satoru Iwata, the president of Nintendo, in an interview through Yahoo Japan stated that the Revolution will be in a different price point then the competitors, and that it will definitely be below $299 (stating the lowest price point for Xbox 360). That would translate to ~ £161. Seems like a good price point to me. I think that with the low price point, and all the unqiue features that the Revolution will have, will certainly make it a very popular console. I am sure it will sell very well, and I hopefully should be able to pick one up if I have enough money at that time. I can’t wait to try out all of its revolutionary features we’ve not heard about yet (as the controller wasn’t even the biggest secret yet!)
read more (Google Translation of the Japanese Article)
Engineer Bryn Carlyon was issued a TICKET by a traffic speed camera in Cardiff, UK. But he used multiple timed snaps by the camera, plus a little basic math, to PROVE IN COURT that he could not have been traveling at the speed on his citation. The case was dropped “due to insufficient evidence” and he received an apology from the Mid and South Wales Safety Camera Partnership, but Carlyn won’t drop it himself. He’s working to overturn the decision for the benefit of mankind: “I need the verdict to say that this was not dropped through lack of evidence — it was dropped because it was a false prosecution,” he told a local reporter. [The Raw Feed]