When I got my first TiVo back in 2003 it seemed like I was adding new TiVos to my “collection” almost every year and had four of them by 2007. With the recent release of the TiVo Roamio line I decided to do a little consolidation and upgrade my setup with the latest hardware. My existing …
For a while I’ve been wanting to get some sort of OBD-II adapter and software (like Carbonga) so I could troubleshoot the occasional check-engine light on my ’03 Toyota Highlander. After reading about the Automatic Link back in March, the allure of a shiny new gadget for $70 (with no additional service fees) was too strong to resist so I …
Linda McKinney is a myrmecologist, a scientist who studies the social structure of ants. Her academic career has left her entirely unprepared for the day her sophisticated research is conscripted by unknown forces to help run an unmanned – and thanks to her research, automated – drone army. Odin is the secretive Special Ops soldier …
A few weeks ago I traded in my trusty old 2003 Toyota Highlander (174,000 miles) for a new 2013 SE model. In addition to all the automotive and mechanical advances in a 10-years’ newer SUV, I finally have built-in Bluetooth and iPod integration! (I know, welcome to 2008, right? 😉 ). Toyota’s Display Audio system has a …
Continue reading ‘Using my iPhone with Toyota’s Display Audio system’ »
Four months ago I bought my daughter a Microsoft Surface RT tablet for her birthday as a laptop replacement. Last month I got a Surface Pro to use at work (also as a laptop replacement). Having now used both versions of Microsoft’s first tablet I wanted to jot down a few of my own observations …
Like nearly 4 million other iPhone users, I had been waiting for iOS 6 to be jailbroken for a long time. I’ve had my iPhone 4S for almost a year and have been “stuck” on iOS 5.1.1 since last May because I didn’t want to lose my jailbreak by upgrading to iOS 6. This past …
For Christmas, Santa brought my daughter and I the LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 buildable/programmable robotics kit. Sweet! Of course as luck would have it, LEGO just announced the next generation of the Mindstorms line at CES this week, but that won’t damper our enthusiasm for building robots and programming them to do our will! 😀 My …
The Raspberry Pi is a credit card-sized ARM-based Linux computer that costs just $25. It’s intended to be used as an educational device and instantly appealed to my inner tinkerer (and gadget freak). I ordered the Model B (256mb RAM, 2 USB ports, HDMI/composite video/audio jacks, and Ethernet) from Allied Electronics back in late September …
Two weeks ago I came across this post on The Verge that talked about using CardDAV and CalDAV to sync Google information to iOS devices which, along with the new GMail app promised better synchronization and better battery life and a break from the current ActiveSync/Exchange method I had been using. I’ve been using multiple Google …
Last month I picked up a 32gb Microsoft Surface RT tablet as a combined birthday/Christmas present for my daughter. In a bit of pre-planning I upgraded her laptop to Windows 8 so she had time to get familiar with the new OS before she finally got the tablet last week. So far, it’s been a …