I take a certain amount of pride in my ability to take things apart, fix them, and put them back together in a functional yet most likely warranty-voiding state.
To date I’ve "fixed" a guitar amplifier, toaster oven, dishwasher, washer-dryer, Playstation controller, five disc carousel CD changer, computer, toilet, sink and vacuum cleaner. If any of my screwdrivers fit, I’ll take almost anything apart.
I’ve had a few failures, usually because I couldn’t spot the problem as easily as I could spot a broken wire, stripped cog, dry bearing or burnt fuse.
As a tinkerer I’d probably rate myself as average, and I acknowledge that there are some things that I wouldn’t dare touch because it would cost far too much to replace. However, I’d jump at any opportunity to take my tinkering to the next level. Luckily there’s a new magazine out to show me the way, reducing the chance by 75 per cent that I’ll one day electrocute myself – allowing for normal human error and basic incompetence.
It’s called Make: Technology on Your Time – www.oreillynet.com/oreilly/make/ – and it’s full of cool do-it-yourself projects.
In the first issue the list of projects includes a do-it-yourself camera stabilizer for $14, kite flying aerial-photography, making 3D pictures using digital cameras, and a whole lot more. A Web log on the site also includes instructions on how to make a low frequency FM transmitter for $20, how to use your PocketPC as a Wi-Fi phone, and how to boost the power of your iPod FM transmitter.
There’s nothing for sale on Make, just advice on how to turn gadgets into other gadgets, or do more with the gadgets you already own.
O’Reilly publishing fills the magazine / newsletter by mining a number of online sources and tech logs that already provide similar ideas for do-it-yourself projects, so Make is the place to discover those mad scientists and inventors as well.
Feeling Hot, Hot, Hotmail
I got a pleasant surprise in my Hotmail Inbox this week – space. And lots of it. Good to their word, Microsoft rewarded my 10 years of loyalty by increasing my Hotmail storage to a whopping 250MB. That’s about a quarter what a Google Gmail account offers, but it’s a full 125 times what was in there before.
That little bar that tracks my mailbox usage, the one that was perpetually stuck in the red thanks to my reluctance to delete emails from friends and family members, and people I want to stay in touch with. It’s completely clear, as I now have more than 248MB to fill however I choose.
Next up? Microsoft is introducing a search tool (again following Google’s lead) that allows you to quickly and easily scan through your mailbox, finding the letters that could be spread out over hundreds of pages, should it ever fill up completely.
A friend sent me a Gmail invitation a little while ago and when every single appropriate or silly name I picked turned out to be taken – long before Gmail is slated to go public – I settled for hobbitlover@gmail.com.
Thanks to Hotmail I may never have to use that address. Any Lord of the Rings geeks out there looking for a mailbox?
Saskatchewan high-tech
No, it’s not a solar-powered grain elevator or nuclear-powered chicken-plucker. Saskatchewan entered the high-tech and research world last week with the completion of the Canadian Light-Source Synchrotron at the University Saskatchewan.
Taking up an area roughly the size of a football field – a Canadian Football field at that – the Synchrotron is basically an incredibly powerful microscope. It uses tiny, concentrated bursts of light, thinner than a human hair and millions of times brighter than the sun, to view matter at the atomic level.
It’s not a new device, there are about 40 other facilities like it around the world, in about 15 different countries, but it’s a first for Canada.
Synchrotons have thousands of applications, from manufacturing to particle research to microbiology – one professor at the University of Calgary plans to use the synchrotron to model proteins in the C. difficile bacteria, which has caused more than a hundred hospital deaths in recent years.
For more information, visit the University of Saskatchewan Web site at www.usask.ca.
Less safe than you thought
Evidently the last 500 serious viruses and Internet hacks to make the front page had no effect on the general public. A survey by the National Cyber Security Alliance and America Online discovered that an overwhelming number of home users are still blind to online security threats.
Almost half of all broadband users still don’t have protective firewalls. In addition, 53 per cent of respondents said they didn’t know what a firewall is.
More than 80 per cent of respondents were infected by some form of spyware or adware. Of that 80 per cent, 88 per cent didn’t even realize they were infected.
The kicker? The average number of spyware and adware components found on infected computers was 93. One user had an incredible 1,059.
Furthermore, the survey found that 20 per cent of computers were infected by some sort of virus.
Although 85 per cent of respondents have some form of anti-virus protection on their computers, 67 per cent didn’t update it regularly.
Thirty-eight per cent of Wi-Fi users left their systems wide open.
The NCSA and AOL also found that 84 per cent of respondents kept their personal information online, such as financial statements and health records. Almost three-quarters also used their computers for online banking and personal medical information.
The verdict? The software has to get a lot better and anti-virus software needs to be automated because the average user has fallen dangerously behind. We need to be protected from ourselves.
