Need to re-direct your WiFi signal, but don’t want to mess with the classic “Pringles” antenna? FreeAntennas.com gives you templates for several different types of reflective parabolic antennas, which can help to re-focus the signal of your WiFi router. Perfect if you happen to have your router in one end of the house, and find yourself on your laptop at the other end. Read more »

CNN is running an interesting article/review about Helen Greiner, one of the founders of iRobot, the robotics company that makes the Roomba, as well as an assortment of robots used by the military and rescue workers; and that oddball pyramid rover they built to explore a shaft in Cheops which made news a couple of years ago. It’s a company worth watching, full of very bright minds. And hey, robots, cool. Also, a nice interview with Colin Angle, the company CEO can be found here. Read more »

No, that isn’t a Mac Mini. It is a new computer from AOpen called “Pandora”. It is based on Intel’s Pentium M processor, which was previously only used in mobile computers. It was unveiled at Computex 2005 and is slated for release in September of 2005. I wonder how they avoided a lawsuit from Apple. Surely they have some sort of patent on that form. Read more »

We all know that Firefox allows us to do certain things with CSS and XHTML that we are just not capable of doing in IE usually without using some sort of Javascript trickery. Here is another cool tech example for Firefox users. Scrolling up or down causes you to see the X-ray version of the body. I haven’t dug into the code yet to see how it’s possible, but I must admit that it is pretty cool. Check it out for yourself. Read more »

BetaNews is reporting that McAfee are looking for people to participate in their Beta Program. If you want to be on the cutting-edge of Virus scan software you may want to check this out. Instead of having to pay to join the beta program, McAfee actually gives you incentives to join which include free licenses of VirusScan 10 and an iPod shuffle giveaway. I say just stay away from opening silly emails, but some people like to use virus scanners so this is a good opportunity for them. Read more »

One nitpick I have with the tab system of Firefox is that to close a tab with a mouse I have to click on a tiny x in the upper right corner. Although I usually just use the Command-W combination, certain times call for a mouse click. If you don’t hit the X just right you will click a blank space which produces another tab. Tab X takes care of this by adding Xs to all the tabs so now I can clear individual tabs without having to right-click on it. Why this isn’t done by default is beyond me. Read more »

Sony and Cingular are teaming up to offer the first widely available consumer laptop with Wireless Wide Area Network built in. The Vaio-T series notebooks will have this technology built-in. Ideal for highly mobile professionals who need convenient access to e-mail, data and information when on the road, Sony VAIO T-Series notebooks can connect to the Internet just about anywhere there is cellular coverage. An exclusive combination of hardware and software automatically links the notebook to the Cingular Wireless nationwide1 EDGE Network, the fastest national wireless data network in the U.S. The computers will include Sony’s SmartWi network card, which allows switching between various types of connections. Read more »

A security firm in Michigan has discovered a way to get unlimited burnable downloads from Yahoo’s new Unlimited Music service. Apparently it can be done using software that is available for free on the web. He has posted a press release about it on his site, and P2PNet has also reported on it. Neither have given any specifics on the actual software or process used to achieve this hack. This seems very similar to the hack of Napster’s music service that was released shortly after it started. Read more »

This is just hilarious and yet so true. But I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard from reading a person cursing bad gaming errors that developers make. A must read for anyone that appreciates games and has ever been upset by one. Via Slashdot Read more »

I know this is a terrible presumption but bear with me and read the whole article first. According to IE’s blog “IE7 relies on operating system functionality in XPSP2″. If IE7 requires some of XPSP2′s functionalities (as Microsoft calls them) or as I like to say bugs, then this means that Longhorn will either: a) Require these “functionalities”, therefore, be buggier than it could have been; b) Have a re-done version of IE7, which means, an even buggier and more unsecure browser than on SP2; Or c) (the most likely reason [that doesn't really follow the first part of the sentence]) IE7 doesn’t require SP2′s functionalities, the only thing that Read more »