Fix Your Broken iPod

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/technology/personaltech/08basics.html?ex=1352178000&en=63bab30350d149fd&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

By PETER WAYNER

A FEW months ago, Stephen Ironside, a student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, confronted a minor but modern tragedy: the iPod that filled his life with song stopped working.

The device was out of warranty, and Apple would not fix it free. So he left it in a drawer until he happened to read a blog posting on CrunchGear.com that described how he might fix it — with a small, folded piece of paper. Mr. Ironside celebrated by posting thanks on the blog: “I’ve been on CDs for months. You saved my life (and my iPod).”

The author of the blog post, Matt Hickey of Seattle, says that using paper as a shim to put pressure on the hard drive has worked on about 70 percent of the failed iPods he has encountered — even though he is not sure why it works.

Gadget-fixing is adapting to the modern era. Neighborhood repair shops are all but gone, and along with them the repairmen who could offer casual advice, even when that advice was whether it was worth repairing the device. But Web sites can help users find and share solutions that can save a device from the landfill. If the job is too tricky, a number of Internet-based firms offer highly specialized repairs via overnight mail.

Some sites like macfixit.com, fixmyxp.com and macosxhints.com are devoted to a single product, while others like avsforum.com sponsor debates on a big product area, in this case home theaters, televisions and stereos. People with laptops that have suddenly gone blank can turn to www.notebookforums.com or notebookreview.com, and there are even a few sites like www.highdefforum.com for fixing TVs.

Yaniv Bensadon, the chief executive of fixya.com, started his site after he moved back to Israel from the United States and found that his electronics would often malfunction in the new environment. The manuals and the support offered by the manufacturers rarely helped.

His site groups questions and answers to problems and organizes them according to product type, brand name and model number. The page for the Microsoft Xbox 360, for instance, lists more than 100 questions with answers. Most provide a single solution, but one common problem, overheating, has 81 posts debating the best fix. All but about a dozen of the questions had answers, although some were a bit brief. (Microsoft has offered to fix those overheating Xbox 360s).

“Like any other consumer out there, I had problems with my Xerox printer, Palm Treo 700, Belkin wireless router and even Sony portable DVD,” Mr. Bensadon said. “On each of the problems I posted, I received a great solution within 5 to 10 hours.”

Fixya rates the people who offer advice. Anyone can claim to be an expert on a topic, but their rating will rise or fall with the quality of their answers. The site also offers paid services from users who charge about $10 to $20 a problem.

Knowledge is only half of the battle. A number of sites specialize in providing spare parts but also provide the information on how to install them as the incentive to use the site. PDAparts.com, for instance, sells replacement screens, batteries, cases and other parts for Palm Treos, iPaqs and other P.D.A.’s. Videos describing the process of opening the cases — probably the trickiest part of repairing today’s electronics — can be downloaded from the site.

Most other gadgets come with batteries that are easy to replace without custom tools. Replacement batteries for cellphones are often marked up by the devices’ manufacturers, while third-party replacements are often available for 60 percent to 80 percent less. Companies offering replacement batteries for iPods often offer better batteries with higher capacities and longer lifetimes. Ipodjuice.com, for instance, sells a 1,200-milliamp-hour battery that will replace the 600-milliamp-hour battery that shipped with a fourth-generation iPod — an improvement that lets the Web site claim that the repaired iPod will “last 100 percent longer.”

Most replacement kits include small tools for popping open iPods and video instructions for swapping batteries.

For those who do not want to get their hands dirty or wait for an answer, dozens of businesses specialize in fixing some of the most common problems. Ryan Arter, the president of IResQ.com, said his company has been fixing Apple products since 1994. Today, hundreds of iPod, iPhone and iBook owners send their broken machines by overnight mail to his shop in Olathe, Kan., where technicians repair them.

Prices depend on the item and the damage. Replacing a screen on a fourth-generation iPod, for instance, costs $94 for parts, labor and overnight shipping in both directions. Replacing the battery on an iPhone costs $79.

You can take the device to an Apple store for a new battery, and it will cost only $65. But you may not get the same device back, a concern if the gadget is personalized.

“They’re definitely worth repairing,” Mr. Arter said. “Sometimes they’re engraved and they have some special meaning.

“Are they disposable?” he said. “No. They’re little computers. They’re a big investment.” But he says that it makes little sense to fix a device if there are two or three problems with it.

Shannon Jean, the founder of TechRestore.com, a competitor in Concord, Calif., says that the data on a device can be more valuable than the gadget itself. An iPod or a laptop may carry thousands of dollars worth of music and a immeasurable amount of documents, spreadsheets or other information.

“When there’s data involved, that defines what people will pay, especially when there’s downtime involved,” he said.

Among the sites offering help with repairs, it is hard to find one that tells you whether it makes economic sense to pay for the repairs. But some decisions are easy. Basic DVD players are usually cheaper to replace. So are PCs with outdated operating systems like Windows 95. For everything else, especially when a new device costs less the one you bought, the choice is harder. Is it wise to pay $80 to repair a $300 digital camera that now costs $100? Unlikely.

Deciding between repairing a gadget or replacing it with a newer, often better model is a bit of a gamble. Most sites caution that they cannot fix every problem. Some problems like a cracked screen can be easy to estimate and straightforward to repair. Random glitches and odd behavior, however, may be impossible to pinpoint, leaving the user with a bill for ineffective repairs.

Chris Adamson, an editor at O’Reilly Media in Sebastopol, Calif., offers a cautionary tale. He shipped a faulty iPod that was failing on planes to an online company, which he does not want to mention by name. It took a week for the service to diagnose the problem before suggesting replacing the hard disk for $120. The solution, however, did not address the basic problem, and he now finds himself asking for a refund, which the company does not want to give.

He recommends thinking of the devices as having a short life span, perhaps three or four years. “If it fails after that period, accept that you’ve gotten your value out of it and get something new,” he said.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Don’t Throw Out Your Broken iPod; Fix It via the Web - New York Times

Butcher’s Method Takes Carving Off the Table

By JULIA MOSKIN

Video Instructions »

BEFORE breakfast on Thanksgiving, as the first Americans rise to preheat the oven, the question of who is going to carve the bird starts to ripple anxiously across the land.

By mealtime, many cooks will be tired of hovering over the turkey and ready to unload it, but just try to find a taker.

“One year my 13-year-old nephew, Josh, was the only one willing to take it on,” said Nissa Goldstein, a retired teacher in West Hartford, Conn. “Of course, everyone was shouting instructions at him, and he ended up locking himself in his room and refusing to come out.”

It is generally agreed that the art of carving is in sad decline. The definition of the “man of the house,” who would traditionally assume the job, is increasingly slippery. Family members recognize the risks involved in taking a knife to a relative’s hard work; guests often decline such a high-profile role. Add the inherent drowsiness of Thanksgiving, a cold day devoted to a single huge meal, consider the tendency in many families to start in on the house cocktail as soon as guests begin to trickle in, and the general unwillingness to put blade to bird becomes unsurprising.

“One year the turkey took a long time to cook and I went to carve it after about 13 beers,” said Maurice Landry, who lives near Lake Charles, La. “The way I remember it, I bore down to take off the leg and the whole thing went shooting off the platter and knocked over the centerpiece.”

All of these are good reasons to adopt the high-yield, low-profile carving method described here. It involves a radically untraditional step — often followed by professionals, but new to many home cooks — that makes carving easier, if less spectacular.

“I don’t cut like a chef, I cut like a butcher,” said Ray Venezia, the meat director for the four Fairway markets, a third-generation butcher and one of the biggest turkey purveyors in New York City.

Instead of slicing the meat from the roast at the table, Mr. Venezia’s carving protocol calls for the biggest pieces, the breasts and the thighs, to be removed whole, then boned and sliced on a cutting board. “Trying to carve from the carcass is like trying to cut it off a beach ball: it’s all curved surfaces and it moves around under the knife,” he said. “Give me a flat cutting board any time.”

Roger Bassett, the owner of the Original Turkey in Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, uses the same method for the 30 turkeys carved and served at his store every day. “Cutting a turkey the traditional way, where you leave the meat on the bird and cut down, you can’t cut across the grain,” he said. “The pieces you end up with are all stringy because the fibers are long instead of short.”

Mr. Venezia demonstrated the method to me twice last week; I then tested it on two roast chickens, and met with howling success.

It is important to start with a turkey that has rested for at least 20 minutes; 40 is even better, so that the meat has firmed enough to cut cleanly. Mr. Venezia does not use a carving fork. (“Why pierce the meat more than you have to and let the juices run out?”) Instead, he holds the bird in place with one hand and uses the other for cutting.

He counsels against using a large or unfamiliar knife, like a wedding set carving knife. Since most of the cutting is done with the first few inches of the blade, a small, sharp knife that you know how to wield is a wise choice. For our demonstration he used an eight-inch boning knife with a plastic handle that cost, by his estimate, $10. He used a larger knife only for slicing. The skin can be removed or left on the breast, as a matter of taste and aesthetics.

At the end there was almost nothing left on the carcass: a turkey that weighed 22 pounds raw was reduced to a denuded two-pound skeleton and a platter mounded with thick, clean slices of breast and thigh and a few whole pieces for those who like the bony bits.

“You’ll find that people eat a lot more of the dark meat when it’s carved this way,” Mr. Venezia said. Still, he advises ordering a pound of turkey for each person and five or six pounds extra, to make sure there is enough white meat for those who will not eat anything else.

Mr. Venezia said this method was easier on the carver and more satisfying at the table. “I look at a turkey as I would look at any primal cut of meat,” he said, referring to the sides of beef and rumps of lamb that butchers break down into retail cuts. “I want to get the most meat off that carcass, and I want the meat to come off in nice, thick pieces. Not shreds, not chunks, and no ragged edges.”

The only disadvantage of this method is that it eliminates the opportunity for showboating. It requires counter space and is probably best done in the kitchen (although a roomy sideboard with a cutting board on top would be fine), making it ideal for less-experienced carvers. Mr. Bassett, who is used to carving with an audience, said he preferred to present the turkey in its whole, golden-brown, burnished state, then retreat to the kitchen to carve it.

“If you want the Norman Rockwell moment, this is not the method for you,” said Michael Darre, professor of poultry science at the University of Connecticut. “However, you will get a lot of meat off the bird.”

Although modern domesticated birds do not do a lot of flying, he said, the largest muscle is still the pectoralis major, the breast, which has the heavy job of pushing down the wing during flight.

“These days the breast can be dry because the soft muscle doesn’t hold fat and hemoglobin as well as an exercised muscle would,” Dr. Darre said. “But the payoff is that nice, mild turkey flavor.”

Even for the experts, carving the turkey is the most intimidating part of the day. Their advice to the anxious: don’t panic or start hacking away, even if guests are baying for turkey and the meat is beginning to cool. “Piping hot gravy will take care of everything,” Mr. Venezia said. “That’s your endgame.”

Butcher’s Method Takes Carving Off the Table - New York Times

eStarling Digital Frames

    

eStarling is a wireless networked home media appliance that operates
independently of a personal computer; it enables the users to share photos
directly with friends, family, or colleagues. You can purchase for delivery
during the 2007 December holiday season at www.estarling.com.
The eStarling digital frame makes it much easier to share updated photos
with loved ones. Users can send photos over the Internet to an eStarling
frame via email or camera phones; they can also use an eStarling to send
photos to be shared with the owner of another eStarling frame.
For instance, today, parents must hook up cables to a camera and download
photos onto a personal computer to post them on a Website or email them to
grandparents, who then must get them printed and framed in order to show
their grandchildren off to their friends.
No longer. Thanks to eStarling, a busy parent can plug the memory card
from their camera directly into the card-reading slot on the eStarling digital
frame. They can then simply push a button to send the latest photos of the
children directly to the grandparent’s eStarling frame located across the city
or across the world.
Setting up eStarling is simple and takes less than 10 minutes. Its main
features include:
Product Features
• Connects to Wireless 802.11 Network;
• Displays Photos E-Mailed to the Photo Frame;
• Displays Photos stored on a MMC/SD/CF/MS card slot; and,
• Publishes photos from eStarling to the Web with the touch of a button.

Click here to see a demonstration of the eStarling frame.

eStarling-Home

Google Docs Beta

 

by Edward Mendelson

The last time we looked at Google Docs, it was called Google Docs & Spreadsheets. A year later it's still a beta—typical of Google—but that doesn't mean that the would-be Microsoft killer has let its online office-productivity app languish over the past 12 months. Since we last looked, it's gotten a shorter name and a longer list of capabilities—and it now creates presentations in addition to word-processing documents and spreadsheets. Google still doesn't offer a vast feature set like those of its online rivals, Zoho and ThinkFree, but it's far more elegant, efficient, and enjoyable. Unlike Zoho and ThinkFree, it loads quickly and doesn't include features that require you to wait while software gets downloaded to your system. In its usual minimalist style, Google provides an uncluttered, visually appealing interface whose only flaw is that it's sometimes less informative than it ought to be, even for experienced users.

Once you've signed on, using any Google account, Google Docs opens an efficient, appealing-looking document-management window. A toolbar at the top lets you create, upload, hide, or delete any files that you've created or uploaded to Google's server. Beneath the toolbar is a two-panel file manager with a tree-view pane on the left and a list of documents on the right. By default, the list of documents shows all the ones you've created or uploaded to Google's servers. You don't need to store your documents in folders, but if you want to keep files organized, you can create folders whose names will appear in the tree-view pane on the left.

After creating or uploading a document, you can share it with one or more colleagues. If you do, your colleague's names will appear in the tree-view pane under a "Shared with…" heading. Furthermore, you can click on names in the tree-view in order to display a list of documents that you're sharing with that colleague. Using the Publish menu, you can post a document to a blog hosted by any standard blog service, or to a blog address on your own server. Conveniently, the same menu lets you remove a document from your blog if you change your mind about it after posting.

Google's word processor imports files in Word (through 2003), RTF, OpenDocument Text, and the ancient StarOffice format. It exports in Word, RTF, OpenDocument, HTML, PDF, and text formats. When you actually edit a document, it's in HTML format, so you can insert hyperlinks, pictures, tables, shading, numbered and bulleted lists, and any math or foreign character supported by standard HTML. You also can click on a link in the editing window and edit your document's raw HTML code.

You can't insert footnotes or other fancy page formatting such as headers and footers, so you won't want to use this as your only tool for academic writing. On the other hand, you can import Word documents that already have footnotes and endnotes, and your notes will be converted into HTML hyperlinks that work like footnotes when Google publishes them to the Web. Even better, if you export the document in Word format, the exported files will contain working footnotes and endnotes—a very clever and useful feature. In this, Google far outclasses ThinkFree, which simply strips out your notes when importing a Word document. Google's suite also outclasses Zoho, which correctly converts notes into hyperlinks when importing but leaves them as hyperlinks when exporting the document back to Word format, instead of correctly converting them back to endnotes and footnotes.

A Find and Replace feature is listed as "experimental" on the menu, and you should save your file before using it, because the current version of Google Docs can only "Replace All," not Find then Replace each instance of the string you're searching. More troubling yet, Find and Replace doesn't support Undo. Still, it's experimental; when Google eventually gets the kinks worked out, Find and Replace will be a feature that no text-editing program should lack.

As in Zoho, when you use the menu option that inserts a page break, you don't actually insert a page break—only some hidden HTML code that displays a dotted line across the document and tells the software to insert a real page break when exporting to a word-processing format or PDF file. This is a slightly clumsy system, and the program gets confused if you edit the underlying HTML code and add your own text to the HTML tag that specifies the page break—with the result that the text appearing below the page break on the screen ends up above the break in an exported document. The moral of this story is that you probably shouldn't edit the underlying HTML code, even though Google lets you do so. When you print a document that includes a page break, Google Docs (like Zoho) is clever enough to replace the horizontal line with a real page break.

Google Docs Beta: Full Review - Reviews by PC Magazine

Email a Soldier

Regardless of your feelings about the Iraq war, there are brave men and women risking their lives everyday in Iraq.  This Veteran's Day, send an email to a soldier through Operation Dear Abby.

Click here to send a message.

About Operation Dear Abby:
Send a special message to our men and women in the military defending American freedom worldwide.

In 1967, Sgt. Billy Thompson wrote Abigail Van Buren asking for a Christmas present for our servicemembers -- "Just a letter from home," American citizens have been sending their best wishes to the troops every holiday season. "Operation Dear Abby," has brought joy to hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel deployed away from home around the world.

Concerns about regular mail delivery have prompted the military to suspend the letter-writing campaign...

However, Dear Abby, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of the Navy's LifeLines Services Network are providing this private and secure online resource that will allow you to send a Sailor, Marine, Soldier, Airman, or Coast Guardsman a holiday greeting or message of support.

How It Works:
Supporters send messages to our servicemembers.

Servicemembers with internet access may read those messages via 'OperationDearAbby.Net'.

Servicemembers without internet access may still read messages as follows:

Company commanders that have internet access have the ability to download bulk messages to be printed and distributed according to service branch and location.

Operation Dear Abby.net... Send a Message to Our Troops