Adding 802.11n into your Apple Macbook.

According to Apple, all of their current machines are compatible with their new 802.11n wireless hardware. The guys at MacBidouille wanted to know if they could get it functioning in their early rev macbook core duo. They ganged a new card from a MacPro and got busy.Things came out ridiculously easily, with a simple hardware swap. Considering that the pci connector is the same, I wonder if any portable with an airport extreme card could be upgraded (with an additional antenna).
Source [Hack a Day]

Low End Mac Suggestions for Optimizing Performance.

Ed Eubanks over at Low End Mac has a nice set of suggestions for optimizing performance on your Mac. The main upshot of the article is to turn off or delete things you don’t need (e.g. Universal Access, seldom used System Preferences, extra localization languages, etc.) in order to salvage as much RAM and hard drive space as possible, but he has a variety of good suggestions. Their motto over there is “How much Mac do you need?”, but even if you’ve got an Intel beast I’ve found that you pretty much never have enough system resources, so these are good tips for everyone. Check it out over at Low End Mac.

[The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)]

Apple Store error reveals 8-core Mac Pro?

Filed under: Hardware, Rumors, Apple, Mac ProTUAW reader Drew sent us a juicy tip: the UK online Apple Store is listing an 8-way Mac Pro under the search results for “mac pro.” It reads “Now quad-core and 8-core processing power,” however, if you click on the link it takes you to the standard Quad core page.
Given that the quad-core Intel chips have been available for a while now (and even installed in the Mac Pro by some enterprising souls), it was only a matter of time until this happened officially. Nonetheless, this looks like good evidence that a new Mac Pro is coming soon, and it wouldn’t be the first time a website screw-up has revealed an upcoming Apple product.Update 7:13p EDT: The UK Apple Store is currently in “Be Right Back” mode… presumably to correct the unintended information release.

Source [The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)]

Get paid to talk with Skype Prime.

Tired of giving out free tech support to friends and family? Charge them for it with Skype Prime, a new service that lets you get paid to talk.
Okay, you probably shouldn’t stick it to your circle, but you could set up a neat little phone-support business. Skype Prime lets you charge by the minute or by the call. Actually, all calls start free (both parties must have the latest version of Skype); the provider then initiates a “payment request” for a one-off or per-minute rate. Fees are deducted from the caller’s Skype Credit and sent to you (minus Skype’s 30-percent cut–ouch) via PayPal.Aside from the obvious (and inevitable), um, adult uses for this, what clever ways can you think of to leverage Skype Prime? Share your ideas in the comments. Thanks, Josh! — Rick Broida

Skype Prime Beta – introducing the global expertise marketplace [Skype]

Source [Lifehacker]

How to start a Mac Rumor.

Very intresting chart for starting a Mac rumor. I guess most rumor-makers start by some guy using this as a reference.

Click on thumbnail to view image.

Scratched CD’s? No Problem!

Do you have scratched CD’s laying around that just WONT work? Well i came along this and thought i would share it.

” Scratched CD’s? No Problem!

We’ve all been there, bought a pre-owned game, put it excitedly into the console, then shouted “OMFGz0rWTF!?!?” as the console wouldn’t recognize the game. Or perhaps you have a CD which contains important data, and M$ Windoze gives you a “Cyclic Redundancy Check” error (fancy way of saying ‘Your disc is bloody SCRATCHED’).

Whatever your problem is, it’s caused by the same thing: A scratch. A scratched CD or DVD is just annoying!

So I took it upon myself to perform an experiment, to determine the very best way of dealing with a scratched disc. The limit I set myself, though, was that whatever I did it with must be somewhere in my house, and can’t take longer than 5 minutes, including waiting time for things to dry, etc.

I thought of three main ways to cope with scratches:

1. Use an oily substance, or a gel, to fill in the scratch so that the laser goes straight through. This is the easiest option of the three.
2. Use a mild abrasive to round the edges of the scratches so that the laser doesn’t get scattered as much. This is probably the most feasible option of the three.
3. Somehow take off a thin layer of plastic, removing the scratches altogether. This is the hardest, and probably impossible in 5 minutes with household items.

How a CD works:

I burnt 5 CDs with 6 songs on them:

• Kings of Leon – Razz
• Kings of Leon – Soft
• The Libertines – What Katie Did
• Kings of Leon – The Bucket
• Kings of Leon – Velvet Snow
• Kings of Leon – Taper Jean Girl

I then proceeded to scratch a few of the CDs with a pair of scissors, nothing deep, just enough to make the XBox in which I was playing them get annoyed.

The first thing I tried was plain old water, I know, sounds stupid… But the day before, I bought a game, which was scratched (not dirty, scratched). The first thing I tried was water, which I rubbed in gently, so that it stayed in the scratches, it then worked perfectly.

Next I had to rub it. The only way to rub something off a CD, is with a lint free cloth, going out in spokes from the centre.

Ok, so that didn’t work too well on my test discs… Next up was, deodorant. I decided to use this, because it contained something oily (isopropyl myristate) which was dissolved in something volatile (denatured alcohol, propane, butane, isobutane, basically loads of hydrocarbons). So when I sprayed it on, I was hoping for the alcohols to evaporate while the isopropyl myristate separated into isopropyl and myristic acid to become oily and viscous, and stay in the cracks.

I rubbed it in gently, just to get it into the cracks, but not to remove it, and then let it sit for two minutes. It evaporated, and when held against the light, the “rainbows” got scattered less. It looked hopeful. But it didn’t work.

Ok, next up is something I use to clean the fretboard on my guitar, Lem-oil. It’s viscous and oily, and smells of lemon. I sprayed it on and this time had to rub slightly more vigourously, as it wasn’t volatile enough to fit in with my 5 minute limit.

I rubbed it in, and it sort of worked. The XBox loaded the CD, and played it, but it was really crackly and noisy. So it kind of worked, but Caleb sounded pissed off and sort of like a monster.

Next I tried the method that a lot of people talk about: the toothpaste method. Toothpaste is a mild abrasive, and using it you should be able to round off the edges on the scratches. This method looked like it would work if I carried on, as the light was getting less scattered by the scratches, but I set myself a strict 5 minute time limit. To apply the toothpaste take the tiniest bit on the tip of your finger, and without touching the CD with your finger its self, apply the toothpaste to only the scratched area (and just around it). Now put it under the tap and dribble water on it, so that the toothpaste goes sort of mushy. Now tilt the CD over a sink very gently so that the water runs off, but the toothpaste stays. Now, like all the other methods, rub it in with a lint free cloth, but this time you really need to go to town, as you are actually trying to round off the scratches. This is my CD after the toothpaste was applied (the light makes it look really thick, but it isn’t, and the light also makes some of the dripping water look like toothpaste):

That didn’t work either. In a crazy futile attempt, I tried mixing the above four together:

That contained water, deodorant, lem oil and toothpaste. Needless to say it didn’t work.

Next I tried a mixture of 3 parts water to one part olive oil (I know they don’t mix, but shake!) That almost worked. I mean that the light wasn’t scattered when I held it against the light, but my XBox couldn’t read it, probably because it was yellow. This made me think that the oily/gel idea was the best way to go. I looked around the bathroom cupboard for somthing similar, and found this:

Yes, hair gel, and guess what… It worked!

I applied it in much the same way as the toothpaste, except I didn’t dribble water on it. I rubbed it first. Even though I applied it to one area, it ended up evenly spread around the whole disc. I then dribbled water on to loosen it up so I could rub the excess off.

So, the secret to scratch free CDs is……

Hair Gel! “

Source [Om3ga]

Partial invisibility cloak.

According to LiveScience, scientists “have created a cloaking device that can reroute certain wavelengths of light, forcing them around objects like water flowing around boulders in a stream.”

“The microwaves come in and are swept around the cloak and reconstructed on the other side while avoiding the interior region,” said study team member David Smith at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering. “So it looks as if they just passed through free space.”

Who knows maybey in a few years we could go buy one of those cloaks.

Source [Techeblog]

Dork At Stanford Raps About UNIX Commands.

Not even a minute into this video and I was cracking up. It’s not even because he’s rapping (poorly) about UNIX-commands, it’s that this is the biggest display of geekism ever. The beats are not fresh, the bassist has a frickin’ music stand to read notes off of, and the keyboardist is wearing the most unfashionable glasses to date. Oh, and last time I checked, unless you’re The Roots or something, you don’t use a live percussion setup for hip-hop.

The lyrics are pretty funny though, so that makes up for everything else. Plus these dudes are completely serious, so have a gander and I’m sure you’ll day will become just a little better.

A new egg is about to hatch!

The Arabianist is a new online blog representing the characteristics of the Web 2.0 state of human thinking.