I have the Samsung SCX-4300 that I paid around $80 for on Boxing Day.

The cartridge "ran out" annoyingly early, but I found a firmware hack on the intarnets that allows me to clear the cycle counter that the printer holds for the cartridge. Once the cartridge actually starts to get low, and it is printing faded in the middle of the page, a good shake of the cartridge seems to re-distribute the toner and it prints fine for another few months.

I get at least double what the cycle counter would give me before the quality drops low enough that I need to replace the cartridge.

One place I worked at my wife would send me a bag of cookies every day in my lunch. She'd put the cookies on the icepack in my cooler, and they would be cold and nasty by the time coffee break came around. Then I figured out that the heat from the laptop exhaust made a nice cookie warmer. First thing I'd do every morning is prop the bag open so the warm air blows in. By the time coffee break rolled around, the shop would smell like freshly baked cookies.

Mmmmm... me want cookies...

The cellphone did a good job of replacing the watch though.

I wanna know what it would take to build a paper airplane with autopilot.

There's a store in my neck of the woods, Princess Auto. They ask my phone number every purchase. I used to politely decline (and they'd always politely accept) until I was with a neighbour who returned something without a receipt. They asked his phone number, and promptly exchanged the item. With a store that touts "No sale is final until you are happy", I love giving them my number as they store a transaction a lot longer then I hang onto a receipt. I have abused and returned all sorts of tools without a receipt since then.

But no RS232 port... That makes me sad. I love RS232.

We were short one RS232 patch cable once while setting up a field demo for a customer. All us tech's had a tense moment when we realized we had used the same cable for testing each component as we loaded it into the crate. Fortunately we had some spare PC power chords (3 conductors is 3 conductors right?) and one of the guys had some spare DB9's in his tool kit. Some fancy solder work and we had a patch cable before the management types knew we screwed up. Kept that 14awg com cable around for quite some time after that.

When all else fails, swap pins 2 and 3.

And don't try to tell me to use a USB adapter kuz it's never the same!

Monster Cable Products, Inc. - Brisbane, CA

LoL, yeah, I could see how Monster Cable's business model could be threatened by free (as in bird) and open communication.

I think the problem is the wording in the article.

I pee'd a bit when I read the title... oh... I did again when I read it for the second time... look, there I go again!

I thought maybe, just maybe Sony and Nikon have developed some amazing new technology that they kept secret up until now and are blowing the doors off the solid state storage market.

But no... bit of a let down... they're just writing a spec, not developing an actual card... booooo

A buddy had a UPS with the beeper that you couldn't shut off. We found a wood screw and jammed it in the speaker hole. As he turned in the screw it got quieter and quieter until it finally quit. If you back the screw out, it will beep again.

It's a Chevy Small Block 350 V8 with a TH-350. Same motor-transmission that is in my '77 Chevy truck.

If I ever get my motor re-assembled, I am hoping to have more then 350 HP but it's the torque I am after. There's no way my truck would hit 240kmh, but if I balanced everything, used a forged aluminum crank, blah blah blah I'd expect to be able to rev to 7000RPM and with the right gearing 240kmh shouldn't be a problem.

But I'm building mine for the bush and hope for a minimum top speed of 100kmh.

I'll take the 44" super swampers though...

Or what about the patent office themselves?

http://www.uspto.gov/

I bet if they did more research they'd find that they are also selling less then 1 over priced HDMI cable per TV sold, as well as less then 1 USB cable per printer sold. Cables and glasses are easy to order from overseas when you unpack your new toy and find they didn't include a key component.

Yup... and I will refuse to see the first part until the second part comes out and I can watch them back to back.

Meh. The next door neighbours are an Apple household. The neighbour lady was showing my wife her Ipod Touch and how it lets her organize stuff on the fly, so my wife has been bugging me to get her one. Problem is, I'm not ready to let go of my "Apple hating" just yet, and I have no intentions of installing Itunes on any of my systems. I like the organization of my media server just the way it is, thanks.

I love Apple innovation, but hate their walled gardens. I'm thinking of buying the wife a Galaxy Tab for her birthday next spring.

*High-five for heavy metal w00t!*

My project is a '77 Chevy truck. I love working on that compared to any of the newer stuff. I'm pretty sure my stock AM radio could survive an EM blast, and if not, I can fix it with said hammer and screwdriver... and maybe a few twist ties.