doctor

Apr 27 2009

Freeware For You and Your Children

The newest addition to the Burnham family was born just hours ago. As such, Brian is out learning how to be a new father. In celebration of this wonderful moment, I’ve managed to dig up a small selection of freeware that will benefit you and your children. And, as an added bonus, all PayPal donations from Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will be donated to Brian, his wife, and the new little Burnham.

mu Freeware For You and Your ChildrenTux Paint

Do you and/or your kids miss KidPix? Then I strongly recommend that you try Tux Paint . Tux Paint is a paint application that is aimed towards young children (similar to KidPix). Tux Paint features basic drawing tools, designs, colors, and a downloadable stamp set.

mu Freeware For You and Your ChildrenGrowth Charts

Are you obsessed with the growth of your child? If you have ever been curious to follow the growth of your child (or yourself) the same way that the doctor does, “this program will allow you to do that using the same charts that your doctor probably uses.”

BlockXXX

BlockXXX is a Firefox extension which scan pages for words commonly found on “adult entertainment” sites. If the words are matched, BlockXXX will disable all images and links.

Firefox Themes

While you busy child-proofing Firefox, why not add a cute, child-like theme?

Thanks for joining me this week. I hope some of this week’s freeware finds are useful to you and your children.

And, congratulation to both Brian and his wife!

Brought to you by: James

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Oct 3 2005

iPod nano vs. washing machine

By Jon Gales — Just about three weeks ago I posted a review of my new favorite gadget, the iPod nano. In that review I called the device, “The coolest thing I own bar none” and that wasn’t an exaggeration or another way of saying that I don’t own cool things. Well I’m sad to report that my nano had accidently had a run-in with the washing machine on Saturday morning. Read on for details and photos.

The nano is light enough that it turns out you can’t really tell when it’s in a shirt pocket and when it’s not. On this Saturday morning it was, and unfortunately the shirt was in the washer. I got ahold of it after about a minute in the dryer, so the little white contraption had already experienced a warm wash, cool rinse and exciting spin cycle. It was non-responsive and if I was an ER doctor the nano would have been pronounced dead.
Surprisingly (I guess this is where the spin cycle helps) the unit itself wasn’t too wet. I dried it off and after a while plugged it in. It didn’t mount–my hope that only the screen had been nuked wasn’t panning out. But after several minutes I saw the battery icon on the screen and that lifted my spirits. After another wait, probably about 30-40 minutes, the backlight kicked on and the nano mounted in iTunes and on my desktop. The screen definitely has some problems (see photos), but I’m hopeful that with continued drying it will improve. Errant clicks that came from moisture under the clickwheel have stopped.

Interestingly enough, when photos are on the screen you can hardly see any defects. Well, at least when looking head on. At an angle, there is a dark splotch similar to what is shown in one of the photos below.

After waiting another day, the nano dried completely and at this time you can’t even tell it ever got wet (and soaped up, spun etc). The screen now looks perfect. Very impressive!

If you have another crazy nano survival story, make sure to comment.

DSC00244 iPod nano vs. washing machine

DSC00245 iPod nano vs. washing machine

DSC00248 iPod nano vs. washing machine
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