EricBall

All lithium batteries have ~3 year lifespan from time of manufacture (http://www.dansdata.com/gz042.htm). That being said $20 isn't a bad temporary fix. Watch / read the instructions so you know what it will take to open & close the iPhone so you can decide whether you can do it yourself or want to pay Apple the $79 instead.

I'm sure you're aware of Howard Tayler who does Schlock Mercenary and quit his day job many years ago and seems to have discovered how to make a living just doing comics. Although I have no inside info, there's a few things which I think Howard has done right: 1. Map out the story, then start drawing. People come back because they want to see what happens next. You can't supply that unless you know it ahead of time. 2. Have a backlog. Howard typically has several weeks of comics done ahead of what is currently being published. This then lets him spend time doing speaking gigs and taking care of book sales rather than trying to madly finish the comic for tomorrow. 3. Build the fanbase then monetize the fanbase. Heck, I have the Schlock Mercenary 2012 calendar on my wall.

In theory the feedback is for future buyers / sellers to better judge the seller / buyer. So you could have put in something like "photo did not show sticker on label" to warn others this seller may only show the "good side" of an item.

Actual HDTV on a flat panel display. Heck, the Internet didn't exist outside of DARPA and universities. In '85 it was still BBSs and modems. The iPhone does cover a bunch of separate devices - cellphones, MP3 players, digital cameras Flash memory - gigabytes on a postage stamp Reality TV (just to prove it's not all good) And although CGI special effects are the norm, there's still some who still prefer practical effects (e.g. Casino Royale).

Thanks for the info. I'll set up a wishlist for Tron on my TiVo so I'll catch it if/when it hits XD Canada.

Download the Kaspersky rescue disk http://rescuedisk.kaspersky-labs.com/rescuedisk/updatable/kav_rescue_10.iso and burn it to CD. Boot the CD and do a scan. See http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/rescuedisk for full instructions.

DS Homebrew Kit: Acekard 2, 2GB MicroSD & DSGM Pro - And All for just $39. I spent less than $8 (free shipping) for the R4. DSGM Pro is $15 - so I'm ahead by $16.

The other day my wife casually said "my DS". Now, I have to admit that we may have discussed that my son's Nintendo DS was hers since he now has a 3DS, but I hadn't really considered it. The problem is my wife's interest in games doesn't match mine or my son's. And although she has more free time to play, her interest in a particular game can disappear quite quickly. In other words, she's the typical Facebook gamer. So how to possibly satisfy her needs? Hmm.... I've always wanted a flashcart for the DS. Just for homebrew, of course.... But it would certainly let my wife play games (homebrew, emulated or copied) without spending $$. After some research via the gbatemp.net forums, I learned there are really only three current options (in order of increasing cost): 1. an R4 clone - which is okay for the DSlite, but won't work on the DSi or 3DS and doesn't support SDHC 2. the R4i Gold or Acekard 2i which support SDHC and be used in the 3DS 3. the SuperCard DSTWO which has an onboard CPU which is capable of running GBA and SNES emulators The main differences between #1 & #2 are SDHC - which isn't a big deal as 2GB is still plenty of space; and 3DS compatibility - the lack of which could be considered a feature. So that leaves whether it's worth ~$30 extra to play GBA & SNES games on the 3DS. While both are attractive, paying less than $8 (shipped) for an R4 clone with micro SD card and USB reader is a deal I can't refuse. Plus I can play SNES (and probably GBA) games on my Wii if I really want to.

The Atari 160 res pixel aspect ratio is 12:7. Square pixel NTSC (interlaced) has a pixel clock of 12.272727MHz or 780 pixels per line (640 active). For non-interlaced (like the Atari) the square pixel clock would be 6.136364MHz or 390 pixels per line. The Atari pixel clock is the same as colorburst, which is 3.579545MHz or 227.5 pixels per line (actually 228 but the Atari line is longer than a standard TV line). 390:227.5 = 780:455 = 12:7

A few months ago my wife's Macbook stopped recognizing the MagSafe power cord. After some Google searches and a check by a repair shop we concluded it would require a motherboard replacement to correct. Since a replacement motherboard would cost $400+ and I'd already bought an Apple refurb replacement, I sold it "for parts" on eBay. Based upon the items the buyer is selling on eBay, he will part it out - selling various components separately. Now, I could have done the same thing and maybe made more money. (Or I could have bought the replacement motherboard and maybe been able to net more for a working MacBook - dunno.) Actually, I kinda did as I sold the MacBook with the original RAM and the RAM I put in myself separately. However, it seems strange to me that there's enough slack in the system for a middleman like my buyer to exist. I doubt the guy is typically selling to individuals repairing their laptops. It's far more likely he's selling to repair shops who use the parts to fix stuff individuals have brought in. I can even imagine people buying multiple dead laptops and cannibalizing one to fix the other. But why wouldn't the repair shops buy my laptop themselves and salvage what they need? Maybe it's a time and inventory issue. The repair shops don't want to pay for a stock of dead laptops so they have the parts on hand. They'd rather buy one from a middleman when they need something. And the extra costs from buying from the middleman are passed along (with markup) to their client. So from that perspective, my buyer is kind of like a distributor in a traditional retail pipeline.

It all depends. It might have been a software glitch or an intermittent hardware failure. A possible software glitch might have been Windows thought you were connected to an external monitor, but closing and reopening reset it. A hardware problem may be a loose connection or a short circuit in the wires connecting the motherboard to the LCD. Do some heavy Google searching and see if others have experienced the same problem. A few months ago my wife's Macbook stopped recognizing the MagSafe power cord. The Google searches said it might be a bad cord (nope: tried with two cords), a firmware issue (upgrade & reset procedure failed), or a motherboard failure (confirmed by a repair shop). Fortunately I'd gotten in writing (email) that the repair shop wouldn't charge unless they fixed it (they probably hoped it was a firmware problem) and I sold it for parts on eBay.

One problem I am having is finding the time to complete the games I have. I am finally at the end boss in Skyward Sword (it took me a dozen tries over several week to get past the penultimate end boss, and I had to load up on fairies, so I'm thinking the end boss is probably going to take forever). Then there's Super Mario 3D Land, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem which I've all started but not finished.

Midway Arcade has been updated with iCade support, although that doesn't do much for my iPhone. I've had an FM transmitter for the iPod for year (replaced the cassette adapter). The problem I find is the antennas in my cars are too good - they manage to pull in stations which are very weak. This makes finding a quiet frequency next to impossible. There's also regions of the city where we get a lot of interference and some LED traffic lights seem to kick out a lot of RFI. One of the items on the next car wishlist is an AUX jack of some sort (along with parallel park assist).

The number of lines displayed is dependent upon the display list list. For NTSC the total number of lines in the display list list must be >= 243 (262-19), while for PAL it must be >= 293 (312-19). However, some of those display list list entries may point to a display list which only contains the 2 byte end of display list entry, in which case nothing is displayed on the number of lines given in the display list list entry.

Ah-ha, I got it! <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> <Module> <ModulePrefs title="Random Image" height="0"> <Require feature="dynamic-height"/> </ModulePrefs> <Content type="html"> <![CDATA[ <script type="text/javascript"> var theImages = new Array() // do not change this // To add more image files, continue with the // pattern below, adding to the array. theImages[0] = 'https://sites.google.com/site/ericballpanorama/home/daytona-beach/Daytona%20Beach.jpg' theImages[1] = 'https://sites.google.com/site/ericballpanorama/home/lower-manhattan/NYC%20skyline%202.jpg' theImages[2] = 'https://sites.google.com/site/ericballpanorama/home/upper-east-side/RamadaView.jpg' theImages[3] = 'https://sites.google.com/site/ericballpanorama/home/ponce-de-leon-inlet/auto.jpg' document.write('<img src="'+theImages[Math.floor(Math.random()*theImages.length)]+'" border="0" width="100%" onload="gadgets.window.adjustHeight()">'); </script> ]]> </Content> </Module>

I have been making updates to my Panoramic Photo Gallery: https://sites.google.com/site/ericballpanorama/ both adding newly stitched panoramas and revising older ones adding metadata and a watermark. Now I've reworked my main page to list the panoramas by location rather than in a simple ToC. At the bottom I've linked one of the panoramas, but what I'd really like to do is make that a slide show or a random panorama. With a normal site this would all be done in Javascript, but as this is Google, it's gotta be a Google Gadget. Actually, in this case the gadget is mostly just a wrapper for the Javascript. I have a simple working gadget which randomly displays one panorama from a hard coded list. The problem is gadgets typically have a fixed height and the height of my panoramas varies. There's a gadget method which can be used to adjust the height, but I'm fighting with a the image being loaded asynchronously and therefore not knowing the height at the time the gadget is loaded.

The 7800 GPU (MARIA) will display a maximum of 262-19=243 lines per frame. But most games didn't try to use more than 200 lines as most TVs of the day wouldn't display more due to overscan.

Shipping does cost a surprising amount sometimes, but often the prices are justified. The first cost is what USPS / UPS / FedEx charges. Even small items can cost more due because they are just large enough to get put in the next cost bracket. Then stuff like insurance, tracking & insurance adds on to the cost. Second is the cost of packing materials. Boxes and bubblewrap aren't free. Third is the time of the person who does the shipping. Fourth is "hidden" cost of credit card processing. If a business doesn't account for it, then they can take a 5-10% loss on the shipping. Finally, many businesses will use a "flat rate" shipping price instead of calculating the cost for each item. This will be higher to reduce the risk of taking a loss.

Angry Birds is available to play for free via chrome.angrybirds.com and Google Plus games. I have downloaded games on my PS3, but not on my 3DS or Wii. To a certain extent it's just a different delivery mechanism (although you have to be aware of your ISP's download limits). OTOH, I prefer to buy a Blu-Ray than to download movies. Most DVD players will return to the last scene viewed. Unfortunately, Blu-Ray doesn't, but I think that's because there's executable code in addition to the video. Nintendo stayed with carts through the N64 because they handled the manufacturing and would make profit on each cart made, not just sold. Going with disc based systems dramatically lowered the manufacturing cost because they leveraged existing CD (and later DVD) manufacturing. CD also could store 700MB of data, 10 times the size of the largest (and most expensive) cartridges. The reason DS cartridges are smaller is because flash memory (and other chip technologies) has pushed the density way up. And I don't know about carts being more reliable - I often have to reseat my N64 carts a couple of times before they will start. But you are correct there is the danger with downloaded content that it might be lost, either deleted or because it requires a back-end server which no longer exists. But this is why I buy movies on Blu-Ray - I'm far more likely to want to watch it again many years in the future than play through Angry Birds. I'm divided on music. In general, I'll buy a CD if there's enough songs on it. But I remember the times where I bought an album for the single and there wasn't anything else worth listening to.

I think the major problem with the game is the lack of control you have over the balls compared to a traditional Breakout game. Because the rows advance so quickly, the player has to feel they have a chance of directing the ball to a specific block (or at least in the general direction). Tapping to pull the balls back provides some of that control, but not a lot. Maybe with more instructions it would be easier to control (and understand what the various powerups are and how to trigger them). Finally, it's minorly annoying that the options aren't saved.

Ridley Scott and a semi-prequel to Alien? Looks awsome!

roberto - it depends on whether you already have a DS and if there are any 3DS games (or DS games if you don't have one) which you consider "must haves". My son bought a 3DS (and we both have DS-lites) and we have been playing through SM3dL. (I was going to pick up Occarina for our vacation, but BB was out of stock.) The 3D is nice, but we often don't have it turned on 'cause we're looking over each other's shoulders or playing in the car. Unfortunately, the 3DS library is pretty thin so far (IMHO), so it's harder to justify buying one just for a couple of games.

For 2D games you might want to check out the Oddworld series. Also have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_games in particular the re-releases.

Advert supported is close enough to free for me. I've downloaded and played a couple of games. Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to make the balls go in the (general) direction I want them to. They also tend to get stuck mostly bouncing up & down and not advancing towards the blocks. (Although on the second game I had one which was absolutely stuck in a single row.) In both games I lost mostly because I forgot I couldn't advance past a block (versus being run into by a block).

Farnell /Newark / element 14 is now taking preorders for the Raspberry Pi and I'm . . . not getting one . . . yet at least. Sure it's only C$40 (probably plus tax and shipping), but I'd need a power adapter (why did they go with micro USB instead of mini USB? I know EU cellphones are micro, but I've got mini) for ?$10+. But the big reason is I'm a user, not a developer. So I'd rather someone else find out whether what I want to do is possible and go through all of the gotta-be-first headaches. I'm sure that others are going to try MAME/MESS and play DVDs. I'll wait and see how things go and then buy one with my birthday money.