As we come to the end of another year, many of us will reflect back on things we’ve experienced, lessons learned, and just everything the last 12 months brought us. 2011 has been an incredible year filled with tons of important world events as well as a lot of interesting celebrity events and gossip. Sadly, but not surprisingly, “interesting” squashes “important” online, putting celebrity news and gossip far ahead of important world events when we measure our digital voice online. Frugal Dad put together the following infographic, showing what the world found compelling enough to search for, share and talk about on Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
I love robots and remote control toys and Trekbot is both. He comes to us from Desk Pets, the makers of Skitterbot as well as other fun remote controlled toys. The irony is that these things are so fast that they’re much better suited for use on a floor rather than a desk. My review subject nearly escaped, but I pinned him down for some quick photos and video.
Trekbot Features
Like Skitterbot, Trekbot’s remote has a few button batteries that it runs on and the bot itself recharges via a cable from the remote. To charge the bot, you plug the remote’s cable into the bot and insert the retractable USB end of the remote into your computer’s USB port. Charging time is said to be about 30 minutes for about 15 minutes of play time, but mine took only about 15 minutes to fully charge out of the box. When the Trekbot is not charging, the usb plug retracts into the remote.
On the remote are four directional buttons to make Trekbot spin left or right or move forward or in reverse. In addition, there is a center button to stop movement completely. The cool thing about this bot – other than it’s pulsating blue eyes – is that no matter how bad you are at directing it, it won’t flip over. It’s hubless design lets the body of the Trekbot flip while the wheels stay in place, always keeping its little plastic mo-hawk pointed up.
Controlling Trekbot is a little harder than controlling Skitterbot for two reasons. First, it’s simple one-at-a-time control means you’re either moving or turning, but not both at the same time. This means that if you get off track, you have to hit the right or left button to correct the angle and then very quickly jump back to the forward or reverse motion. Alternatively, you can stop movement, turn the bot, and then start again, but turning gets tricky at that speed. I’m sure a little more practice wouldn’t hurt, though. This is actually the exact same as how Skitterbot is controlled, but Trekbot is just a little trickier to get pointed in the right direction sometimes.
Trekbot comes in 4 colors and each has its own frequency. This means that if you and friends want to battle and race as the packaging suggests, you’ll want to be sure to have different colored bots.
Trekbot In Action
Starting around $13, this is a great little toy for anyone, including yourself. It’s fun to play with and even more fun if you have pets that will chase it with curiosity. If I were to buy one in the store, though, it would have to be the black one. What color would you choose?
A while back, I ditched Cydia and my jailbreak on my iPhone 4 (Verizon) for the bells and whistles promised by IOS 5. At the time, I thought about all the advantages of my jailbroken IOS and decided that the new features of IOS 5 outweighed the features I was actively using from being jailbroken. Then came Siri and this month, I learned that Siri was soon to be ported to jailbroken iPhones running IOS 5.0.1 and couldn’t wait to jailbreak again. This morning, the untethered IOS 5.0.1 jailbreak AND the Siri port (named Spire) are both available.
How To Jailbreak IOS 5.0.1 Untethered
First, make sure you have one of these supported devices:
- iPhone 4 (GSM – CDMA)
- iPhone 3GS
- iPod touch 4G
- iPod touch 3G
- iPad 1
You’ll also need to make sure you’re on IOS 5.0.1 If not, update your device now, because Apple is sure to release a new version soon to close up some open doors.
Got everything you need? Good, you’re ready to begin. Just follow these steps:
1. BACK UP – You don’t know how many times this has saved me. Do It!
2. Download Redsn0w 0.9.10b1 (Windows – Mac OS X).
3. Unzip the Redsn0w archive you downloaded and run Redsn0w 0.9.10.b1.
4. Click the button to Jailbreak and follow the on-screen instructions.
After a couple minutes and a reboot, you should be jailbroken. Props go out to pod2g for making it possible.
How To Install Siri On iPhone 4
Ryan Petrich and chpwn have released a port of Siri, called Spire, to Cydia. This is about 100MB, so you really should install via Wifi. To find it, just search for Spire in the BigBoss repository.
This is the best port of Siri to date, but it still requires authorization from Apple to run. This means that you have to find and use a proxy in order to use Siri (for now). For more information on how to get a proxy, see this post from cydiahelp.com.
Unbrick Your iPhone
Just like anyone, I can make mistakes. Sure enough, while trying to re-jailbreak my iPhone, I wound up turning it into a paper weight when I did something wrong and it wouldn’t boot up. If this happened to you, don’t worry because there’s hope. Sadly, it will take some time to restore and you may lose some settings, though. If your phone is stuck with error messages or won’t boot, you can start by doing a factory restore. This will reset the phone to the stock or latest IOS install. After this, you need to restore from your latest backup. You did make a backup, right? Once the backup is in place, you’re ready to jailbreak again. Good luck!
Every year, I love to check out all the Christmas light displays that every day people put their hearts into to display their Christmas spirit. In recent years, videos of Christmas lights animated to musical accompaniment have been popping up on YouTube. Some are fun and others can only be described as artistic genius. This year, my wife and I happened upon a house that featured, among other things, Christmas lights that jumped and danced in time with the music. While I had a general idea of how it was done, I decided to dig a little deeper and share some of what I learned with you. I also created a video containing a mix of these musical lights to give you a better idea of what I’m talking about. Watch the video below and then we’ll get into how it’s done.
How To Program Christmas Lights To Music
Getting your lights to dance to pre-determined music is pretty simple in concept, but will take some amount of learning for anyone new to it and a lot of time for just about anyone. That may sound discouraging, but the end result may well be worth all the trouble. Not only will you have the feeling of accomplishing something pretty cool, but you’ll have the coolest decorated house on the block and perhaps even a YouTube hit like the Skrillex Equinox display that was viewed over a million times in under three weeks.
Before you dive in and create your masterpiece, you’ll need a general idea of what’s involved. First, you’ll need to have some hardware and software to make the magic happen. The hardware (controller, etc.) will connect your lights to the computer that will run the show and the software will allow you to program the lights to react to music how you want them to. Software won’t be a problem for your budget, but hardware can cost anywhere from around $160 for 32 channels and more of a DIY, hands-on approach up to $1,200 or more for 64 channels and a lot less work. If you’re comfortable with soldering, you can spend less and do a lot of the work, but if you’re not, expect to pay a lot more for pre-built hardware. In addition to the hardware, you should be prepared to spend money on lights if you don’t have them already. The days right after Christmas usually reveal lots of great sales (that’s when I buy wrapping paper and accessories, too). And don’t forget your soon-to-be-bloated electric bill.
To get it all working, you just need to :
- Check with neighbors first
- Get your hardware and software (including lights)
- Design your display and plan what you want
- Program your show (get ready to spend a lot of time here)
- Test
- Let people know
Along with all the work involved, you’ll want to plan some things ahead. The last thing you want to do is spend months putting together the perfect Christmas light musical performance only to have something unforeseen prevent it from being displayed. Before you start, check with your neighbors and agree on reasonable start and stop times and dates. Check for any local laws, ordinances, or HOA rules that such a project my be in violation of. Plan your expenses before you buy anything and avoid fire and other hazards by talking to electricians or other experts. Planning ahead may save you a ton of headaches down the road.
When you’re all done, showcase your completed project in style. Collaborate with a local video company to create a professional-looking video and don’t stop at YouTube. Send it to local TV stations and related blogs. A viral video could help offset your December electrical bill.
As always, if you embark on this adventure, share your project here in the comments.
