Category Archives: Computers & Technology

Quick Mac tip: unresponsive built-in iSight camera

MacBookI was dismayed yesterday to discover that the built-in iSight camera on my new MacBook was apparently dead. Photo Booth couldn’t find it, and neither could the Flash-based profile picture taker (whatever it’s called) in Facebook.

I figured it was just dead. Disappointing, but it’s not uncommon given the cost-cutting measures just about every modern high-tech company, including Apple, undertakes these days. At least it was just the iSight camera, probably the feature of this computer I use least (other than the video-out port). If it really was dead, I’d probably just live with that instead of the much greater inconvenience of a couple of weeks without my computer.

But before I gave up on it, I decided to do some research and it turns out that resetting the SMC (the new MacBook’s equivalent of the PowerBook’s PMU) should do the trick.

Here’s what you do:

  1. Shut down the computer.
  2. Unplug the power and remove the battery. (That last part is important.)
  3. Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
  4. Reinsert the battery, plug the MacBook back in (if you want), and restart.

It did the trick… my camera is working again! (Not that I really care enough to warrant that exclamation point, but… well… at least I don’t have a month-old computer with a defective component. That’s worth celebrating, no matter how irrelevant the part is.)

April Fools Day in the age of the Internet

It’s become an annual tradition: websites playing increasingly elaborate pranks for April Fools Day. The only downside is that it’s now so common that the pranks rarely fool anybody anymore. But they’re still pretty occasionally funny.

I’m not planning to compile an exhaustive list, but I will update this post throughout the day as I come across them.

Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink
The nearly two-centuries-old UK newspaper will begin the process of converting all of its archives to tweets. A couple of samples: “OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more”; and “JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?”
Brand New: Verizon Turns to the Clouds
The country’s largest wireless carrier unveils a rebranding that, frankly, doesn’t hold water. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
No Lions and Orioles and Bears? Oh, my!
I heard this on NPR this morning, but since it’s online as well, I figured it counts.
Amazon MP3 Daily Deal: William Shatner’s The Transformed Man for 99 cents
OK, this isn’t technically a prank — you really can buy the album for 99 cents today. But I think the date is no coincidence.
Amazing: The Swiss even clean their mountains
Not quite sure if this video is an April Fools joke or just a regular old joke, but it’s a good one regardless.
Alpine Legend
Coming soon (or not) to the XBOX 360. This joke was already done much better back in 2007
Slashdot
Just about everything on Slashdot today is an April Fools joke, which is diminishing my enthusiasm for this whole enterprise. Also, Gizmodo was apparently hit by the Conficker virus. Or was it? Yawn.

Found a gem of your own? Share it in the Comments section!

Bring down IE 6!

IE6, R.I.P. I wish.Here’s a far more detailed, reasoned explanation of why Internet Explorer 6 is just plain bad than I could ever muster in the midst of one of my Microsoft-fueled rages. (OK, maybe that overstates it a bit and gives Redmond too much credit for my anger issues.)

Here it is, plain and simple: Internet Explorer 6 has been around as long as Windows XP, and it’s even longer in the tooth. A lot has happened to the Web in the last 8 years, and IE6 is simply not equipped to handle what 2009 websites throw at it. It’s a security nightmare, and it’s woefully lacking in support of even relatively modest features that all other browsers out there today support, and that we in the web design and development community desperately want to take advantage of in building functional, aesthetically pleasing, just plain cool websites.

But we can’t. Or, we can, but then we have to spend a substantial chunk of the total time and budget of a project (often a third or more) hacking our own (standards-compliant) work to try to make it even just passably functional in IE6. This has to end. IE6 is not just a pain in the butt of web geeks like me. Because it is wasting the valuable time and financial resources of anyone involved in the creation of websites (and by extension, any business or organization that has a website), it is a drain on our economy in the same way as old, gas guzzling cars or any other outmoded, grossly inefficient system.

It’s time. IE6 is dead. Lay it to rest.