Published on July 7, 2007
I’d like to quickly recommend an excellent website, Lifehack.org. I ran across the site after a few of its posts have appeared on the front-page of Digg a few times. Man, I feel like I’ve really been missing out!From their own site description:
This site dedicated to lifehacks. The phrase describes any hacks, tips and tricks that get things done quickly by automating, increase productivity and organizing. This site is built around this theme. It is a frequently updated blog, which provides news and articles which able you to get things done in a faster pace.
Head over and take a look. It will be a new mainstay on my list of RSS feeds.
Published on July 5, 2007
Microsoft announced today that it is expanding its Xbox 360 warranty to three years for any customer who experiences the three flashing red lights error message that indicates hardware failure. All repairs will be made free of charge for three years from the time of purchase, including shipping expenses. Anybody who previously has paid for their consoles to be repaired related to three red light error message will be retroactively reimbursed. Other existing Xbox 360 warranties remain unchanged.
First the warranty was 3 months, then under pressure Microsoft expanded it to 1 year. Now three years… There’s obviously a serious problem. I have a replacement being shipped to me right now because of RedRing, so I’m ecstatic to hear that Microsoft is doing something about this. This quote from IGN is what especially interests me:
The company is making the move as a result of what the company views as “an unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles.” Microsoft claims that it has identified a number of factors that cause the three flashing red lights error message and has made improvements to the console.
I’m just hoping that the replacement that was sent to me has been equipped with these improvements!
Via: IGN
Published on July 3, 2007
I’ve been building a humble living room A/V setup this summer. When I replaced my 20″ CRT TV with a 32″ HD LCD, my Tivo developed a quiet hum. I was pulling most of my TV off of an HD Antenna, and I was too busy to really look into the problem, so apart from jiggling some cables and scratching my head I let things go.
Today I got a HD Digital Cable box from Time Warner. When I hooked this up I got a “video hum”, ghost-like lines of color and brightness that slowly scroll up the screen of the TV. These distracting waves were more than I could overlook, so I started doing some research.
What I had was a ground loop problem. Wikipedia came to the rescue:
In video, ground loop can be seen as hum bars (bands of slightly different brightness) scrolling vertically up the screen. These are frequently seen with Video projectors where the display device has its case grounded via a 3-prong plug, and the other components have a floating ground connected to the CATV coax. In this case the video cable is grounded at the projector end to the home electrical system, and at the other end to the cable TV’s ground, inducing a current through the cable which distorts the picture. As with audio ground loops, this problem can be solved by placing an isolation transformer on the cable-tv coax. Alternatively, one can use a surge protector that includes coax protection. If the cable is routed through the same surge protector as the 3-prong device, both will be regrounded to the surge protector.
Wikipedia: Ground Loop (Electricity)
I realized, the old TV had a two-prong power cord, while the new TV has a three-prong cord. The new TV was grounded separately from the incoming cable TV. I ran to Target and picked up a power strip with built in coax-protection (very much like this Power Sentry unit at Target) that provides a common ground to all of my devices. All of the visual hum is gone, and now I can be distracted by DiscoveryHD instead of video hum.
