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Apple buys Shazam for $300 Million!

Just like that, Shazam is now part of the Apple family! Rumors were churning yesterday that the deal was going down, and now it has been confirmed.  Apple released a statement saying they’ve acquired the music detection service.

I wish Shazam was still a super hero!
Umm.. wrong Shazam!

According to sources close to  the purchase Shazam was acquired for $300 million, a far cry from the $1 billion valuation obtained in 2015. It is unknown why Shazam decided to sell to Apply, however Apple has a huge hunger for any company with AI expertise. Continue reading “Apple buys Shazam for $300 Million!”

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Is Etsy just another Ebay?

I have been working with Etsy for 12 years and at the beginning there was a basic understanding that this was a marketplace for handcrafted goods. Maybe you’re a woodworker, or artist of some type. Some people worked wonders with their sewing machines or showed off their painting skills. Others were like me that were able to up-cycle and mashup old discarded junk into new amazing items that were one of a kind unique pieces of art.

hand·made – han(d)ˈmād/ made by hand, not by machine, and typically therefore of superior quality.

As time went on the word “handmade” started to be stretched and lines blurred. For example, some sellers cast their own jewellery while others took wire wrapping to  a new level. In my opinion this is truly a handmade item. Other sellers began buying charms and simply put them on a chain and sold them as handmade. Their hand did make it, but was the item really “handmade” Etsy allowed this to take place, and soon two new categories  popped up Vintage and Supplies. I was fine with this strategy since items on the site were still primarily hand crafted Continue reading “Is Etsy just another Ebay?”

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6 Gag Gifts They Will All Enjoy This Holiday Season

Another holiday season is upon us and like every year we will spend countless hours picking out gifts for loved ones, friends and coworkers. This year in addition to all the traditional gifts why not pick out a gag gift they will enjoy. Maybe even liven up the banter around the water cooler in the office.

I searched high and low on amazon and picked a few great gag gift ideas that wont break the bank and will be perfect for that secret Santa too.

Pull My Finger Farting Santa – $13.95

Not much of an explanation necessary. 

  • PRESS/PULL MY FINGER: Press my finger and hear me talk and fart and vibrate around..
  • BATTERIES INCLUDED: I come with batteries and the batteries can be replaced easily.
  • HEIGHT: 8 Inches Tall-6 Inches Wide
  • SAYINGS/FARTS: 7 Sayings and Farts when you press my finger
  • WHAT DO I SAY?- I usually FART FIRST and the say the following: 1. “Cmon sit on my lap”. 2. ” Theres a gift for ya”. 3. Ho ho ho -Faaart”. 4. Up the chimney I goooooooo..fart”. 5. ” That’s all your getting for Christmas”. 6. ” Was that on your list?”. 7. Ahhhh The Holiday Smells”.

Farting Santa is $13.95
Continue reading “6 Gag Gifts They Will All Enjoy This Holiday Season”

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How to repair Guitar Hero guitar Wii edition

Guitar Hero is over a dozen years old, and though not so popular as it was in 2005 it still captures the hearts of original Wii fans. Guitar Hero was introduced when video game motion control was in its hay day. Nintendo had a revolutionary idea with the original Wii and video game companies far and wide wrote tons of software to capitalize on the new systems.

My kids loved, and still enjoy Guitar Hero to this day, and enjoy firing up the old Wii or Wii U to get their guitar on. However like many teenagers they are not gentle with their equipment and managed to break our Guitar Hero guitar. I was looking to source on on Ebay or Amazon, but then thought to myself maybe it could be repaired.

Repairing The Guitar Hero Guitar

Continue reading “How to repair Guitar Hero guitar Wii edition”

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8″ (200mm) Silicon Wafer With Amazing Chip Patterns

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if we never invented the micro chip? Micro chips and to that extent the micro processor should be hailed as one of the greatest inventions of all time. Most of our modern life would not be possible if we were not able to fit billions of  transistors in the space of a postage stamp silicon wafer. Just think about that statement for a moment! Your mobile phone would be the size of a car, your home computer the size of a room in your house. Constantly swapping out burnt vacuum tubes.

Micro chips to the rescue.

A Silicon Wafer Is Born:

Ever wondered how these chips are made? I never gave it a thought myself until I stumbled across these Silicon Wafers. For some reason or another these wafers were deemed defective so they were unable to continue the journey into computers, phones and other electronics. Some of the wafers were destined to become DRAM’s (memory) some designed to be micro processors, while others custom circuits for a specific job. Continue reading “8″ (200mm) Silicon Wafer With Amazing Chip Patterns”

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Vintage Surplus 1991 NASA Landsat Parts For Sale?

The Landsat program is the longest running satellite imagery program on Earth. The first satellite was launched on July 23rd 1972 and the most recent launch was February 11th 2013. With Landsat 9 to be launched in 2020.

The instruments on the Landsat satellites have acquired millions of images. The images, archived in the United States and receiving stations around the world, are a unique resource for global change research and applications in agriculture, cartography, geology, forestry, regional planning, surveillance and education, and can be viewed through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) ‘EarthExplorer’ website.  Landsat images are usually divided into scenes for easy downloading.

NASA Unloading Landsat Parts (New Old Stock)

Continue reading “Vintage Surplus 1991 NASA Landsat Parts For Sale?”

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Detecting an Unsupported Browser with Apache Mod_Rewrite

I am a man who wears many hats at my day job, and one of my favorite hats is maintainer of our new Intranet site. I built the site on a WordPress foundation figuring any functionality I need could be added via plugin down the road. Recently ran into an issue with users accessing the site via an unsupported browser.

In the office I have designated the domain XXXX.LOCAL for anything that needs to resolve internally. Currently we purchase a piece of browser based software from a company that only supports IE in compatibility mode. This forces us to set XXXX.LOCAL to compatibility mode in all IE browsers. My WordPress intranet site does not like compatibility mode one bit. Since all my users have Edge, Firefox and some have Chrome as their available browsers the thought entered my mind to force them to use one of them.

HOW TO DESIGNATE iNTERNET EXPLORER AS AN UNSUPPORTED BROWSER

Continue reading “Detecting an Unsupported Browser with Apache Mod_Rewrite”

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BONDO – Its not just for 1970 auto body repair!

If you’re as old as I am you may remember some of the auto body repair techniques of the late 70’s and early 80’s. It was an era of body fill ,shape and repair rather than today’s replace replace replace.  While Bondo is still used in the automotive industry there are so many other uses for this stuff its ridiculous.

What I like most about Bondo is the fact it will not harden in the can and you are able to store it almost indefinitely. The other amazing quality about this stuff is it hardens  and is ready for sanding and paint in under 15 minutes.

Repairing The Porch With Bondo!

Recently I noticed the columns holding up my covered front porch were showing signs of rotting at the very bottom. Apparently some of the caulking around the top of the column weathered and was allowing moisture in the pole and causing rot.
Continue reading “BONDO – Its not just for 1970 auto body repair!”

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Yet another iteration of the Nintendo DS – Super NES Edition!

Ah, another version of the timeless Nintendo DS. I wonder if anyone over at Nintendo has ever head the expression “whipping a dead horse.”? In case they are wondering. please see below as defined by my friends at Wikipedia:

Flogging a dead horse (alternatively beating a dead horse, or beating a dead dog in some parts of the Anglophone world) is an idiom that means to continue a particular endeavor that is a waste of time as the outcome is already decided.

This time around the folks at Nintendo will be offering a “NEW” 3DS XL that resembles a retro Super NES case. According to the product specifications:

Continue reading “Yet another iteration of the Nintendo DS – Super NES Edition!”

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Virus Email Reminder – Word Macros Are Bad!

I had a couple of users in the office this week attempt to enable word macros on a document they received in email. I try to give my users as much information as I can to avoid viruses and malware, but each week the hackers come up with additional methods to attempt unauthorized network access.

Exploit Vector:

This time around the hack was email based and the email came from a known  source.  The attacker has already gained control of the senders workstation and had sent the message as a reply to an earlier thread. Continue reading “Virus Email Reminder – Word Macros Are Bad!”

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