An Origami solution to the Apple MacBook TrackPad “squishy” Button Problem

More and more Apple MacBook users are complaining of a “squishy” or unresponsive trackpad button. Some of the Apple Macbooks have a very crispy and responsive feel when you click down the button on the trackpad, however some Apple Macbook owners are unfortunate to be stuck with a button that doesn’t press down quite right.

A recent visit to the Apple Genius Bar proved to be a completely unhelpful. After waiting 15 minutes past the time my appointment was scheduled for, an Apple “Genius” looked at my issue.

After I explained the issue to the Apple “Genius”, he proceeded to rather vigorously push down on my Macbook’s trackpad button repeatedly. After performing this 10 seconds test, it was his professional decision that there was nothing wrong with my Macbook. He asked me to show him how it was not working. I tried to explain to him that it felt different, and that it didn’t “click” quite like the rest of the MacBooks I had played with. Once again, he starts to push down on the button repeatedly, and finally tells me that it feels just right to him, just like the rest of the MacBooks.

This was my only experience with the Apple Genius Bar. I felt like it was a complete waste of time, as the “Genius” didn’t bother to try to understand my problem. I felt very rushed, and the whole experience was very unprofessional and disappointing.

Now, on to the custom solution to this annoying problem. Screw you Apple, we figured it out ourselves!

Someone on the Apple discussion forums posted a solution. Place a piece of paper underneath the battery cover, where the trackpad button is.

After testing this solution out with various lengths and widths of paper, I believe we have found the perfect solution.

Step #1 - Cut a piece of paper about 1/8 of an inch wide, and 4 inches in lenth.

Step #2 - If you want to be creative, take this piece of paper and follow these steps to make an Origami Paper Star (Thanks Erik!). Make sure to skip the last step. Alternatively, just fold the piece of paper in a square.

Step #3 - Unlock the battery with a coin, and remove it.

Step #4 - Place your Origami Star or square in the middle, as you see illustrated in the picture. Make sure it’s as centered as much as possible, and carefully put the battery back in and lock it.

Now, go test out your trackpad button. You should have a nice crisp click, almost anywhere you click. It should feel very responsive.

Feel free to play around with the size of the paper. If you want a tighter click, make it a little thicker. If you want a looser click, make it thinner.

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New LG Cell phone stops drunk calls

Already released in Korea, LG’s new cell phone, the LG LP4100, has a built in breath analyzer test to detect when the user is intoxicated. When a partygoer blows into the cell phone, the phone records their blood-alcohol levels, and if they are over 0.08, then the phone displays an animation of a car swerving on a road and crashing into traffic cones.

The phone also sports a feature where the user can have it programmed to not allow them to make drunk calls to anyone who they decide shouldn’t be bothered at 3AM.

LG has sold more than 200,000 of these phones in Korea, and they plan on releasing the LG LP4100 into the United States market later this year

Source: News.com

Comcast fights Internet child pornography

With their current policy, Comcast Intenet retains IP address records of Internet users for 31 days. However, Comcast announced at a congressional subcommittee hearing that starting later this year, their policy is going to be changed, and records will be retained for 180 day.

This change in policy comes after Comcast failed to provide the IP records in an investigation of an Internet user, who was distributing a videotaped rape of a two-year old child.

Other Internet Service Providers, such as Earthlink, retain records for up to 7 years.

Source

Now, while anyone can understand the importance of bring people who distribute child porn to justice, how many more soccer moms will be sued and harassed by the RIAA, now that IP records are going to be retained for a longer period of time?

Digg 3.0 launches with a redesign and extended topics

As expected, Digg 3.0 has launched this morning. The Digg 3.0 site sports a redisign, with a new layout, and also expands Digg’s categories past Technology related topics.

The new categories and sub-categories are:

Technology > (Apple, Design, Gadgets, Hardware, Industry News, Linux/Unix, Mods, Programming, Security, Software , Tech Deals)

Science > (Space, Environment, Health ,General Sciences)

World & Business > (Business & Finance, Politics, World News, Offbeat News)

Videos > (Animation, Comedy, Educational, Music, People, Gaming)

Entertainment > (Celebrity, Movies, Music, Television)

Gaming > (Gaming News, Playable Web Games)

Apple MacBook Pro magsafe melt problem

A couple of months ago, an Apple MacBook Pro user, posted images on his Flickr account of a burned magsafe connection. Apple had him remove the images of the magsafe, after they dealt with the issue.

Now it seems that other people are staring to encounter this dangerous problem. A post form a MacBook pro user in a forum message, explains that his magsafe started to burn and melt while he was using the notebook computer in bed.

Maybe it’s time for Apple to issue a recall on the magsafe connectors for the MacBook Pros?

Sleeping Comcast tech fired

Last week we reported on a tribute video made by an angry Comcast customer, after he caught the Comcast tech asleep on his couch. The Comcast tech fell alseep at the customer’s location, after he was on hold for more than an hour with Comcast’s central office.

Since then, the Comcast tech has been fired, and an apology has been issued to the customer.

Two down! Who’s are we going to be getting fired next?

Source: CBS News

Digg 3.0 coming Monday with major improvements and changes

As usual, TechCrunch got the scoop on the upcoming Digg 3.0 update, which is launching this Monday. The update will feature an expansion of categories, as Digg venturers into the unknown, as well as a site redesign with major improvements.

In addition to a redesign (that retains the essential Digg “experience”), Digg is adding a number of news categories beyond technology. Topics are grouped into six “containers”, including technology, entertainment, gaming, science, world & business, and online video. The default view on Digg is still the technology container, although users can change that view and can also deselect individual topics within containers to further refine what they see on the home page.

With the site traffic doubling about every two months, Digg currently generates 800,000 unique visitors, and over 9 million pageviews on a daily basis.

Look for the new Digg 3.0 to launch on Monday morning. Check out the article for screenshots and more.

Google takes action against spammer; Bans 7 Billion pages

Earlier this week there was an article released, explaining how one spammer got billions of pages crawled and indexed by google, by using a sub-domain trick.

Well, Google has now taken action against the spammer, and has banned 7 billion pages. Here is a fun alexa graph, of one of the spammer’s domains. You can see exactly when Google banned the pages.

Don’t F with google, man!

Source: Digg

More Apple MacBook Pro Woes - Swollen Battery Issue

The picture on the left is of an Apple MacBook Pro. The swollen battery seems to be a side effect of the heat issues which burden the MacBook Pro owners.

This seems to be a severe case of the problem, as the swelling is very significant. The Apple MacBook Pro in the picture cannot run on battery alone any longer, as it shuts down when the battery swells out more. Other, non-severe cases do not seem affect the MacBooks as much. However, there have been reports of keyboard and/or trackpad functionality sometimes being affected, due to the components being pushed on by the swollen battery casing.

Apple is replacing these defective batteries on an individual basis.

Source: MacFixIt

Man arrested after using free Wi-Fi service

Alexander Eric Smith sat in his truck for hours at a time each day, for the past 3 months, and used the free Internet wireless access of his local coffee shop. Smith never made a single purchase, and he was warned against using the Wi-Fi access by the manager of Brewed Awakenings.

“He doesn’t buy anything,” Manager Emily Pranger says about the man she ended up calling 911 about. “It’s not right for him to come and use it.”

Smith was arrested by the authorities for theft of service after the manager called 9-1-1.

Now, while I can understand the frustration of the manger at Brewed Awakenings, I really can’t justify calling 911 to have someone arrested for using your free Wi-Fi, unless he was somehow disrupting the service. If you want to restrict people from using your service, it’s probably not a good idea to offer unsecured Wi-Fi access, and advertise it.

Unfortunately for this guy, it seems that the police had asked him to stop using the coffee shop’s internet access previously, after the manager had complained.

Source KATU