I always wondered why we need bloated software packages just to do simple word processing.� There is something called easter egg in software programs.� For example, I learned many years ago that when you type certain things in Excel, you get a 3-D flying simulator.� No wonder Office became so large even when I was using 16MB memory.� (Time flies, I’m ordering a machine with 16GB memory, Yee! Moore’s Law!)

Just learned that Google Earth has that too.� It’s a flight simulator, simply press Command-Option-A (Caps Lock on to get capital A).� It’s not bad, I crashed my plane twice in two minutes.� While I always get amazed by how innovative Google has been, I really don’t like this idea.� They are wasting (1) some best programmers’ time, (2) millions of people’s computer resources.

If they like to do a flight simulator, why not just make one and release it?

Easter with Cracked Eggs Laser Link Charm	Easter Bunny EASTER Laser Italian Charm	Bunny Holding Egg Laser Charm
I love Easter Italian Laser Charm	Happy Easter Italian Laser Charm	Bunch of Daisies Laser Italian Laser Charm

When the battery is fully charged, do this in the terminal:

ioreg -l | grep -i LegacyBatteryInfo

If the number following capacity is below 2000, then the battery is quite wasted. Normally, it should be more than 4000.

If you don’t know what the title means, just ignore this post.� :-p

I found that on a Mac, I can’t really “su root” as I� often do on Linux.� Whenever I change the root password, I can “su root”, but the next time when I start “Terminal”, the root password is not recognized.� The trick lies in creating a super user account, then “sudo” each time.

For example, to move some files to a directory that the current user does not have right to write.� I can do:

sudo mv somefiles* /home/root/dir

Good thing is that the only difference is to add sudo in the beginning.

�This cartoon from xkcd says it all.

Jade has been very absent-minded recently. I guess it has something to do with her working too much with Excel and PowerPoint till 1am sometimes.

Last week, I scheduled a lunch meeting with Sean, and she insisted to join. I was a few minutes late, when I arrived, she was jumping with my new ipod in one hand, and the the environmentally friends Harvard bag in her other hand. She did not check the lid before she put her drinking bottle into the bag, and the water leaked in the bag. The iPod in her hand is totally soaked. I can see water flowing in the screen, which still shows the “Now Playing” song.

She told me the iPod was off, and I do see the lock was on, so it must be the water that triggered up the iPod. I have heard many dreadful stories of getting iPod wet (or anything electronic device, for that matter), just search for “ipod, water” in google to see how common this issue is.

That was a less-than-one-month new iPod, so I did not want to buy another one. Before I want to take it to Apple service to try my luck (in Hong Kong, it would be a big hassle), I thought about ways to save this one.

The first thing I did was to put it facing down, so the screen and the buttons face the table cloth. This way, the water can flow out rather than diffuse within that metal back cover.

Then after lunch, I asked Jade to take it back and put it together with a dehumidifier in a closet. Jade did not do it, instead, she put it near a fan, and after a while, Nathalie turned off the fan. So when I came back home, the iPod was lying on the table.

I thought about cracking it open and drain the water, but I did not, this not only would devoid my warranty, but also might help the water to reach some sensitive parts in iPod. So I put it into the room with the dehumidifier.

It did not seem to work very well, as the dehumidifier only dehumidifies the atmosphere, even if the humidity is 0, the water would still be trapped inside. So I put the iPod near the vent of the dehumidifier. It blows out warm air. I switched the mode from “Dehumidify” to “Drying”, which was designed to dry cloths. It seems to be working, the next day, there was a box of water extracted by the dehumidifier, and the ipod feels warm, which can be helpful to evaporate the water.

After 2 days, I thought it was safe to turn on the iPod, so I did. It came up and showed a message saying “the iPod has little power left in the battery”. So I plugged it into my computer. The battery appeared to be charged.

But the problem came: after a few hours, the battery was still very low. And iTunes did not recognize the iPod.

So I unplugged the iPod, and put it into sleep. When I did so, I touched the power adapter of my laptop. It was very hot!

I guess the issue was still water, so I left the iPod on the hot adapter. After one day, I touched the iPod, it was very hot too. (The back cover is a piece of metal, no wonder!)

Then I plugged in the iPod again. This time, after charging the battery for a while, iTunes started to Syncronize. After I-don’t-remember-how-many hours, the battery indicates only got half charged. I did not want to charge too much, so I unplugged it, and started to listen to it. I think this has to do with the battery, and I want to manually calibrate it. So I left the iPod on till the battery is drained out of power.

Then I plugged in the iPod, and this time, it got fully charged.

I thus declare that I saved my iPod from drawning.

Something we can learn in the process:

1. Do not crack open the ipod when it’s wet
2. Just keep it warm for water to evaporate, do not use a hair blower (this one can destroy the LCD)
3. Do not shake the iPod forcefully
4. Be patient, be very patient, avoid to turn it on before you are 100% sure it is totally dry inside

defaults write com.apple.Terminal TerminalOpaqueness 0.8

You can change the last number from 0 to 1.0, I found 0.8 to be nice. If you want to freak out, try 0.

Oh changing this has the added benefit (cost?) of making the background of the dock transparent. I like it