Hijinks Inc.

In April of 2008 I built Walter 2.0, now meet Walter 3.0.

I was out at my families house over Christmas and was bored out of my mind, so I broke out my Lego collection. Amazingly no one had taken Walter 2.0 apart yet, so I decided it was time for an upgrade of sorts.

First off, I removed the pulley system that ran the wheels in Walters shoes as I needed the motors for the upgrades I had in mind.

Next, I took apart his head and modified his eyes to allow light from the Lego “fiber optics” kit through. Then I installed a small switch in the back of his head to allow the optics to be turned on.

And now that Walter has evil red eyes, why not a laser cannon…

Much better. The cannon is run by a small motor in his arm, and is controlled by the same switch that turns on the eyes.

I’m not entirely happy with how it turned out, but it’ll have to wait until next Christmas for another upgrade. At this point I’m leaning towards turning Walter into a Borg, sadly though, I have a limited number of black and gray bricks.

I have 14 more Google Wave invites to hand out.

And I’m out… hit up Fred in the comments if you still need one.

It should be noted that invites are not instant, giving me your email address technically only gets you nominated for an invitation.

Hit me up in the comments or on Twitter if you’re interested.

So I’m a little late to the PlayStation 3 game, but heck, better late than out $500.

I just bought a refurb PS3 off ebay, with a Blu-Ray remote and an extra controller. Pretty excited since I purchased the previous gen PS3 so I can install YDL or Ubuntu on it. Also found out it’ll place nice with my NAS’s option to stream media.

At any rate, it won’t arrive until December 1st, but after that I’ll post a bit more about my experience installing Yellow Dog Linux on it.

I’m sure they won’t go as fast as the Google Wave invites, but I have 3 Google Voice invites left.

Leave your email in the comments, or hit me up on Twitter.

Oh look, a new post.

Anyone want a Google Wave invite? You know you do, hit me up on Twitter or by email aaron [dot] nelsen [at] gmail [dot] com.

First come, first serve.

So I haven’t posted in months and I just looked at our Google Analytics page and we’re pulling in 25,000+ unique page views every month. Whoops… I officially feel bad for not updating.

I promise (ish) that November will be better, after the dust settles from the wedding and I get moved into my new place I’ll start posting again. Hopefully.

All the cool kids are trying out Wolfram Alpha these days, but while they try and figure out the meaning of life, I’m working on an iPhone app based off of the Wolfram Alpha API.

There’s a good chance somebody will be beat me to the punch, and I’m still not 100% sure I’ll release the app, but I’m toying around with it right now.

Watch this space for more info.

I know a few other websites have instructions on how to install OS X on the Lenovo S10, but I’m working on step-by-step instructions that include getting the audio working.

Hopefully I’ll have that posted later in the week.

After only mild success with installing OS X on the TouchSmat IQ507 I’ve set my sights on yet another HP touch screen computer. This time the target is the TouchSmart tx2z tablet PC, which actually uses a true capacitive touch screen, instead of the IR based one in the TouchSmart IQ507.

Minor details aside, the tx2z should be arriving later this afternoon. I’ll post any progress I make.

E*Trade has long supported Blackberry users, with their Mobile Pro application, and sometime (hopefully) this year they’ll be adding iPhone support as well. After all E*Trade is seriously behind the times in supporting the iPhone, even Bank of America and Citi have apps already.

Now take this with a grain of salt, as it is pure speculation on my part, all I am basing this off of is a message I received from E*Trade in response to my inquires about an iPhone app.

“Thank you for your message regarding E*TRADE Mobile PRO… … We are currently developing a platform for iPhone users; however, a release date has not yet been established. We are constantly updating our website and adding features based on the feedback we receive from customers. …”

Hopefully the app will not only make it to market, but also include access to banking features, like Quick Transfer and Bill Pay.