These are blogs of the techrestore crew, sharing our love of technology and other interests.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Here it is, our first non-Apple product tear-down video, the PSP 3000! Not to be outdone by Chet, one of our game system techs, Lance, took this unit apart and put it back together, while I snapped video frames. This baby sports an extra bright screen, smudge-proof case and a built in microphone (for free PSP to PSP Skype talk and other apps). Check it out and see for yourself:
I've upgraded TechRestore's YouTube channel to include annotations that label all of the parts in our tear-down videos and created a DVD-style menu, with animated button/links:
Stay tuned for the PSP 3000 tear-down video, coming soon!
The long overdue animated AppleTV take-apart has finally arrived! In other words, I've finally created one. You see, we posted all kinds of sexy photos of the device's innards, when it first came out - but that was before I started doing the stop-motion dissections. So, go ahead and check it out...
iPhone users rejoice - you can officially count on getting free Wi-Fi service on your iPhone from any AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot across the land - this includes boatloads of Starbucks, airports and all sorts of other places. Check out the map, that's a lot of free wifi. Enjoy!
Here's our latest animated tear-down video: a look inside the brand new MacBook Pro! As an added bonus, by popular request, I got footage of Chet putting it back together.
These new MacBooks Pro are amazing! The whole trackpad is a button, which doesn't seem all that much better than tap clicking, until you go to drag stuff, which is sooo much better this way! The four-finger Expose controls are wicked too.
With Macworld Expo just around the corner, it's time to promote our booth and announce to the rest of the world that we'll have the Back To The Future DeLorean on display! Here's the ad copy that I just sent off to Macworld and Mac|Life magazines:
Our friends at Engadget are publishing these blurry top secret photos that are being leaked in advance of Apple's laptop announcements tomorrow.
Remember losing the floppy drive all those years ago? Then we lost our PC Card slots...now, if this photo is correct, where did that pesky little trackpad button run off to? Multi-touch to the rescue with a newfangled touch-pad that handles all your clicks and drags? You tell me.
A quick plug before I sign-off - checkout this week's Specials newsletter and get yourself signed up for future savings here. Learn about our new free shipping policy on all repairs and save some cash on a bunch of different repairs and upgrades.
We'll let's not single them out too much, but 1123 files have to be installed on my Mac in order to print a label? C'mon, that doesn't make any sense. And I'm not sure it makes me feel any better that it only took 2 minutes to install...where are all those files and what are they doing right now? It's 10PM, do you know where your label software is? When I install some massive application like Photoshop or Dreamweaver, I expect a ton of files, but it seems like these printers have upped the ante and they're multiplying before my eyes. I'm pretty sure the last HP printer driver I installed had about 465,000 files. I could be wrong, but at least it felt that way as the installer bar flew by, taking over my computer and sending stuff to all corners of "my" Mac - who really owns my computer now anyway? I'm just the guy who types and reads. I'm totally outnumbered by these files and I'm waiting for them to revolt at any moment. "Shut down? No way dude, we're just starting a party in here!"
Hey, speaking of new stuff on your computer (lame segue, I know), checkout our new Free Return Shipping offers that are popping up all over our website. You can now choose from free return shipping on Mac LCD screen repairs, hard drive upgrades and optical drive replacements. As well, you can get a free diagnosis with free return shipping when you approve any repair - pretty cool huh? And we only need to install 23,596 files on your computer to make this happen! Just kidding...
We have a couple of new employees joining the elite TechRestore ranks this week! Welcome to Lance Torrence, the newest Technician in our Consumer Electronics department and Gail Sarabia, who you will soon be speaking to on the phone if you call in to schedule a repair or to check your order status. We're thrilled to have them here and can't wait to see what they will be cooking at this week's Friday BBQ. ;-) Just kidding...again. We'll let them get settled before we turn up the heat about cooking. Bad pun, I know - but I'm in one of those moods today.
I hope you're having a great Friday and you're on your way to an exciting weekend. It's been a very busy week at the TechRestore home office in Concord, CA and we're looking forward to a nice weekend with family and friends. It's been awhile since I've checked in with you, so I thought I'd push a few updates out to you so you can see what we have in store in the upcoming months. Here we go:
+ Coming next week - a (long overdue) new Specials newsletter with a bunch of nice deals on products and services.
+ A new iPod parts announcement that we're looking forward to sharing with you during October
+ New super-duper FREE shipping on many of our services that will start in the next 7-10 days. We're just putting the final polish on our programming to make the new system work when placing your orders online
+ New interactive local drop off service - no more paper forms. Just walk in to any FedEx Office (formerly FedEx Kinkos), tell them you have a TechRestore repair and they will take if from there. It's been my dream to make this new service possible since we began offering our local pickup service two years ago. I'm thrilled to be getting close to launch with this new program.
And finally, before I let you go, checkout this excellent message that just arrived this morning. What a great way to end the week.
"Every great once in a while, you can believe the hype and a service delivers everything it promises. TechRestore swapped my original, small iBook hard drive for a 250GB drive, and did it in a professional, expeditious way. The over night service, even from the west coast to the east coast, was exactly as advertised. You offer a tremendous service. The website is easy to work with and the staff during phone calls was very helpful and knowledgeable.Thank you, - Bill Millerick"
My thanks for all the staff at TechRestore that work hard to make this kind of service possible. Have a great weekend!
Here's our latest stop-motion animated tear-down video: a look inside the 4G iPod nano! For size and design comparison, I've included some 2G and 3G nanos as well. Check out the first cross-dissolve to see how the screens are the same size on the 3G and 4G.
Here's the cliff-notes on the new iPod announcements from Apple today: * Tall, oval shaped nano with screen turned sideways and accelerometer to rotate movies/photos, like the iTouch
* New shake to shuffle feature and more colors for nano - 8GB $149
* Slimmer iPod Touch with built-in Nike+ and speaker - pushed as "best portable device for playing games" (look out PSP) - 8GB $229
* iPod Classic available in 120GB only, at $249
So there ya go. For more details see the play-by-play blog of Apples 'Let's Rock' event at engadget.
It's time to start getting ready for Macworld Expo SF, once again, and I have to tell you that wehave a treat for you this year. We will be displaying the actual De Lorean used in Back To The Future! Actually, it's one of six that were used in the film, but it's far more impressive than the one on display at Universal Studios, since you'll be able to get up close and even see inside! On top of that, it lights up like a Christmas tree. You can only get about three feet from the one at Universal, due to the metal barricades, and I hear that it doesn't even have a flux capacitor, let alone opening doors - where as our is complete and even functions as a real vehicle. In fact, it will be traveling forward through time even as you look at it - amazing! You can get your photo taken with the time-machine, and enter to win free T-shirts and other prizes (I'm not sure if we'll be giving away an iPhone, MacBook, or what , just yet)
Check out this video to see the actual car that we will have on display.
Keep an eye out for free passes to Macworld - we'll post 'em here in our blog, as soon as they arrive. Now if I could just transport myself to the point in time where all of my trade-show prep was done...
Ever wonder what a black MacBook would look like with a white keyboard and track-pad? Well, wonder no more. This client of ours is sure to be the only person on their block with such a unique MacBook...
Here's an email that we received from a satisfied client today. This is the kind of thing that makes us proud of what we do. Thanks for the feedback Rich!
Hot tubs are so 20th century. For a truly rejuvenating experience, skip the chlorine bath and submerge yourself in colorful acrylic polymers instead! I actually haven't experienced this since I was about 10 but I'm seriously considering the installation of a ball pit, now that I have access to a calculator that will determine how many balls it takes to fill any given space. By the way, the geeky comics at XKCD are hilarious too!
Are those plain white earbuds of yours making you feel like one of the indistinct denziens of the underground world of THX-1138? If so, Budclicks are here to add pieces of flair to your otherwise drab and uniform appearance! Smiley's, bio-hazard symbols, and just about any other well known symbol are ready to adorn your ears for about $6-$16. Audacious ear ornaments for men and women - how's that for Future Shock?
searchme.com is still in beta, but you no longer need to sign up to access it! If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth a look. Imagine thumbing through web sites as if they were in cover-flow, on a Mac or iPod. Not only does it look slick but, on the practical side, it allows you to visually search for the website that you want (eg. that game site with the red background that you don't remember the name of). In addition to that, SearchMe also let's you thumb through stacks of photos or videos online. I have yet to try it out on an iPhone or iPod touch, but I'm guessing that it looks great!
Ever wonder what would happen if you drove over an iPhone. Wonder no more. This iPhone was run over by a car and all that was damaged was the screen, which has since been replaced. The iPhone that you see here is now restored to complete functionality!
Renee just stumbled onto what surely is the best iPhone application yet, if not the most useful in our day to day lives. The name? PhoneSaber, of course. A quick download of this free app and you'll be enjoying exciting Light Saber sound effects as you swing your phone around. I mean really, what more could you ask for in a phone?
So, how's your iPhone 2.0 upgrade experience going? Are you one of the lucky few that didn't have a problem and your new iPhone software is up and running? In case you're not included in that group, here's a workaround to get through the dreaded iTunes error message above.
When you see this message, click OK and then click on your Music heading (upper left) in iTunes. Do NOT disconnect your iPhone. After you click Music, click back to your iPhone (under the Devices heading) and you'll start the "Accessing iTunes Store" dance again. It may take you 4-5 times (or maybe 40-50, your mileage may vary), but eventually you'll find the perfect spot in the "ACTIVATE MY IPHONE NOW!" queue and you're phone will finish updating and restoring all your data.
Disconnect your iPhone and you should be good to go. Find a better solution? Let us know in the comments.
It's a big news day for the iPhone. The 2.0 Firmware for all iPhones was released (sadly none for the iPod touch yet), the iTunes Music Store has iPhone applications for sale and, the first 3G iPhone take-apart photos have hit the net!
The 2.0 iPhone firmware update allows the installation of 3rd party applications on the iPhone and comes with some other minor updates, such as 3D buildings in Google Maps. Get the details on downloading and installing the free update here.
Once your iPhone is updated, head over to the iTunes App Store, to check out all of the cool games, communication and productivity software! Apps of interest include Smug Shot (a kind of Photo Booth that uses the iPhone's camera), Enigmo (an amazing 3D puzzle game), and Type Pad (a mobile blogging app).
If you don't yet have an iPhone, or you want to see how the new 3G iPhone differs from yours, check out the first 3G iPhone take apart in New Zealand (yes these guys flew halfway around the world to be the first to crack one open)!
Check out the latest Special News, hot off the virtual press, featuring Shannon's adventures in Chi-Town and some seriously amazing deals (good through July 31st)!
And, just in case you can't get enough fireworks tomorrow night, try this 3D fireworks screensaver for OS X, with realistic graphics and sound (it's amazing on a home theatre system with deep bass and a big screen) - happy 4th of July!
It's time, once again, for another stop-motion TechRestore video! Today, we get a rare glimpse of group laptop behavior, as a line of MacBooks and MacBooks Pro perform a synchronized stadium wave, just like enthusiastic spectators at a sporting event!
Ah, good things come to those who wait. It's finally here, the long rumored and even longer waited for 1/2 Terabyte laptop hard drive that will fit in all MacBook and MacBook Pro models!
Our first batch of drives is here and we've just made this hot product live on our website. You'll get 500 Gigabytes of storage, installed overnight with data transfer from your old drive. It's a beautiful thing.
I'm sitting in the Seattle airport, catching my connecting flight to Chicago for some business meetings - but I couldn't wait to share this news with you. Since my current 250 Gigabyte drive has been acting up, I'll be having our guys swap in one of the 500 Gig drives for me when I return. Really, it's acting up, I promise.
In this era of digital entertainment, computer media centers make more sense than ever - after all, shouldn't your entertainment system do everything that an iPod does? The only thing keeping your Mac from becoming the center of attention in your living room is remote control. While the new Intel Macs come with remotes, chances are that a machine that powerful has it's own desk, if not it's own room. However, an older G4 Apple makes a great Apple TV substitute! With the addition of remote control, any machine that runs OS X will turn your TV into a hi-tech media center.
Here's what you need to remotely control your old Mac:
* An Apple Remote * A third party IR receiver (eg. the one made for Windows Media Center) * A shareware program that enables the remote, like Mira.
If you're running Leopard, then you can use Front Row, just like any Intel Mac - if not, then Mira has a launch menu that the Apple design team would be proud of.
The TechRestore Special News is back! We're finally done moving and we're now getting back to business as usual. Check out the specials, including $60 off MacBooks Pro, insane deals on iPods, Mac mini Hard drive upgrades and much much more!
Last night, I saw Crystal Castles live, at a small venue called the Independent, in San Francisco. The opener was a math-rock band called DD/MM/YYYY, which sounded a lot better live than they did online. Their odd time signatures and mathematically generated melodies were unique and fun. As for the headliner, Crystal Castles rocked and they knew it - otherwise the crowd would have rioted when they split, without an encore, after playing such a small set (barely an hour). The shy couple never appeared in full light, preferring the mystery of strobes and colored spots, but their performance was energized and flawless. Were it not for a few improvised lines and sound-effect breaks, I might have even suspected that they were just lip-syncing to their album. I think these guys are going to be big - at least as big as a band that sounds like an '80s video-game can get.
iPod CPR You'd think that, after repairing a thousand or more iPods and, after taking hundreds of tech support calls on iPod problems, I'd be able to take my own advice and reset my own iPod. Mine wouldn't turn on, it wouldn't mount when connected to my computer and it didn't appear to charge either. Although I was convinced that the thing had died, I resigned myself to go through the motions of following Apple's trouble-shooting steps, so that I would be able to qualify for some warranty service. Sure enough, plugging in my iPod and doing a two-button reset, snapped it back into shape! So, when in doubt, don't forget to hold down the center button and the menu button for a few seconds, no matter how dead your iPod seems.
