Cave News

RadioShack plans to Close 500 Stores

The struggling electronics retailer will close roughly 500 stores in the coming months in a restructuring effort.

It is not clear which stores will be closed.

The company currently operates around 4,500 locations.

Link

Vonage and the use of 911 emergency calls

The phone shown is similar to the phones we had in our tax and accounting office 25 years ago. The phone even appears have the same caller id we used.

The phone is not from the 1980's or even the 1990's.

The illustration was clipped from a current Vonage ad which made us wonder if Vonage subscribers still have a bit of a problem with 911 emergency calls.

The last we knew 911 operators had no way of knowing the location of a Vonage user's phone.

Disabling a car key panic button

The panic button on a car key may be important for people who forget where they park. There may be other uses such as one man who said he uses it to chase the cats off his hood.

However, if you don’t forget where you park or need to chase cats off you hood, why not disable the panic button so it won’t blare your horn accidentally? Your neighbors will thank you.

The panic button on our Toyota Sienna has not been a problem. A recent Dodge Caravan purchase posed a panic button problem. Just putting the key in pocket or purse would often set the alarm off.

A loud horn blaring in short blasts is not a good way to endear yourself to your neighbors.

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With a very small screwdriver pop off the back of the key.

Lift out the circuit board, turn it over and place a small piece of paper over the panic button contact.

We cut a small square from the sticky portion of a post-it-note (shown as a yellow square in second photo). Most any paper will work but the sticky portion of a post-it-note will keep it in position while the key is reassembled.

Just make sure you cover the correct contact or the tailgate or one of the sliding doors won't open or the doors won't lock.

A payphone repairman has a lonely job

When was the last time you used a payphone? How long will it be before you use one again?

Maytag appliance TV ads depicted a lonely repairman. You can add payphone repairmen to that list but for a different reason.

The payphone repairman is lonely because few people use them anymore.

There was a time when rows of payphones lined the walls at hotels and airports. Now the cell phone has taken over.

Bus depots may be the payphone's last stand.

Mobile phone at the 1988 winter Olympics

The photo shows skier Frank Piccard using a mobile phone during the 1988 winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Early cellular phones like this were called “brick phones.” They were the size of a brick and nearly as heavy.

Kids respond to the iPad

What comes after iMac iPod iPhone and iPad?

Digital guitar has touch pad instead of strings

The Misa digital guitar has no strings to strum or pluck.

Instead of strings it has a touch-pad that enables the player to instantly adjust the sound of the guitar by where he or she places fingers.

(click on picture to see video)

PC World says:

The Misa guitar is actually an advanced type of MIDI controller that is powered by a 500MHz AMD Geode CPU and runs Linux under the hood (but don't worry; you don’t need Linux to use the guitar).

The Linux firmware code is open source, which allows programmers to modify it to their liking.

More here.

Low-tech radios helpful in Haiti after quake

When cell phone coverage and Internet failed, some Haitians turned to amateur radio to communicate.

In the brutal aftermath of Haiti's earthquake, Jean-Robert Gaillard turned to his low-tech radio for solace and for a lifeline.

When the earthquake hit, the 57-year-old from Petionville, Haiti, found most of his normal lines of communication -- his cell phone, the Internet, even his ability to walk down the street and talk to someone -- severed by the disaster.

But Gaillard used a neighbor's generator to power up his radio and connect to a handful of amateur radio enthusiasts in the United States -- many of whom were eagerly listening to radio static for calls like his.

Unlike many other people in Haiti, Gaillard was able to contact family members in the United States soon after the January 12 earthquake hit to tell them he had survived.

In those first hellish moments, that connection seemed like a miracle.

Link

Need help finding a gift for the geek in your family?

Do you have a geek in your family and don’t have the faintest idea what to get him/her for Christmas? A report by Mike Elgan at the link below may just what you’re looking for.

Elgan says real gadget fans are impossible to buy gifts for. They have everything, know everything and are very picky about which devices they choose to use.

New:
If a gadget was available last holiday season, it's not going to be a great gift this holiday season. Geeks don't want old-and-busted. They want new-and-hot.

Advanced:
As a general rule, great gadget gifts have more compute power than NASA used to land men on the moon. And the closer you get to Space Shuttle technology, the better.

Unnecessary:
Practical, useful gifts are no darned fun. The best gadget gifts are items nobody needs, and are maybe even utterly pointless.

Challenging:
Gadget geeks don't want to just wind something up and passively watch it do something. They want to tinker, modify, experiment. It's great if the gift works right out of the box. But make sure it can be used for arbitrary, unanticipated purposes.

Empowering:
Every gadget geek secretly wants to be Batman. We're just regular people, but through personal technology want to be given super powers. X-ray vision. Super strength. Invincibility. All make desirable gifts.

Uncommon:
Novelty is huge for gadget geeks. If any friend, family or co-worker already has one, game over. It's got to be so unique that your tech-savvy gift receiver has never even seen one before.

Link