By David Ponce

My car, a pimpin’ 300, was making a funny “burping” noise the other day. I didn’t think it was anything serious until a friend suggested I might have fried my turbo encabulator. That’s not good.

I brought it in and as I was waiting for my verdict, found the above instructional video on YouTube.

Enjoy.

VIA [ Digg ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Being the awesome internet sensation that I am, I don’t work in an office like many of you likely do. I’m rather thankful for this, as it means I don’t have to deal with annoying people all day. Of course, it does limit the amount of inter-office pranks that I can pull. Here is a wonderfully subtle one that I would love to use on someone.

I have worked in offices before, and some people tend to assume that all coffee mugs are community cups. In fact, they usually belong to someone that gets frustrated when theirs turns up missing. Well if you’re one of these people, just purchase a Surprise Mug and leave it near the coffee pot. The Surprise Mug looks like a nondescript white mug. However, on the bottom is a cute little message that either says “I’m a twat” or “office bitch”. Even if it doesn’t stop the person from using your stuff, it’ll be $8 well spent.

[ ThumbsUpUK ] VIA [ FoolishGadgets ]

LIFE has a pretty amusing photo gallery of 30 old-timey inventions that run the gamut from being just dumb, to downright dangerous. My personal favorites include the Baby Cage from 1937, which is essentially a wire cage/playpen for hanging your infant outside an apartment window. Goodyear’s Illuminated Tires from 1961 which were perfect for… um… well I guess that’s why they never caught on and the freaky Phone-Answering Robot from 1964 which I guess could be considered the inspiration for voicemail/the nightmares I’m sure to have tonight.

[ LIFE: 30 Dumb Inventions ] VIA [ BB-Blog ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Have you ever noticed how certain people can get out of work a bit easier than others? Take smokers for example, I’ve had several jobs where people were allowed to step outside for 10 minutes (several times per day) for smoke breaks. If you didn’t smoke, you worked while the smokers were out. Same goes for people with kids. Granted, they actually have a good reason for missing some work. But still, they can miss a few hours here and there when their kids have a doctor/dentist appointment.  Well if you’ve ever fancied skipping a few hours to be with your kids, without actually having children, here’s something to check out.

The Office Kid is a little kit you can use to fool the office into thinking you’re a parent. You get a picture of your child (you can pick the gender and ethnicity) and a hand-drawn picture of your family. There’s also a metal lunchbox full of excuses you can use when you want a little time off. The basic kit is $20, but you can get extras like a photoshopped picture of your child’s sports team and more artwork for a bit more cash. A word to the wise, don’t get caught. The people that actually do have kids will never let you live it down.

[ The Office Kid ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

We saw a preview of the first 45 minutes of Pixar’s newest animated feature, Up, back in March at WonderCon. Boy, were we ever impressed. One of the most enjoyable characters in the film is Dug, a dog who can talk. Now, I know what you’re thinking: talking dogs, big deal, it’s been beaten to death starting with Homeward Bound and most recently with Underdog. The difference with Dug is that Dug actually is a talking dog, not a dog talking like a human:

Up comes out in theaters (in 2D and 3D) on May 29th, but we’ll be at a screening on May 11th and give you the lowdown a couple weeks early.

[ Up ] VIA [ UGO ]

By Chris Scott Barr

If you haven’t seen the new Mac vs PC ads yet, I recommend checking them out. I use both Macs and PCs, so I try not to take sides in the fanboy battles, but I do enjoy the ads from Apple. Well one of the recent ads had a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo on the screen whenever PC would make a statement. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go watch it and come back, this will make more sense. Anyway, have you wondered just what all of that tiny text said? Well wonder no longer, as a few people have squinted at their screens long enough to transcribe the whole thing. Read on for the dirty details.

I’ll break the text down in the order it was shown in the commercial.

Here’s the first group, which popped up when PC said he’s “an incredibly easy to use PC”:

Please note that when you first receive your PC there is some suggested work that needs to be done before PCs can perform at their peak. These steps include, but are not limited to, downloading and installing necessary drivers for peripherals. These drivers may include printers, scanners, cameras, storage devices, music players, and other media devices. There may be more depending on your needs. It is also recommended that first time users remove all unneeded bloatware and remove all operational components.

Second, after PC states that his previous statement “requires a little explanation”:

To remove unneeded bloatware first open uninstaller, select applications to remove, and uninstall. To remove optional components, click start, go to all programs and open control panel, select remove components, select components you want to remove, select next, when done, select finish. Once initial prep is complete, PCs may then be easy to use under certain controlled conditions and when properly maintained. In order for PCs to achieve optimal performance on a regular basis and for long periods of time, routine maintenance should include (but is not limited to) the following: download and install updated anti-virus software, run anti-virus software, check for system updates, clean out registry, defragment hard drive, free up disk space, remove temporary Internet files, empty the recycle bin, remove unnecessary programs, run error check utility and fix file system errors.

Third, after PC says “I can’t just go out there and say that getting started with a PC is the easiest thing in the world”:

It is recommended that a maintenance schedule is developed and adhered to in order to make sure your PC is running safe and secure. Update your software, do a virus scan, and run error check utility once a week. Search for and download software and driver updates, free up disk space, and defragment hard drive at least once a month. Empty the recycle bin and remove unnecessary programs once every three months. Back up all your files once a year. Please see instruction manual for more details. Failure to perform these functions may result in the following: freezing, viruses, slow performance, and/or error messages. If problems persist after routine maintenance is performed, please contact your local IT professional who may or may not refer you to your software or hardware manufacturer depending on where the problem originated. Important information about easy to use PCs: PCs may become more difficult to use if the following occurs: sluggish operating system, viruses, and error messages, crashing and freezing. Unfortunately, freezing and/or crashing are sometimes unavoidable. To avoid sluggish operating systems, crashing and freezing, it is recommended that you clean up your system registry, defragment your hard drive, free up your disk space, and perform other routine maintenance tasks. To clean out your system registry, first backup your data, back up your registry, purchase, download, and install Registry Repair program, then quit all programs, scan registry, determine safe registry items to repair/delete/remove, select ok, and repeat if necessary. To defragment your hard drive, click start, and go to all programs > accessories > system tools > and open disk defragmenter, then select C: drive, select defragment and wait. To free up disk space on your PC, click start, go to all programs > accessories > system tools > and open disk cleanup. Scan will automatically start. From scan results, select files to be removed, select ok. Restarting your PC may then be necessary upon completion of system registry clean up, hard drive defragmentation, and disk space clean out.

Final, after PC states that “PCs are now 100% trouble free”:

Please note: trying to remove registry items on your own is not recommended. It is often difficult to determine which items correspond to which applications, and by attempting to remove items yourself, you might accidentally remove a valid registry item, causing software crashes and errors. If a system registry becomes corrupt because you made a mistake when cleaning out the registry, follow these steps: back up data, back up registry, purchase, download, and install Registry Repair program, quit all programs, scan registry, determine safe registry items to repair/delete/remove, then select ok and repeat if necessary. Also, easy to use PCs can experience difficulty if malware, viruses, or spyware infect your PC’s system. There are 1.5 million signature-based malware detections with 20,000 new ones discovered everyday (based on 2008 reporting). Although some viruses are unavoidable, there are some preventative measures that you can take. When you first get your PC, configure your security settings (including things like Internet firewall, automatic updating, anti-virus, anti-spyware and other malware protection, other Internet security settings, and user account control). Eventually you may have to download and install security patches for your operating system and then as security updates become available download and install again. If your PC does get infected with malware talk to your IT professional first about the risks and benefits of treating the problem on your own. Do not try to remove a virus unless your IT professional has taught you and you understand everything. Ask them if you have any questions. Please see accompanying important information about virus protection on your hardware and software manufacturer’s website. Anyone can sit down and edit photos on their PC as long as their computer is running properly. Please note that proper maintenance, specifically disk defragmentation can take anywhere from minutes to hours to run depending on the size of your hard drive and how fragmented it is. Therefore, editing photos might be postponed if you chose to run maintenance on your computer prior to this act. Please note: your camera driver must be installed on your PC in order to review and edit your photos. Your camera will not work with your PC if the software/drivers are not downloaded first. Editing photos on a PC may be difficult for children under a certain age, or for people who are unfamiliar with how a PC works and how to download camera software and drivers. Also, no PC connected to the Internet is one hundred percent immune to viruses, spyware, adware, and other forms of malware. Once a year, PC users should back up a year’s worth of photos and files to a CD or DVD. Power PC users should start fresh and back up all their files and applications on an external hard drive, then use your original system installer disks to erase, rebuild, and reinstall your operating system from scratch. Therefore, if your PC is not one hundred percent trouble free at least you won’t lose all of your files. PC does not claim ownership of problems that occur from materials or software that you downloaded off the Internet. If your warranty has expired, and your PC is not one hundred percent trouble free, you are not eligible for a refund or replacement under the terms of the warranty. In addition, we cannot help you with software or hardware obtained without a warranty, such as software provided “as is “ or for free. Again, if problems continue, please contact your IT professional.

Yeah, some of those “tips” found in there could apply to a Mac just as much as a PC, but overall, it’s still pretty funny. Can you imagine being the guy that had to write up all of that?

[ MacJournals ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Evan Ackerman

When we posted about the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag on April 1, a couple of you mentioned that April Fool’s joke product or not, you’d really, really like one. Turns out you aren’t alone, and ThinkGeek is taking notice:

ATTN Tauntaun Fanatics! Due to an overwhelming tsunami of requests from YOU THE PEOPLE, we have decided to TRY and bring this to life. We have no clue if the suits at Lucasfilms will grant little ThinkGeek a license, nor do we know how much it would ultimately retail for. But if you are interested in ever owning one of these, click the link below and we’ll try!

There’s certainly some precedent for this; last year, after pranking everyone with a personal sound track shirt on April 1, ThinkGeek ended up producing them. You can sign up here to be notified if the Tauntaun sleeping bag ever comes to pass, but you’ll better believe you’ll see it right here if it happens.

[ ThinkGeek ] VIA [ Consumerist ]

By Evan Ackerman

Qualcomm has come up with a great idea to provide ubiquitous digital network coverage to people in both rural and urban areas: network base stations, implanted in pigeons. But, pigeons are vulnerable to predators and inclement weather, so Qualcomm spliced them with wolves to create the wolfpigeon. Of course, wolfpigeons might be dangerous, so Qualcomm took the obvious step of creating sharkfalcons to keep them in check:

I think that Qualcomm is overlooking a critical fact: wolfpigeons are going to need a food source designed specifically for their hybrid palates. I’m talking, of course, about a breadmarmot. See a picture of a breadmarmot in the wild, after the jump.

[ Qualcomm - Wireless Convergence ]

By Evan Ackerman

ThinkGeek has released a bevy of new products today. My favorite of the bunch has to be this Tauntaun sleeping bag, complete with lightsaber zipper pull and toasty warm faux-intestine liner. It’s not as warm as sleeping inside a real freshly dead animal, but I bet it smells a heck of a lot better. You can get this for about $40, but you’ll have to wait for it to be shipped in from the ThinkGeek wearhouse on Hoth. A couple more new products, after the jump.

[ USB Pet Rock ]

[ Unicorn Chaser ]

[ ThinkGeek ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Oh Google, you will never cease to amaze me with your advanced knowledge of the interweb. It seems like not a week goes by that I don’t discover something new and wonderful tool that you’ve created. Why, just this morning I’ve stumbled onto your Autopilot for Gmail.

As you can imagine, I get a lot of email from PR companies and such, and I honestly don’t have time to read all of them. Sure, many of them are interesting, but I have the attention span of a 4-year-old when it comes to my inbox. But thanks to Gmail Autopilot, I don’t need to read them, let alone actually respond. All you need to do is let the Autopilot read a sampling of your conversations (more than 100 is ideal), then adjust a few simple settings and it will do the rest.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been meaning to update my resume, I remember hearing something about Google opening a moonbase a little while back. I totally need to get in on that.

VIA [ Google ]