JustUsLeeg.com: The League of Just Us

Yes, I know you’ve read your share of iPad reviews by now, so I’ll try to make this one short and sweet.
I’m not an Apple fan boy, and I’m not terribly technically minded. I’m just your average guy who has just enough knowledge to be dangerous (to myself). It’s like the old joke, ‘I don’t know anything about art, but I know what I like’. So, to put it simply, I like the iPad. Or I should say I love the iPad. It’s really the device I’ve been waiting for since I started using a palm pilot years ago.
For starters, I love it as a book reader. Be it novels, non-fiction, RPG books, or even comics, this thing is just about perfect. I have my iPad loaded up with just about anything I could ever want to read. My go to apps for reading are Stanza (for novels), ComicZeal (comic books), and GoodReader (PDFs, which means all of my game books). It’s really easy putting books on here, almost too easy. I’ve actually got more on here than I will probably ever be able to read. But that’s the really cool thing about it, I have a choice of what to read.

It’s really a great couch device. Watching TV, I find myself reaching for it all the time. I look stuff up as it comes to me without the need to wait for the laptop to power up. Because by that time I’ve totally forgotten what it was I was going to look up in the first place. It’s pretty handy.

When my wife first heard about the iPad she didn’t really know what good it would be for people. Then she borrowed mine to see what it was about. She is now in love with it as well. It really is the kind of device that comes alive in the real world. You can read all the reviews you want (like this one) but you really can’t fathom the true usefulness of this thing until you actually get your hands on one.

I’ve only had it for about a month so I know I will discover other great things I can do with it as time goes by, but so far I’m hooked.

Oh, and this review was written on the iPad.

This has been, as always, suriehl

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There are a gazillion articles on the web about jailbreaking your iPhone. This will be another one, but it was requested so here we go.

I was hesitant to jailbreak my production phone. I have an older 2G model that I jailbroke one afternoon with my friend Victor, but my production phone? You can tell that I work in IT where it sometimes takes months to roll out a software package. Jailbreaking more than a week ago took a little skill, not so any more. Let’s dive into that murky realm of illegitimate software and hacked apps to see what will benefit you and what is safe.

Jailbreaking your phone is safe. You will not brick your phone. Should I repeat that? Jailbreaking just opens up a small portion of your OS to be able to make changes and install apps that Apple deems not worthy of you. And better yet we had a court decision stating that jailbreaking a device that you own is not illegal in itself.

Let’s walk through this, Jailbreaking:

Back up your phone!

Take your phone to http://jailbreakme.com with the safari browser. Once it loads you will see a slider bar to jailbreak your phone. Slide it. Feels good, doesn’t it? Once it finishes loading it will tell you it is complete and leave you with an empty, if not blue, screen. You are jailbroken. Pat yourself on your little hacker back, you are now a rebel, a legal rebel, but a rebel just the same.

You will have a new app on your phone called Cydia, which is the jailbroken version of the app store. Go ahead and launch Cydia and let it load.

Now the first app you will need to install is called MobileTerminal. Once it installs reboot your phone and launch the app. You are going to change your root password on your phone.

Launch mobile terminal and type “su root” it will ask you for a password. The current one is “alpine.” Now type passwd and enter YOUR new password twice for verification. Once you are done, you are done. Close the app.

Apps:

There are a lot of apps out there some of them are dangerous and put out there to infiltrate your phone. Let’s try to avoid those. First rule of being safe for installing apps on anything; your PC, your iPhone or your Mac is to start with the well-known stuff. They have been vetted by other users.

The first app I installed was call ed Cylay. It is a security app that does what mobileme was supposed to do. In the event that you lose your iPhone it will give you the location and let you lock it, message it, keep it from rebooting, take a picture and wipe it. Here’s a screenshot of the portal you can use.

Cylay Portal

Winterboard is probably the most popular app in the Cydia market. It allows you to customize your phone with themes. Pretty simple stuff, you can modify your theme or download other packages. Our friend Rob said he used a steampunk theme, no surprise there, he’s our resident steampunk.

iBlacklist allows you to control your call handling for specific phone numbers. Got the man on your back? Have iBlacklist send him directly to a busy signal. Why the mighty iPhone can’t do this on it’s own is beyond me. AT&T must have Steve jobs by the balls.

My favorite app from the Cydia market is called Lockinfo. It turns your lock screen into a screen that has your favorite information. Right now I have my configured to show the weather (which can be expanded) and the status of my email, sms, missed calls and calendar.

That’s where I am advising you to start. It’s pretty easy to setup and should be safe. Some of the apps cost money on Cydia so Caveat Emptor, as they say. If you need to un-jailbreak your phone for any reason just do a simple restore to your phone.

Enjoy!  -Snarky

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Natalia Pogonina is a grandmaster chess player. At only 25 years old, she has attained a FIDE rate of over 2500. That puts her up with the top male competitors. She is a three time European champion and is a member of the Russian Olympic Chess Team. Check out her website here.

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Thermite is a mixture of powdered or granular aluminum metal and powdered iron oxide. When ignited it gives off large amounts of heat. In wartime it has been used in incendiary bombs. This is why we must treat it as a toy.

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David Tennant and Cathrine Tate have come together again for a skit for Comic Relief. Some great Doctor jokes in here.

This has been, as always, suriehl

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Last night (April 19, 2010) I saw something that has had me up all night. Could UFOs actually be real? Is there really intelligent life out there, and is it actually able to visit our planet? I, for one, am now a firm believer, and you should be too. There is no way the worlds governments don’t know about this.

Read more…

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Found at ThinkGeek.com this umbrella will help insure that everyone knows that you are no replicant.

Features listed on the site are:

• Futuristic black umbrella with LED light-up shaft
• Stay dry on your walk to the noodle shop
• Push the button to light up the shaft with LEDs
• Look both ways and watch out for replicants
• Choice of white LED shaft or blue LED shaft
• Batteries Included (Uses 3 x LR44 Button Batteries)

Be the coolest, most visible geek on your block for only $24.99

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Wake Forest University researchers have developed a technique to help burn victims heal much more quickly. Spray on skin. No kidding. The process was taken from the inkjet printer, and sprays cell onto the open wound. A laser maps the wound for area and depth which directs the machine to place specific cells in specific areas of the wound.

Student and one of the developers, Kyle Binder, stated;

“We literally print the cells directly onto the wound. We can put specific cells where they need to go.”"You have to give a lot of credit to the cells. When you put them into the wound, they know what to do,” Binder said.

The spraying method even places stem cells right where they are needed the most. These cells can even regrow hair folicles.

Tests on mice have shown recovery times of up to three weeks faster than those not treated. Pigs are next on the list since their skin more closely resembles ours. Another instance of Star Trek brought to reality.

For more information go to:
Planet Green

Picture from the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine

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If you are a fan of the Joss Whedon Webshow “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Lobg Blog” then you have got to check this out. Someone has taken the awesome and added the epic to it.
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What the heck do you say about an animal like this? I know that it looks like something from a bad sci-fi flick but this is real. This particular one came up with a submersible. It lives around 8500 ft underwater and at 2.5 ft long is believed to be the largest ever found. Check out the picts and vids.

Sources:

Thai Panda

Treehugger

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