every word of it.

So in preparation for the iPad and in the spirit of simplifying my life, I’ve decided to get rid of extra computers. I’m in the process of switching from a giant Linux file server to a tiny ReadyNAS NAS. And I’ve decided to get rid of my Dell laptops. I have a Dell Vostro A90 and a Dell Latitude D600. I’ve put the Vostro A90 on Craigslist.

So far I’ve gotten one reply from a David Woodgate, woodgate962@gmail.com It’s so obvious a scam, it’s a cliche.

His first email

Hello, I am very much interested in buying your item which i see on craigslist list.Is the item still up for sale?

What stands out? The terrible English? Maybe this person doesn’t speak English as his first language, so let’s ignore that. How about he doesn’t ask anything about the Dell? He refers to it by “item”.

Anyways, I reply. Maybe this guy is just an idiot.

Hi David, Yes the item is still up for sale.

His reply is even better

Thanks for your mail. i really appreciate your response to my mail. like i said i will like to buy this item from you and i want you withdraw the advert from craigslist. i’m using this opportunity to inform you that i wont be able to come and inspect the item or pay by cash cos i have been advice by craigslist never send payment via bank transfer ,check, money order or sending cash by post,that is why it will be safe and secure for us to complete this transaction through PayPal though i am a us citizen and i am willing to buy this item as a valentine gift for my cousin and i would appreciate it if i can pay through paypal.mean while i’m willing to offer you the sum $150 for the shipping.However if you don’t have paypal account you can just log on to www.paypal.com and set up an account it is easy and secure to pay and receive money through paypal.pls get back to me asap Thanks

My favorite part from that? Playing cautious by following best practices from Craigslist regarding money. Yet, Craigslist recommends dealing locally to avoid scammers. Also, I don’t know about you, but I constantly mention to people I’m a US Citizen. And I love that he’s paying half of my asking price in shipping.

So yea, anyone wants to buy a Vostro A90? It runs Mac OS X and (if you insist) XP.

I have a 20GB iPod from 4 years ago. It’s one of these

It’s a classic.

I got it free when I bought my Powerbook G4 (the greatest laptop Apple has ever made to date).

I use it in my car. It’s why I don’t listen to the radio and why I love my commute to work.

Well it’s getting old.

See the battery life was never stellar to begin with. But since I only use it on a charger, that never really becomes an issue

Unless it’s a Sunday.

If I don’t drive anywhere over the weekend, the battery dies. And when the battery goes, so goes the play counts. I have to sync it by Sunday, otherwise by Monday morning, the battery will be drained. And since it’s getting colder, the battery life is shortened by the weather, so I have to act faster.

So all the precious play count information – information I need for my playlists get lost*. At least 5 days worth of data – 7 hours spent driving – never happened. And what’s really sad, is that all those tracks that I keep replaying over and over, because my remote control lacks a rating button, I lose. The idea being that eventually when I sync, I can see the exceptionally high play count and rate the track.

The solution to all these disappointing Sundays

1. Apple make an iPod with wi-fi syncing.
2. Zune work with iTunes and MacOS

*It’s not really consistent – sometimes I lose the data, sometimes I don’t

Here’s a tip for if you have an old G4 Mac.

As you know, for some reason Flash on MacOS is slower than Flash on anything else. And having a G4 certainly doesn’t help things. I dread going to sites with a heavy Flash interface. Frankly it’s a bit disappointing mixed in with a smidgen of depressing.

But hey, it’s Saturday. Time to get some work done. You set your awesome 12″ Powerbook (perhaps the greatest laptop Apple ever built) besides you and you head over to Hulu to catch up on Friday Night Lights/Chuck/House/Psych/Terminator while you work on work work. But oh no, the video are in Flash. And Flash is a dog.

Here’s my recommendation. Use Camino. Camino for whatever reason, handles Flash better than Safari and Firefox. Not a tiny bit better, but a lot better.

Give it a try, you’ll thank me.

This guy, isn’t Steve Jobs. I’m not Steve Jobs either. Where’s my video introduction to the iPhone? Apple needs to correct this, send me an iPhone and I can record one. I have an iSight and everything.

Why do you mock me?

Lately, I’ve had an inclination/need to play Civilization/Colonization. It’s been a difficult process. I’ve yet to actually play a full game, but I haven’t given up. I’m going to succeed. And when I do, I’ll probably ruin Civilization/Colonization forever. Nothing better than revisiting a childhood memory and realizing it should’ve remained a memory.

You’re killing me, Smalls

Long lent me his Wacom Graphire tablet and for that kind gesture, he’s off notice.

I have really bad handwriting. Also, it’s really hard to get used to the fact that the tiny 4×5 screen represents my monstrous 2005fpw. I keep on wanting it to behave sort of like a mouse. Where the center of the tablet is where my pointer is, and it tracks my movements away from the center. You know.

I’m making use of Inkwell in that screenshot. It’s MacOS’s built-in tablet utility. It’s very fancy. But the handwriting recognition isn’t that great. And I can’t seem to find a training utility so I can get it to recognize my chicken scratch.

The iPod, pretty decent machine taking everything into consideration. It’s not perfect, but it gets the job done.

But there’s one thing that just annoys the hell out of me. I just wanna take the iPod and slam it into the ground. Note, I have a 4G iPod, this behavior may have changed. Basically, the iPod is unable to deal with long album names. The iPod just truncates the name on display. But when you have a song title that is too long, the iPod will scroll the title, it won’t with the album name. What it comes down to, I have a lot of Rough Trade Compilations and I don’t know what’s what.

If you ever need need a small set of screwdrivers for opening up the memory compartment in a Powerbook, Radio Shack is the place to go.

I ordered a 1GB PC2700 SODIMM to replace the 512MB SODIMM I have in my notebook mainly because 1) MacOS X loves memory 2) the price of DDR is going up while DDR2 is coming down. So it was probably the right time to buy, before DDR got crazy expensive.

So I’m going to drop in the memory. I got 3 screws out, but the 4th was proving difficult. Seems when I originally pu the 512MB in there, I sorta stripped the screw. And I didn’t want to try and force it, since I didn’t want to completely strip the screw and have to use one of those “screw-getter-outers” on such a delicate piece of equipment. See, I didn’t really have the proper tool for the job, I was using a big screwdriver. I put a screw in a plastic baggie and made my way to Home Depot. Surprisingly, they had nothing. All they had were big screwdrivers, nothing for a 2.5mm screw. Then I headed over to Sears, figuring they’ll have a bigger selection. You know, Craftsman and all that. But nothing. Undefeated, I headed upstairs to the jewelry section, but the guy said to check downstairs, where I just was.

I figured a jewelry store would be the place to go, since they deal with small screws all the time. I found a jewelry repair place by Mervyn’s, and the guy said to head over to Radio Shack. I was like Radio Shack?, that store was useless. But I was running out of time, I had to leave for work soon. But you know, Radio Shack was the store to go. They had a Kronus Precision Phillips Screwdriver Set with really tiny screwdrivers. The 2.4mm screwdriver in the set worked perfectly. Apparently, He-man himself had screwed in that last screw before. I had to call upon the Power of Grey Skull to get it out.

And now,

Who needs an intel Core Duo now?

Did you know that MacOS X has faxing built-in to the OS? It’s true, take a gander at this page on Apple’s site.

Like a chump, I’ve been going to The UPS Store or FedEx Kinko’s to do my faxing, and taking a hit of about $3 every time. It didn’t occur to me this morning that my laptop had a fax/modem built-in. I was about to go dig through my scrap heap to find my old fax/modem and save myself the cost of a #6 Spicy Chicken. Seems those old dinosaurs aren’t useless afterall.

And you know, using the fax feature is easy as pie. The option to fax is right there in the Print Dialog.

After filling out the relevant information, you just hit fax and you’re part of the 20th century again.

If you use Windows, you can do the same thing. It’s just not as nicely presented. Here are instructions how.