Sunday, February 20, 2011

Attempted iPod Touch Screen Replacement

My old iPod Touch 2nd Gen stopped working when I was in Singapore so I thought I'd try a bit of DIY action today and try to replace the screen with a spare part screen/bezel/digitizer I bought on Amazon...

Using the "pry tools" to open the iPod was hard. The plastic bezel below the front of the screen was very fragile and kept cracking.

Finally got the screen off and the home button went flying

Careful, careful, careful! The digitizer ribbon is as fragile as thin paper, if you rip it, it's game over.

Got the crud cleaned out of the ipod and new screen attached...

And... unfortunately... it's still broken :(. I tried using a hair dryer to clean out any particles, I tried attaching and re-attaching the digitizer screen several times - it's still busted. It should have worked before I snapped it back down, but after attemping for 45 min or so, I decided to give up. It was a good shot, but it's probably the case that the logic board/motherboard is actually busted. In that case, I'm basically out of luck. This was going to be a gift, but I've got a new iPhone now so I'm set for myself - I was just hoping to give it away. Anyhow. Nice experience to try and replace it myself, and I guess if there wasn't a further problem I'd be in business.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Lucasfilm Speaker Series - now on ilm.com

Friends,

Lucasfilm Speaker Series are now posted online!! These amazing interviews that we are so lucky to get to watch and participate in are now available on the ILM website. Really great interviews, and definitely worth watching. Enjoy!

Go to: http://www.ilm.com, and click under "About ILM" and then "Speaker Series".

Monday, February 14, 2011

The Winklevii Genesis

Great movie about the face replacement on the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network - amazing work. I had *NO* idea that this was only 1 actor until the credits rolled. Insanely impressive effect.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Dinner

Tried something new for dinner tonight - I made my Mom's Maple Glazed Salmon recipe, but ran out of maple syrup so I used honey instead. It worked well!

The salmon was fresh from my local grocery store and was very good. Often the frozen salmon from Costco is saltier or fishier, this was neither. Very tasty.

Also made Basmati rice in my rice cooker and a stir fry of sugar snap peas, onions, yellow pepper, broccoli and Shanghai bok choy from the Ferry Building. The sauce was Trader Joe's General Tzao stir fry sauce, and it was quite sweet and tasty. I only used about half though which was more than enough, it was good not to overdo the sauce as I didn't want it to overpower the fish.

I think this worked out well, and I was particularly happy with the stir fry and the bok choy - it was really good and I could see myself making this more often! Tasty.

Locked in a Vegas Hotel Room with a Phantom Flex

Whoa this is sick.

From the artist's Vimeo site: "I was working a gig in Vegas with a brand new Phantom Flex high speed digital cinema camera. I had to try it out. In fact, I never did go to bed that night. I opened up a wormhole shooting at 2,564 frames per second."

Locked in a Vegas Hotel Room with a Phantom Flex from Tom Guilmette on Vimeo.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Google Art Project

Wow, Google's been in some of the major galleries in the world. "Street View" for Art Galleries... with SUPER high res artwork. This is beautiful.

http://www.googleartproject.com

Excellent Bay Area Housing Market article

This guy's blog is really excellent. As I just mentioned to a kind Facebook friend who sent it my direction... I really agree with his point of view. It's excellent and it looks like he's really looking at the whole picture. It seems like a lot of people want to believe that the Bay Area is immune from the housing bubble, but I fear it's not - we just have to wait and it'll hit here too. I'm looking at the situation in Japan over the last 20 years and it doesn't look good. I am going to take the advice from the blog and just keep renting - and hopefully once I have lots saved up, prices will be affordable. Whew, this is a crazy time!

http://patrick.net/housing/market.html