Open Tray
Feb 6th
This past Tuesday, I had to ship my Xbox 360 Elite to Microsoft again. Last time I had to send it in for the infamous RRoD back in June of 2008. This time it’s for the “Open Tray” error & since the unit is out of warranty… I paid them $99.00 which includes another year warranty. Xbox Support said they’ll most likely replace the unit for their latest Elite version which is supposedly quieter and runs cooler… we shall see.
When an Xbox 360 cannot read a CD/DVD or game disc, it may not recognize that it has a disc in its drive. Instead of “Play Game” or “Play DVD”, an “Open Tray” option appears. The issue is linked to a dirty laser in the DVD drive, a magnetic problem that prevents the drive from spinning, or insufficient lubrication of the drive motor. However, disconnecting and re-connecting the Xbox 360 sometimes works. Taking out the disc, closing the tray, then re-inserting it can go around this problem, as the opening and closing of the tray tells the Xbox to read the tray for content. Lately some cases in which the Xbox 360 can not read any more discs reporting this error all the time have appeared.
Apple iPad
Jan 29th
When the Apple iPad was announced on Wednesday my immediate reaction was… “I want one!” Then, the more I thought about it I asked myself… “Why?”. About a year ago I was wondering why Apple didn’t release an iPod Touch that had Wi-Fi + 3G capability & now we know why they didn’t as they were developing the iPad. If something like that was out then, I wouldn’t have bought an iPhone. The iPad isn’t a breakthrough device and people are calling it the Kindle Killer. I disagree with that as the Kindle is a true eReader & will survive in the marketplace. They should have named it iPod Touch 3G XL instead & I’m perfectly happy with my iPad Nano (iPhone 3G).
Google Chrome
Jan 25th
I’ve been using Chrome for the past several months and haven’t looked back since. Today, Chrome released extensions & bookmark syncing to their stable channel of Chrome. Here’s a better list of what’s in the latest release including security fixes. Those using Internet Explorer, should stop now & use Firefox or even better… switch to Chrome. Also, those addicted to Firefox, I challenge you to use Chrome for at least two weeks & I’d be surprised if you went back to Firefox.
OpenDNS SmartCache
Dec 19th
Just another reason why I use OpenDNS & another reason why you should start using OpenDNS. I’ve mentioned OpenDNS plenty times here on The Glitch, so hopefully you have listened. Earlier this month, they released a new feature called SmartCache for all their versions of OpenDNS… including their free version.
A few weeks ago we made the decision that SmartCache, one of OpenDNS’s most significant DNS caching innovations, would be available for free to all of our 15 million users around the world, regardless of which version of the service you’re using. SmartCache keeps track of the last known good IPs for Web sites that are experiencing an authoritative DNS outage and hands them back instead of returning no answer. In many cases, the IPs associated with the web server or other services you are trying to reach work just fine and the Web site loads successfully. Without SmartCache, it’d feel like the site was down. So in effect, SmartCache makes Web sites that are down and unreachable for the rest of the Internet load for OpenDNS users.
In order to take advantage of SmartCache, you still need to take action and enable it on your network. Here’s how to do it:
- Log in to your OpenDNS account.
- Go to the Settings tab.
- Select the network you want to enable SmartCache for.
- Choose Advanced Settings.
- Select “Enable SmartCache on this Network” at the top.
Google Wave Invites
Dec 8th
I have 10 Google Wave invites to hand out. If you are interested, please leave a comment on this entry using a valid e-mail address as that’s where the invite will go.
