Zach’s Cool Stuff


“You buy it, you own it” – but not if you buy Lexmark laser cartridges – Pay attention next time you rip open a cardboard box – you may be entering into a contract without realizing it. A recent decision in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinforced the right of companies, in this case Lexmark International, the printer maker, to legally limit what customers can do with a patented product, given that the company spells out conditions and restrictions on a package label known as a box-top license. Link.
PSPUpdates is reporting that there is yet another firmware update from Sony (2.01) – this update appears to remove the ability to run homebrew applications and to downgrade to 1.5. In other PSP news, there are some trojan-like downloads, a patcher, that will brick your PSP (not reboot). Steer clear of this, as well as the Sony update; both have extreme consequences.

The big announcement over the weekend was that Office 12 will support PDF export from all the Office applications (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc..). Mac users have had this system wide for the most part for awhile, but if you’re on a PC you can also do this now, for free (as opposed to the pay versions of PDF exporting). CutePDF is a great, PDF online does it online…and Adobe can convert text or HTML too. Link.
We’re starting to build our little MAKE:land area in Second Life, stop on by secondlife://Crescent/13/99, see a virtual edition of MAKE, ride a dune buggy, see some MAKE movies and a few other surprises. Mac or PC, get the free client here – I’m Torrone Trumbo. IM me, and we’ll add you to the Maker group too.