Jason Tomczak

More Environment-Killing Corporate Waste, TechDepot Style

I recently ordered a single DAT7 tape for a server. TechDepot had the best price at the time, so I went with them. When the tape arrived, it was packaged in the huge box pictured below. That box could easily fit 80 tapes, maybe more.

What the hell is going on with these companies sending out tiny, near-weightless items in these massive boxes? The carbon footprint on stupidity like this is just sickening.

I wish someone at TechDepot (and plenty of other companies… Newegg, *cough* Dell *cough*) would take a little responsibility and stop the madness. Items like this could go out in little bubble-wrap envelopes. Big savings (and more profits) to the retailers, major relief to the shipping companies, less gasoline used for transit, less waste in landfills (or recycling depots) and fewer pissed-off consumers.

Tags: corporate waste, environment, stupidity

Posted in Opinion, Technology   |     1 Comment »

Round Edges on Images. Not a Magnolia.

I took a few photos this last weekend. I figured I’d run them through roundpic.com to see how they look with rounded edges.

Here’s one sample - it’s a flower, though I’m not sure what kind. It looks like a magnolia, but as far as I know, it’s not.

Square Edges:

Rounded Edges:

The rounded edges are pretty cool. It gives a different feel and adds more character. Check out roundpic.com to test out your own image. The only downside I noticed with using roundpic.com is that it can strip Adobe color profiles from images causing colors to be slightly different. Check the two images above and you’ll see the correct color profile in the squared version (if your browser recognizes color profiles; Safari does), and stripped color profile in the rounded version. Oh well. Maybe 2.0 will solve this little side-effect.

Tags: Flowers, magnolia, Photography

Posted in Photography, Photos & Images   |     1 Comment »

Western Digital My Passport Elite 320GB - Great for MacBook Pro

After having upgraded my MacBook Pro to a 200GB, 7200RPM hard drive a few months ago, I spotted a great item on sale at Costco. It was the Western Digital My Passport Elite 320GB external 2.5″ hard drive. The regular price was $170, and I got it for $140. As soon as I got it home, I took it apart so I could put it to proper use - inside my MacBook Pro.

Here are some pics showing the process of taking the WD Passport Elite drive apart.

Here’s the prey in its natural habitat:

A credit card or thick fingernail is the best tool for prying the wide edge open. There are quite a few notches - very tough, very resistant to force. Careful, or *snap*, the case will break!

You can see the notches that hold the case together.

Because the case wants to snap back together, it’s necessary to hold it apart from all angles. I used four credit/gift cards to do the trick.

Here’s the center frame extruded from the outer case.

All the parts…

As you can see, the drive inside is a Western Digital 320GB SATA drive with a 5400RPM rotational speed. These drives sell for $130 to $170 online, and for much, much more in retail stores.

Here you can see the SATA drive separated from the tiny little SATA-USB controller. This controller works fine on its own. You can use it with or without the WD enclosure.

BONUS PICS:
I dropped the 320GB drive into my MacBook Pro. It formats to 298.09GB. So far, I’ve got 219GB free. Wow.

Close-up inside the MacBook Pro…

Another close-up inside the MacBook Pro. I like the paper-thin SATA interface.

FINAL WORDS:
What I like about the Western Digital My Passport Elite 320GB is that it’s a great hard drive for laptop use. It’s much cheaper than a generic OEM drive. The outer case is flat-out awesome - better than most 2.5″ cases you can buy online for $50 or more. An additional perk - the Western Digital My Passport Elite 320GB case is 100% bus-powered. No need for an external power supply or dual-USB cable setup to power the drive. I’m very happy with this purchase.

Caveat: moving from a 7200RPM drive to a 5400RPM drive can result in a slow-down here and there, but I’ve found that this 320GB drive is pretty swift on its feet so far. Boot time is only 3-4 seconds slower, Photoshop runs roughly the same and only video conversion seems significantly affected (by about 20%). All else is good.

Tags: 320GB, MacBook Pro, My Passport Elite, Western Digital

Posted in Mac Stuff, Technology   |     12 Comments »

So Dumb, It (mega)Hurts

Found on Craigslist this last week. Ouch.

Tags: iMac

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Parallels - Unparalleled Customer Appreciation

Back in January 2008, I wrote about a great customer service experience with Parallels. Out of the blue, they sent me a $10 Visa gift card as a thank you for buying Parallels 3.0.

This afternoon I opened my mailbox to find an envelope from Parallels. When I opened it, I found another surprise - a $10 iTunes gift card. That’s $20 in customer appreciation on a $79 purchase from 2007.

This seems rather unprecedented, doesn’t it? I like this trend!

Tags: Customer Service, Mac, Parallels

Posted in Mac Stuff, Opinion, Technology   |     Comment on this post »