Google Chrome OS (well, Chromium OS)
by James on Nov.20, 2009, under Software
I watched Google’s webcast yesterday where they announced a few details of their new Chrome OS.
As it’s open source, I downloaded it and built it on an Ubuntu system – which seems to be their preferred platform. The build went reasonably smoothly, but there’s not very much to see yet really. As you’d probably expect, it’s basically just the Chrome web browser and that’s it.
I booted it in VMware and made a quick video:
I couldn’t login using a Google account – the network error on the login screen is probably a clue as to why – but I’d enabled a local user account during the build process so I used that. I couldn’t really think of much to do when it had loaded though! Is there even a “shutdown” button?
Xbox 360 Battery Pack Disassembled
by James on Aug.10, 2009, under Hardware
I’ve had an official Xbox 360 ‘Play & Charge’ kit for a year or so now, and the battery life has slowly but surely dropped to nothing over that time. I decided to take it to pieces to see if I could figure out what was up with it. As you can see from the image below, there’s not a lot to it.
The two halves are just cemented together – you can see the “dashed” effect the cement has left in along the edges. If you want to open one up, you just have to force the two halves apart with enough force to break the bond between them. At least that’s what I did!
There’s (what I assume is) a thermistor that sits between the cells for monitoring their temperature. It’s also fairly obvious the battery pack is just two standard 2100mAh NiMH AA cells. In my case, I assume that one or both of them has stopped working so I’ve ordered some new ones. Hopefully I can just drop them straight in there and all will be good once again. Stay tuned.
3000 Days
by James on Aug.04, 2009, under Site
Nothing quite like a look at the Wayback Machine to remind me that this page – well, domain name – has been running for over eight years now. There’s really not a lot to show for it! So I thought it was about time to get some content on here again.
Stay tuned for irrelevant and sporadic blog updates!
