Independence Day

I'm taking a few days off for Independence day, so there's not much of a program this week.

Not exactly technology news

The San Jose Mercury News (Murky News) has always been a good source of information about events in Silicon Valley. The newspaper will continue but a long-time newspaper company is gone.

Here is the announcement the Mercury News sent on Wednesday: "When the markets closed Tuesday, so did Knight Ridder. The San Jose newspaper company went out of business when forms finalizing its sale to McClatchy were filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At 1:56 p.m. a final e-mail arrived at the Mercury News from Knight Ridder corporate offices -- official termination of the corporation's registration with the SEC. Common stock holders: zero."

Knight Ridder was sometimes an innovator, sometimes a follower, and sometimes an abstainer. I hope that the McClatchy organization fills the shoes (and they're big ones) that Knight Ridder left behind.

The rest of the story is here.

Replacing the battery on your Ipod

I have a 3rd generation Ipod -- "only" 20GB -- that I take with me to the gym. It gives me a choice of about 5000 selections (rock, jazz, vocal, rap [1960s], country, new age, folk, blues, etc.) It's 3 years old (maybe more) and the battery life was down to about 5 minutes. I found a way to fix that.

Apple could replace the battery for about $100 (down from $200 after enough people complained.) Or I could send it to a 3rd party provider for about $60. Or I could do it myself for about $40.

Have I mentioned that I'm a cheapskate?

The hardest part is getting the case apart without damaging the Ipod. I know because the younger daughter brought home a drowned Ipod a year ago and I did what I could to save it. (RIP) At the time, I was working with a screwdriver and minimal instructions; had the device survived the operation, it would have been scarred for life.

The replacement battery came from ipodjuice.com and the company included both well illustrated instructions and a tool that allowed me to open the case without destroying it.

I got the case open, moved the hard drive (atop the battery), replaced the battery, replaced the hard drive, closed the case enough that it would fit into the charger, inserted it into the charger, concluded that the connections were all OK, snapped the case closed, charged the battery, and now everything is back to normal.

If you looked at the case, you would never know that I opened it.

Should you need to replace the battery in an aging Ipod, check out what ipodjuice.com has to offer. I'm impressed

Additional neat thing: I bought a Bluetooth headset from woot.com for about $30. Logitech's list price is $100, but you can find it with a $40 or $50 rebate. a had it for under $30, no rebate, including shipping. This is cool on a treadmill or stationary bike -- no cables to get caught and drag the Ipod to the ground, no matter how much I flail.

Life is good.

Annoying legal disclaimer

My attorney says I really need to say this: The TechByter website is for informational purposes only. I assume no responsibility for its accuracy, although I do my best. The information is subject to change without notice. Any actions you take based on information from the radio program, the podcast, or from this website are entirely at your own risk. Products and services are mentioned for informational purposes only and their various trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. TechByter cannot provide technical support for products or services mentioned.