A solution to the fully-electric car charging problem

The problem with existing fully-electric cars is that there is no simple way to charge them and be able to take them long distances. The ideas below are my attempt to solve this problem for the future of electric vehicles.

A simple solution to the Electric car charging problem is to have removable batteries. If the batteries are removable they can be exchanged. These are some considerations in the manufacture of the batteries and their distribution.

1. Electric cars must be made to use removable batteries.
2. All Electric cars must use the same exact batteries so they are interchangeable.
3. The batteries must be made with handles and must either be light enough to carry long distances or made with wheels attached which are sufficient size so they can be easily rolled long distances on pavement, gravel, or loose dirt.
4. The batteries must be at the appropriate height in the vehicle to be inserted and removed from both the vehicle and the charging stations by a disabled person in a wheelchair.
5. Gas stations and other stores must clearly mark on the outside of the building that they offer charged batteries for rent or for sale, and be able to exchange depleted batteries for charged ones. This is the EXACT SAME concept as propane tanks.
6. Electric car owners may carry spare batteries in the vehicle so the batteries must be well sealed, be able to be stored at any angle for long periods of time and be protected against high temperatures and extreme cold.
7. Electric car owners must be able to buy and charge their own batteries at home, charging them via a normal household mains socket.
8. Vehicle manufacturers must offer an out-of-vehicle charging station to be used with the batteries, in addition to offering an in-vehicle charging solution which does not require the batteries to be removed for charging.

Future technologies, part 1

Device resolution-independent computer operating systems

In the past, we had CRT monitors which would allow us to fill a 15 inch monitor with an image, whether that image was based on a high resolution or a low resolution. If you desired the items on the screen to appear larger, you needed only to reduce the resolution selected for the interface and they would scale to fill the entire space available. This did not result in fuzzy images, in fact it usually sharpened the images to do so. When we started using LCD displays for computers things changed. These panels have a fixed, native resolution. That means they only look sharp at that one particular resolution. If you change it to something else, you get a blurry image, and that can sometimes defeat the purpose of changing the resolution to make things bigger. Resolution independence will be a huge advantage for older people and others who have trouble seeing text at normal sizes. Rather than "dumbing-down" the resolution to make things appear bigger, the way they do today, I imagine a future where the operating system's selected resolution is always set to the native resolution of the connected display. Imagine an operating system which can scale its interface up or down in size smoothly while keeping the resolution unchanged. There may even be a slider or a virtual knob of some kind to dial in the precise factor of magnification desired. I presume that the size of text at 12 point font will be the basis of the factoring system used. We are already seeing some devices with extremely high resolutions. Apple's iPhone 4 features the retina display. It's a screen with a resolution of over 320 pixels per inch. Imagine that kind of resolution on a 22 inch widescreen monitor. That would mean a resolution of around 5480x3424 If you rendered current operating systems at that resolution on a 22 inch widescreen display, things would appear about 3.26 times smaller than they are now. Clearly, the answer for this is resolution independence. There is evidence of this already on the iPhone 4.

Fix: missing "Never" option under Auto-Lock on iPhone

I have an iPhone and noticed that the screen suddenly started dimming after a few minutes and it's not supposed to. I distinctly remember turning off the auto-lock feature and now it's locking itself after 5 minutes. WTF!? I tried to set the auto-lock setting to "Never" but that option was no longer there! At first I got angry with my iPhone. Then I got Angry at Apple. Then I learned the truth about what was causing this problem and was able to get it fixed.

If you have an iPhone and this same thing has happened to you, I have good news for you. There's a fix.

First, to see if you are affected by this, try going to your iPhone's settings and just disable contacts, calendar and email for your company's activesync server account. Now look in the auto lock settings under General in your iPhone Settings. Did the "Never" option come back? If so, then you just proved that it has something to do with your corporate email server.

Fortunately for me, I'm an Exchange 2007 Administrator. If you're not, then you're going to need your Exchange administrator's help. Pass this page along to them and as long as your company doesn't require auto-locking for connected devices, they should be able to help you. This is a very quick fix and should only take an administrator a minute or two of their time.

Here's what your Exchange administrator should do:

1. On the exchange server launch the Exchange Management Console
2. Open Organization Configuration -> Client Access
3. Right click on the default activesync mailbox policy and select properties
4. Select the password tab

(Exchange 2007)

The default properties window should look like this:

If any of the boxes are grayed out and checked, you need to check Require password so you can uncheck them. Then you can uncheck Require password again.

After this has been done, on the iPhone, disable this activesync account (no need to delete it, just turn it off) and then turn the Auto-lock setting back to "Never." Now go back and turn your activesync account back on. Your auto-lock setting will now will stay at "Never."

Netflix vs. Blockbuster for Mac Users

I started out with Netflix, and tried Blockbuster Total Access in 2008. I quickly lost interest in that due to the relative lack of selection of Blu-Ray titles at the local Blockbuster stores. Swapping out the mailed movie at the store for a free in-store rental was very nice and convenient, but when there's nothing on the shelf that you want to see, that quickly loses its novelty. Also, I found that Blockbuster's online service made me wait longer to see new releases versus Netflix.

I switched back to Netflix when the Instant watch feature was released for Mac. I have watched dozens of movies online this way and I find that it adds more value to what I'm getting with Netflix. If I were to try to use BlockBuster's download service I am greeted by this error message: "Downloading and playing movies requires Internet Explorer 5.0 (or newer) and a PC running Windows XP or Windows Vista." I have XP running in VMware on my Mac but I don't want to have to use that every time I go online to watch a movie.

Verdict: It may be $1 more expensive per month than BlockBuster Total Access, but Netflix with Blu-ray option is more worthwhile for Mac users.

Update: It's now 6/6/10. Blockbuster has had almost a year since my last comparison to get with the program and it seems like they never will.

Google Docs Personal Finance spreadsheet template

This is my first Google docs template. I'm in the process of getting it approved as a global template. It will show you your monthly income for one income source if you are paid weekly. You put in your take home pay for a normal paycheck and then change the number for what day of the week you are paid. For me it's Wednesday so I have 3 in there. Also this is not my actual paycheck amount. I plan on updating it so it will work for people paid bi-weekly. If you are interested, please post a comment.

Fix for Catan Online World crashes with OS X Leopard

I love the game Settlers of Catan. I've grown addicted to it ever since I got into the free online version of the game available at playcatan.com. With my older mac mini I was using the game without any issues. Since Java for Mac OS X 10.5 update 2 came out, I have been having this HORRIBLE problem of the Catan Online World application crashing when sound was turned on in the games. Half the fun of this game is the sounds so I wasn't thrilled that my favorite game was no longer fun anymore.

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be any way to simply roll back the java version on a Mac. If anyone knows how to do this, point me at some instruction because I'd love to learn how. This is something that could be easily accomplished on a Windows machine thanks to the add/remove programs wizard. And, let's face it - a lot of us have been in that damn wizard more times than we care to admit because some crapware made its way onto the system somehow.

Tonight, I installed a developer preview of Java SE 6 for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 4. I can't copy the details of the download here but I can tell you that it looks like the next version of Java coming out for Mac will fix the "sound = crashing" issue.

How to fix the vbscript error "There is no file extension in..."

Have you ever seen this error on windows XPE-based thin clients?
The actual script path is "c:\script with spaces in the name.vbs"



Here's the fix.

copy this code and paste it into a blank text file. Save it as whatever.reg and then double click on it to enter the contents into the registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\VBSFile\Shell\Open\Command]
@="C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\WScript.exe \"%1\""