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I’ve been using this iMac for a few weeks, and I’ve noticed an odd melty-plastic smell from time to time. I didn’t associate it with the iMac, though; the top of the iMac was hot, but not unbearably so.

After the weekend, though, the smell was more intense. Bruce found a particular spot on the back panel of it that was uncomfortably hot. Time to investigate.

I downloaded Temperature Monitor and found the power supply was at 81° Celsius (about 178° Fahrenheit). That’s far too hot! I found smcFanControl and turned up the fan speeds, and my iMac’s power supply is runs between 55-58° Celsius (131-136° Fahrenheit). That’s much healthier, and the plasticy smell has almost (but not completely) disappeared. The downside is that the iMac is no longer silent, though I’m pretty sure I can turn the fans down slightly over the next few weeks.

I appreciate that Apple was trying to make my workspace more enjoyable by keeping the volume down, but it turns out the smell of burning plastic is more distracting than the fan noise. I can only imagine being without a computer while the power supply and back panel were replaced would have been even more distracting.

The Macalope: The iPod as scapegoat

…In this case, the implication is that the death of a British Columbia man who was hit by a falling helicopter could have been averted if he hadnt been wearing his iPod.

I just thought I should point out this could be easily solved. When the iPod is turned on, it could show a splash screen that alternates between different safety tips. “Watch for falling helicopters!” could be one, with a black silhouette helicopter. And, of course, at the bottom of the screen is the ubiquitous “Don’t steal music.”

(I wish my vector art skills were up to the task of drawing a helicopter right now.)

Why Microsoft’s Xbox 360 sales milestone isn’t so impressive

…So while Microsoft’s claim that being first will help them win may sound good to corporate ears, the truth is that the Wii is on track to outsell the Xbox 360 rather handily.

Ars has a nice graph of January-March sales for different systems, too.

I’ve read articles on remapping keys on Windows, but here’s a handy command line utility that makes the registry changes for you: Windows Scan code remapper. No idea if this works on Vista, but I’d imagine so. Especially useful for VMware Fusion.

Times, a newspaper-style RSS reader. But my advice? Skip it, unless you want demonstration of how not to do a product roll-out. Despite being a great idea, it feels extremely buggy. Worse, the application nags you so constantly to buy it — starting on the first day — that it’s hard to take what’s there seriously.

It’s difficult to explain how annoying this is, or why it would even be a problem. The best analogy I can come up with is this: Imagine a first job interview where every third sentence from the candidate is “So, are you going to hire me now?” So how long would the interview go on before you showed the candidate the door (or, in this case, the Trash)?

In a cygwin package called (appropriately enough) chere, there’s a tool to add a command for opening a bash prompt from a Windows folder. It’ll even install a cmd here, though not one for PowerShell. (Thanks to Weiqi Gao, for writing up a great post on this.)

Fellow Indiana Jones fans: A nice-looking Indiana Jones icon set from Icon Factory. Some of the designs look like they’re actually practical for day-to-day use, instead of just a “month of Indiana Jones desktop”-type scenario. More sets are coming.

And here I thought it was just a more advanced, more annoying version of cmd (that I’m hoping supports UNC paths¹).

But Microsoft seems to think it’s something else entirely. I’m not sure what, though. But whatever it is, it’s really really freaking dangerous.

Of course, PowerShell did not destroy my computer. That wasn’t the point. The point was that Microsoft’s fear mongering was over the top. There’s no good reason for an installer to recommend that the user close all other programs. As for backups, the user should be doing regular backups anyway. There’s no reason the PowerShell installer in specific should be dangerous.

I find installer text reminding me to do a backup to be an admission that the installer is not safe. If it’s not safe, pull it until you have one that you’re sure is safe. Disclaimers like this might make sense for service packs, but not for installing an additional shell.

1. Oddly enough, bash from cygwin supports UNC paths. [↩]

Calgary toddler dies after family calls 911 on internet phone

This is why we ditched Vonage. Not because they were misrouting the call — they routed it correctly — but because after a call to 911 it became obvious that using Vonage added at least five minutes to ambulance arrival time. With a mitochondrial disease in the house, we couldn’t justify that.

It’s true local telcos have been heavily abusing a monopoly position for years, but it isn’t worth cutting off your own nose to spite them.

I picked up a nice, shiny 24″ iMac on Friday from Simply Computing in Langley for my employer to replace my elderly Core Solo mini. Monday, Apple refreshed the model. I realized I didn’t actually mind at all, but it seemed it might be worth a quick email:

I was just wondering if you guys have some sort of “Apple dropped my model the next business day!” policy. I’m not going to lie here — I’m actually satisfied with the old model, I just thought since the timing was so perfect it was worth a two sentence email.

The result? A $200 in-store credit. Which, bluntly, was more than I ever expected. I didn’t have to lie for it, which is good because I wouldn’t have done so. All I had to do is ask.

Thanks, Simply. That was a classy move. I really respect these guys. They’re honest, practical, and not out to screw anyone.