This is where the smart hammer comes in. The Wise Hammer takes things one step further with a stud sensor built into the base of the handle. A simple green LED lets you know when a stud is detected, and a small marking nub allows you to mark its location on the wall so you know exactly where to drive your nail. Available for $29.99.

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Take a look at these geek friendly Russian Nesting Dolls from designer
Art Lebedev. There is one each for bit, byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte and terabyte in ascending size made to fit one within the next. Perfect for your budding lil’ geek’s low tech edutainment toy collection. Cost is about $35.

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In particular, recent MacBook and MacBook Pro models receive support for the inertial scrolling that debuted on Apple’s current MacBook Pro models, in addition to the new three-finger window dragging gesture that it included on the Magic Trackpad. The MacBook Air, as well as “Early 2008″ MacBook Pro models gain only inertial scrolling.

The following models are supported (according to the Apple support document):

MacBook
MacBook (13-inch, Early 2009)
MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2009)
MacBook (13-inch, Late 2009)
MacBook (13-inch, Aluminum, Late 2008)

MacBook Pro
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2010)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010)
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2009)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.53 GHz, Mid 2009)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2009)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2009)
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Late 2008)

The following Mac portables support inertial scrolling after installing Magic Trackpad and Multi-Touch Trackpad Update 1.0:

MacBook Air
MacBook Air
MacBook Air (Mid 2009)

MacBook Pro
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2008)
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2008)

So, fire up your software updates!

Remember about a month ago AT&T found a software defect in Alcatel-Lucent equipment that caused upload speeds to be virtually throttled to 100 kbps/sec?

AT&T and Alcatel-Lucent jointly identified a software defect — triggered under certain conditions – that impacted uplink performance for Laptop Connect and smartphone customers using 3G HSUPA-capable wireless devices in markets with Alcatel-Lucent equipment. This impacts less than two percent of our wireless customer base. While Alcatel-Lucent develops the appropriate software fix, we are providing normal 3G uplink speeds and consistent performance for affected customers with HSUPA-capable devices.

Well, apparently the software patch has been pushed out to (or is being pushed out) to the towers as we speak.

Multiple speed tests have been submitted from various markets showing the upload speeds are in fact faster. Post your speeds in the comments.

UPDATE: AT&T has confirmed the patch is rolling out nationwide.

In the coming weeks I’m improving the app and it will begin to function as a complement to our site and a destination for all things tech. Stay Tuned.

With tens of thousands of unique visitors a day and over 20,000 RSS subscribers I enjoy running this site for you, the reader. It excites me to share a dialogue with people of different ages, countries and walks of life.

I think I’ve decided I want this site to stay a solo show. I think anything more then a singular voice will get lost in all the noise of digital news produced today. We don’t need to be the largest site – just one people love visiting! However, staying as a one man show, hearing feedback is very important.

Please use this post to comment on anything that you have on your mind. Remember keep it on point! As for Experiment23 (this websites parent company) we will continue to innovate cool products that “try to make the Internet better everyday!”

Men, sometimes you need a mirror. We don’t have bags like Women do, so how do we see what we look like? The Pocket Mirror, created by Pavel Sidorenko, is small enough to stash in a credit card slot in your wallet. And since it’s made from plastic, it’s not going to shatter the first time you sit down and put a little pressure on it. Available for about $7

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The problem remains that people want to tether their iPhone for free. Well, my dear loyal readers – I will build you an App that will enable free tethering starting today.

Here is how I’m doing it (and how you can do it too) if you have a iOS developer account with Apple.

I’m going to compile the iphone-socks-proxy app available on Google code and release it as an AdHoc app to the first 80 people who email me their iOS devices UNIQUE ID (?) at SORRY ALL SPOTS FILLED. Also, drop a comment (without your UUID in it) so I know the email isn’t getting caught in some SPAM filter somewhere.

For those who want to know what the iphone-socks-proxy app is, its an open source project that allows you to connect your laptop to the Internet through the iPhone’s 3G/EDGE connection (tethering) without having to jailbreak your iPhone. If you want to install the application on your iPhone you will have to build and install the App from the supplied community code. The code is completely legitimate and does not use any undocumented APIs and NO JAIL BREAK is required.

As for how to use it? Once I build it you will drag the compiled App as well as the mobile provision file to iTunes and sync it to your device.

On your laptop start an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network. On Mac this is done by:
System Preferences->Network
select AirPort
click on Network Name and select Create Network
in Name enter “mywifi”, press OK, press Apply
Connect you iPhone to the add-hoc wifi network:
Settings->Wi-Fi
select “mywifi”
Run this SOCKS App on your iPhone
In the SOCS Proxy tab press Start
take note of the address and port that appear on the screen.
if you get the message “no Wifi” then you are not yet connected to the ad-hoc network. Wait a minute and try again.
put your iPhone face down on the table in order to save battery
configure your laptop application to use your SOCKS (with the above address and port). Some examples:
Safari on Mac (Firefox needs a different configuration):
System Preferences->Network->Advanced…
select Proxies
check SOCKS proxy
in the SOCKS Proxy Server field enter the address and port that appear on your iPhone screen
press OK
press Apply
Firfox on Mac
Firefox->Preferences…->Advanced->Network->Settings…
Select “Manual proxy configuation:”
enter IP and port of your iPhone in the SOCKS Host: and Port:
OK
Unix (Mac) shell commands can be made to use socks (socksify) using the tsocks command (check the man page) (see also).
tsocks is configured using the file /opt/local/etc/tsocks.conf for example, if the proxy is on 169.254.213.179:20000 then the file should look like:
local = 127.0.0.1/255.255.255.255
local = 169.254.0.0/255.255.0.0
server = 169.254.213.179
server_port = 20000
server_type = 5
When finished remember to disable the usage of SOCKS in your laptop application:
Safari Mac: uncheck the above SOCKS proxy and press OK and Apply to restore regular connectivity

Even cooler is the App supports 10 minutes of task completion so you can exit the app briefly without losing connectivity. The last catch, UNEASYsilence (and Experiment23) takes NO LIABILITY on any data charges or loss you may experience. AT&T could wake up one day and decide to limit or charge you for the data you consume. Consult your bill regularly.

In our yearly tradition, here is the MacTV installment of Apple’s Education Promotion for 2010. Without music, of course!

For those who want the original file you can download it here.

Secretly Nick Lee added a tethering feature to his Handy Light app, which looks like any other flashlight app that uses the iPhone’s screen to provide illumination, actually camouflages a tethering feature using the SOCKS proxy.

However, to access this free tethering you need to jump through some hoops.

Set up an ad hoc Wi-Fi network on your computer (network name and password requirement are not important).

Connect to the Wi-Fi network you just created on your iPhone through the Settings/Wi-Fi menu.

Tap on the blue arrow to the right of the selected Wi-Fi network, click Static in the IP Address menu and enter the following IP address and chuckle at its geek quotient: 13.37.13.37
Next, enter 255.255.255.0 in the Subnet Mask field.

Back out of the Settings menu to ensure these settings are saved (though hitting the Home button right away shouldn’t change them).

Go to your Mac or PC and change the network settings to use the SOCKS Proxy and enter 13.37.13.37 as the Socks Proxy Server address and 1337 as the port. On our Mac laptop, this is what the resulting screen looks like:

Be sure to apply/save these settings.
Go back to your iPhone and open the Handy Light app and tap the flashlight colors at the bottom in the following sequence: blue, yellow, red. Then tap the top right corner of the screen and the color should change to purple. Your iPhone is now capable of sharing its internet connection with the computer you set up.

Leave the app open and go to your computer and start browsing. As the video describes, we found that it took a few seconds for the connection to kick in but then it worked like a charm. Though many variables affect network speed tests, a quick test using Speedtest.net yielded 3.92 MB/s up and 0.38 MB/s down while tethered to our iPhone 4 through Handy Light.

Now, I would suggest if you want free tethering you jump on the AppStore real quick before Apple pulls this 99 cent app.

Download Now (And it now pulled! But, while you are here why don’t you download the UNEASYapp so you can get PUSH notifications when important stories like this break.)

New Potato Technologies (really, then name New Potato?!) has created a dock, that turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a miniature slot machine. Jackpot Slots dock will set you back $39.99, the accompanying app is a free download from the App Store. It includes realistic graphics and sounds, online play letting you compete in tournaments around the world, and even the chance to win a trip to Las Vegas after you’ve earned 50,000 credits playing the game.

Neat!

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