Macenstein

New transparent display means everyone at Starbucks will know you’re looking at porn

I know from watching countless hours of bad TV and movies that the future of touch displays is transparent sheets of glass that magically let you throw and resize images, all the while making annoying beeps as data readouts cascade across them, but I always thought we were still a good 15 years off from that. But check out this pretty sweet video of Samsung’s new 14 inch Transparent OLED Display Notebook, which appears to be very close to the future depicted in Minority... Read More

Games That Don’t Suck: Great Little War Game (Who knew war could be so adorable?)

GAMES THAT DON’T SUCK is a feature dedicated to games that I think are well worth your hard earned money, but not worth me sitting down and spending 3 hours crafting an in-depth review (these things are usually 99¢ after all). However, you can rest assured that any game bearing Macenstein’s GTDS rating is worth buying, sight unseen, based solely on my expert opinion. And out of all the games that haven’t sucked thus far, Great Little War Game REALLY doesn’t... Read More

How to fix “The disc can’t be burned, because the device failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media” error

This post may only be helpful to one person, but as I always say, if you can help just ONE person… then you may as well have not even bothered. But just in case this helps TWO people, I will post it anyway. Last week I attempted to burn a DVD in my 2008 MacBook Pro for the first time in about 2 years, and was greeted by a somewhat cryptic but high tech error message which read: “The disc can’t be burned, because the device failed to calibrate the laser power... Read More

Oh HELLS no

Hey, are you an iPhone owner who LOVES his/her Crocs? Well, I have good news and bad news for you. The Good news is, you can now buy this Crocs-inspired iPhone case for just $3.24 with FREE SHIPPING! The bad news? If you buy this case you are now banned from reading Macenstein. Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader Jonathan for the tip! via Gizmodiva  Read More

Not that I’m encouraging this… but

Faithful Macenstein reader @blakejoblin sent us this picture of a little mod he did to an Apple Store iPad 2. Looking good, says I. And yes, if you happen to “come across” any Macs or iOS devices displaying our website in an Apple Store (wink, wink), we’d love to hear about it.  Read More

Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton coming to iTunes

As long-time readers know, and short-term readers can probably guess, nothing scares me more than the thought of going to a wedding. I have long said I would rather go to 10 funerals than one wedding, and not simply because I know more people I would rather see dead than happily paired off (although there is probably something to that). No, for me as a non-drinker, non-dancing, borderline agoraphobic sociopath, the whole reception thing is an excruciating 4-5 hours of social awkwardness,... Read More

AT&T eats T-Mobile and I am FURIOUS!

Now THAT’S a Super Moon!” While everyone was distracted looking at that EXTREMELY over-hyped Super Moon this weekend (seriously, what was the big deal? It looked the same as always here…) AT&T announced it plans to buy T-Mobile for $39 billion. This is apparently cause for everyone to run around in circles screaming, because it means there will now really just be one GSM carrier in the US, and fewer choices mean it’s more likely we’ll have to... Read More

How to: Stop iPhoto from opening every time you sync your iPhone

EDIT: Check out the comments for an even better, smarter way to do this provided by faithful Macenstein reader Anonymoose . Faithful Macenstein reader Kelly writes: “Hey, do you know if there’s a way to stop iPhoto from launching every time I sync my iPhone? Just got it, and find it very annoying, thanks!” Well, sure there is, and it’s actually as easy as: 1: Open iPhoto 2: go to iPhoto> Preferences 3: Click GENERAL SETTINGS and from the “Connecting... Read More

iPad 2 destroyed in slow motion (because everything looks better in slow motion)

Man, try to name ONE THING that doesn’t look cooler in super slow motion. Can’t do it? Didn’t think so. Even this horrifying video of an iPad 2 meeting its maker (figuratively speaking, of course. It doesn’t actually go back to China) looks hauntingly beautiful. Why slow motion? Because if he used his right hand, it would be over too quickly.  Read More

Australian Cinema Display apparently running at a higher resolution than the rest of the world’s

Looks like Apple’s web guys down under wish their Cinema Displays had an extra inch or so of screen real estate. (Link to the US Page, and Australia). It’s hard to argue their point. Look how big a difference that borderless screen makes in iPhoto. Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader Mike for the link!  Read More