She's mine at last. 8.0mp, 3fps, 3x optical zoom, and lots of other things that make no sense to me…… yet.

The growing cult of the iPod. MP3 player compatibility as automotive selling points. Either the youth of America is taking over, or this stuff is not just for kids. Music = life. You heart music. Admit it. Then go visit these two sites…

Last.fm calls itself the social music revolution. Hit the front page, type in a band and Last.fm will pull up ordered lists of the bands most popular songs, similar artists, and play new recommendations based on your taste. You create a personal radio station, Last.fm uses your preferences to build its fantastic infrastructure of profiled recommendations. What's not to like?

Pandora, created by Music Genome Project crew, can be equated to asking your music buff friend for album recommendations. Only there are a lot more music buff brains behind this answer… and you don't even have to buy them a drink. Cheers!

A guide to the big computer question: fix it - or buy new?

(Applies to windows systems xp or prior.)

1. Is the computer running Windows XP? (Yes-go on) (No-buy new)

2. Was the orginal operating system 98SE or XP? (Yes-go on) (No-buy new)

3. Does the unit require hardware repairs possibly totaling over $250? (Yes-buy new) (No-go on)

4. Can you play music and search the internet at the same time without having the music skip? (Yes- go on) (No- buy new)

5. Do you like the one you have and is it working perfectly? (No- buy new) (Yes- why are you reading this??)

One of the disadvantages to working retail is that you see all this cool stuff before it comes out and you're not allowed to talk about it. Well, it's release day, so here's the news:

In conjunction with the upcoming sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, M&M's has realeased "Pirate Pearl" white chocolate M&Ms. This is the first time M&Ms have been released in white chocolate in the US.

The number one question I answer at work is some form of inquiry as to the insane possibility of being both female and a computer technician. The second is the question of how I've "earned the clip on tie" - how did you learn all this stuff?

I learned by playing around on our home computer, and getting in lots of trouble for doing so. I learned by working on my grandmother's mac, because she didn't know enough to know what I was doing, and I couldn't get in trouble. I learned by building my own computer, with the help of a friend, and then blowing up a power supply and a video card and letting the smoke out of some wires.

People always ask me how I earned this clip on tie. I tell them it's just continued punishment. They laugh. Hey, you wanna wear this thing?

I unapologetically acquired an old mac last week. Here's what brought that on…

Delicious Monster has done an incredibly fantastic make-you-wish-you-owned-a-mac job with their library program - aesthetics and functionality alike will knock your socks off. I'm hoping to see more cool toys from these guys in the future. Check it out. You might even want to get a Mac.

Just finished modding a 1:87 scale die cast '65 Cobra model to fit a flash drive:

JVC has announced a new line of MP3 players. Their big news draw is the built in ability to convert analog to digital - legalities aside, that’s sweet. But sweet tricks won’t cover the fact that these shiny metal things come in 512MB and 1G sizes.

1G? Honestly. Maybe they’re just starting small… but they’ve got a long way to go to catch up with the ever popular cult brand that comes in 30 and 60 gigs. That’s 15,000 songs versus 120 at 512MB. My grandparents own more CDs than that.

Sorry JVC, but you haven’t wowed us yet. I still don’t own an ipod, though, so if you’re starting small, get moving!

No, really, it's not a hoax… you can actually get paid to drink Mt. Dew!

I'm off to cash in on the last six months of dew-be dew-be dewing… at fifty-five cents a pound, I'm gonna be rich!

Everybody runs into those puzzling, unfix-able computer problems.

There is a suprisingly simple yet often unthought of solution to most of these problems: google it! You don't even have to know what your problem is, just put in what you do know, and hit search. It's like magic.

Example one: You took your computer in to the school techs to have your data transferred from an old tower to a notebook. Now the CD drive doesn't work, and they say there's a driver missing that's impossible to reinstall. All you know is that the rogue driver is labeled i.link cdrw 1394 ieee. Having no clue what this might mean doesn't matter! Outsmart your school techs: google it!

If you google i.link ieee, you'll begin to get the idea that this drive is an external drive or part of a docking station. You'll also notice that you're not the only one running into trouble with these drivers disappearing and not reloading.

One of your search results will probably send you to Microsoft's support site, which is a very valuable tool in itself. Here, select your operating system (that's the name you read when your computer turns on: Windows ME, 98, 2000, XP, ect.), then search for your problem. In this case, selecting Windows 2000 and searching IEEE brought up a list of articles. I clicked on the headline, "IEEE 1394 Device May Disappear" . . .

Boom. Two minutes of reading and you'll have a clearer idea of what's wrong and, more importantly, how to fix it!

Then print out the page and hand it to those undereducated IT guys!