The Lance J. Technoweb

Every Apple site has users that complain that Apple MagSafe Power Adapters can fail... but nobody says what you can do to fix them. I happened to buy an old MacBook and it came with an unreliable MagSafe power adapter. How can Apple, after producing this general style of AC adapter for over 15 years, manage to continue to make a power adapter that fails?  More confounding, I've purchased a number of MacBooks over the last decade, and I have never had a problematic MagSafe power adapter.  What gives? The simple answer is: Customer Abuse. I've actually had my hands on at least 10 broken MagSafe power adapters, and in every single case the failure was caused by customer misuse.  Here is the list of failures I've seen: Cat or Dog chewed cable Pinched cable (crushed from furniture or a door or something) Over-stressed cable (from repeated yanking, over-winding, or some other abusive behavior) And that's it!  In no case have I seen a MagSafe charger fail fro...

The other day, my cousin was thrown into a pond with his clothes on.  You know, a really funny thing, unless, of course, he has his iPhone 6 in his pants pocket. Panic ensued.  "Quick!  My iPhone!  It got wet and is acting all weird!  What can be done?  Should I get some rice?" The reality is that rice cannot absorb a significant amount of water from the inside of a tightly-constructed device.   Happily, I was there, and I happened to be there with my small electronics tool kit. The iPhone was powered up at the time it went into the drink (no surprise), and the screen was flickering. It was back at the Apple logo, and it soon fully booted.  But the display was fading in and out. How I saved this iPhone 6: First, I tried to power it off.  No luck!  It wasn't turning off.  Nothing was actually working.  So I grabbed my small electronics tool kit and opened up the iPhone.  I'm very familiar with iPhone disassembly an...

A few weeks ago I tried to wonder why I run my dishwasher overnight.  I set it to run at about 4 AM or 5 AM, and it finishes up by 6 AM or 7 AM or so.  Here's a conclusion of my analysis. Electricity is more efficient overnight, and therefore costs less and emits less carbon. Power companies produce less electricity at night due to lower demand.  During the day, they produce more electricity. As for-profit entities, power companies want to use as little fuel as possible - after all, their biggest expense is fuel. So the plants that they run all the time are their most efficient plants, and the plants that they add during peak times - during the day - are their least efficient plants. By running my dishwasher over night, I am guaranteed to be using the power by the most energy efficient power plants. Winter Heat / Summer Heat My dishwasher releases quite a bit of waste heat and moisture.  Most of that heat from the dishwasher stays in my house.  By runn...

All my regular readers know that I love the late 2009 and mid-2010 white unibody MacBook notebooks.  They're robust, they're still very capable, and they can still run the latest MacOS. One problem with these old beasts is the bottom rubber can detach.  Apple used to provide free replacements, but that program ended more than a year ago. So what do you do to fix the bottom?  It's easy!  Here's what I did: Remove the bottom plate by removing the 8 bottom screws. Fully peel off the failed rubber and fully expose the aluminum. Use small pieces of permanent tape on the "back side" of the lid to cover the drill holes in the aluminum. Fully clean the "exposed side" of the aluminum plate. Apply small stick-on rubber feet to each corner. Coat the "exposed side" of the plate with several coats of Plasti-Dip spray paint .  I picked red, but there are many colors available. Re-attach the bottom plate to the laptop. There we go!  Now I ha...

I repair a lot of equipment - mostly smartphones and laptops.  I'm no genius and I have limited expertise.  But I do know how to do quality work - making sure that the result is no worse than where we started from.  I am happy to say that I've rarely made something worse. Not everyone is so good. I've acquired a lot of equipment that was ruined from "home repair" people.  Don't be that person. Here are the things I've seen: Missing components and screws. "Lost" small parts floating around inside a machine. Mistakenly disconnected cables. Welded parts mistakenly pulled apart. If you're going to do a home repair, do good work.  That means you need to be patient, triple-check your work, and use reputable procedures and guides (which universally means NOT YOUTUBE!) Here are my tips: Get good repair procedures well before you begin.  These should be written procedures with photographs.  Youtube is good, but is NEVER a substitute ...

The iPhone 3G ended production in 2010, and the 3GS was ended in 2012.  So the 3G/3GS series are all 5+ years old now.  But I have one that I keep and use. Why use one now?  Because these models are still useful phones.  I use mine as a backup phone, for use when friends or family damage or lose their primary phone. Both models are GSM-centric and have 3G radio chipsets, so they're still great for phone calls.  They have GPS, so they're useful for mapping and navigation.  And you can use them for texting, of course. They're also inexpensive.  For under $50 you can find a great one that you don't have to worry about losing.  You can keep one as a backup phone, or as a loaner. Of course, you'll want an unlocked one, so that you can use it with any GSM provider. The Reasons for owning an iPhone 3G or 3GS: Super-inexpensive, perhaps $50 for a fine 3GS. A great backup phone if your primary phone is lost or damaged. A great phone for inter...

The amazing part of the Roomba is how shockingly well iRobot supports them.  You can get a ton of spare parts for them, and it is easy and inexpensive to repair or even upgrade a Roomba. You read that right: Roombas are easy to work on AND the parts are inexpensive. That's like buying a BMW, and learning that cylinder heads and alternators are $50 each and can be snapped in within 5 minutes. I've had my Roomba 600 series for five years. Now five years is a lot of time for a computer technology product that deals with dust and dirt.  Here are the things that I've done so far: Replaced the battery After about 3 years, my Roomba's original battery was getting pretty weak.  I replaced it.  Replacing it is a simple affair, taking about 5 minutes.  New batteries are readily available at low cost. Replaced (and upgraded) the brush head Evidently I used my Roomba too much in my extremely dirty basement.  My Roomba's original green-colored brush head st...