In an effort to cut costs wherever possible, some consumers are going back to the cheaper, crappier-in-every-way dial-up we all cast aside years ago. This recession has just gotten serious.

Sales of the often sub-$10 dial-up subscriptions have increased after the stock market crash and many report that they've switched from broadband, though NetZero CEO Mark Goldston was quick to note that "this is not the iPod crowd we're talking about." Chances are if you're reading this, you're more likely to try to pawn your oven than give up broadband, but where exactly does it fall on your list of priorities? Would you give up a cable TV or Xbox Live subscription first? Let us know exactly how poor you'd have to be to go back to dial-up in the comments. [Orlando Sentinel via Crunchgear]

If you'd like to keep your operating systems and disks completely separate without having to keep cracking open your case, creating your own hard drive switch might work for you.

Computer building and modification site Extreme Tech has a tutorial on making a basic selector switch for the power cables of your SATA drives. Why would you want to do this? By selectively offering power to only one of the drives you have hooked up, you recreate the effect of completely swapping out the hard drive. Instead of multiple partitions and boot loader applications, the computer just boots to whichever drive is powered as though it were the only drive with an operating system in the computer. If you want to or need to maintain completely independent disks, the simple switch makes it hassle free. Other than sacrificing a couple power cables to the knife and doing a little basic soldering, there isn't anything fancy involved in the project.

Intrigued by the idea but not so hot with a soldering iron? The author of the tutorial sells a three-drive switch for $32. Alternately, and in a similar price range, you could pick up a single bay tray-less SATA rack that would let you pop hard drives in and out like cassettes—but you would lose the safety factor of keeping them all mounted safely in the case at all times. If you have your own solution for keeping operating systems and disks separate, tell us how in the comments below.

A

We powered up ye olde NAM 5800 XpressMusic today, and the weirdest thing happened: it worked on 3G. This comes after a day of frustration trying to get it hooked up to UMTS yesterday -- a sentiment echoed by several others who took the plunge. The only theory we can come up with is that we were in Chicago yesterday at the Nokia flagship store -- a place where many of the "defective" units were sold -- and today we're elsewhere, so it's conceivable that there's an issue with AT&T's 3G network in Chicago. We've noticed an uptick in 3G loss on other devices in Chicago the past few days, so it's possible that the 5800 is just particularly sensitive to crappy networks; then again, there seem to be others in New York that have the same issue, so it's anybody's guess. All we know for sure is that we're showing a big, fat "3.5G" logo in the upper left corner of our unit at the moment -- and we're going to cross our fingers that it stays that way. We have a request out to Nokia for official comment on the issue, and we'll let you know as soon as we have more.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Our Nokia 5800 magically starts working on 3G originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon's Gold Box sale features Nokia E71 for $289, shipped originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Juan Zamora fed his 1994 Chevy Camaro $26 worth of gas, a transaction for which PayPal charged his debit card $81,400,836,908. Unsurprisingly, PayPal saw nothing wrong with the charge and demanded that Juan prove that he didn't actually buy $81.4 billion worth of gas.

He only learned of the astounding figure when he received an email later that afternoon informing him that his debit card, which started out with $90 on it, was maxed out.

Initially, Mr. Zamora thought it must've been a joke. But after contacting PayPal customer service he was surprised to see that the company treated it as anything but a laughing matter.

"Somebody from a foreign country who spoke in broken English argued with me for 10 to 15 minutes," Zamora said. " ‘Did you get the gas?' he asked. Like I had to prove that I didn't pump $81,400,836,908 in gas!"

He would have needed more than 3 billion fill-ups of the amount he actually pumped into his tank in order to reach that outrageous sum.

Eventually, Zamora said, he was finally able to convince the representative that he didn't deserve to be in the same position as General Motors, who has lost roughly 80 billion dollars since 2005.

When Zamora returned to the Conoco gas station, he said, the attendant would not believe him until he showed her the printout of the PayPal receipt.

What moral is Juan taking away from the story? "Pay cash."

Driver Fills up Gas Tank, Receives Bill For $81 Billion [Consumer Energy Report via Jalopnik]
(Photo: NASA)

If you've ever wanted to play at being a Foley artist for your own audio recordings, here's a list of common household objects that can create tricky but believable sound effects. Photo by M. Keefe.

Sound designer David Filskov posts an interesting list of tricks he's collected from other designers for turning common objects into audio trickery. It seems like a stretch, until you realize that movie soundtracks are rarely recorded from the source—often because doing so would be dangerous, impractical, or wouldn't sound believable.

The sound of people walking on snow? It's made by recording people in the studio walking on flour or cornstarch. If you live in a cold, snowy climate, you know how rare that perfectly crunchy and squeaky snow is. The sound of a naval depth charge? A toilet flushing at half speed, with a reverberation filter applied. Alien sounds?

Certain kinds of canned dog food make useful sounds as the food comes out of the can. The chunky stuff isn't so good, but the tightly packed all-one-mass kind makes gushy sucking sounds when the air on the outside of the can is sucked into the can to replace the exiting glob of dog food. This sound can be used as an element in certain kinds of monster vocalizations, alien pod embryo expulsions, etc.

Those without pooches can also try solid cranberry sauce for a similarly weird noise.

If you have your own tricks for turning every day objects into cool sound effects, share the cinematic magic in the comments below. Extra points will be awarded if you link to your audio of a Chimera fighting a Liger, made with Saran Wrap, a Twinkie, and a startled house cat.

This water droplet-shaped concept from Ilshat Garipov makes a good run at it, but no matter how small or slick or arty they are, Bluetooth headsets are just never going to look good.

Is it the association they have with bankers, lawyers, and other douche-types? Is it the inherent awkwardness of watching somebody talk into a machine you can't see? I think we can all agree that it's not the specific design of an individual Bluetooth headset that makes it irritating. Sorry, Ilshat, your design is pretty sharp and all that but I just can't get excited over a device with a function I can't help but find annoying. [Yanko Design]

Good news thrifty diners, you're not the only ones asking to share dishes at restaurants these days. Thanks to the recession, it's becoming acceptable for everyone to split their dishes, and restaurants aren't complaining. "Now all bets are off," said David Pogrebin, manager of the snazzy French restaurant Brasserie. "People are not ashamed of being frugal."

"I do worry sometimes about people thinking we are being cheap, but I tend to feel that I am still spending money there over eating at home, and I try not to worry about it," said Marcy Robison, a stay-at-home mom from Columbus, Ohio. "In the end, we are trying to be wise stewards of our finances and if someone finds fault with that, so be it."

Robison, who writes a blog called "Stretching a Buck," said she and her husband typically eat out two or three times a week and frequently split an entree or order two entrees and split them with their 3-year-old daughter.

She said that by sharing dishes, the family saves $5 to $12 each time.

Of course, the savings can dwindle at restaurants that charge a splitting fee, which can go as high as $5 for an entree.

If you're going to split a dish, remember that you're not the only one grasping for every dollar. Help out your server with a slightly larger tip.

Splitting that spaghetti? You're not the only one [AP]
(Photo: sleepyneko)

Filed under: Cellphones

Asus' P565 superphone canned due to Garmin partnership? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Feb 2009 15:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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