Blog Action Day

Dremel Really, WTF?

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Just as I would let you know if a gadget is completely awesome I am also here to tell you when something is so fucked you absolutely have to stay away from it. Thus brings us to the title of this article. Dremel, honestly…how could you possibly make such a piece of crap as the Dremel Pet Tool. As any pet owner knows, cutting your dogs nails is almost like torture for them. After reading up on various methods of pet nail cutting to reduce the pain and suffering we inflict on our little chihuahua Prancer we have come across the Dremel Pet Tool. Which is really a nail grinder and is suppose to be much better for the pet as well as the human. Normal nail clippers for animals pinch the nerve in the nail despite how careful you might be. So when they are squeaking and you think you’ve done nothing but cut the nail, you are really pinching the nerve inside. So PolyVector and I decided on giving the Dremel a go and see if Prancer would let us grind down his nails.

Today our Dremel arrived and we were very excited. prancer has needed a nail clipping for quite some time and we really wanted to wait for this to get here so we can limit the torture he goes through on this should-be bimonthly routine. Door gets a knock and I fly to open up our package containing the not yet know POS. At first glance it was small and looked almost like it would work. once I got the packaged opened and PolyVector took over we realized what a mistake we had made. The battery pack’s contacts were completely screwed up causing the Dremel to not work when securly pushed in. meaning in order to operate the grinder we had to have the battery pack half hanging off. Not a very convenient thing when trying to manage a squirming dog. Once able to get Prancer calmed down and a handle on the Dremel we realized that it wasn’t able to grind his nails. The thing was so weak it couldn’t even grind a 7 lb. Chihuahua’s nails. That’s pretty pathetic. We of course had a feeling when all the reviews on Amazon.com had completely awful experiences, but it was worth a try for our little Prancer.

We have read up on alternatives and found that a regular Dremel might do the trick and we rushed out and bought one at our local Wal-Mart. I will post an update on how this goes. The only good news coming from the Dremel Pet Tool is Prancer didn’t mind the noise at all and the grinder didn’t bother him when applied to his nails. So this could work after all.

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Introducing Ringz0r1

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Today PolyVector gave me the go ahead on releasing his first ringtone for the iPhone to the public. Now this is his first attempt at creating a ringtone and I for one love it. It is currently our default ring on our iPhone. It is a very simple and calm ringtone. I have always found most default rings on a phone to almost shatter my nerves. I have grown accustom to always keeping my phone on vibrate since any ring would usually be an instant head ache and I never wanted other people to feel the same when my phone rang. So without further adieu I preset to you Ringz0r1 by PolyVector. You can snag it below. You can use it, convert it, redistribute it. We would love to hear your comments as well. And hopefully there will be more ringtones to come.

Edit: I added an MP3 version of the ringtone for those who don’t have an iPhone, QuickTime, or iTunes to play the M4R file. Pick your flavor!

Update: PolyVector chose a license for his work and it has now been included in a single zip with both the iPhone ringtone file and an MP3.

Download (iPhone and MP3)

More Ringtones

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Stillie’s Projector

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When PolyVector and I got back from our holiday I had talked a bit about the new projection system we helped our very good friend Stillie setup. He had gotten the same setup we are currently using from April of ‘07. I wanted to share our handy work with everyone since Stillie finally got to posting up the screen pictures on his blog. While you can see the screen and some images being projected there are not shots of the projector itself. We ended up mounting the projector on a shelf which worked out amazingly well with dimensions of Stillie’s living room. The screen is a 100″ widescreen and the project is displaying in 480p. So you don’t have to go searching around the projector is an Epson PowerLite Home 20.

Edit: Stillie just informed me that he updated his post to include some up close projector pics. Be sure to take a look.

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