The question device has raised an interrupt:

I have no audio device installed on my Toshiba, and I don’t know where to download one from without having to buy/register for a driver software app.

Can you help? I get hear alert noises, just no audio noise.

Firstly, like any annoying geek, I must raise a clarification. There are devices, and there are device drivers.

The device is the physical piece of hardware inside your machine. It might be a plugged-in expansion card, or it might be a set of chips soldered into the motherboard. Either way, most of these devices are relatively inert in the absence of a device driver. The operating system (e.g. Windows or Linux), may be able to make basic requests of the device (e.g. draw unaccelerated 640×480 video), but it usually cannot use the advanced features of the device without the correct driver.

Basically, the device driver tells the operating system where to poke the device, and with what sized stick.

So, having got that out of the way, I’m hoping that you’re missing merely a device driver, and not an entire device.

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If you missed it, we* launched a community forum addition to the site last week. If you haven’t visited yet, get in there! Don’t be shy. You can post and reply in complete anonymity, but it’s more fun if you register an account.

A quick roundup of interesting posts from the week:

• Parsley pointed out the very cool looking TrickleStar power adapters that will switch off your peripherals when the main power source (e.g. TV or PC) goes into standby. They guys at TrickleStar have sent me a couple for review, so check back soon.
• Turn your toaster into an instant eBay income stream!
• Goldman Sachs will pay out record bonuses this year. Bernard Hickey calls it robbery.
• Transformers 2: you should be scared too.
• Femtocells are the new black, especially if you have crap cellphone coverage in your house.

Comments are closed on this post, because you can talk about it in the community forums of course. As an incentive, in the next month or so there’ll be a special prize for registered forum users. Keep it quiet because it’s an exclusive club at the moment.

*Well to be honest, it’s just me. But saying “we” makes it sound much more important right?

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Vodafone have officially announced the release date of the iPhone 3GS in New Zealand.

The iPhone 3GS will be on sale from Vodafone NZ from July 10. Pre-reg page up at www.Vodafone.co.NZ/iphone.

You can get your greasy little mitts on one on the 10th of July. While you wait, you can also pre-register on Vodafone’s website. There’s an annoying little price rise in there too unfortunately, but that’s the crap we have to deal with in a captive market like New Zealand.

Pricing for iPhone 3GS (handset only)
16GB : $1,179.00
32GB : $1,379.00

On the upside, the remarkably talented hackers on the devteam are working on an unlock. This means any 3GS purchased internationally will work on both Vodafone and Telecom if you’re keen enough.

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The Voltaic Generator bag from SolarHabit makes a big, bold claim about their NZ$900 laptop bag:

The Voltaic Generator is the first solar bag powerful enough to charge a laptop.

We all know that marketing claims are about as accurate as a bent arrow, but this one is bordering on outright lies. Let me break it down for you:

• The bag does not charge your laptop. It charges a custom battery pack that is included with the bag.
• The custom battery pack does not have enough power to charge most (I’d go as far as to say all) laptops. At best it will slow down the rate of discharge. At worst (like me) your laptop won’t even take power from the pack.

Seriously. If you’re going to make a statement like Voltaic do, you’re going to need to back it up. I guess they can fall back on the fact they say “enough to charge a laptop“. One specific, hand-selected laptop perhaps? In their own instructions they even say “Note: the laptop may just run rather than recharge. … The laptop may not show the external power source, however the power remaining on the laptop batter indicator should hold steady.”

In my case, when I plugged the pack into my HP 6730b laptop, I got a lovely little popup like the one on the right. I can only assume from that point that the laptop hardware actually refused to draw any charge from the device. I noticed no decrease in discharge rate. In fact, I unplugged the Voltaic battery pack, let my laptop run down to warning level, then plugged it back in again. Within a couple of minutes the laptop ran out of power and went through its normal low-power hibernate-then-shutdown routine. The Voltaic Generator did nothing for me, and I’m not alone.
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Myself, a couple of lucky others, and a good sized rent-a-crowd had a party last night to celebrate the launch of the HTC Magic on Vodafone’s network. With much lubrication and libation, inhibitions were shed and fun was had.

I’m actually kinda sad that I wasn’t a big fan of New Zealand’s Next Top Model, because a couple of others seemed to have so much fun with a guy called Colin.

[Photos redacted to protect the innocent]
Well, after thinking about this, I’ve made the following post with original photos and some commentary on the whole mess.

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