The AC adapter on my Powerbook started shorting out last week but I could usually fiddle with it and get it to work. Yesterday, in the middle of such fiddling, there was a little spark and it started to burn through the casing (and my finger). Having nothing much to lose, and not wanting to shell out $80 for a new adapter, I cracked open the case, cut out the offending section of cable, and spliced it back together.
Everything worked out and now I have a fully functional power cord once again. The electrical tape give it a kind of evil chic look. If anyone else has a similar problem with their power adapter, or if they just want to see how I did it, I put together an instructable of the process.
You’ve got 15 seconds to take a screenshot and resize it for use in a post, a Mac with a clean OS install, and a paper clip. You double click the file on the desktop and up pops your image in Preview. That’s no good, Preview can’t resize images… or can it?
Even though Preview doesn’t seem to allow you to resize an image, it can be done. Just zoom out a few steps or resize the window (Preview will fit the image to the window by default) and fire off a quick command-shift-4. That’s right: take a screenshot of the screenshot. Then, just open the new screenshot (the metascreenshot, if you will), save it in your preferred format, and upload away!
p.s. If you’re a little more patient and want a lot more power, there’s always the incredibly awesome Picnik.