trains

Parts of Apple's Genius training manual leaked

One of the key parts of Apple's retail success has been its Genius Bar, its in-house support service that lets Apple product owners bring in their gear to get looked at.

As it's been explained by former executives, the idea for the bar initially befuddled users, though over the years it's become a defining feature, and an increasingly important one as the company's gadgets have moved away from user-replaceable parts.

But just what kind of training is involved to make it behind that bar? Tech chops for sure, but as an internal training document shows, quite … Read more

Step aside, steampunks. 'Steam nerds' run real locomotives

JAMESTOWN, Calif.--Stephanie Tadlock is a steam nerd.

For years, Tadlock has been a volunteer at Railtown 1897 State Historic Park here in California's Gold Country, the country's longest continuously-operating steam locomotive repair and maintenance facility.

Now, as a hostler at Railtown -- someone responsible for keeping the locomotives ready, as well as bringing them up to steam and moving them around a rail yard -- she has an engine to get started.

I've come to Railtown as part of CNET Road Trip 2012, eager to see how these classic machines have been operated since well before … Read more

Amazon is helping employees get another, unrelated job

Amazon will pay for employee job training, even if it means its employees will work somewhere else as a result.

The company launched a new employee incentive program that's sure to attract out-of-work Americans who want vocational training to boost their careers.

Amazon will pay 95 percent of tuition and fees at accredited schools for courses that lead to technical and vocational certifications or associate's degrees in fields like aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technologies, medical lab technologies, and nursing. Only full-time hourly associates in the U.S. who have been employed for three consecutive years are … Read more

My Tracks records your runs

Perfect for outdoors enthusiasts, Google's My Tracks app records your path, speed, distance, and even elevation while you walk, run, bike, or do anything else that a GPS signal can follow. And for those who are a bit more serious about their training, the app even lets you hook up with a few third-party Bluetooth biometric sensors, including Zephyr HxM, Polar WearLink, and ANT+ monitors.

To get started, just open up My Tracks and hit the record button at the top of the screen. From there, so long as you have a strong GPS signal, My Tracks will plot … Read more

Bullet train: Will you ride the California rocket?

High-speed railways are common in Europe and Asia, but they're more scarce than the metric system in the U.S. California, though, aims to change that with a bullet train linking LA and San Francisco in less than three hours.

State lawmakers on Friday approved construction of the first phase of the line, which has been the subject of years of debate. California's finances are in poor shape, and the LA-San Francisco railway is expected to cost some $68 billion.

According to the California High-Speed Rail Authority, a trip from San Francisco to LA would take two hours … Read more

In the Mojave, an Army dress rehearsal for Afghan war

FORT IRWIN, Calif.--The shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenade was aimed at several U.S. Army soldiers trying to work their way through the chaos of an Afghan insurgent attack. This was not looking like a good day for the members of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

Fortunately for those soldiers, the RPG wasn't real, and they weren't even in Afghanistan -- yet. They will be soon, though. But before deploying to the combat zone, the entire 4th Brigade from Fort Lewis, Wash., spent four weeks in the June heat of the Mojave Desert at the Army's National Training Center … Read more

Make screencasts easily

Camtasia for Mac makes it easy to create professional screencasts (capturing all actions on screen) for demonstration videos, instructional videos, and other screen-recording projects.

The interface is fairly easy to understand right away with your media, transitions, animations, and effects on the left side, the work area (what they call the Canvas) on the right, and a video timeline on the bottom. You can quickly create a screencast at launch by first selecting sound and Webcam preferences, then hitting the red record button. The Webcam feature lets you personally "present" your screencast in a picture-in-picture window and you … Read more

Expect derailments from Train Inventory

Like all collectors, model-railroad collectors need a way to organize their goods. Train Inventory is a program that seeks to help model-railroad fans with this task, letting users create a database to catalog their collections. Unfortunately, functional problems plague this program and make it hard to recommend.

The program opened with a .NET Framework error, which did not inspire confidence, and it turned out to be the first of many to come. The program's interface is simple but extremely unattractive, consisting of a gray background with some menus and text boxes for entering data. For each item, users can … Read more

Italy to launch Ferrari-style high-speed train

Next time you're stuck in traffic on the highway, consider those lucky Italians. Some will get to ride in style next week when services on the slick Italo high-speed train kick off.

Operated by Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori (NTV), the Italo debuts April 28 and will connect Milan, Rome, and Naples. It's being billed as the most advanced train in Europe.

It has a top speed of 186 mph -- not the fastest in the world but still respectable. The record for fastest commercial service depends on several factors, but Shanghai's Maglev Train can run at 268 mph. … Read more