I'm allover the interwebs!
Today I recieved a new gadget. It is an Eagletec NanoDisk 8gb USB thumbdrive. The reason I bought it was I had the kingmax 8gb super stick, but it started acting up. The eagletec drive is very tiny and fits on my keychain nicely which is great for school. I left it formatted as fat32 so I can use it on any pc (I would rather use hfs+)
I have never got around to doing this, mostly because I’ve got rid of my Blackberry Curve 8900 a while ago. However some people have contacted me asking how to do it. Coincidentally a contact that had been using my tutorial decided to help me out by sharing the love. All this information is courtesy of Mike Harrington. Please show him some love by visiting his blog.
The first thing you are going to do is run MFI Multiloader. You want the phone to have a 1 on the screen. Disconnect it from the computer and type S T A R T as usual. Now close and reopen MFI Multiloader. Make sure none of the boxes are ticked. Press CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + F12 at the same time to bring up the hidden menu. Click on Load VSM; the file you are looking for is called “VSM-11697-001” It is located in the MEP folder in your MML directory. C:\MML\MEP\VSM-11697-001. When you select the file it will say “VSM successfully loaded!” Now all you have to do is reload the OS as usual with BB desktop manager. Very simple process and only an extra step when unlocking your phone. This works for every blackberry that is compatible with MFI Multiloader! Your screen will look like this now on boot up instead of the normal AT&T/T-Mobile/Rogers/Telus/Etc.
Mike Harrington
In the last couple of months I have really started to notice and appreciate green products, and practices/initiatives taken by companies. I thought I would share two of such that I have seen. While in Mont Tremblant I was at a ceramic studio where you paint your own item. When the girl behind the counter gave me my receipt she used a stapler that does not use metal staples, instead it just cut a hole in the paper and loops it around the other paper. I thought this was genius! Not only was it functional (strength wise), but it was so ecological and economical. The practice I noticed was adopted by Aldo, a Montreal based Shoe Manufacturer. In order to reduce plastic bag use they made shoe boxes which include a rope handle. By doing so with the use of nontoxic and recycled resources they are actively helping out the planet.
You can purchase the stapleless stapler here
You can read more about the Aldo shoe boxes here
Yesterday I saw an ad on my blog for Wp Robot. I had faintly remembered comming accross it before. So without clicking on the ad, I went to the official homepage. I quickly read about it and figured out it is a plugin that auto blogs. I didn’t really know what it meant by that so I setup a test blog on my other domain. After installing it I realized that what WP Robot does is basically copy content (Yahoo answers, Clickbank, eBay, Flickr, Amazon, Youtube) from around the web and automagically (I think that word is funny) and post it on your blog. The point of it is to create a great amount of content on your page which will draw in users, earning you money, from advertising and affiliate linking. I only tried the demo and thought about buying the $140 full suite, however I think it is a terrible thing to do. The thought of the software is actually cool, however stealing content from the internet and posting it to make money is morraly wrong. I’ve seen sites that setup only to do this, and even found ones that steal my content. As a webmaster that makes me angry, so why should I do it to other people? I shouldn’t and no one else should for that matter. I would rather make less money from my blog with quality content than make lots of money with stolen content. However some people have different view points.
Ps. The reason I setup this blog was not to make money (that is only a perk), the reason was to share information and my love for the internet and seeing how websites work (frontend and backend).
A couple of days ago I was just visiting the site of EpNamer to see if there was any update, and found that there is a Mac OS X Version. For those that don’t know what EpNamer does, it renames episodes of tv shows that you have downloaded. the cool thing is that you can set it to your preferred settings. I always like my episodes to be named like so “Show name S01E01 – Episode Name”. It automatically retrieves the information needed to rename files and saves you a lot of time in return. This port from windows needs you to have Mono framework installed. I guess its similar to Cross over, because when the program is launched it looks like a native windows application. I really wish the program developer would consider making a native cocoa application it would be nice, but as of now beggars can’t be choosers.
You can download EpNamer Here
Also you will need the Mono Frame work
Last December my apartment was broken into and robbed. The thieves took Colognes, Coins, but most importantly they took my friend’s Macbook. It was at my house because I was repairing the screen’s backlight. When I first entered the apartment I was in shock and thought that maybe the landlord needed to get into the apartment, however I noticed cupboards were open and items missing. It took me a good ten to twenty seconds to accept that I had been a victim of burglary.I quickly called the Police, which only showed up five or six hours later. Since I’ve watched a lot of TV and Movies, I expected that the police would investigate. I was clearly wrong when I was just asked two or three questions and the officer left.
I quickly informed my friend that my apartment got robbed, and that his laptop was stolen. Thankfully he was not angry and told me he would just buy another laptop (what a good friend). However I still felt obliged to do something. I had assumed that if I gave the serial number to the local Apple Store, they could keep an eye out for it (since it needs to be repaired). The Apple Store employee informed me that Apple couldn’t do that unless the police have required them to do so. I quickly saw that anyone is susceptible to getting his or her computer stolen and wanted to be protect myself.
While others have used Back To My Mac to combat Macintosh thieves, that method is very iffy and is not structured to get your computer back. I quickly did some research and found two solid software choices. The first being Orbicule’s Undercover (which my friend had been using) and the Second Absolute Software’s Computrace LoJack for Laptops. Both Software suites offer theft recovery for your Macintosh (Lojack for laptops is also offered on Windows OS).
Undercover is a Native 64bit OS X program that takes full advantage of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Undercover is written specifically for Mac OS X and not ported over from Windows. When your computer goes missing, it is tracked using technology developed by Skyhook Wireless, which locates your computer within ten to twenty meters. Undercover also takes screenshots as well as pictures of whoever is using the computer (using the built in iSight Camera). If the computer cannot be recovered using tracking, it switches to Plan B. Plan B simulates a hardware failure by dimming the screen to pitch black (can not be reversed by the brightness buttons on the keyboard). This will hopefully make the thief sell the computer or try to have it fixed. Finally when the computer is out of the thief’s hands a full-screen message letting the person present know that this is in-fact a stolen computer and how to return it. As of July 10th 2009 Orbicule has an 86% recovery rate. Below are the current costs of Orbicule’s Undercover (as of Sept 9th, 2009)
|
License |
Price |
|
Single User |
$49 |
|
Household (5 Macs) |
$59 |
|
Site (25 Macs) |
$249 |
|
Student |
$39 |
|
Upgrade to Household from Single User |
$16 |
|
Volume Education (100 Copies or more) |
$9.99 |
Computrace Lojack for laptops is a subscription-based service. The standard service offers to track down and recover your stolen computer. The theft recovery team works gathers evidence and closely works with local police to retrieve your laptop. L4L comes in two flavors Windows and Mac. The Windows version embeds itself into the bios (if your computer’s bios supports that feature) making removal of Lojack very daunting even for the most equipped thief. The premium version of L4L offers the same standard service as well as the ability to remotely delete data, which comes in handy for people with sensitive data. Finally the premium version also offers a up to $1,000 service guarantee incase your machine can not be retrieved. Below are the current costs for Lojack for Laptops (as of Sept 9th 2009).
|
|
1 Year |
3 Years |
|
Standard (Electronic Download) |
$39.99 |
$89.99 |
|
Premium (Electronic Download) |
$59.99 |
$109.99 |
|
Standard (Boxed Shipment) |
$49.99 |
$99.99 |
|
Premium (Boxed Shipment) |
$69.99 |
$119.99 |
I have used both these software packages and completely forgot that they are running in the background securing my computer. That is a good thing because it makes them hard to detect. Even if a would-be thief can detect them they would still need the administrator password to delete them. If the thief wanted to get really crafty though he/she would try to format the computer, which then would remove the security program and the administrator password. Luckily though apple has built an Open Firmware Password Utility. This utility allows the user to set a password for protecting low-level access to your Macintosh computer. In layman terms, a person cannot boot from any device other than the main drive without entering the password. I recommend the following procedures to maximize the chances of retrieving your computer.
By doing so, you give the thief the ability to use your computer in order to connect to the Internet and be traced, without any real danger of removing the theft recovery software.
Finally I wish I had thought of this software prior to being robbed. I now have my Mac pro equipped with Orbicule’s Undercover and Lojack for Laptops in our Band’s Crew Laptop. Honestly after this terrible experience, I now know that this can happen to anyone, and I’d rather be safe than sorry. A small and very reasonable investment in one of these two software solutions could have not only gotten my friend’s laptop back, but also found the thieves that robbed my apartment. I could have recovered most of my stolen property if not all, but most importantly they would be in jail stopping them from robbing again for a good while. If you have any questions or comments please comment below and I will reply as soon as possible.
So I’ve been listening to the band Temple of Life. They are a young band from Canada, that brings good music back to today’s terribly saturated industry. A couple of weeks ago they prereleased two singles from their album. One song is very upbeat and the other is darker. I really enjoy these songs, and look forward to buying the full album. You can purchase this prerelease on iTunes. If you would like to preview the songs before purchasing them, I have included a widget that lets you preview the songs.
A friend of mine was having connection problems with the Broadcom 4321ag wireless card in his HP DV 9000. It would always cut out and could never connect. I found that searching google always yielded older drivers than the ones already installed. So I searched the HP website and found the latest version 5. 30.20.0 Dated August 6th 2009. For now it is working much better. I threw this post together quickly because Google didn’t have a solution, and well now it might!
Update: I have now linked this to the Revision history page, which should always display the latest version as the one I posted is clearly out of date!
You can download the drivers at this page
I’ve been having a problem for a while where on the admin side of wordpress where it would display a blank page (eg. plugin page, auto upgrading wordpress or plugins). I finally figured out that it was a memory limit problem. To fix this I increased the php memory limit. There are a couple of ways to do this.
1.Edit the php.ini File:
Just edit the file in a text editor and search for the memory_limit if you can not find it add it without the quotes
“memory_limit = 64M” (here i increased mine from 32 megabytes to 64 megabytes in order to fix the problem I was having)
2.Editing the .htaccess File:
add “php_value memory_limit 64M" to your .htaccess file.
(Note: .htaccess is a unix based hidden file and might not show up, make sure you can view hidden files. In general any filename starting with a period "." is a hidden file on a unix based system so this applies to Mac OS X as well)
Everyone knows what Concrete is, but not Hempcrete. Recently I was reading an environmental blog and came across an article on Hempcrete. I had no idea what it was. After reading the article I thought it was a great green alternative to Concrete and decided to share the knowledge. Hempcrete consists of hemp, lime, sand, plaster, and cement. It can be used interchangeably with concrete. The great thing about it is it’s stronger, less prone to cracking, and is carbon negative. Yes! I said carbon negative! What does that mean? I believe it is defenitly hempcrete is possible alternative to concrete. Since there is not much information available to the public about it (mostly propeatary). If it is commercially viable this could mean a great thing for construction, and our planet. As of now though the American Government does not acknowledge hemp as a viable material.
(this is a video from of hempcrete being applied)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjhzo1Y38uI
ps. here is a site that has lots more information on hempcrete
