Tis the season to irritate your dog
Krissy forwarded a forwarded X 100 email to me and this one is worth sharing. Time to get your pets ready for Halloween!
Quick Disneyland trip
We made an unexpected trip up to Disneyland today, mainly because I found someone who wanted my old 300C exhaust and since I couldn’t find anyone to buy it, I found someone who wanted to trade me for it. Plus, our annual Disneyland passes are still good so it doesn’t cost us anything to get into the park.
He lives in L.A. so we met him at Disneyland before we entered the park. I gave him the exhaust and he gave me his 2-week-old 80GB iPod Classic (the new one that just came out). It’s in excellent condition, and I’m currently filling it up with 30+ GB of music.
We spent the day at Disneyland and it was hot (about 85F) and had a really fun time. We’ve never gone during the month of October, so it was fun to see all of the Halloween decorations they had up.
Here’s a funny pic of Mel and I on our favorite ride, Space Mountain. Tip: ride in the front (wait for it if you have to), it’s 100% better being in the front! Click the photo for a larger version.
Mac Week is next week
After reading last week about how Microsoft is extending the life of Windows XP due to the slow adoption rate of Windows Vista, it dawned on me that the mad excitement over the initial launch of Vista was nowhere close to what it was for Windows 95, 98, and XP. Has Microsoft lost its OS innovation or has it simply reached a point where it is as good as it gets? Outside of the great new graphical interface, I personally have no need to upgrade to Vista. Actually, I am running a product called WindowBlinds 6 that has a XP theme that is spot-on! There are no killer apps that are egging me on to hop on the Vista train, and I know that many of the USB peripherals and software that I current use on XP will not function under Vista.
So what about Apple? Outside of having an iPod and the iPhone, I have never been a huge fan of the Apple Mac OS X operating system. That is most likely because I’ve always been a PC guy and all of my skills revolve around Windows and PC hardware. In recent years the Mac has adopted PC hardware, such as Intel chips, and many USB devices work with both Mac and PC. Earlier this year I bought a Mac Mini purely for doing native Safari browser testing and Yahoo! Widget development. This was my first Apple computer since my Apple ][+ days. My initial thought was that the UI was cool as hell and very easy to use. I got the low-end Mac Mini (512MB RAM) and hooked it up with the Apple wireless mouse and keyboard, using the VGA mode on my DELL monitor to view it.
This all led me to think… why not give the Apple Mac a run for its money? I can use the same keyboard/mouse monitor and most of the apps I use work on both platforms.
So next week is Mac Week for me. I’m giving the Apple Mac a week-long test to see if it can do everything I do on a daily basis with my PC.
Hardware: this week, in preparation for Mac Week, I upgraded my Mac Mini from 512MB RAM to 2GB. What a huge difference that has made. And you already know about my keyboard so I won’t get into that again. The good thing there is that I’m now used to the Apple keyboard on XP so switching over to the Mac won’t be an issue from the input device side of things.
Software: I’ve got the essentials already installed (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Firefox, and Skype). I thought I was going to be screwed with Remote Desktop, which I use constantly to access Windows servers for work. Much to my surprise, Microsoft actually has a Mac Remote Desktop client and you know what? It works better than the Windows version! Go figure! While I’d like to try out the native Mac email client, I will probably stick with Thunderbird so I can just copy my mail files over and not be interrupted.
I’ll document my week in a separate article, updating it as I go along.
Remapping Apple Mac keyboard for XP
Yesterday I got the new Apple aluminum keyboard and I was raving how cool it is, even for Windows XP. My main complaint was that the Windows and ALT keys were swapped, which was causing me much havoc since my brain has been programmed for so many years to find the ALT key to the left of the space bar.
My initial hunt returned nothing, but after some more Googling today I found the answer in a Freeware product called KeyTweak. This program modifies the Windows registry in order to re-map keys. I was able to swap my Windows/ALT keys (or ALT/Command keys on the Apple keyboard), map the F7-F12 media keys for Previous Track, Pause/Play, Next Track, Mute, Volume Down, Volume Up, and a few other keys. My only complaint is that any changes requires you to reboot your PC. Big whoop!
It works great! I also found another product called AppleKPro (shareware) that does some other fun keyboard mapping action, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Click to view full size
Another great CORR video
The 2nd of two CORR events was this past Saturday here in San Diego (Chula Vista) and since I was still recovering from my Seattle trip, I did not attend like I normally do. Frozone and Gillmore went instead, and Frozone got some amazing video by hooking up our in-car cam to the rear of the FOX Racing truck. Check it out… it turned out awesome as usual!
My new favorite XP keyboard is…
This is kind of an odd discovery. I used part of my $100 Apple iPhone rebate to purchase the new Apple aluminum flat keyboard, with the expectation that I would be using it for my Mac. It arrived this morning and since my primary computer of choice is a DELL Windows XP desktop, I figured ah what the hell, I’ll plug it into my DELL monitor to see what happens.
Much to my surprise, it detected it just fine and not only that, it functions perfectly with Windows XP as well. The Command/Apple key doubles as the Windows key, and the Option key doubles as the ALT key. There are only two drawbacks, both of which are minor. First, the Windows key is swapped with the ALT key, so that will take some getting used to. Second, the multimedia controls to change the sound settings and pause/play movies do not work on XP. Perhaps there’s a driver out there somewhere that will allow this but I cannot seem to find one.
As far as the keyboard is concerned, it is similar to typing on a notebook keyboard (like my DELL) but better. I can typically type about 75 WPM, and it seems a heckuva lot easier on this keyboard. Plus it is low profile, so it is easier and a more natural way to type which should help with my tendinitis. Time will tell, but I think this is a keeper.
So in case you are curious, that is my current desktop setup above for Windows XP, and yes, that is Windows XP (not a Mac). I replaced the Windows taskbar with ObjectDock which I have been using for several years now and is very stable. It is very configurable, but as you can see I have it set to mimic the Apple OS taskbar. As for the big screen, that’s my beautiful 27″ DELL widescreen monitor running at 1920×1200 resolution. I absolutely love that thing… which for me is necessary since I spend so much time in front of the computer.
7 year old playing Led Zeppelin
This 7 year old plays Stairway to Heaven on an electric guitar. I wish I had such skills…
How to disable the iPhone shutter camera sound
Earlier this year when I had my Motorola Q I posted this entry about how to disable the shutter sound of that phone. Now that I have the iPhone, I was trying to figure out how to do the same thing since the shutter sound effect is loud and annoying.
As long as you have iBrickr (Win) or Breezy (Mac) it’s very easy. Just install the Mobile Finder app through the Installer.app. The Finder app allows you to browse all of the folders and files on your iPhone, just like you can do on your Mac or PC.
The solution is to find the offending sound file and rename it so when the iPhone’s OS looks for the file it can’t find it. It still takes the picture without failure.
Before you continue, note that using any 3rd party app or modifying any system file can cause problems with your iPhone, so if you bust your phone while messing around with it, don’t go crying at me. Just restore your iPhone using the restore feature in iTunes if you screw something up.
Navigate to the folder /System/Library/Audio/UISounds. There you will find all of your system’s user interface sound files. Scroll down to the “photoShutter.caf” file and double-tap it to view its file properties. Now tap once on the Filename, then rename it to something else. I renamed mine to “photoShutter-old.caf”.
Now exit the Mobile Finder.app and take a picture. Now sound will be heard!
Now before you ask, I do not know how to change these sound files to something else, but if you know, please post a comment!
Change your iPhone carrier graphic with ease
Do you like staring at your “AT&T” or “cingular” carrier graphic at the top of your iPhone? Well, I don’t, and apparently others are joining the carrier graphic changing party. Today The Spicy Chicken released a new app for the iPhone that does a lot more than their previous DocSwap app. It allows you to change the carrier image, the dock background, plus the ring, mute, silent and speaker graphics with ease.
Move over AIBO, I-Sobot thinks he can dance
It’s amazing after all these years of goofy robot toy development the latest masterpiece from Tomy is this hunkajunk called the I-Sobot. I think I saw some smooth “Bobby Brown Rock Witcha Pushups” in there somewhere. Nice.
Seriously… 6.5 inches of gyrating plastic for $299? And it doesn’t even fetch the paper…
Don’t mess with this baby
Mike sent this one to me earlier today and it’s sad that I didn’t have time to look at it until now. This is pretty funny, especially if you have kids… check it out.
iPhone Leopard theme rocks
I’m totally digging on this new Leopard theme that was released today for Summerboard. I especially love the rounded corners at the top.
If you haven’t already, go get iBrickr (Windows) or Breezy (Mac) and then install the Installer app. Once you have that puppy installed, you can install a ton of third-party apps, games, and themes for your iPhone over the air!
And yes, that’s a Pirate app there toward the bottom… figured I’d mess with it since it is, after all, International Talk Like A Pirate Day!
Donkey Kong on the iPhone
My favorite all-time game, on the iPhone using the NES emulator. Controls aren’t the best but it works!
In order to make this happen you need iBrickr (Windows) or Breezy (Mac) and then the NES app. You can also install this “over the air” using the Installer app if you have that installed.
If you need games for the Nintendo emulator, just head on over to this ROM download site — there are over 900 of them. Some of them work well with the iPhone NES emulator, while some of them are unplayable. I’ve had good luck with Donkey Kong, Galaga, Galaxian, Pacman, Space Invaders, Super Mario Brothers, and Dig Dug.
I have loved playing Donkey Kong since I was a kid playing the original coin-op version. One day I have to convince my wife to get me the original coin-op for Christhis (er, Christmas).
Hank
This post is for Hank, my awesome brother-in-law, who was just down here in August on vacation with my sister and their two kids.
Get well soon bro! We love you and are thinking of you…
