New Seasons

Sep 28 2008

Boy do I watch a lot of TV. Yet surprisingly not much is actually on the TV. I’m a big fan of lots of the American dramas, and have watched Dawson’s Creek, The OC, Gilmore Girls, and others come and go. But I always like this time of year, because all the new seasons start. So, for the next 8 months (roughly) I will be watching:

One Tree Hill (recent convert), Smallville, Heroes, Big Bang Theory, Numb3rs, Chuck, and beginning in Janurary, Lost.

However I really just wanted to share this great advert which appeals to two of my interests. Can you guess which?

And here is the second one. (and yes I know the ads aren’t current but hey, who cares)

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Big Brum GiveAway/SwapMeet

Aug 24 2008

Like a lot of people, I have a lot of stuff, and like a lot of people I care about what I throw out. But those two issues are very difficult to coexist.

Enter the Big Brum GiveAway/SwapMeet. The idea is simple, and much like a charity shop, you can take all those random bits and pieces, spare furniture, old CDs and DVDs you don’t want, clothes etc, and give them away to anyone. You have a few tables set up at a pleasent location, people pay say 50p to enter and you can leave with whatever you want.
Everything is as you see it, there is no need to worry about pricing up items, it’s a mad giveaway. Perhaps we can arrange some local drop off points in areas for those who don’t wanna travel on the day.

Surely someone might want that dolls house or LP that you kept for some reason, or the one odd plate, or old cable that doesn’t work with your new equipment. Well this could be the place to find it. And whatever is left goes to the nearest charity shop for second chance.

Is that a good idea? Has it been done?Is it anything better than giving to charity? Let me know what you think, if you would be willing to help for a few hours, or if you can offer a venue or tables or just a hand.
Or is this just the worst idea you can think of?

One response so far

Ultimate Macbook Pro Upgrade

Aug 08 2008

As you may have read last year, I got a new Macbook Pro. With it came 2GB RAM, and a 120GB hard drive.

Needless to say, that space quickly got used up, and I started spending a lot of time deleting iTunes content, and backing up stuff to DVD’s and my MyBook. I played with the idea of upgrading the drive a lot, but always held back because I have AppleCare and there is a chance it could void my warranty, or cause problems if I ever have to take this machine in. 

But this isn’t a post of regrets, its a post of action. The action being I finally took the plunge. The price was right so I ordered a Western Digital 5400rpm 320GB laptop drive and it arrived swiftly last week. I really couldn’t wait so I immediately formatted it, and started to clone my current drive over using SuperDuper. Three hours later and it was ready. I did a quick check and booted from it via USB. All was good so I was ready for the replacement.

I followed some instructions from iFixit.com and got to work. The whole process took about 90 minutes in total, and that was being very cautious and taking it slowly.

So what gems of advice can I pass on? Screws! The biggest issue is all the screws. In total, there are 8 sets of screws from around the laptop. I had a small screw box/pill box that I used to keep each type apart, and put them in the pot in the order I took them out. This made it easy to put it back together.
I would also make sure you put down a towel or cloth to lay the laptop on. You’ll be moving it around to access all the screws and the last thing you want is scratches when you’re done.

The last bit of trouble I had was removing the hard drive cable from the drive itself. Its a thin plastic cable that is glued to the top of the drive. In an ideal world you have a spudger, a small plastic tool you can use to separate the cable from the drive. I had none so I had to make do with a business card and then a pen lid when the card got too messed up. So before you delve in, make sure you have something to hand. And don’t be too worried about pulling the cable with your hands if you need to. Its fairly robust so will probably come off in your hand if you’re slow and careful.

That was the difficult part. I also bought 4GB RAM from Play.com as recommended by WIl Harris on ChannelFlip.com. Replacing this was easy as removing the battery and taking out 3 screws. Its possibly the ONLY user replaceable part of a Macbook Pro. And that is what perplexes me. Why does the high end machine have to be so difficult to replace a hard drive on? You’re paying more and are likely to be a bit more technically minded, so why is it such a pain and why does it void your warranty? That I will never understand.

But the final story is that I have a 2.2GHz C2D Macbook Pro with the biggest hard drive I can get, and the most RAM it can take. Its a true powerhouse to me.

2 responses so far

Posting from my iPhone

Jul 22 2008

Just a quick post here. If you have an iPhone, and have updated to the 2.0 software, be sure to checkout the new WordPress application. It’s a lovely little app for blogging on the go.
It supports wordpress.com and self hosted domains and will store your drafts locally if you don’t have time to finish them.
You can easily add multiple blogs so now there is no excuse for me not to post
Wordpress for iPhone is free from the App Store.

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HOWTO: Install WiFi Certificates on your iPhone

Jul 11 2008

So I now work where they employ the use of certificates for wifi security, and I want to use the wifi on my iPhone since the data connection sucks. But how?

Well with iPhone 2.0 software, there is support for certificates. But how do you get it on your phone?

Well…

1. Go to http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/iphoneconfigurationutility10formacosx.html and download the iPhone Configuration Tool. Install

2. Open up the Config tool from your Utilities folder.

3. Select Configuration Profiles and click New

4. Fill in the details on the General Tab.

5. Click Credentials. and click the plus sign, and navigate to the Certificate file (in my case a .cer file). Click OK.

6. Check the details look correct, and give it a name.

And thats it! Done.

Well not quite. You need to install it on your iphone. You have two/three options but the third involves Mac OS X Server which many personal users won’t have. So your two options are host a file on a website somewhere, or email it to yourself. If you want to host it, click the Export button, save the file to disk, and then upload it somewhere. Then navigate to that file online and it should ask you to install.

The second easier option is to email it to yourself. So click Share, and wait for Mail.app to open a new mail and punch in an email address you can access on your iPhone. Click send. Wait (or go and check your mail).

Then in the email, click the file, and you will be asked to install the file. Do so and bingo. Success. Now go test it and make sure it works!

Update: I have tested this at work, and it worked perfectly. You have to make sure you enter your username as Domain\username and your password as normal or it won’t authenticate. So now I can use the internet connection at work. Only thing is that IMAP and POP3 ports are blocked so can’t use the Mail.app to check them, but everything else works a treat!

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