So I recently got a new MacBook Pro to replace my ailing one which gave me the rare opportunity to compare my late 2008 (the first unibody MBP) with the new 2010 model.

The main difference between the two models are the CPUs, mine has the Intel 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo and the new one has the new Intel 2.66GHz Core i7. I also opted for the new High-res anti-glare screen over the regular glossy one I have now. (Back then, it wasn’t even an option to chose from).

Cracking the box open, you still get the same sleek packaging, with the little “Designed by Apple in California” label, the documentation and cables in the tray, etc… Why mess with a great package design, right? Read the rest of this entry »

When I had a second monitor on my Windows laptop one of my must-have apps was Ultramon. A great little application allowing you to have greater control over your programs, wallpapers and extends the start bar across each monitor. The thing I really liked was that you could assign hotkeys to move your program windows between monitors. Something that would prove to be quite handy (especially when Windows would screw up and throw programs to a monitor that didn’t exist when you were in single monitor mode).

For Mac users, a new app called SecondBar, which is still in its early stages, is the beginning of something similar to Ultramon. At the moment, it only duplicates the menu bar over one other monitor, and according to the developer, only works for some programs. A recent mention in LifeHacker has sparked development again so it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.

While I don’t quite understand how ASP.net master pages work, I did come across a client site using them. For some weird reason, Microsoft decided that if you were going to use master pages, they would go and wrap the entire page in an aspnetForm, preventing you from using your own forms on the site. Who’s the genius that came up with that idea?!

In any case, I  had to find a workaround so I could drop in a reservation form of my own. After a bit of digging, I found a simple solution using Javascript to essentially override the form actions.

<script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[
function SubmitForm() {
var objForm = document.forms["aspnetForm"];
if (!objForm) {
objForm = document.aspnetForm;
}
objForm.__VIEWSTATE.value = "";
objForm.encoding = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
objForm.action = "http://www.yoursite.com/yourscript.asp";
objForm.submit();
}
// ]]></script>


Then, all you need to do is on your submit buttons/images/links, have it call the SubmitForm(); function.

The obvious downside to this is that you can only do one form per page unless you were submitting to your own script and ensure that you use unique field names… Not pretty I know, but it’s an option.

So I don’t know if this is something that I missed entirely in the documentation, but a while back, one of the drives in my NAS gave up on life and decided to stop working. Being the lazy person I am, and relying on the uber redundancy of RAID6, I left it for a few weeks (including the time after I purchased a replacement drive). In my defence, I lost the key to the drive trays and had to wait until a friend of mine could find me one. (To skip my long winded path to the end solution, just jump to the last paragraph)

In any case, today I swapped in the replacement and in an anti-climactic fashion, nothing happened. In fact, it didn’t even pick up the new drive. I feared that the NAS itself was dead and I would have to go through the painful process of getting a replacement and everything. None the less, I decided to would take a chance and reboot the unit. Luckily, this did the trick and while it still didn’t automatically rebuild the array, it now detected the new drive.

Checking the RAID configuration page, the only available option was to assign the new drive as a spare.

After some digging on the Thecus Forums, the only mention I found was indirectly through another person’s troubleshooting post where he mentions that setting the drive as a spare fixed his issue.

I was hoping to get some solid information that would support this, but I figured I had nothing to lose and at the very least, I’d have a RAID5 array with a hot spare to back me up.

9 hours later, I’m back up and running, and the RAID 6 array is healthy once again. It would have been nice if Thecus had some better documentation available, but I suppose piggybacking on a forum is better than nothing.

In short, if a drive in your RAID array fails, and if after replacing the drive it doesn’t automatically rebuild, just go into the RAID configuration screen and set it as a spare and the NAS will start rebuilding the array at that point.

The one thing I really hate about automatic Windows updates are the ones that require you to reboot and pester you with that annoying popup asking if you want to reboot now or later. Clicking Later only delays the inevitable and sure enough, you’ll see that popup a few minutes later asking you the same question.

Now what makes Windows think that if I clicked Later before that in just a few short minutes after, I’d change my mind? Why not trust that I will reboot when I’m good and ready?

I always wondered if there was a way to disable this, and while I didn’t find a direct solution, this little application is pretty much the next best thing and is good enough in my books.

Shutdown Guard pretty much does exactly what it says. It “guards” your Windows from being rebooted, shutdown or even logged off.

Any time one of those actions is attempted, Shutdown Guard will prevent it, and then pop up a little balloon in the task tray allowing you to continue the action if you want. Obviously ignoring the notification let’s you work on without any further disruption.

Compatible with Windows Vista as well, except the confirmation is much more in your face as shown in the developer’s wiki entry.

By now I’m sure everyone has upgraded to the latest FireFox but what most people night not know about is that FireFox3 was a long awaited release for those of us in photography. Why? Because FireFox3 added colour management to it’s list of features. A few browsers like Safari, and I believe Opera as well already had this functionality but FireFox now joins this elite few.

However, this functionality isn’t enabled by default and infact, there isn’t even an option to turn it on without going into the about:config page.

So here’s how you do it.

In the address bar of Firefox, type in about:config.
Scroll down to gfx.color_management.enabled. By default this is set to false. Double click on it to change it to true.
Restart Firefox.

Now stare in awe as your colour managed images appear the way they should!

UPDATE: The Daily Gyan has a great guide on other tweaks you can enable for FireFox3! Check it out!

I heard about Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope a few weeks back through their presentation at TED and today, I saw an article featured on the MSN website about it’s public beta finally released.

The WorldWide Telescope takes images from numerous sources such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) and compiles them into a single user friendly interface allowing people of all ages to essentially fly though space and view planets and galaxies one would never normally see.

While the software may be in beta, it all runs quite well. It’s very similar to Google Earth in the way that the images are streamed to you as you require them which makes for a very lightweight application storage-wise but heavy on the internet connectivity and graphics requirements.

None the less, I highly recommend everyone check it out at least once and be sure to give the final a try whenever that may be.

In a press release, AT&T announced that on April 17th, select locations in New York City, Atlanta, San Antonio and San Francisco will be sporting a new toy with their cellphone displays. A Microsoft Surface to be exact.

Initially the Surface will be used to display information about the cellphones for sale as well as display service area maps but AT&T hopes that in the future the Surface will allow users to drag ringtones, graphics and videos to the phones. Note that it says “the” phones suggesting the display models, and not a user’s phone… Perhaps just a way to cover their behinds in case the Surface doesn’t work out as they planned.

Store locations and images can be found on the AT&T website here.