I've had a cell phone for about 8 years now, and have had four different carriers (well three if you don't count when AT&T bought up Cingular which had bought up AT&T Wireless years before) and seven phones. I started with Sprint back before they merged with Nextel and brought the worst of both companies together. I was quite happy with Sprint from a technical standpoint and never had to deal with their customer support. I left them to go with T-Mobile so that I was on the same network as my then-girlfriend. The move was purely financial. It was just more cost effective to have unlimited calling with the person I called the most than to have a plan that provided enough minutes. When she left T-Mobile for Cingular over a really poorly handled customer service issue, I followed for the same reason I left Sprint for T-Mobile. I'd never had any real issue with T-Mobile's network, and never really had to deal with their customer service either. I'm a pretty good customer like that. If you don't give me a reason to call you, I don't call. Cingular became AT&T Mobility and I went long for the ride.
Through that trip, I was a pretty picky handset owner. I never took the 'free phone', because you get what you pay for in mobile handsets. I've owned two really good Samsung handsets when I was with Sprint, basic, but good. With T-Mobile, I had a Nokia 3650 which was a serious dose of awesome, and the first generation of the Motorola RAZR. To this day I still miss my 3650. When I went to Cingular I went with a Sony Ericsson W810i, which is a solid music player and has a decent FM radio. It would run a nice assortment of Java applications for using Google Maps, and a pretty good Gmail client, as well as a number of different messaging clients. It also sported a very nice 2MP camera with a very good depth of field. I still use that camera today.
I tell you all this so that you really understand where I was coming from as a handset owner. I knew what I wanted, and liked what I had. So when the iPhone first came out, it was tempting, but not tempting enough to pry me away from my W810i. The camera was bad to put it nicely, it was a 2G phone in a 3G world, and it couldn't run ANYTHING that Apple hadn't put on it to start with. My phone kicked it's ass in every way except it was also a 2G phone. The App store comes out, and the iPhone 3G. It was tempting. Very tempting. So much so that I drake the Kool-Aid and became part of the iPhone cult. I was happy with it, mostly. I still pined for the FM radio, but streaming audio took care of that, I didn't like the camera, but I still carried my W810i around to snap pictures with, so it was o'kay. Or so I thought.
Apple has always thought it knew better than it's customers what they wanted, and needed. For that most part, they've made a decent business out of it. Sure they've made some mistakes, but you don't make it as far as they have without doing something right. For all the things my new phone could do, I still felt like I was missing something, but what? Well I couldn't change the ringer to anything but Apple approved ringers, but even when they fixed that I had to pay for them. I have NEVER paid for a ringer, and I certainly wasn't going to start. That was addressed, people figured out how to make iTunes upload audio as a ringer, then Garage Band picked up the ability. I still had to deal with not being able to change ANY of the other sounds my phone made. I didn't like the SMS tone or the Mail tone. I wanted to use other sounds, but I couldn't. I wanted my phone to do other things I knew it was able to do, but Apple said no.
I wasn't the only one, though. Since the first iPhone there was a small, but growing community of people that felt the same way. This group of people who were just as much fans of the phone as I was, but much smarter, figured out how to set the handset free. Apple made no attempt to tell us what we can run on the computers they sold, yet they felt they could control what we ran on their little computers with cellular radios in them. I'm sure at least some of the restrictions they impose came from the carriers that offer their phone. That is a different topic for a different day. Some of it, though, makes no sense at all. Still, I had my iPhone 3G for nearly a year and never did more than think about jailbreaking it. Sure there were a lot of benefits, but it seemed so many people were having issues with it that it just wasn't worth it.
About two weeks ago I bought an iPhone 3Gs and sold my 3G to a co-worker who promptly took it home, jailbroke it, and unlocked it. He is now the happy user of an iPhone 3G on T-Mobile. Sure he can only use it in EDGE mode, but he says it likes it MUCH more than the Blackberry Storm that he's been using, and I made back some of the cost of upgrading. Recently there had been more and more "Apple Rejects _insert useful application here_" stories. Some seem to be carrier pressure (so in the US that means AT&T), and some seem to be for no obvious reason at all. Since Apple won't talk about why it rejects applications, even with the people who wrote it, we can only assume they have their heads shoved squarely up their collective asses. As I said in a recent tweet which has become popular among Twitter sex spam bots, the more App Store rejection stories come out the more I think Apple has ex MPAA Ratings Board execs on staff.
The rejection of Google's own Google Voice application, and the removal of previously approved ones was the last straw. I love my phone, I've bought two versions of it. I like Apple, I currently have one desktop, one laptop, and an Apple TV (which I run Boxee on). I don't think they are the end all, be all, and I know they make mistakes. Now, as with my Apple TV which I have made 10x more useful with Boxee, I have made my iPhone more useful, and more fun by jailbreaking it. I just downloaded redsn0w followed the instructions, and within a few minutes I had my iPhone up and running just like it was before, but better. There are many apps available to make the phone do things that AT&T really doesn't want me doing, but for the most part I didn't care about those. I wanted to make my lock screen background show up as my background from the app launcher, so I installed Winterboard. This also allowed me to change my lock screen charging battery icon to the Aperture Science logo, and my WiFi signal strength icon into a pineapple, or a Triforce as my mood dictates. I also use SBSettings to enable and disable all sorts of options without having to leave an application or even unlock my screen. MobileTerminal gives me a limited but useful local terminal which I can use for remote administration as well as running nmap without having to break out my laptop. I can leave WiFi running when the phone goes to sleep, which is useful with the Boxee app as I don't have to wait for it to reconnect, and my Star Trek themed sounds make me smile because I am a geek. Sure I have things on my phone that AT&T probably wishes I didn't, like Qik (though I've yet to use it) and GV the already approved then removed Google Voice app. I also installed a package that lets me fake out specific applications so that they think they're connecting over WiFi when they are actually connecting over 3G. I mostly use this with YouTube and some audio streaming apps that step down the quality over 3G. I've used it with Skype once, to test it. I might use it again, I might not. I roll 400+ minutes a month on my 450 minutes a month plan, so I'm not hurting for minutes, but there are times when Skype would be preferred. Like if I need to reach my son, who lives in front of his computer.
There was a time when I might have felt bad about getting around these restrictions, but that was when I was just being told I couldn't make my phone go bleep when it went bloop, but when I'm not allowed to use my unlimited data plan to send the data I want, or when I can't access the services I want to access the way I want to access them on a device I bought over a service I pay for, I don't feel bad for anyone but Apple and its various cell partners for thinking they can actually control their customers. Especially now that they've attracted the attention of the FCC in the US. It's coming to an end. Jailbreaking is so easy my dad could do it, and the US government is coming down on cell companies from all directions. Either the companies will back down gracefully, or they'll be regulated. It's just a shame it has had to come to this at all.
So why did I set my iPhone free? Not to 'stick it to the man', or even to hear the Star Trek communicator chirp when I get a message, but because it is just one of the many computers I own and like the others I will run what I want, when I want, and how I want. Anything else is unacceptable.
Cows MOO while MUCKing about in the MUSHy MUD
In the 90's, while the internet was starting to get pictures, most of us were still using text to describe what things look like, what they did, and what happened to them after the dog got a hold of them. There were a great many ways in which this was done; but among the more non sequitur were the MUSH, MOO, MUCK, MUX, MUD (especially of the Tiny variety) etc. Many people connected, much fun was had, and little of it made sense.
So just what are all these acronyms about, and what do they have to do with cows, pancakes, Pop-Tarts®, pennies, dirty diapers, or Gary Numan? Well the MU, for those that have a MU*, stands for Multi-User... the rest is something of a subject for debate, as most are thought to be backronyms. Generally the user base is allowed to create objects and rooms, and to one degree or another program responses to events generated by other players, objects, and rooms in one of a few purpose-built languages fashioned after or otherwise baring a resemblance to gems like Forth (in the case of TinyMUCK) or Lisp (like MUSHcode for all the MUSH variants). What about the cows et al? Well, cows, pancakes, and Pop-Tarts® are easy. They're all awesome. Pennies and dirty diapers are the same things, of course. As are pancakes for different values of pancakes. If I need to explain what Gary Numan has to do with anything you are officially banned from reading my blog from this moment on, so go away.
All the Numan dissing wannabes gone? Good. So where was I? Oh, yes... user programmable text-based social interactions. It was still largely the time of coyotes and tumbleweed on the internet, and most things worth doing were still done with a keyboard. Graphics were for single player games, and the vast majority of the clicking came from our coveted IBM Model M keyboards. Much of this clicking was spent playing combat MUDs and programming. What could be more fun? Combining the two, and tossing in large amounts of insanity, while largely taking out the combat.
There were a lot of different systems up at that time, running different versions, and with different themes, if they had one at all. I was always a fan of the loose role play systems without a defined theme. My favorite was OtherMUSH, with its awesome Toilet Adventure, heavy TMBG references, and the ever popular and often fatal Bring Your Grandparents to OtherMUSH Day.
Today many have passed on into obscurity or otherwise vanished from the face of the net. While there are a few which remain, most are strict roleplay based on sci-fi or fantasy books, movies, or TV shows.
A few weeks ago, I set out trying to find OtherMUSH. The website still lives at other.org/ but the MUSH seems to no longer be there. Discouraged, but not willing to just let it go I decided to set out on a mission to bring some of that weirdness back to the net, or at least try to as best I could. To that end, I downloaded and installed the current version of TinyMUSH on my 'do it all' server, and began to relearn how MUSHcode worked and getting back into the frame of mind that once let me describe the most mundane in very obscure ways.
The documentation provided with TinyMUSH is very useful in setting it up, and o'kay at describing commands, it isn't so good at giving useful examples of how to make the commands work with each other. So I began searching again, hoping to come across a few long-forgotten websites which might prove useful. What I found instead was that while largely out of date there were lists which contained links to many MUSH, MUD, MUCK, MOO systems which are still in operation. Most of them are still of the strict role play variety, but a few worlds which subscribe to the 'if you build it weird, they will stay' mentality still remain. Of them, the two I'm having my mind wrapped around are:
TrippyMUSH is... well... trippy. Nuff said. I'll say more, but that was enough. TrippyMUSH is a wholly wonderful place; if you find surreal worlds which take place only in your own head but made by someone else which is actually happening in an asylum which you can never escape from because you were never actually there, wonderful. If not, you soon will; the strange coloured liquid on drip in the IV in your arm will make sure of that. Sound scary? That's only the first five minutes. Just remember, you can't quit, but you can go home... or at least that's what you'll imagine once you pass out.
telnet to pebkac.trippy.org 7567 to stop the hallucination and accept you are an inmate just like the rest of us.
TinyTIM is NOT just a game... it's a really, really BIG game. You think you're city/town/backwater hole in the world is big? It's got nothing on the world of TIM. TIM is God, and all praise TIM. He's not paying attention, but that's o'kay, he loves us anyway. Powered by Pop-Tarts® and smelling of The Old Man of the Nexus (which is something not unlike Old Spice and nursing homes) TinyTIM is the strangest thing you've seen all week. Yes, even stranger than that. You know you want to visit... you'll never want to leave. Even if you do, TIM will be with you always. Even during your special alone time in the shower.
telnet to yay.tim.org 5440 and come see the most complicated machine in all the MUSHdom, The Clock on the Wall. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder how you ever got through your day without TIM.
As for my MUSH. I'm still planning to subject the world to it. But it's not ready yet. Once it's half-baked I'll let everyone know.
So just what are all these acronyms about, and what do they have to do with cows, pancakes, Pop-Tarts®, pennies, dirty diapers, or Gary Numan? Well the MU, for those that have a MU*, stands for Multi-User... the rest is something of a subject for debate, as most are thought to be backronyms. Generally the user base is allowed to create objects and rooms, and to one degree or another program responses to events generated by other players, objects, and rooms in one of a few purpose-built languages fashioned after or otherwise baring a resemblance to gems like Forth (in the case of TinyMUCK) or Lisp (like MUSHcode for all the MUSH variants). What about the cows et al? Well, cows, pancakes, and Pop-Tarts® are easy. They're all awesome. Pennies and dirty diapers are the same things, of course. As are pancakes for different values of pancakes. If I need to explain what Gary Numan has to do with anything you are officially banned from reading my blog from this moment on, so go away.
All the Numan dissing wannabes gone? Good. So where was I? Oh, yes... user programmable text-based social interactions. It was still largely the time of coyotes and tumbleweed on the internet, and most things worth doing were still done with a keyboard. Graphics were for single player games, and the vast majority of the clicking came from our coveted IBM Model M keyboards. Much of this clicking was spent playing combat MUDs and programming. What could be more fun? Combining the two, and tossing in large amounts of insanity, while largely taking out the combat.
There were a lot of different systems up at that time, running different versions, and with different themes, if they had one at all. I was always a fan of the loose role play systems without a defined theme. My favorite was OtherMUSH, with its awesome Toilet Adventure, heavy TMBG references, and the ever popular and often fatal Bring Your Grandparents to OtherMUSH Day.
Today many have passed on into obscurity or otherwise vanished from the face of the net. While there are a few which remain, most are strict roleplay based on sci-fi or fantasy books, movies, or TV shows.
A few weeks ago, I set out trying to find OtherMUSH. The website still lives at other.org/ but the MUSH seems to no longer be there. Discouraged, but not willing to just let it go I decided to set out on a mission to bring some of that weirdness back to the net, or at least try to as best I could. To that end, I downloaded and installed the current version of TinyMUSH on my 'do it all' server, and began to relearn how MUSHcode worked and getting back into the frame of mind that once let me describe the most mundane in very obscure ways.
The documentation provided with TinyMUSH is very useful in setting it up, and o'kay at describing commands, it isn't so good at giving useful examples of how to make the commands work with each other. So I began searching again, hoping to come across a few long-forgotten websites which might prove useful. What I found instead was that while largely out of date there were lists which contained links to many MUSH, MUD, MUCK, MOO systems which are still in operation. Most of them are still of the strict role play variety, but a few worlds which subscribe to the 'if you build it weird, they will stay' mentality still remain. Of them, the two I'm having my mind wrapped around are:
TrippyMUSH is... well... trippy. Nuff said. I'll say more, but that was enough. TrippyMUSH is a wholly wonderful place; if you find surreal worlds which take place only in your own head but made by someone else which is actually happening in an asylum which you can never escape from because you were never actually there, wonderful. If not, you soon will; the strange coloured liquid on drip in the IV in your arm will make sure of that. Sound scary? That's only the first five minutes. Just remember, you can't quit, but you can go home... or at least that's what you'll imagine once you pass out.
telnet to pebkac.trippy.org 7567 to stop the hallucination and accept you are an inmate just like the rest of us.
TinyTIM is NOT just a game... it's a really, really BIG game. You think you're city/town/backwater hole in the world is big? It's got nothing on the world of TIM. TIM is God, and all praise TIM. He's not paying attention, but that's o'kay, he loves us anyway. Powered by Pop-Tarts® and smelling of The Old Man of the Nexus (which is something not unlike Old Spice and nursing homes) TinyTIM is the strangest thing you've seen all week. Yes, even stranger than that. You know you want to visit... you'll never want to leave. Even if you do, TIM will be with you always. Even during your special alone time in the shower.
telnet to yay.tim.org 5440 and come see the most complicated machine in all the MUSHdom, The Clock on the Wall. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder how you ever got through your day without TIM.
As for my MUSH. I'm still planning to subject the world to it. But it's not ready yet. Once it's half-baked I'll let everyone know.
Getting by with a little help from myself
For the second time in the last few weeks, I went to a theater to see a movie. This isn't something that I do very often. Generally speaking, I prefer to wait for a DVD release, or even to be carried on one of the premium movie channels as I get them all for free as part of my employment with my cable provider.
I can't really say why I've been spending money on theatergoing as of late, but I learned something... or more remembered something that I think I lost sight of some time ago. Just because people don't seem to want to spend time with me doesn't mean I'm not worth spending time with.
Sure, I have a few people locally that on some level or another I think of as a friend, and I see them occasionally, but all in all, I spend most of my time in the company of me.
I saw Terminator Salvation tonight, I made a brief mostly non-spoiler-ish comment about it on Facebook in response to an old friend from high school that said I would be disappointed. I might reiterate and expand on it here later, but that's for another time. Leaving the theater I went to the Cold Stone Creamery which is in the same complex, then sat outside in front of the fountain to enjoy the spoils of the war with the line there. As I made quick work of my waxed paper cup of plain sweet cream I realized that everyone else sitting around me on the other benches was with someone else. Usually, that would have made me feel lonely, but this time something was different, something clicked. I wasn't any less happy than they were, I wasn't any less likable, or any less attractive. I wasn't in any way less at all.
It's been well over a year since I was part of a couple. In all that time I thought of myself as alone when the truth of it is I'm still half of what made the nearly 10-year relationship that she and I had together worth having. Sure I miss her, as she was and still is my friend, but I'm still me more or less, and while I may not have 'the other half' of who 'we' were I still have all of who I am.
If that's not good enough for someone to want to spend time with me, then I'm not the one missing out.
I can't really say why I've been spending money on theatergoing as of late, but I learned something... or more remembered something that I think I lost sight of some time ago. Just because people don't seem to want to spend time with me doesn't mean I'm not worth spending time with.
Sure, I have a few people locally that on some level or another I think of as a friend, and I see them occasionally, but all in all, I spend most of my time in the company of me.
I saw Terminator Salvation tonight, I made a brief mostly non-spoiler-ish comment about it on Facebook in response to an old friend from high school that said I would be disappointed. I might reiterate and expand on it here later, but that's for another time. Leaving the theater I went to the Cold Stone Creamery which is in the same complex, then sat outside in front of the fountain to enjoy the spoils of the war with the line there. As I made quick work of my waxed paper cup of plain sweet cream I realized that everyone else sitting around me on the other benches was with someone else. Usually, that would have made me feel lonely, but this time something was different, something clicked. I wasn't any less happy than they were, I wasn't any less likable, or any less attractive. I wasn't in any way less at all.
It's been well over a year since I was part of a couple. In all that time I thought of myself as alone when the truth of it is I'm still half of what made the nearly 10-year relationship that she and I had together worth having. Sure I miss her, as she was and still is my friend, but I'm still me more or less, and while I may not have 'the other half' of who 'we' were I still have all of who I am.
If that's not good enough for someone to want to spend time with me, then I'm not the one missing out.
A day like any other
So a few months ago I got a two year season pass for Busch Gardens Williamsburg. I've gone a few times since, and I've come to realize that spending three years as a cable tech and climbing ladders has somewhat desensitized me to heights. Sure my ladder was only 28', but still, I think being strapped to a steel cable over a busy street has made me not so impressed by roller coasters. Still fun... though I'm fast realizing that being at the back of the train is much more fun than being at the front.
Anyway, I got there about 4pm, as it seems I just can't get out of the house before noon on Fridays. Good thing I don't work Friday, eh? Decided to hit Alpengeist first, as the park wasn't very busy and I've never ridden the first car on that ride (refer to the first paragraph) and all I can say is WEAK! I'll be sticking to the last car on that one from now on.
Made my way around the park a bit, and to The Big Bad Wolf, which is 25 years old this year. I rode it the first year it was open, and it's still my favorite coaster at the park. Sure it's one of the slower ones, and by today's standards it's pretty tame, but it's still fun.
Sat first car, because the trip through the village is just more fun that way. Usually, I sit alone, as it is a two per row car. Would have this time too, except just as they were about the release the train, the girl that was standing behind me asked them to open the gate so she could get on. Kinda weird, but whatever. Funny, very pretty, seemed to be in her mid 20's, and despite riding on a roller coaster, had a nice little conversation.
Had fun, it's really a nice park.
Wish I'd gotten her phone number.
Hell, wish I'd gotten her name.
Probably wouldn't have made any difference, but even if she'd given me the phone number to a pizza place, it would be nice to at least once be able to say I did that.
Anyway, I got there about 4pm, as it seems I just can't get out of the house before noon on Fridays. Good thing I don't work Friday, eh? Decided to hit Alpengeist first, as the park wasn't very busy and I've never ridden the first car on that ride (refer to the first paragraph) and all I can say is WEAK! I'll be sticking to the last car on that one from now on.
Made my way around the park a bit, and to The Big Bad Wolf, which is 25 years old this year. I rode it the first year it was open, and it's still my favorite coaster at the park. Sure it's one of the slower ones, and by today's standards it's pretty tame, but it's still fun.
Sat first car, because the trip through the village is just more fun that way. Usually, I sit alone, as it is a two per row car. Would have this time too, except just as they were about the release the train, the girl that was standing behind me asked them to open the gate so she could get on. Kinda weird, but whatever. Funny, very pretty, seemed to be in her mid 20's, and despite riding on a roller coaster, had a nice little conversation.
Had fun, it's really a nice park.
Wish I'd gotten her phone number.
Hell, wish I'd gotten her name.
Probably wouldn't have made any difference, but even if she'd given me the phone number to a pizza place, it would be nice to at least once be able to say I did that.
It's like a pinch on the neck, bitches!
So I saw the new Star Trek movie Sunday night. It wasn't bad, really. It wasn't what I was hoping for, but at the same time, it had a little of the feel of the first two movies from way back in the day (I was there, I can say that, yo).
There seems to be some rumbling about a scene at the beginning where little Jimmy Kirk plays the song Sabotage by the Beastie Boys. The issue is about another song of theirs called Intergalactic. For those not intimately familiar with the song, and don't have the lyrics handy, there's a line at the end which says "Like a pinch on the neck of Mr. Spock".
The argument follows that as the song Sabotage is played in scene, that the Beastie Boys existed in the Star Trek universe; it further states that assuming all else is equal that the rest of their catalog would have been the same... which would then include Intergalactic. How could the Beastie Boys know about Spock, Vulcans, or that snazzy little number that's defused so many situations on the bridge of the Enterprise and across the galaxy?
Sure it's possible that in the Star Trek universe they just didn't write that song, or that one line didn't appear in it, but assuming it did it would leave one trying to explain how they knew about our Vulcan friend.
Spock, along with most of the Enterprise's bridge crew was in California in 1986, and our pointy-eared friend dropped a guy on a city bus with a pinch. People talk and getting the people that overheard his name, and the people that saw the bus situation to talk to each other wouldn't have been hard. So it's a very small stretch to think that the story would have made it to these fine young rappers, and eventually into a song about things from out of this world.
That is all I have to say on the issue.
It's all about time travel bitches... and remember that's old school warp factor 10 with a slingshot around a star, anything else is slack.
There seems to be some rumbling about a scene at the beginning where little Jimmy Kirk plays the song Sabotage by the Beastie Boys. The issue is about another song of theirs called Intergalactic. For those not intimately familiar with the song, and don't have the lyrics handy, there's a line at the end which says "Like a pinch on the neck of Mr. Spock".
The argument follows that as the song Sabotage is played in scene, that the Beastie Boys existed in the Star Trek universe; it further states that assuming all else is equal that the rest of their catalog would have been the same... which would then include Intergalactic. How could the Beastie Boys know about Spock, Vulcans, or that snazzy little number that's defused so many situations on the bridge of the Enterprise and across the galaxy?
Sure it's possible that in the Star Trek universe they just didn't write that song, or that one line didn't appear in it, but assuming it did it would leave one trying to explain how they knew about our Vulcan friend.
Spock, along with most of the Enterprise's bridge crew was in California in 1986, and our pointy-eared friend dropped a guy on a city bus with a pinch. People talk and getting the people that overheard his name, and the people that saw the bus situation to talk to each other wouldn't have been hard. So it's a very small stretch to think that the story would have made it to these fine young rappers, and eventually into a song about things from out of this world.
That is all I have to say on the issue.
It's all about time travel bitches... and remember that's old school warp factor 10 with a slingshot around a star, anything else is slack.
I didn't want Apple flashing me anyway!
For those that don't know, let me set the stage:
The new uni-body MacBooks do not have DVI-I ports on them as MacBooks of past. Instead, they come with a Mini DisplayPort. The upshot of this is two-fold; one is a much smaller port allowing for a thinner body and more ports along a side, the other is a lower cost with a higher potential resolution. The downside is you now need even more adapters to use external displays on a new MacBook.
When I got my 13" MacBook in October of 2008 I picked up a Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter for $30. I thought it was a little costly, but I honestly don't know what's inside the little box so who am I to know? I got it mostly so I can use my 32" Sony Bravia XBR4 as a second display. I used it for that during the Presidential election to have a real-time polling map. Of course, because of an issue that Apple didn't seem to want to publicly acknowledge, every five to fifteen minutes the picture would go black for a few seconds.
I was not the only one... a little searching will show a large number of people who were having the same problem. A lot of speculation was afoot about the cause, but it was my feeling that the issue was with the video driver (turns out I wasn't too far off); Apple, in normal Apple fashion, wasn't talking. At home, it wasn't too much of an issue. I could deal with the brief blank screen as it always came back very quickly, at least at home. I did, though, have one occasion where it was a problem. In the episode of Hak5 in which I covered using PHP to batch change the IP settings of a Windows computer, you can see a very brief moment of black just as Paul switched to my MacBook's display because it chose that moment to blank out. Sure it was a minor problem, but still, for something I had to pay extra for to do something I can do with even some of the cheapest of netbooks, even a minor problem is too big.
So just over six months after the adapter came out, there is a firmware update to the adapter which fixes this issue. No idea why it was released with this flaw, no idea why Apple didn't just come out and say "Yes, we know it's broke, but we're working on it.", no idea why it took over six months after release to fix, but the update is out, and I've been running it for over an hour now with no problems at all.
Thanks, Apple, for finally fixing something that there was no excuse for ever having been broken to start with.
The new uni-body MacBooks do not have DVI-I ports on them as MacBooks of past. Instead, they come with a Mini DisplayPort. The upshot of this is two-fold; one is a much smaller port allowing for a thinner body and more ports along a side, the other is a lower cost with a higher potential resolution. The downside is you now need even more adapters to use external displays on a new MacBook.
When I got my 13" MacBook in October of 2008 I picked up a Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter for $30. I thought it was a little costly, but I honestly don't know what's inside the little box so who am I to know? I got it mostly so I can use my 32" Sony Bravia XBR4 as a second display. I used it for that during the Presidential election to have a real-time polling map. Of course, because of an issue that Apple didn't seem to want to publicly acknowledge, every five to fifteen minutes the picture would go black for a few seconds.
I was not the only one... a little searching will show a large number of people who were having the same problem. A lot of speculation was afoot about the cause, but it was my feeling that the issue was with the video driver (turns out I wasn't too far off); Apple, in normal Apple fashion, wasn't talking. At home, it wasn't too much of an issue. I could deal with the brief blank screen as it always came back very quickly, at least at home. I did, though, have one occasion where it was a problem. In the episode of Hak5 in which I covered using PHP to batch change the IP settings of a Windows computer, you can see a very brief moment of black just as Paul switched to my MacBook's display because it chose that moment to blank out. Sure it was a minor problem, but still, for something I had to pay extra for to do something I can do with even some of the cheapest of netbooks, even a minor problem is too big.
So just over six months after the adapter came out, there is a firmware update to the adapter which fixes this issue. No idea why it was released with this flaw, no idea why Apple didn't just come out and say "Yes, we know it's broke, but we're working on it.", no idea why it took over six months after release to fix, but the update is out, and I've been running it for over an hour now with no problems at all.
Thanks, Apple, for finally fixing something that there was no excuse for ever having been broken to start with.
Making GeekTool Menubar friendly
I wouldn't call this part 2 of my GeekTool post, but it is the follow up I mentioned in the last post. GeekTool needs a little tweak to make it play nice on newer systems. Do you need to do this? No... but you'll lose out on some of the features if you don't.
Who needs to do this? Well, I needed to when I installed it on my unibody 13" MacBook, which means Intel Leopard. It worked just fine on my PPC G4 iMac running Leopard without the change. So does that mean it's Intel Leopard or just Intel systems? I don't know... but if the happy little 'pizza' doesn't show up in your menu bar when you check on 'Show Menu' in the PrefPane, then this will fix you right up. In that case, read on.
So you've installed GeekTool, and you're left without pizza, so you can't access the Groups options, forced refresh, or disable/enable commands from your menu bar? The first thing you need to do is download the most recent version of MenuCracker from sourceforge.net. As of this post that would be version 1.4. Also as of this version, the .dmg seems to not actually have anything in it, so you'll want to get the file named UpgradeToUniversalMenuCracker1.4.zip.
Step 1: Download and open the file. That will give you an installer package. Don't actually run the installer.
Step 2: Right-click (control-click or two-finger tap... this is getting out of hand, Apple) the installer package and chose 'Show Package Contents'. You'll get a new Finder window with just a folder named Contents.
Step 3: Open that folder and double click on Archive.pax.gz which will give you another folder named Archive.
Step 4: Now open this folder and copy the file MenuCracker.menu into your work area of choice. The desktop works if you like. Now you can get rid of the installer package if you want, though I like to archive things like this as you never know when they'll vanish off the face of the net.
Now you need to put that file inside of the GeekTool PrefPane; which is a lot easier than it sounds. I will take this time to say that while if you do exactly what I tell you NOTHING BAD WILL HAPPEN™ if you go poking around in other files, and make other changes I will not take responsibility for loss of data, system failure, or all the Canadians bent on world domination (I know that was redundant) coming together and actually succeeding (I for one welcome our new Canadian Overlords) as a result of you not following my instructions to the letter. Come to think of it even if you do exactly what I say you're still on your own if Oh Canada becomes the world anthem.
Step 1: Locate the actual PrefPane file for GeekTool. If you installed it for all users then it will be in /Library/PreferencePanes/ from the root of your boot drive. If you installed it for just one user then it'll be in ~/Library/PreferencePanes/ (which means the Library directory in your home directory) The file is called GeekTool.prefPane and its icon will look just like it does inside of the PrefPane.
Step 2: Open the contents of the file just like you did the installer package, and open the Contents folder.
Step 3: Now open the Resources folder and locate GeekToolMenu.menu and do another Show Package Contents. (these are just directories which carry a special flag that makes them look different to the system and in Finder)
Step 4: Once again we're opening the Contents folder and then the Resources folder.
Step 5: Replace the MenuCracker.menu file with the one you copied out of the installer package. Now you should be able to just disable then enable GeekTool from within the PrefPane, but if that doesn't work a logout and login will take care of it.
You'll now have the pizza in your menu bar, and have access to some of the options without having to open the System Preferences; you'll also have faster access to the PrefPane for GeekTool.
Step 1: Download and open the file. That will give you an installer package. Don't actually run the installer.
Step 2: Right-click (control-click or two-finger tap... this is getting out of hand, Apple) the installer package and chose 'Show Package Contents'. You'll get a new Finder window with just a folder named Contents.
Step 3: Open that folder and double click on Archive.pax.gz which will give you another folder named Archive.
Step 4: Now open this folder and copy the file MenuCracker.menu into your work area of choice. The desktop works if you like. Now you can get rid of the installer package if you want, though I like to archive things like this as you never know when they'll vanish off the face of the net.
Now you need to put that file inside of the GeekTool PrefPane; which is a lot easier than it sounds. I will take this time to say that while if you do exactly what I tell you NOTHING BAD WILL HAPPEN™ if you go poking around in other files, and make other changes I will not take responsibility for loss of data, system failure, or all the Canadians bent on world domination (I know that was redundant) coming together and actually succeeding (I for one welcome our new Canadian Overlords) as a result of you not following my instructions to the letter. Come to think of it even if you do exactly what I say you're still on your own if Oh Canada becomes the world anthem.
Step 1: Locate the actual PrefPane file for GeekTool. If you installed it for all users then it will be in /Library/PreferencePanes/ from the root of your boot drive. If you installed it for just one user then it'll be in ~/Library/PreferencePanes/ (which means the Library directory in your home directory) The file is called GeekTool.prefPane and its icon will look just like it does inside of the PrefPane.
Step 2: Open the contents of the file just like you did the installer package, and open the Contents folder.
Step 3: Now open the Resources folder and locate GeekToolMenu.menu and do another Show Package Contents. (these are just directories which carry a special flag that makes them look different to the system and in Finder)
Step 4: Once again we're opening the Contents folder and then the Resources folder.
Step 5: Replace the MenuCracker.menu file with the one you copied out of the installer package. Now you should be able to just disable then enable GeekTool from within the PrefPane, but if that doesn't work a logout and login will take care of it.
You'll now have the pizza in your menu bar, and have access to some of the options without having to open the System Preferences; you'll also have faster access to the PrefPane for GeekTool.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)