Vanvalkinburgh.org

Yup it’s true the MacBook will get updated with a blazing fast intel atom processor, it should be shipping sometime next week. You can view the benchmark of it here. It got a pretty impressive 990, I assume lower numbers are better, so it did better then my mac mini that got 2542. As you can see the motherboard and bios are both by Apple.

Update
I just did a benchmark on my MacBookPro6,1, you can view the results here.

And there you go, obviously it can be faked, I’m sure I could of changed the processor and all that other info too, but I was to lazy. And obviously their program should check the data before submitting it.

Oh yeah have fun apple fan boys believing everything you read.

I wish they would of explained how it worked…

I got my eye-fi card yesterday, ordered $50 worth of storage from google. Didn’t take 2 or four weeks like it says. Cheaper then buying the card by itself, and I got 200 GB of storage from google. It’s good for lazy people, no need to plug camera into computer, or take SD card out and put in SD card reader. To bad they didn’t give me the better Eye-Fi card Pro 2 for free, it auto deletes pics, and has wireless N, which is faster then wireless G. The card I got is good enough for me for now though. Guess If I had a DSLR then I might want the bigger card that auto deletes.

Oh yeah all Eye-Fi cards are made in the USA.

Was looking at my comcast email that I don’t use, and comcast sent it an email saying they have a usage meter, so now you’ll know if your getting close to your 250 GB bandwidth limit. You can view your data usage at http://customer.comcast.com, just like the email says. My router running dd-wrt tells me the usage too. Only the primary user can view it, so I can’t.

The current data usage allowance for the Comcast High-Speed Internet service is 250GB per month. This means that the vast majority of our customers – around 99% currently – will not come close to using 250GB of data in a month, and do not need to check the usage meter.

You probably don’t need to check it though, unless your in the 1% group.

I’m going to buy a boxee box, when it comes out. Under 200 bucks, can play more formats then xbox 360, and does flash. It even has two USB ports, so I could hook an external hard drive up to it.

Update
New blog post on boxee’s site, says it’ll ship in the 2nd quarter of this year.

Looks like google released the Nexus One today. It’s only $529 unlocked or $179 with a two year contract. I got a new phone not to long ago, and it was only 200 bucks with a 50 dollar rebate. Seeing as I barely use it, I probably won’t spend $529 on a phone.

Google is a moron false advertising their crippled Chrome on mac. They need to fix ad so it says “A slower way to browse the web.”, that way people don’t accidentally install it. You can fix it yourself, click Develop in safari, then the web inspector, then search for faster, and replace with slower. Only you’ll see it, but at least you won’t accidentally install Chrome. Or click the X and it’ll go away, till you clear cookies.

I want one of those tablets. I’d pay more then 300 bucks for one. If Apple released a tablet based on iPhone OS I won’t buy it, rather have an android tablet. The Pixel Qi screens are cool.

Just renewed my A Small Orange hosting, it’s good for another year. Will decide next year, if I’ll renew or not. Probably will, might not update site much though.

Took me a while to get google sync setup on my Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, as I couldn’t find Mail for Exchange. I did find it under settings in messages, but clicking on it didn’t do anything. Then I finally found it under Internet in the menu. All you have to do is install the optional update mail for exchange, and then click internet, and there will be a mail for exchange under there. Then follow google’s instructions. Leave the domain field blank and click next, and you will see the other options. It doesn’t look the same as google’s screenshots. Don’t sync tasks, cause it isn’t supported, and then it will fail to sync.

Got my OTTERBOX Defender Case for iPod touch 2G, 3G today from amazon. It’s a pretty nice case, the only thing I don’t like about it is the screen protector, it had bubbles, but easy solution is to remove the screen protector. Or you can try using baby powder. I don’t care about the screen protector, so easier for me to just remove it.

From OTTERBOX Defender Case for iPod touch 2G, 3G

Bought the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic from amazon earlier today. It has a 50 dollar rebate, the Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition has a 50 dollar rebate too. Amazon says the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic won’t be in stock till the 29th. I was going to buy the Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition, but don’t really need GPS or 3G, no data plan. Guess GPS might help me find the bathroom in the house, but I’m pretty sure I know where that is.

Update
Amazon says it’ll be in stock tomorrow now.

Update 11/28/09
Now amazon says “Not in stock; order now and we’ll deliver when available”, nokiausa.com doesn’t have the black one in stock either. Maybe I should get the Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition, that way I wont miss the toilet. Put a marker on the toilet.

Update
Cancelled from amazon, and ordered from newegg.com.

Update 11/30/09
Newegg lowered the price to $188, and you still get visa $50 gift card. Fuckers lowered the price a couple days after I bought it, oh well, at least I get $50 gift card still. And its sold out on newegg now.

Looks like there’s a new version of parallels desktop, I’d have to pay $50 bucks to upgrade. On the features page it says it has OpenGL 2.1 support for guest operating systems, would be interesting to see if serious sam works better in ubuntu or windows in parallels. It is installing the trial, said I’ll have to update the virtual machines, not sure how long that’ll take. Hmm don’t think it updated the virtual machines, if it did it doesn’t take very long. Oh yeah I paid 50 bucks for the old version, was on sale or something. I also got a free upgrade from 3.0 to 4.0. They should give me a free upgrade to 5.0. This update might be worth 50 bucks though. The trial lasts 20 days.

It isn’t completely dead yet, but will be after I throw it away. It fell yesterday, no idea when, or how long it was on the ground. Got an error saying the number of bad sectors reached emergency level or something. Rebooted it and the error went away, it seemed fine till today. Should of tried backing the data up yesterday. Every time I tried backing the data up to a USB drive, it would go into emergency mode. Not sure if it was under warranty, probably not anymore, since I opened it to remove the drive. Have it connected to MSI Nettop 100 and another drive too, getting errors trying to copy some of the data. There isn’t anything that important on it, and I was using less then 200 GB. I got some of the music, I have most of the music on an external hard drive anyways. I probably won’t buy any buffalo products again, it was nice while it lasted. The only reason I can think of for it falling is the ethernet cable was kind of tight, so maybe the switch got moved and it fell. Glad I didn’t put any important data on it, now I just need to get my printer hooked up to the network again. Don’t really need a NAS, rather have another external hard drive to backup my other external hard drive.

If you buy a linkstation, put it somewhere where it won’t fall, and back the data on it up. It has a samsung drive in it, might check to see if its under warranty, and get a new drive, could make my MSI Nettop 100 a NAS, even know I don’t need one, probably won’t though to lazy. Could get a new drive and put it in an enclosure.

Not going to bother trying to get a new drive, just read the warning on their warranty page. Checked to see if the drive was still under warranty, and said to contact the manufacture… Maybe I shouldn’t of opened it.

There’s one pic of the inside, already removed the drive. Hmm could put it back together, and not store anything on the drive, just use it to share the printer.

Put it back together, I formatted the partition with shares on it in ubuntu. It says it is checking the disk, should work as a print server. Oh yeah I broke the light on the front. It failed to mount it, probably cause I didn’t format it as XFS. Going to format it with web interface.

Update
It was being really loud last night so tried turning it off, but didn’t work so had to unplug it. Probably won’t bother plugging it in again. Plugged my printer into airport express.

Thinking I should get a LaCie Rugged All-Terrain hard drive, that way if it falls it probably won’t die. Synology Disk Station DS109j Economical 1-Bay SATA NAS Server for Personal and Home Use-White looks like a nice NAS solution. Hmm read review, guess you can’t attach external drives by USB and share those, that kind of sucks.

If you pre order it from amazon you’ll get a $20 off a future video game purchase. I got release date delivery for free, still have amazon prime. Good thing about the new call of duty is you can blow stuff up, like walls.

New Breach Gameplay Mechanic – Players can now blaze their own paths through the game by “Breaching” formerly impregnable obstacles like walls and doors with explosives.

That’s what I like about battlefield bad company.

Looks like apple just released 10.6.1, its only around 70 MB. Surprised it’s not on tuaw.com or macrumors.com, or 123macmini.com. You can read what’s new in 10.6.1 here. Ahh it’s on macrumors.com now.

Improves compatibility with some Sierra Wireless 3G modems
Addresses an issue in which some printer compatibility drivers might not appear properly in the Add Printer browser
Addresses an issue that might cause DVD playback to stop unexpectedly
Addresses an issue that might make it difficult to remove an item from the Dock
Resolves an issue in which the Command-Option-T keyboard shortcut would sometimes bring up the special characters menu in applications such as Mail and TextEdit
Addresses instances in which auto account setup in Mail might not work
Resolves issues when sending mail with certain SMTP servers
Addresses an issue in which Motion 4 could become unresponsive
Includes an update to Adobe Flash Player plug-in version 10.0.32.18

It only cost me a whooping $342.40 with one day shipping and tax. One day shipping is 16 bucks, two day shipping is 10 bucks, so paid 6 bucks more for one day. Since I ordered directly from apple, I’ll probably have to sign for it, not a big deal, don’t want anyone to steal it. My first gen 8 GB touch was 300 bucks when it first came out. Probably give my old touch to sister. Oh yeah the new nano’s have a video camera, to bad the touch’s don’t. Sweet I’ll be able to fit all my music on it, I only have 14.90 GB of music. The new iTunes isn’t showing up in software update yet for me anyways. iTunes found the 3.1 firmware for my touch though. Home sharing will be nice, then my mom can get all the apps I bought on her touch.

Update
Looks like you can pre order the 3rd generation iPod touch’s on amazon now. Apple site says shipping in 24 hours, who knows when amazon will have them in stock. I’d only pre order from amazon if I had a gift card.

Update
APPLE charged me $17.39, have no idea why, or what that charge is for. Shows up on my bank’s site. They charged me that after charging me $342.40. Might need to cancel debit card, apple might be a thief, receipt makes no mention of this $17.39 charge. Only way to find anything out is if I call the fuckers. Never ordering from apple online store again, assholes. Hmm look and see if on bank I can do something to stop it, no point in calling apple, looks like there a bunch of assholes. Wonder if I cancel the order, if they’ll refund $17.39 too.

Oh yeah don’t bother trying to use online chat in store to figure it out, you’ll get a lame response like below.

I am sorry you are having an issue.
Although I am here to assist online shoppers with their apple.com product questions, I am happy to assist you by guiding you to the answers you need
The number for Customer Service and Sales Support is 1-800-676-2775.

It might just be a temporary thing, like when you first use your debit card or credit card at some online stores.

Sometimes, though, the merchant doesn’t know the transaction amount until after it’s authorized. A good example of this is at the gas pump. Before you fill up your tank, you’re asked to swipe your debit or credit card to authorize your purchase up to a specified amount. Say, for example, the authorization request is for $50. This amount also shows in your Account Summary as a pending transaction. Your gasoline purchase ends up being $22.50. That’s the actual charge that will be paid to the merchant. In rare instances, the actual transaction is posted to the account before we receive an updated list of pending transactions. In that case, it may look like you’re being charged for the authorized amount of $50 and the actual purchase amount of $22.50. In reality, the pending charge will usually be removed with the next update. In no case will you be charged both amounts.

But usually shows up before the other transaction, but considering bank is a slow ass, its hard to say. They should make it a dollar authorization like every other online store I’ve used does. Bastards.

I’m guessing the $17.39 charge will go away, or the next email from them will tell me what it is…

Incase you didn’t know there has been a mac version of Quake Live for a while now. I get lag in some games, like the one in the video below.

Every time I click FN + F8(play/pause button on apple keyboard) iTunes opens, didn’t do that in Leopard. I use Cog to play music, not deleting iTunes, need it for my iPod touch. Doesn’t look like I’m the only one with that problem. Thanks apple for being a dick. Guess I could keep iTunes open and select the Store tab, but I don’t want iTunes open, then it will use my valuable ram.

Update
Possible solution found here. Didn’t try it yet, you need to edit the file in a terminal and as root.

sudo mv /System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin/ /System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin.bak/
sudo cp /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.RemoteUI.plist /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.RemoteUI.plist.back
sudo nano /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.RemoteUI.plist

and replace the contents with below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Disabled</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</plist>

save it and reboot. Credit goes to forum user FortyRock on forums.plexapp.com.

Also sounds like it won’t control the volume on your mac after you do that, doesn’t really matter to me, there’s a knob on my speakers to control volume.

Just did it and it works.

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