Vanvalkinburgh.org

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.

Namecheap just sent me an email with some coupons, you can see them below.

SCHOOLTIME – 10% off any shared, business and reseller package
HOSTSWITCH – 15% off any shared package and business package
USE4VPS – 10% off any VPS package

Save money on all your new domains with coupon code DREAMTIME. For transfers, use coupon code SWITCH2NC.

I don’t need new hosting, paid for a year of hosting from A Small Orange. Oh yeah if you want $5 off your hosting from A Small Orange use coupon %$5offorangey or %#sxt53yes if you want 15% off.

I pre ordered it from amazon, and just got it today. Finder is faster, and so is copying a file to a SAMBA share, doesn’t look like I have to use FTP now to copy files to my linkstation. Only noticed one program not working, Cameras doesn’t do anything when I put SD card into card reader, it use to automatically download my pics, but not anymore. Kind of sucks, no update yet either. My printer is still in Printers, so I think it works, haven’t tried printing anything. My printer is on the printer compatibility list. Time machine doesn’t really seem faster, think it might actually be slower, never really paid any attention to it, so I don’t know for sure. Think it might of freed some space up, had around 50 GB free in leopard, now have around 60 GB free.

Update
Cameras was updated and works with my SD card now.

Apple just announced on their site that OS X Snow Leopard will be out on the 28th. Looks like the rumors got something right finally. Wonder if amazon will ship it two days before the 28th so I get it on the 28th, I pre ordered it from amazon. I know you can get release date delivery when you pre order video games on amazon. Hmm so if I pre order directly from apple I’ll be guaranteed to get it Friday? I’ll give amazon a while to update their page, cause I’m to lazy to cancel it.

Hmm looks like on apple, a signature will be required. Good thing I didn’t click place my order, now I should re pre order on amazon. They claim to have an easy way to pre sign for your order. Bastards I don’t want to sign anything. How would I get it on August 28th when their shipping policy page says “Standard Shipping — This option is free on all qualifying products. Delivers within 6 business days after shipping.”, and I can’t change shipping method. I want them to ship it by mail, then I might not have to sign it.

Re pre ordered from amazon now nobody has to sign for package. Probably won’t get it till after 5 pm though, and not sure what day. Probably by September 1st.

Update
Just emailed amazon asking if it’ll ship on the 28th or if I’ll get it on the 28th. Lots of morons canceling their amazon pre order, cause they must get it on Friday, and are to stupid to email amazon. Oh yeah and shipping is free for me, I selected free two day shipping, oh yeah I have prime. Might take em 12 hours to reply.

Update 8/25/09
Amazon said they’d ship it on the 28th, so I should get it on September 1st then. Not canceling cause I don’t care if I get it on the release day or not.

Update
OS X Snow leopard is now $4 off on amazon, and I just got a gift card from amazon for around 17 bucks, way cheaper then apple now. Think the gift card was for the associate program or something. They have a pre order price guarantee so I shouldn’t have to cancel it and re order it at the new price.

Update 8/28/09
Amazon says it is shipping soon, but the product page says not in stock till the 30th. I was only charged $9.22, thanks to my amazon gift card that amazon sent me, and the pre order price guarantee. Can’t get that price from apple, cheaper then the upgrade for recent macs. Guessing I’ll get it sometime next week.

Looks like a pretty cool device, only $199 on amazon, discount applied at checkout, saw it on the Today’s Deals page on amazon. I’m not going to buy it, waiting to see if apple releases a new iPod touch. That thing has GPS though. The OS it has on it looks like moblin, just went to their site, and says it has linux on it. Hmm it has a full size USB port and a mini size USB port.

Ahh it’s basically like a netbook, except done right, touch screen and looks like moblin to me. The product page, says it has Intel Atom processor and 512 MB of ram. Damn maybe I should buy that thing. Could buy it and then sell it. Newegg has the white one for around 400 bucks.

Wonder if there coming out with a new model or something. Guess you could plug a 1 TB external drive into that USB port, it won’t be very portable after you do that though, maybe get a 500 GB laptop drive and put in enclosure or buy one already in enclosure, and tape it on the back, now that’s more space then the touch has.

Around an hour left for sale price. Not going to buy it, saving my money.

Update 8/23/09
Looks like the price is $199 again on amazon. Wonder if it’ll go down to $99.99, then I might buy it.

Looks like you can get one of those small/slow netbook’s for $179 on mwave.com. I had a Acer Aspire One once, and the 8 GB SSD drive in it was slow as hell, so I sold the pile of shit on ebay. I personally won’t buy any netbooks again. Oh yeah you can get another 10 dollars off if you use the coupon “BK2SCHOOL”, that coupon works with anything over 100 dollars. Apple should make an iPod touch with a bigger screen, I’d buy one of those.

Update
No longer available, but you can get other netbooks for less then 200 bucks on the same site, listed below.

ASUS EEEPC900-BK028 Eee PC 900 20G netbook – black intel mobile cpu / 1gb / 20gb SSD hdd / 8.9″ wsvga / 4 cell battery / 802.11bg wireless / Linux $179.99

ASUS EEEPC701SD-WHI004X netbook celeron m 512mb ram/ 8gb hdd/ 7″/ camera/ xp home (pearl white) $139.99

ASUS refurb EEEPC701SD-BLK008L linux galaxy intel celeron m/ 512mb ram/ 8gb hdd/ 7″/ camera/ linux (black) $129.99

All those mac blogs, and mac rumor sites, made a big typo, August should of been September. Apple emailed my ass all of this info. They might announce on August 28th the release date of September 28th for Snow Leopard, if they feel like it. They also said they might delay the release till December 28th, just to piss all you hardcore ass fucking apple fanboys off.

Hmm maybe Mail won’t crash as much in Snow Leopard.

Lots of rumors that OS X Snow Leopard will come out on the 28th instead of sometime in September. Think I’ll pre order it, then I don’t have to remember to pre order it, and might get it early or on the day it comes out. Damn just pre ordered it on amazon, $31.52 damn tax.

“Order now and we’ll notify you via e-mail when we have an estimated delivery date for this item. It will ship separately. You can cancel at any time.”

Sweet now I’ll know if I’m getting it before September maybe, I suppose it could show up before they email me. I can cancel it though anytime before they ship it.

I’ll probably pre order Battlefield Bad Company 2 a couple days before it comes out, no point in pre ordering something a month in advance.