My new moo.com cards arrived this morning, this makes me happy
The last time I ordered cards from moo.com, I didn’t really get the idea, this time around I spent the time, thought about it and put my own graphic together. This is the avatar I use on most social network sites, twitter, forums and so on. This gives some form of real world tie in with my “digital self”. Additionally the moo cards are “for fun”, and general networking, I wouldn’t use them for conducting the business of PeritusVentures or NXEQ for example, those have their own full sized business cards and are all corporate
Moo.com have really improved the design tool since my last order, which was back in Feb 2009. Its a lot slicker, and the font options for the text side of the card are much much nicer. Interestingly, because I didn’t really “get it” last time, I didn’t really hand out many of my old cards – it had a list of websites on rather than any useful contact information!
With hindsight, I wish I had put my PGP key on the card instead of my skype name – ah well, next time!
If you’ve not ordered from Moo.com before, use this discount code when you checkout 2RB2CK for 15% off of your first order
I have a HP TC1100 tablet PC, awesome little device for reading and browsing on – much more functional than the disappointing iPad. Anyway, I recently replaced the hard disk with a CF card + IDE to CF adapter – increasing the battery life, reducing boot time, making the unit quieter, and generally faster.
I had to reinstall XP tablet edition on it – after searching around for ages and ages to find restore CDs for it online (bought mine second hand, no restore cds), I opted to just buy some from HP technical support. Annoyingly they don’t make them available for download, and I therefore had to wait near on 2 weeks for delivery.
Download HP TC1100 tablet restore CDs
You can download the ISOs from me for the small fee of £5.00. Simply make payment using the PayPal button below and I will email you a link to the files within a few hours. These CDs do not require an activation key as it is supplied with your tablet, under your battery. You won’t be prompted for one when running through the install – but the restore image will only work on the TC1100 (checks bios). They are therefore fully licensed and will accept all current and future Microsoft Updates.
You will receive an email with links to two ISO images. The first is the system restore CD, the second is the drivers CD that would have come with the tablet originally. Both of the images work, and were created from the physical restore media I purchased from HP.
There are no licensing issues with distribution this way. I am doing this merely for convinience, you can of course purchase the physical media from HP directly, be ready to pay a lot more than £5.00 for delivery! If you own the HP TC1100, you are licensed/permitted to run XP Tablet.
Right, so you’re on foursquare.com and you’ve found the neat little function to add your twitter connections as friends. Great, but you want a way to add all your connections without hitting “add” a few hundred times. A feature lacking at the time I wrote this blog post.
Solution
Install the imacros add-on for firefox (google it, its free).
Goto the foursquare.com import page, tell it your twitter username and the list of potential connections loads up. Now create a macro, a blank one is fine, edit it and replace everything in there with the code below (click “Continue Reading” below).
Run the macro and it will hit add for you 350 times
I’m @hamlesh on twitter if you have any questions or need help… or if you just want to chat, I get lonely you know!
PS: I KNOW its not my most elegant work, but it was late, and I just needed a brute way to do it – fixing other peoples UI shortcomings client side is annoying enough! And yes, I generated this with a bash while loop rather than manually incrementing the POS (before certain people I know ask!)
Upgrading the hard disk in a uni-body aluminium MacBook Pro is really very easy.
First, find a suitable hard disk, I’ve opted for the Samsung HM500II (500GB) SATAII 2.5″. Personally I don’t think solid state hard disks are at a point where the balance between capacity and cost makes sense.
Now before you start, take a full time machine backup – this really is the simplest way to move your current system to the new hard disk. You won’t need to fiddle about reinstalling and configuring things. When taking your backup, check to make sure you haven’t excluded any folders from the backup. I normally have my “Downloads” folder excluded from the normal time machine backups.
1. Open up the bottom of the laptop – my desk always has an antistatic work mat on it, but take the regular precautions!
2. Unscrew the little holder pictured below and lift it out.
3. Lift out the hard disk (which I’ve already done) and carefully disconnect the connectors.
4. Remove the screws from the side of the hard disk, you’ll need to put these on your new disk. You will need a torx (Star) 5mm screwdriver for this. If you don’t have a 5mm torx, you could use a pair of pliers to carefully unscrew them and hand tighten them on the new drive. Invest in a set of torx screwdrivers, they are worth it, and handy.
5. Put everything back together, take care when screwing the case back together, its really easy to slip with the screwdriver and scratch the aluminium – which will make you cry, trust me
6. Boot your system from your install DVD. Using the “Disk Utility” create a new partition, then use the “Restore from backup” option on the “Utilities” menu. Connect your time machine backup drive and follow the onscreen instructions. it took roughly 1.5 hours to restore my 120Gb system.
I did run into a small problem after the restore, which is apparently quite common. “Quick look” stopped working, this is where you select a file and press the space bar to get an instant preview of the contents. I found a fix, and its documented here.
I’ve recently replaced the hard drive in my MacBook Pro with a higher capacity one (write up to follow). After restoring from time machine I found that quick look no longer works. If you try to quick look a file (select file, press space bar) you just get a black box. If however you select two files, hit the space bar, then click on the index sheet button (little button with 4 windows in a 2×2 stack), quick look seems to work – but only in the index sheet.
This is a common problem, but took some forum trauling to find a solution, so i’ll save you the work.
Simply reinstall the Mac OS X v10.6.2. Update. I was running 10.6.2 already, and it simply reinstalled over the top.
If this doesn’t fix the problem, boot your MacBook from the install DVD, select Utilities > Disk Utility, and “Repair Disk Permissions” – you’ll have to boot from the install media if you are repairing the same drive that your system boots from.
Good luck – post a comment and let me know if this works for you. You could always talk to me on twitter too
This post is a little on the ranty side, but there is a solution at the bottom
I really really really hate voicemail, I can’t even begin to find the words to describe how much I hate voicemail. To me, voicemail is one of those technological advancements that should have remained in the last century, let alone the last decade. Its an old solution to a common problem that still exists today.
This little extract from the Dilbert cartoons should explain part of how the whole “voicemail experience” makes me feel;
This really does happen to me, people call me up and either;
1. Leave long messages – which are better off conveyed in email.
2. Leave short messages telling me that they’ve sent me an email or to check my email and call them back.
3. Normal people leave short messages with their details and ask me to call them back.
Ok, so now you’re thinking leaving a short message can’t be a bad thing, and thats surely the point of voicemail… well its not. Perhaps it used to be, but thats no longer the case. There are much better ways to convey the information that I have missed your call and need to give you a call back – yep, a text message. One would also be able to read the sms message and process the information in a much shorter time frame than dialing into voicemail and listening to the message. Inefficient and stupid, simple as.
So i’ve tried a number of different things over the years;
1. Turn off voicemail completely – only to get people whine that “oh, I tried to leave you a message but there was no voicemail”… thanks for informing me of what I already knew… yes, I turned my voicemail off, yes it was on purpose, and yes, if it was important enough, you’d have found SOME OTHER WAY to get the message to me.
2. Explicit asking people to leave a “SHORT MESSAGE” – this worked initially, but people soon reverted back to leaving long messages.
I had pretty much given up trying to find a solution. Then one day, salvation came, unexpectedly. I was calling a customer and they were busy, but instead of getting asked to leave a voicemail message (which I don’t tend to do either!) a little recording started to play “this person cannot take your call, please try again later or send a text message”, on repeat.
Finally, there was a solution out there! The bad news is that its a setting/option provided by their network operator. A facility which my provider, Orange, does not.
No matter, I found another way. This works on Orange, it may be different for your service provider. Using AT&T’s text to speech demo I created this wav file recording “The person you are calling cannot take your call, please try again later or send a text message”.
Then within the Orange voicemail, there is the option for an “extended absence” greeting, now the major difference between this and a normal greeting is that you can opt to not accept voicemail messages while your extended absence greeting is active. So using a pair of headphones right infront of the mic pickup on my mobile and some careful timing; now whenever someone calls and I am otherwise occupied they hear the synthised voice of Crystal, asking them to try again later or send a text.
PS: Yes I know Google Voice would be the other solution to this problem, but its not available outside of the US, and I doubt they will bring the service to the UK, not for a while anyway.
I’m waiting to invest in a 2000mm telescope that has a Nikon camera mount, then i’ll be able to take some more detailed shots and of other astronomical objects.
Above was taken just before the “blue moon” eclipse on the 31st Dec. Annoyingly and upsettingly a cloud covered the moon after this and blocked my view of the moon for the rest of the night
This was taken on the night of the 1st Jan I believe, the moon was really low in the sky making it look bloodshot.
I’ll return to my usual petrol head techie posts soon – honest
I’ve been unhappy with the standard flash on my camera for a while now, and from time to time find myself in dire need of a flash gun which can be pointed at the ceiling (think indoor shots, no natural light, etc). Instances of need however are not frequent enough for me to invest in a Nikon SB-600 (yet), but they are frequent enough to be a cause of great irritation and sleepless nights. Ok, perhaps not sleepless nights, but you know what I mean.
So, while looking around the shed for a hammer (all 3 of my hammers seem to have grown legs – don’t ask!), I came across an old flash gun that I picked up many many years ago from eBay for a few quid.
(Yes I know its a rubbish photo, taken using my phone)
After excitedly fitting it to my camera, I decided that its “intelligence” was very limited, and I mean VERY limited! There was also no way to point it upwards – so out came the cardboard, scissors and sticky tape.
Ta da I’ve set it to full power manual mode, the camera can only tell it when to trigger, but at least its brighter than the standard flash, and its firing light upwards.
Here is an early test shot, taken indoors, my desk lamp was the only source of light in the room.
(Isn’t this just a lovely little espresso cup – recent present from the better half)
Ok the shot is blurry, but the result I’m looking for is the gauge and quality of the light, which is spot on (for a cheap little flash gun and some cardboard).
(Odd box of cables and bits I need to put in the shed)
Again the only source of light in the room other than the flash gun is my desk lamp. I’m somewhat pleased with the result
Naturally, give it a few months and I’ll be blogging about how this setup was rubbish and I invested in an SB-600 Then again, this “natural” hardware progression is the better way to go in my opinion. Fudge/Bodge it until you know how to use the tools, then get good tools.
