Technology Tidbits

Red Hat & VMWare Network

veggiefrog — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 18:51:36 +0000

I ran into a problem with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 and VMWare, where after a ‘yum update’ the network was not working. Something with the update disabled the VMWare VMXNET 3 drivers and running ‘vmware-config-tools.pl’ again fixed the problem.

Canon Shutter Actuation’s

veggiefrog — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:44:54 +0000

When selling or buying a used camera, one important piece of information you want to know is how many shutter actuation’s are on the camera. The Canon 40D is rated for 100,000 actuation’s, which means buying a camera with 90,000 would be a bad idea unless it’s really cheap. If you want to check your camera, David at astrojargon as created a utility: http://astrojargon.net/40DShutterCount.aspx. There is both a Windows and Mac version, but it only works with a limited range of cameras:

This works on any of the Canon DIGIC III/IV DSLRs except the 1D* series. This means it will work for the 40D, the 50D, the 450D, the 500D, and the 1000D.

Remote Disk on Macbook

veggiefrog — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:59:23 +0000

The Macbook Air comes with a feature to allow you to use another computers DVD drive to install software, but for some reason it only works on Macbook Air. To enable this feature on other Mac computers, the following commands can be entered in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser EnableODiskBrowsing -bool true
defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser ODSSupported -bool true

After the commands have been entered, reboot the computer and you will now have the option of Remote Disc in Finder.

Originally found at: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/265078_how-to-really-enable-dvd-drive-sharing-on-a-non-air-macbook

How to clean ink off your LCD Screen

veggiefrog — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 17:17:05 +0000

If found this great article by Donncha O Caoimh on how to clean ball point pen off your LCD screen. He recommends using Isopropyl Alcohol, which you can buy as “Alcotip Swabs”. Check out the article for more information: http://ocaoimh.ie/clean-ball-point-pen-lcd-easily/

Creating ISO’s on Mac

veggiefrog — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:30:20 +0000

How to create an ISO image from a CD on a Mac:

Insert the CD, and open Terminal
Find the mount point
#~> mount
/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
/dev/disk1s0 on /Volumes/CDImage (cd9660, local, nodev, nosuid, read-only, noowners)
Unmount the disk
#~> diskutil unmountDisk disk1
Unmount of all volumes on disk1 was successful
Use dd to create the ISO
#~> dd if=/dev/disk1 of=cdimage.iso

Windows XP Printing on Airport Extreme

veggiefrog — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:57:05 +0000

After spending time trying to avoid installing anything on Windows XP to print to an Airport Extreme shared printer, I broke down and installed Bonjour for Windows 1.0.5. It was a small download, and it appears to only install a helper application which setup the TCP/IP printer port(s) for your printer(s). It immediately found the shared printers on the network and had them up and running within seconds.

Printing now seems to work flawlessly from Windows XP to my Brother Laser Printer.

Why you should use Gmail

veggiefrog — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:24:01 +0000

Many people use the email address given to them by their employer or ISP, but this can cause problems. If you change jobs or ISP’s then your email address will no longer work and friends, family and business contacts will no longer be able to get in touch with you. Chris Brogan today wrote a good article explaining why you should Buy a domain or at least use Gmail:

Several friends of mine recently left their job all at once (the company had a mass layoff). I checked in LinkedIN, and it looks like I’m now missing a way to directly contact at least 70 of them, because they used their business email address as their primary point of contact.

So go out there and sign up with Gmail, and if you are more adventurous purchase your own domain.

UI Testing and Screen Recording Software

veggiefrog — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:44:45 +0000

In reading a recent blog post from Coding Horrors about listening to your users, it got me thinking: Could software companies utilize screen recording software to analyze user interaction?

What I envision is users record their computer desktops while using the software. The resulting movie is sent back to the software company to analyze and determine out how the user interacts with the software. How much time does the user spend going through menus? Are short cut keys used over menu items? I’m sure somebody with more letters behind their name than me could think of many more questions.

Of course there are the obstacles to figure out, such as: licensing of screen capture software, should it be included in the program, do users act differently if they know they are being recorded? Is this a feasible idea or have I just spent too much time in front of my computer?

PodCamp and Democamp

veggiefrog — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:20:58 +0000

What a weekend it has been with Podcamp on the weekend and Democamp last night. Over the last 3 days I have met some great people from Toronto and beyond. I have taken in so much information my head is still buzzing but I am slowly starting to wind down.

To start with Podcamp was held at Ryerson University on Saturday and Sunday in their communications building. I’m not sure the final numbers but for myself it was a huge success. I met so many wonderful people there I don’t even know where to start. The sessions were amazing and the biggest thing I got from the weekend was the idea of Personal Branding. The idea we as individuals are a brand and how to foster that brand help it grow. After having time to absorb the idea I have made the decision to converge all my online efforts into one space under the domain www.andrewrivett.com. Watch for several changes to this site and my others in the coming days as I slowly transform them into my new website.

Podcamp also showed me the value of Twitter and how to properly use it and not spam all my friends with useless information. Vergel showed us how to collect stats for our blogs and get started in analyzing those statistics to improve our blogs. Chris Brogan showed me the value of starting conversions on my blog not just talking at people, but talking with people. Those were the main things that stood out for me, but there were so many small things I learned throughout and can’t even remember where or what session. Next year I will have to take better notes so I can remember and give the proper credits.

After such a fun filled weekend full of excitement and energy I was glad to take Monday to decompress somewhat before heading out to DemoCamp at the Board of Trade in Toronto. It was an evening full of amazing demos, well done ignite sessions and some great conversions at the bar afterwards. The people were super friendly and you could easily go up to anybody, introduce yourself and instantly a conversion was started. It didn’t matter if you were a CEO, investor or a developer such as myself we could always find something in common. I didn’t get a chance to met everybody I wanted to, but I’ll be going to the next one for sure.

Overall I had a great time, and if you haven’t been I highly recommend it. If you did attend either event this weekend, what are your thoughts?

Wii Therapy

veggiefrog — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:06:59 +0000

Wired recently wrote an article on how the Nintendo Wii is being used by hospitals for physical therapy.

Some call it “Wiihabilitation.” Nintendo’s Wii video game system, whose popularity already extends beyond the teen gaming set, is fast becoming a craze in rehab therapy for patients recovering from strokes, broken bones, surgery and even combat injuries.

I think this would be a great use for the Wii. It gets people to move around and exercise without ever realizing it. Perhaps somebody should open a Wii Gym.