Where is the Googlebot? I haven’t seen it since the 28th across about 6 different sites I monitor. One site had a visit on the 3rd but not since then. This is not normal. Is it related to the bigdaddy rollout? Anyone else seeing…or not seeing in this case the same thing?
So I had planned on waiting until tomorrow to work on this, but after work tonight I couldn’t wait. I scrounged up an XP CD we had collecting dust in the bottom of a desk drawer. After about 2.5 hours of playing around this post is coming to you from Windows XP on my MacBook Pro.
So far everything works great. Everything being my wireless adapter and Firefox. It is getting late and I will no doubt load up my favorite apps tomorrow and put this through it’s paces a bit more. It is also very fast, it is a fresh XP install though….I’m sure it will slow down.
As for the process I had to get the firmware update and OSX update. Then I only ran into one snag. There was some kind of problem with my hard drive partition. The installer suggested that I run Disk Utility from my startup disk and run a repair. Well that was at the office, so instead booted single-user mode and ran fsck. One the volume was repaired I was off and running. A very smooth hour long XP install. More to come on this topic I am sure.
First problem to solve….how to write click with a trackpad that only has one button!
I found this very cool program that you should check out if you are interested in multi-camera webcasting. I stumbled across it one day while actually looking for something else and realized immediately what great product it was. The program is called wirecast. It runs on Mac and PC, however, I have only actually used the Mac version so far.
Basically the program acts as a small production studio for multi-camera broadcasting. Hook up a few firewire cameras and you are ready to go. You can switch between any camera with a multitude of built-in transistions. You can apply titles, link in keynote presentations, graphics, or basically whatever you want.
It was exactly what we were looking for to webcast our church services. We had been wanting to take our webcast up a notch from a guy with a single video camera in the back of the auditorium, to something that would look more professional. However, we also didn’t have thousands of dollars to spend on video mixing equipment. Wirecast has been a great solution. We can achieve a very high quality production without any post-editing.
I think the software is like $400-500, and for what you can do there is no better software for webcasting.
I’m all moved into my new MacBook Pro, and my Powerbook G4 has reached the hands of its new owner. So here is my ever so important opinion on the MacBook Pro.
Apple has really been marketing the speed improvements of the new Core Duo processor. Now that I have been using it for a few days, my thoughts are that Universal or Native Binaries do seem to have a speed improvement, all though certainly not the 4x’s Apple has been trying to claim.
Apps that run through Rosseta (PowerPC app translator software for you non Apple people) actually do pretty well. For instance Photoshop runs ok for a casual user such as myself, but I recommend that professional graphics designers wait until Adobe gets universal binaries out….which from my reading should be late 2010!
As for the hardware there are some notable enhancements. The built in iSight camera did a lot better than I thought. I have been thinking about startring a video blog, and it might help me. The system is also a little thinner, which I think also means it is a little bit lighter.
I was afraid that I was going to have a rough transition with apps not working and such, however, so far everything I need to get my work done runs well. I think I’m going to have to try dual booting Windows XP on it at some point though.
My company recently hooked me up with a Verizon XV6600, one of those PDA smart phones. Typically I have been the type of cellphone user that is happy with a small phone that will fit in my pocket and rings when I have a call. However, I have begun to enjoy the new functionality of this new phone.
The XV6600 runs Windows Mobile 2003 and is hooked up on Verizon’s EVDO high speed data network. In a good signal zone the speeds can burst to 2MB, that is faster than my DSL at home! Fast enough for me to remote control my Windows based servers with Remote Desktop Client, or connect to my Linux based boxes with SSH. I have even loaded up a Soft Phone and connect to our IP PBX.
However, the biggest addiction this phone has created is to my email. I was standing on the top of a motor coach at a NASCAR race conducting business via email. With Verizon’s “wireless sync” the Outlook mailbox on my PC is kept in sync with my cell phone. As long as outlook is running on my PC at the office I have access to send and recv email just like I am in the office.
The phone is also bluetooth enabled. According to both Verizon in-store reps and the Level 2 technical support I spoke with….who BTW was more like level -2 based on his knowledge it is not possible to connect your PC to the phone with bluetooth and get on the Internet. Well not true…it works pretty well actually. I just got a new laptop, so I need to go through it again and will probably post more on that in the future.
I have two compliants about this phone;
1. It is too big…but at the same time I think the screen is to small. 
Unfortunately they can’t fix this for me yet till they come up with some very small projection capability so the screen is whatever flat surface is near.
2. The phone seems to freeze up about once a week. It requires me to pull the battery and hard restart the phone. In all honesty I haven’t had the time to contact Verizon yet to see if they have an update or something.
Well that’s it.
During my break from blogging I made a switch that I never thought I would make. Thats right…I’m now a Mac user.
Back in college I had to work tech support for Mac computers. Back in the days of OS9. I thought they pretty much sucked, and as soon as we got enough PC’s on campus I transitioned to working on them instead of the Mac. I hated them with a passion. So for me to make the switch is a pretty big deal.
It all started last year when my company decided we were going to build a Mac version of Safe Eyes. We had an old G4 cube sitting around that I installed a copy of OSX 10.3.9. After once again being forced to work on a Mac for my job I had a completely different reaction.
It wasn’t long and we had purchased a few Mac Minis. Then came the big leap…I replaced my faithful 4 year old Dell Inspiron with a PowerBook G4. So what caused my change of heart?
1. Design - You have to admit Macs hands down rock when it comes to design of the system. Design along would never make me buy one. My keyboard lights up in a dim room so I can see what I’m typing, its the little things that count.
2. Great OS - I have been a long time Linux user, so I am perfectly at home on the OSX platform. It looks great, and I can use command line when I feel like it.
3. Quality - This laptop is actually has metal in it! Not to mention it has great hardware built in. I compared it to a friends brand new dell and there just isn’t a comparision.
4. Good Software Support - It use to be a pain to transfer files from a PC to a Mac. No more, with MS Office for OSX and Windows Filesharing, and a host of other greats things, you aren’t disadvantaged to be on a Mac anymore. I will talk about some cool software I have found in future posts.
So after having my powerbook G4 since August 05, I will bid farewell to it next week, when my new MacBook Pro arrives. I’m selling it to a friend…it will be his first Mac. I have no doubt that he will love it.
It was no small feat for Apple to change my mind to the point that I actually would rather use a Mac than a PC, but it has happened. I actually like it so much I am willing to take crap from all the Mac users I have ridiculed over the years.
Ok, so if you read my previous posts about Multi-Computer/Multi-Monitor support and were not running windows you were probably thinking since VNC is multi-platform why do I have to have windows to accomplish this? Well the good answer is you don’t. While doing some research on another topic I stumbled across the same concept for OSX!. It’s called osx2x.
I have not used this personally, so it doesn’t carry an endorsement from yours truly, but if it works as good as the diagram on the website says it does, then it’s sure to get my seal of approval. If someone wants to buy my a powerbook I will take the opportunity to test this program and report back to the blog. Please email for my address to send the powerbook to.
Ok, so maybe I will stumble across the same VNC hack on linux soon, I will let you know.
Do you have a Dell or other OEM server that has loaded thier own custom bitmap wallpaper for the login screen. While I know everyone needs a pretty picture to look at while they are logging in, the fact of the matter is that it really bites for remote desktop connections. Especially if the server isn’t on your local network. You get the distinct pleasure of watching it draw block by time consuming little block.
Being one that doesn’t like to wait 2 minutes just to get a login box I consulted the all knowing one for an answer to my problem. Turns out it takes a registry editor and 30 seconds to solve this annoyance. Here goes change the value of:
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\Wallpaper
Remove the existing value and leave the key set to nothing. Thats it…next login should be faster.
This is one of the coolest things I have ever used. I had two computers (a desktop and a laptop) and was getting tired of switching from keyboard to keyboard. Most of the time I ended up typing on the wrong computer. So I got to thinking VNC could be patched to create a quick remote connection to a second computer. But someone got the idea before me!
Win2VNC is a cool hacked up VNC client that tracks when you scroll off the side of your screen and automatically send your mouse and keyboard to the second computer connected with VNC. Its like a standard dual monitor setup on windows except it is a dual comptuer setup. You can even cut and paste between the two machines!
Now I thought this was cool when I used with between my Windows 2000 laptop and my Windows XP desktop. But the other day I got the chance to try it with my Windows XP desktop and a Mac OSX desktop. It worked just as good…..and I can use my 2 button mouse on the Mac to have a right click!
If you use more than one computer at a tme you have to look into it. You need Win2VNC on one machine and a VNC server on another computer. Win2VNC only works on Windows currently.
This is a cool little program that I found on Penrod’s Blog, it turns your Gmail account into a drive that is accessible from my computer…you can check it out here. Thanks Penrod.