/dev/random

I spent most of the weekend tinkering with my home network.
I’ve been having a lot of trouble with my Airport Extreme. The wireless connection is extremely unreliable and would randomly drop out or become unresponsive. I ended up going back to my Linksys WRT54G, which seems a lot more robust, and setting the Airport [...]

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A few days ago I bought Hazel, when MacUpdate offered it as their daily promo. After trying it for only a few minutes I was hooked.
Hazel watches any folders you specify and automatically applies rules you create to items in that folder. Rules are defined almost exactly the same way as in Apple Mail, specifying [...]

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I upgraded the RAM in my MacBook Pro to the maximum 4GB today. I find that it makes a huge difference when running Windows, which often slowed my entire system down to a crawl. Parallels was especially painful with only 2GB, but in 4GB I see no speed difference between Parallels and VMware.
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I updated my iPhone to firmware 1.1.1. The upgrade took several minutes but was uneventful. I had previously restored it to the original firmware. Before that I had several third-party applications installed, although I never unlocked it since I don’t see any point in switching from AT&T. The only application I really miss is Apollo [...]

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Facebook Authentication in Drupal
Drupal module to support authentication with a Facebook login
(tags: drupal facebook)

SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “links for 2007-09-27″, url: “http://mcdevzone.com/2007/09/27/links-for-2007-09-27/” });

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Twelve Essential Photographic Rules - - PopPhotoSeptember 2007
From Sunny 16 to Moony 11, 8, and 5.6, these facts, formulas, and photographic rules can get you out of a jam and help you get good shots when nothing else will.
(tags: photography tips)

SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “links for 2007-09-26″, url: “http://mcdevzone.com/2007/09/26/links-for-2007-09-26/” });

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I just upgraded this blog to WordPress 2.3 using Subversion. The upgrade was quick and painless, except for an interaction with my server configuration which caused an endless redirect loop. I have my server configured to strip off ‘www’ from the URL, but I had the URL listed as ‘www.mcdevzone.com’ in the blog configuration. Changing [...]

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We released a new version of LoJack for Laptops today. One of the major changes in this version is a new installer. Instead of using Apple’s installer, this is a full Cocoa application which handles user registration, assigns a serial number through a web service, and ensures that it’s calling successfully. This is the major [...]

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I discovered today that VPN connections don’t work with my new Airport Extreme 802.11n base station. It turns out this is a known problem that still hasn’t been fixed. One weird thing: I can open a VPN connection from Windows XP running under Parallels, but not from OS X on any of my Macs.
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I had disabled this site’s contact form after some spammers started abusing it, thinking they were sending to a list of addresses when in reality all of the spam was sent to me.
I forgot about it until Daniel reminded me. It’s back now. Instead of using a form that could possibly be abused, I now [...]

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I’ve used QuickSilver for a few years and I always considered it one of my essential applications. A few days ago I took advantage of MacZot’s deal to buy LaunchBar 4.
After using LaunchBar for a few days, I found that I prefer it. It’s a lot faster and more responsive than QuickSilver, which often gave [...]

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I went to the Apple store today to get new earbuds for my iPhone. Since it’s still covered by the warrantee, they replaced it free of charge.
While I was there I got an Airport Extreme base station, since my new MacBook Pro can take advantage of 802.11n. Since my TeraStation has gigabit Ethernet, my local [...]

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Whats the Future of the Music Industry? A Freakonomics Quorum - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog
(tags: music)

Macworld: Secrets: Migrating from Parallels to Fusion
Step-by-step guide for converting a Parallels virtual machine to VMware Fusion
(tags: vmware parallels virtualization)

SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “links for 2007-09-21″, url: “http://mcdevzone.com/2007/09/21/links-for-2007-09-21/” });

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The mic button on my iPhone earbuds is broken. A few days ago I started to notice that it was becoming less responsive. Yesterday it stopped working completely. I’ll probably go to the Apple store tomorrow to pick up a new one.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “iPhone earbud problem”, url: “http://mcdevzone.com/2007/09/21/iphone-earbud-problem/” });

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Bush has made plenty of dumb statements, but this one really takes the cake. He should apologize to Nelson Mandela.
Via Democratic National Committee: Blog:

This makes my head hurt:
In a press conference this morning, President Bush tried to assert that Saddam’s brutal rule over Iraq wiped the country clean of potential democratic reformers–individuals who may have [...]

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I just had to repair a minor database problem at MacMegasite related to user points. I noticed that points weren’t being awarded properly for some members, so when I checked the database I saw lots of duplicate key errors in the userpoints table. The easiest way to fix it was to uninstall userpoints, install the [...]

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the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks
Making fun of bad punctuation.
(tags: blog funny humor)

LOLTHULHU
When LOLcats get boring, try LOL Cthulhu.
(tags: funny lolcats lovecraft fun)

SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “links for 2007-09-19″, url: “http://mcdevzone.com/2007/09/19/links-for-2007-09-19/” });

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Via BBC:
Members of the Committee of Demanders of Women’s Right to Drive Cars plan to deliver a petition to King Abdullah by Sunday, Saudi Arabia’s National Day.
Correspondents say the demand is likely to be rejected, as conservatives argue if women are allowed to drive, they will be able to mix freely with men.
This is [...]

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Best quote ever on Iraq (via David Byrne):
Nothing much could be worse for Iraq than the US presence. Their superstructure has been destroyed, and left unrepaired. There is civil war. Their own oil isn’t bringing in money for them. So how could it be worse if we leave? It can’t, really. Some folks are [...]

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I expect Apple to release an iPhone software update with tomorrow’s media event in London. Most likely, a firmware update will be needed to support international carriers, so Apple will probably take that opportunity to enable the WiFi Music Store and other features such as iPod Touch style home button operation in the same update.
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