February 2008 Archives

Wow, finally a site that has it all for us lousy Chinese speakers at ChinesePod. I found it via iTunes and it has it all and it is free. For instance, look at the most popular intermediate lessons, it has both an MP3 podcast you can download as well as a PDF with English, pinyin and simplifed chinese. And the vocabulary is pretty useful and real world. Thanks guys!

OMG, I just love Sweetest Girl by Wyclef Jean. it is terrific Hip Hop for those of you who like that kind of stuff. Check out the video

I'm also listening to Avril Lavigne's Keep Holding On

If you are unlucky enough to have your wallet stolen, it isn't the $50 in it, it is that the thief can sell your identity on the internet to just about anyone. So, what can you do about it. First, you can place a 90 day credit alert for free, but of course every thief in the world knows that. So after cancelling all your cards and changing your bank accounts, you need a longer term monitoring system.

These are really expensive for reasons I don't understand. Typically $80-$200 per month for just a database check, but that's the scam for these credit reporting agencies. You need a service that monitors all three agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Consumer Reports agrees that they aren't really that much protection mainly because if they use your social security number with a different name, the databases don't figure it out immediately and it can take 60 days for someone to report a new account.

Fightidentitytheft.com has a decent review, they appear fairly similar with a $25K reimbursement coverage and monitoring all the scores and also see their credit monitoring review

1. TrueCredit costs $15/month and monitors all three services and has a good rating. Underneath it is TransUnioin that provides this. You get a report from all three. It also monitors every business day. 5 out of 5 stars, but the most expensive. You do get unlimited access to your credit scores if you need that.
2. Citi has a $13/month service that covers all three as well. 4 out of 5 stars
3. Equifax also has a $15 service but you only get FICO and Equifax credit reports. 3 out of 5 stars

Then there are frad alert that comes from services that aren't owned by the big three. They basically layer the continuing 90 day realert for credit monitoring and a few things onto the services listed above:

1. Debix which is a more comprehensive system. It is not just reporting, it maintains your fraud alerts (you have to manually reactivate every 90 days the fraud alerts for all three services to keep it going). Besides wiping you off of junk mail lists, the main thing it adds is a special number you give all the banks. When they call, you have to type in a PIN to make sure it is really you. So folks pretending to be you can't run any transactions. It is $90 per year so a little cheaper too. What happens is that in your credit report, is the Debix number, then Debix has a find me feature that calls you at any of your numbers to validate this is right. It is definitely the cheapest service. The main knock I'd say is whether this is a legit company, there look like about a dozen sites in a google query on Debix that look phony and are positive reviews of the service, so beware.
2. Lifelock. I love this gutsy little startup. The president of the company puts his name and social security number on their site to show how safe it is. Like Debix, it sets a fraud alert on everything, they then remove names from credit card application junk lists, then you get the WalletLock which is an operator that will cancel all your cards for you. Otherwise, like Debix it is a layer on top. They do claim they will spend $1M if you are ever the victim, but its hard for me to believe that particular claim. It is mainly a timesaver over the credit agencies and the constant recycling of the 90 day alert is valuable
3. IdentiyGuard also monitors all three and is $13/month. 4 out of 5 stars. It has a couple of levles, but at $17/month, they claim they do monitoring, and also claim to monitor public records.

Hey, if you are buying lots of gear, now's the time to do a few things. First, if you know an REI member, if you sign up this month for $20 fee, you get a 20% off for a non-sale item. So if you've been eyeing something that is $100, now's the time. Also REI Visa let's you save 5% on every non-sale REI purchase. It is also free and gives you a 1% rebate on other purchases. I've been using frequent flier credit cards, but if you have big dollar items, this can make some sense.

After our most recent trip, nearly all of our earbuds have simply died. Usually, the little cable breaks, so what to do if you need a lot of these and they take abuse. Headphones.com has some of the best reviews I've seen. It is how I originally got the Etymotic ER-6i and ER-4p and ER-4s. Sadly, I've lost one ER-6i and two have broken, so what are the best headphones now:

Ten Best Headphones

Most of these aren't practical for travel but the real winner seems to be the Shure SE310. It got 5 out of 5 (The Etymotics ER-4Ps are 4.5 out of 5, so close) and it comes in white. Amazon has them for $200 and the list is $299. While headphones.com has them for $250.

Entry Level

If you can't stand paying more for your headphones than your iPod or you've got kids who will likely rip and destroy them, then try the Sennheiser MX300 which lists for $10 and Amazon has for $9. They don't say it but I'd expect the white MX500 probably works just as well although it is $17 because of the color :_) and because there is a volume control on it. Macworld also likes the MX 500 and it is nice it comes in a little case too. iLounge also liked the MX 500 giving it an A- saying that while they are uncomfortable for long usage, they sound as good as the Apple ones. BTW, if you don't mind, you can get blue MX 500 for $10 from TigerDirect.com

If you want in the ear, so called in-canal headphones, these are a great step up and much less bulky that on the ear headphones, so a budget set would be then try the Jays j-JAYS which are just $50 and do have that snug fit and noise reduction. or the d-JAYS which sound better at $100 and got a 4 out of 5 rating.

Well, this is sure confusing, I'm trying to get an older Snow Base Airport (not the Airport Extreme) to work right. Leopard, Mac OS X 10.5 comes with a new Airport Utility v5.2 to manage the Airport Extreme but not with the older Airports (code named Snow Base). In fact, this utility is really hard to find it is in /Applications/Utility/Airport Utility, but won't find old wifi Airports. Instead, Larry R. says you have to for:

Tiger 10.1

Download the old AirPort Admin Utility Version 4.2. This is impossible to find efficiently on the Apple site, but you get it at http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/airport42formacosx1033.html and you download AirPortSW42.dmg. Then you install it manually. Double click on the .DMG which mounts the file. Click on AirPortSW.pkg and select Show Package Contents. Go to the Contents folder. Double click on Archive.pax.gz which extracts an Archive.pax and an Archive Folder. Inside the Archive foldker look for Applications/Utilities and copy out the AirPort Admin Utility that is there. Don't just copy to the Utilities folder, but rename it to something like "Airport Utility v4.2" This doesn't work with Leopard however

Leopard 10.2

You have to run the Windows version of Admin Utility 4.2 (so you need Parallels) and this seems to work.

iStumbler, MacStumbler and Kismac

Debugging this stuff is easy for me on the PC as I know the tools, but on the Mac, life is different. First, you need iStumbler which is an open source tool that lets you discover what is on your network. Like Network Stumbler in Windows land. iStumbler only works against open networks, while Kismac sees invisible networks and will test encryption of WEP, WPA variety to make sure the passwords are good enough. Macstumbler is an older version if iStumbler from 2003.

Seems like everyone who skis is Swedish sometimes, so good to know from Speakswedish.co.uk some common phrases. I've no idea how to pronounce it, but "good day Sweden" seems like a good phrase to learn. When I was there, some other good ones are:

Thanks to Sandy, we learned that there was a total eclipse of the moon. What an amazing sight. It was clear and we saw the moon literally go from bright to dark red in 10 minutes and then back again. NASA has a terrific site that explains it and tells you exactly when and what is happening. We were right there at 7:45-7:50 and saw totality. There is even a javascript lunar eclipse explorer application that will help you figure out where the moon is. How cool is that. You can actually go as far as a thousand years from now in 3000AD and see where the eclipse is.

If you missed it and live in North America, you'll have to wait for two more years until 21 Dec 2010 .gov/eclipse/LEplot/LEplot2001/LE2010Dec21T.GIF for the next one.

Beside skiing (did you get your Edge card?), there are an amazing number of fun things to do:

1. Sledding. They actually let you sled down when the lifts are closed. You can get it at Village Hardware Store. Sled at the base of Lorimer Road and then walk across the Bridge.
2. "Tubing" is open at 11AM-8PM and is just a short ride up. Edge card holders get a 25% discount
3. Meadow Park Sports Centre. This is a little bit of a drive, about six kilometers, but there is a pool with a river and also public skating 1-3PM.

As an aside, Whistler Village maps are appallingly bad. They don't list stores, only the big hotels and non of the streets are straight. Only Findwhistler.com has a haveway decent map. Search for a store and then it will zoom in to show you where it is.

Also the list of restaurants and things seems so short and strange, but for decent kid friendly places (re: has simple pastas for those with picky tastes as well as basic chicken and meats), here is a list in rough order of price and fun:

1. Teppan Village. This is dinner and show. There isn't pasta, but basic steak, chicken and seafood that is chopped and broiled in front of you. A terrific show and smell. It is always crowded with families as the flare of the grill is incredible and the individual chefs so friendly. In the Hilton at Whistler Village. Expensive for kids, but worth the show.
2. Trattoria di Umberto. This is just called the Trattoria in Whistler as there is also an Umbertos. Nearly impossible to find, it is between the Pan Pacific and it is inside the Mountain Lodge by the swimming pool, so just go to the Pan Pacific and look out. It is well prepared rustic italian food. The pasta is fresh and good. The wine list is nice. The main issue is that it is quite expensive, but the gnocchi is amazing.
3. Earl's. Amazingly, this large restaurant chain is actually pretty good. It is expensive, but its strength is that it has a little of every cuisine, so someone can have a Indian curry, while someone else has a steak and another person has linguine with clams. It is across from the Holiday Inn in the village and seems to be perennially popular.

If you get to Canada often then there are two options:

1. If you have AT&T then get the AT&T Canada plan, they have a $4/month plan where roaming in Canada is $0.59 per minute and any calls from the US to Canada are $0.19/minute while and text messages to the US are $0.50 per message. You can turn this plan on or off, so essentially, if you do more than 10 minutes of calling at the $2/minute roaming rate, it makes sense to sign up. Only draw back is Canadians have to pay international rates to call you, but it is your phone number.
2. According to GeckoBeach a prepaid account makes sense if ou are using 30-50 minutes of air time. The best plan for folks that are going to Whistler or skiing would be the Rogers prepaid SIM with $100 prepay card. That's because all the other cards expire after 30 days and you lose the number whereas the $100 card lasts for 365 days. So perfect for the once a year trips to Canada. The airtime charges are incredibly confusing, but they are $0.25 for first five minutes a day and then $0.15 there after for calls to Canadian numbers and $0.66/minute for calls to US phones. So that means you should get a prepaid if you are going to call way more to Canadian numbers, otherwise, using the AT&T Canada plan makes more sense. In all cases, either plan is better than the rack rate $2/minute roaming that is really highway robbery. the big benefit of course is that you have a local 604 number so you feel like a local :-)
3. Skype. Skype is the other way. If you pay $36, then you get free calling from your PC to any number in US and Canada and you get a $12 credit for calling to other cities. You also can get a SkypeIn number (so your PC has a phone number :-) for $36. A pretty good deal.
4. Maxroam. John pointed this one out to me. It is fantastic because you can have multiple phone numbers attached to the same SIM, so it solves the having a separate sim for a bunch of countries. It is $30 Euros and you get a phone number in the US and can add 50 numbers from China, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan. So for instance a call to the US is ).67 Euros or about $1, so it is more expensive. A call to Canada is about the same. So it is expensive but convenient.

For your data devices like a Blackberry or an iPhone:

1. BlackBerry International is $64/month that gives you unilimited email in 140 countries for $70/month. This is only worth it for folks who are there for a week or so as the email traffic really adds up.
2. iPhone Global Data. This is $25/month for 20MB of usage in 3 countries including Canada, China, Australia and Hong Kong and India and most of Europe.

Someone was asking me about cars and how to manage them. Well, if you live in Seattle, you can actually rent a car for $10/hour. it is something called Flexcar. You call a phone number or logon to the web, you reserve a car in any of most garages in Seattle, then you use it for some period and then return it. Incredibly convenient and you don't pay depreciation and most importantly, if you bike or take a bus in, you don't need to have a car. Pretty cool.

Flexcar is being acquired by Zipcar, so the rate structure is changing. For business, it is a $75 signup and then $25 per person, but the rates are a little lower at $8.95 an hour. For personal, it is $75, but there is a $25 credit if you are signing up in Seattle.

Argh, why do internet providers act so smart! Sometimes I can't seem to send email and right now I'm discovering that this is because certain ISPs will block the SMTP port 25 (send mail) and 465 (secure send mail), so mysteriously at some access points, you can send mail and at others you can't. Some great hosters like TQ Hosting allow SMTP on port 25 and 26, so if you find that you can't send, check with your hoster and see if they can't open up an alternative port for you for folks like this.

So those of you using Shaw as an ISP in Canada, beware, they are likely blocking port 25 which is why you can't send email via your hosting site or corporate site. AS hardathosting.com points out they are trying to prevet direct o MX spmming and open proxies and relays from "zombies" in their network. To get aroudn this you either have to have a nice hoster like that listed above, or you ahve to know the network you are on and thus the SMTP mail server you need to use. I'm sure another reason is that you have to have an email name to authenticate to an ISPs SMTP outbound mail server, so they feel like they have more control.

Also have heard that Comcast is blocking Bittorrent and some ISPs block skype. What an amazing pain. Like someone who sells gasoline telling you what kind of car to buy or someone who builds a highway what you can drive. Live free or die!

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Yikes, the Windows Student Edition was just cheaper, but Anandtech points out that this Mac version has a $130 student edition without Exchange support while the $350 version has Exchange support. I now own two copies of an absolutely useless Student Edition as a result. Arrgggh! There is an even more useless Special Media Edition which is $440 (can you believe that?) that has some sort of media cataloging application.

While this version is native Intel, it does lose VBA support so macros essentially aren't going to work anymore. And of course there is yet another new file format to deal with!

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If you've got videos say in MPEG2/DVD format and want to convert into smaller H.264 format, then the Mac choices are pretty different from PC. Essentially, you need four tools:

1. Handbrake to take it from a DVD and convert it into a computer quality (e.g,. high quality .AVI or .MP4).
2. MacTheRipper. This is a general tool that takes a DVD and decrypts it and puts it onto your hard drive. Then you can use any of the tools below. Or you can make a backup of your DVD. Version 2.66 works with most DVDs, although some of the new DVDs (Hannah Montana!) have advanced protections that this old program can't deal with.
3. isquint.org is the freeware that takes essentially any format that is a computer format (like Divx or Xvid) and converts it into a iPhone or iPod video. Personally I upgraded to VisualHub which adds PSP. Use it to take all things generated for computer viewing and convert it into ipod, iphone and psp formats.
4. ffmpegX. This takes any video format essentially and transcodes it. Finally, if you have an iPhone, iTouch or iPod Nano 3G or iPod Video, then you can also use Handbrake to take a DVD and turn it into the right .mp4 format.

DV Review has a good overview for the Mac coders who are pro's and ready to pay $1,000s of dollars for software. Personally I use Visualhub if you are willing to pay or iSquint which is the free version to do most iPod encoding.

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Anandtech has done the first full Macbook Air review that compares the SSD performance. As an aside folks are asking me how the new SSD is on the MacBook Air. First, the system is completely quiet. Second, for normal use, like Internet browsing and reading email, it feels just as fast and responsive as my MacBook Pro. That is quite amazing as most ultraportables feel sluggish. Anand's main point is that unlike the iPhone, the MacBook Air is an ultraportable with real tradeoffs. I actually don't completely agree with his point in that the iPhone had everything that other smart phones had, it just does a few things better. The screen come to mind and the performance as well plus the user interface and the physical sturdiness and elegance. Funny thing is that I think the Macbook Air has the same attributes. The kind of curved shape, the really sturdy feel and finally the keyboard and screen are amazing. Like the iPhone, it does give up things. I just can't stand the recessed headphone plug and have ruined plenty of plugs trying to smash it into the iPhone. To me anyway, the optical disk and the single USB ports really aren't much of a tradeoff in modern environments. The only real issue is lack of Wifi in many places, so you have to carry a $30 Ethernet to USB adapter. I don't use my optical for much anymore except kids DVDs when they are around. I personally rip everything to AVI or some other format.

He does a great review of SSD and even shows you how to install one for yourself. DVNation.com sells naked Samsung SSDs, so you can install them on all your computers. Ludwig is right, as prices come down, I'd install them on everything I own. They feel faster but most importantly they are by definition completely silent, so having a laptop with no fans on is an amazing experience. I've found that unless the AV Clam Sentry is running, the Macbook Air fan never does go on in normal usage and that is wonderful. As an aside, DVNation sells the "Samsung MCCOE64GEMPP-01A":
http://www.king-cart.com/cgi-bin/cart.cgi?store=dvnation&product_name=Samsung+64GB+ZIF+SSD&exact_match=exact for $1600, so it makes the $900 price for upgrade from Apple look like a real deal :-)

Performance

Well, the real world performance load times is pretty stunning which is perhaps why I like my Macbook Air with SSD although for compute read intensive tasks. Overall, the subjective point is that it feels faster because read performance of SSD is faster than write and most folks are reading.

Battery life

They are getting battery life what I'm getting. That is about four hours plus. Now Bill says he was getting terrible life of three hours so it is probably under heavy use. Here is what Anandtech has seen:

They also compared it with other Apple laptop for Wireless Internet + MP3 playback:

As an aside, I had not really used Mac Mail (technically called Mail 3.1) much, but must say it is the fastest Mail app I've used since Xenix Mail (now I'm dating myself!) at deleting, searching and finding mail. Makes Outlook look very sluggish and Entourage positively snail like. Even Thunderbird isn't as good particularly for searches, like all mail from "Rich Tong". It is as keystroke fast as searching for a song in a 20,000 song iTunes directory which is to say keystroke fast. I really recommend it for anyone with lots of mail. The main bummer is that I just can't get Address Book sync to work with Outlook Web Access. There are no error messages I can find and I type the OWA URL in and it just won't sync. So I'll probably have to load Entourage just for the Address Book and iCal sync features in it.

The only other problem which I've seen too is that the MacBook Air takes a long time to charge. I've had four hours to get it to charge. It is interesting to see how bad battery life was for the first generation of MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo's. I agree with that. Mine's really does last about two hours.

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Now that we know comcast is shutting down traffic, its a good time to safeguard your privacy and make sure that you are in good shape with all those prying eyes. The first thing is to encrypt as much as you can. The second use a VPN or encrypted tunnel so no one can figure out what you are doing. Whalesalad is an 18 year old developer (!!!) in Hawaii who has done just that.

Basically you go to Silenceisdefeat.org and get a shell account for $1. Then you go double click on /Applications/Utilities/Terminal on your machine and run the command *ssh _yourusername@silenceisdefeat.org -D 7777". The port number you pick can be any port that isn't being used.

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Gamespot has a good list of Macintosh games. With all the Macs, the kids are asking, what games can I play. Interestingly, they have Age of Empires III, Need for Speed Carbon and Prey all available on the Mac and they get good reviews from Macworld

Also there is a really fun game called sketchpad that is $20

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Someone was asking me, so I love 35mm and love photography, but if I'm jumping in as a serious photographer, how do I really get started. Well, here's a quick guide if you've got the bucks for the best price/performance today:

1. Nikon D300. Just reviewed in Popular Photography, it is expensive at $1800 or so, but is the camera that has finally hit state of the art at a reasonable price. It is a 12 megapixel camera, but most importantly, it has the one feature that all digital cameras have a terrible time with, that is the equivalent of fast film. It can take amazingly good photos at ISO 1600 and 3200. That is 8 times faster than film at ASA 400. It means that all lenses just got 4-8 times faster and you can finally take decent shots in available light just about everywhere. Of course, I'm stuck as I've got only Canon lenses, but if I were starting over and I cared about great quality, I'd get this one. If you are just starting out, then the Nikon D40x at $600 is an amazing buy. It isn't as fast, but at the price, you can learn if you love it.
2. Nikon 18-200 VR F/3.5-5.6. After years and years, optics have really matured. It is the only lense that most people will need. It is the equivalent of a 25mm wide angle lense in 35mm film land all the way up to a 300mm telephoto and the photo quality is amazing. The optical quality is first rate. It is expensive at $1500, but it will really last a lifetime. The main issue used to be that it was too slow for fast indoor shots at F/3.5, but paired with the D300, its not really a problem.
3. Macbook Air. I'm using it now and I have to say, you it is really a dream machine because it is just sooo light. Otherwise, the Macbook is just fine. I can't remember if you have a Macbook, but if you don't, there is a model refresh happening this coming month, so hold off buying a month or so. The Air is $1800 and the standard Macbook is $1300 or so.
4. Time Capsule. This isn't really getting the play that it should. It is a 1 terabyte (wow!) server that is also a Wifi access point. Most importantly, it backs up every Mac in your home network every hour so you'll never lost anything. It is also a great place to put all those photos you take (I have 50GBs of photos right now after 18 months of shooting, digital really let's you take and keep more and experiment more). It also lets you connect all your computers to a really nice photo printer.
5. Canon Pro9000 Photo Printer. They are so amazingly cheap right now, but you can print your own 13×19" shots right now with all the quality of a professional. The Canon Pro9000 is $500 and the Epson R2400 is the same. The two compete head to head and no one knows which is better. I have the older i9900 and the Pro9000 and they are just amazing. The main thing is not to skimp on the quality of the paper. Getting Canon paper is expensive, but if you just print it once, then what's the big deal.
6. Datavision Spyder3Pro. This sounds crazy, but another important thing is getting your computer monitor calibrated. Most LCDs are way too blue and you'll go nuts trying to get what you see on the screen to match what actually comes out. There is a little gizmo that actually calibrates the monitor so red is really red and blue is really blue. It's the last piece to eliminate frustration. While seemingly expensive at $300, it does reduce frustration. Or, since you only really need for fifteen minutes, you can always borrow mine and do the calibration :-)

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Hey if you go there frequently, Alaska has a double miles promotion but you need to register.

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With the new Macbook Air, I'm trying to live life without having to install Parallels and Windows OfficeLife

Life without Windows

Did that with Macbook Pro. Just loaded Mac Office 2004 and found that Entourage was a good enough Outlook replacement and that of course Word, Excel and PowerPoint were fine. The only thing I still use Parallels for is for various utilities that don't have a complement in the Macintosh. These are mp3tag which works better than tritag is the main one.

You can actually have Entourage sync with iCal and Address Book so you can also have your iPhone sort of like a Blackberry. The email gets pushed wirelessly, but you have to dock to get your calendar and address book.

Life without Mac Office

Now if I don't want Mac Office, then can I do it. Surprisingly, the answer is not too bad. Here is how you replace the pieces:

1. Mac Office by iWork '08. This is a pretty decent replacement at least for the basic spreadsheets and word processing documents that I have. Actually the PowerPoint equivalent is supposed to be better, but I'm so used to the special keystrokes in PowerPoint that it will take me some time. Now iWorks does cost money, but nothing compared to a copy of Mac Office.
2. Outlook by Mail and Address Book. Surprising, in the box, Mac Mail now lets you read email from an Exchange Server and you can sync with it. Also, Address Book allows direct synchronization through Outlook Web Access. So if you've this turned on, you can get both addresses synced every hour and your mail. Decent solution.
3. Outlook by iCal and Snerdware. There is no direction sync with iCal, but there is a third party I'm trying called Groupcal by Snerdware that apparently does this. They've a free trial but amazingly it doesn't work on Leopard yet so not quite complete.
4. As before you get iPhone sync by iCal and Address Book when you dock.

The simpler but more expensive solution is Mac Office 2008

So I'll let you know but right now, it looks like you can do a complete replacement. Or just give in a buy a copy of Mac Office 2008 which is a native universal binary application at last.

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This is a pretty mysterious thing to me. It seems to work out of the box for HP printers that are network connected which is amazing. The net is that you can't get an i9900 to work with a print server or off your Windows machines. It only works if connected to a Mac or to Apple Airport. Or you can get a Pro9000 or newer Canon printer that does work.

However, if you want a Canon i9900 to work with all your Macs, then you pretty much have to get an Airport Express/Extreme or hopefully the new Time Capsule. That is because of the need to support something called CUPS printing. Wow, I have lots to learn...

Network printing/Windows printing only works with a driver that was meant for network printing. To use the OS X built-in CUPS network choices, you need a CUPS driver. For postscript printers, this is not an issue, because postscript is the native output of OS X, and can easily be routed to the various choices in Printer Setup. Non-postscript printers are Very Different. Except for Brother, no manufacturer has provided CUPS drivers. Instead, what you get are Carbon-type, OS9 legacy drivers, that have the comm protocol written into the driver (mostly USB). They can only print via local connection. An Exception is that when printing via an Airport/Bonjour enabled print server (Airport Express/Extreme/another Mac), where the software does a port redirection, USB output from the Mac gets routed to the USB port on Airport Express/Extreme. In other words, a USB-only driver will work for network printing through Airport Extreme/Express and for Mac-to-Mac sharing.

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OK, I've been printing a bunch of 8×10 photos on Red River Paper for Calvin's basketball team and it just comes out way too red despite all the color matching. Super frustrating as the profiles for the Canon Photo Pro is perfect out of the box. So it is either time to buy a Colorvision Printfix Pro and go through all the work to printout and then scan so for every paper it is perfect. Or, I just have to read the directions better.

Part of the problem is that the directions in the box of the 8×10 paper is different from the Red River web site. They are pretty dramatic, I used what was in the box and got way too red. The key parameters are:

Color compensation: Perceptual vs. Relative Colormetric
Paper type: Pro Photo vs. Photo Paper Plus Glossy
Intensity: 0 or -10

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OK some quick things on using a Macbook Air:

• Superdrive is a USB drive, but amazingly it only works with the Macbook Air. I don't really understand that as it is just a USB device. Belongs in the, that's crazy. Now of course, I don't plan to use it anywhere else, but why did Apple do this?
• Remote Disc. I have to admit, this is kind of Microsoft-ish in the hacked way that it works. First, you have to get the install DVD and put it into a Mac or a Windows machine. Very strange not to have this as a free download somewhere. It loads some huge driver. The biggest bummer though is the remote drive is only useful for installing software. You can't watch a DVD with it, you can't burn a DVD or CD with it and sharing is all or nothing so that if you allow sharing, anyone on your network can snarf the drive. Seems like a quick hack feature to me.
• "Multitouch": . The new Macbook Air uses the same touch controller as the iPod Touch and iPhone. Actually most of the gestures are already available on the Macbook and Macbook Pro. The only one I found that are new is the pinch and squeeze to zoom in and out. Also only works on the Finder, Safari and iPhoto. Most useful feature is zooming in on thumbnails with Finder although you need to hold a Control key down to make it work for full zoom.

The documentation of these new features is really small and in fact, lots of the multitouch things are already available on the current Macbook and Macbook Pro. The

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Alex showed me a photo and I asked where was it taken, he said, I made it with Terragen. This is another amazing free program that creates photorealistic landscapes. Kind of amazing how fast a computer can be and hold realistic things are.

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As Gizmodo says, power users are going to hate it, but those of us who like simplicity and functionality love the Macbook Air. Yes, it doesn't have enough USB ports for the true power user, but it makes up for it with three things that are hard to describe but really important (at least to me):

1. Thin and light. I had forgotten what a joy a sub 3 pound notebook is. I used the Sony VAIO series for a long time, but what got in the way was a tiny screen and tiny keyboard
2. Amazing screen and keyboard. I can't say enough how wonderful it is to have something that is full size, but super thin. There isn't a tradeoff for the everyday 99% of what I do which is email, web browsing and blogging.
3. Absolutely quiet and cool. It doesn't feel like a computer, it feels like a wonderful piece of art that happens to see the Internet. You really have to use it to believe it.

Now it won't ever replace a full laptop for folks who have to drive SUVs (that's a joke!), but it is perfect for the fellow who just needs simple transportation that works and looks great a la Bang & Olufson.

So how do you get around the limitations:

1. No CD/DVD. There are really two reasons for using an optical drive. First is for software. 99% of all software can be copied onto your hard drive. That's what I do with MacOffice, etc. The only thing that really needs a true CD is Mac OS X itself (unlike Windows which can start from a hard drive folder). So, you always need to carry a Leopard install CD and superdrive if you are going far away from home.
2. No DVD for movies. In truth, I never do watch DVDs anymore. Most everything I see is in DIVX or H.264 format now. That stuff that isn't, I transcode because it takes a 8GB DVD and turns it into a 1GB file.
3. Not enough disk. That is an issue, 64GB and 80GB are just not that much in a world of lots of music and videos. Right now, I'm using a USB hard drive in a docking station to carry TBs and do backup. With the upcoming Time Capsule, I'll just stuff it all onto a server.
4. Not enough USB. In thinking about it, when I'm on the road, the only issue is that I like to charge my Blackberry and my iPhone at the same time, so I guess I just need to carry a power adapter.

So if you are worried about the tradeoffs, you have to get a few things that make it easier, here is required equipment that goes with a MacBook Air

1. Logitech Alto Connect. As Gizmodo This is the best and most elegant laptop stand I've ever seen. It has four USB ports that are powered and it raises the laptop up. It's a great $80 investment for any laptop. It essentially makes a docking station very USB. With a great screen like the MacBook Air or the MacBook Pro for that matter, you don't really need an extra LCD screen anymore, so all you need is USB connection to your network (if you don't like Wifi), your iPhone (when will this just work via Wifi?), your Superdrive (on the four times a year you might use it). Pricegrabber has for $84 delivered or Apple retail stores stock them too.
2. Extra power supply, just have a power supply whereever your desk in, so docking is just plugging in a single USB and then the power cable.
3. Bluetooth mouse and keyboard. The new Apple wireless keyboard is truly a beautiful work of art as is the Wireless Mighty mouse. At $79 delivered and $67, they are expensive, but fit the Macbook Air well.
4. Apple Time Capsule. Although not out yet, you pair this was a Macbook Air to get 1TB for backing up the tiny 64GB SSD (if you are wasteful enough to get one!) and also for file service.
5. Road warriors are going to have to carry more stuff like a Belkin 4-port swivel hub ($30) and the really heavy duty extension cord that weighs as much as the computer it seems like as well as the USB-to-Ethernet adapter since not everyone has ethernet as well as micro-DVI to VGA and DVI adapters. Not to mention a set of plugs for foreign countries. You also want the special Magsafe Airline adapter ($49) that is special for the MacBook Air

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Well Ludwig has one, so I have to have one too, the first solid state drive Macbook Air's are arriving and the question is how do they perform. Macrumors shows that there is nothing too unexpected.

The CPU is pretty slow at 1.8GHz but is way faster than the pokey 4200 rpm 80GB hard drive at random uncached reads and writes. It should have better battery life than the 2.5 hours that folks are reporting, but no specific data on that. On random, 4K block reads and writes it is 7MBps/2.23MBps vs. 0.57Mbps/0.35MBps for the traditional hard drive. Both aren't particularly fast, but that is a big difference! Now most hard drives have big caches, so the difference definitely shrinks in real usage.

Gizmodo ran a benchmark set with the Macbook Air (1.6GHz, 2GB Ram, 80GB hard drive, 4200rpm HDD) against a Macbook (2GHz/1GB 667MHz DDR2 Ram, 120GB/5400 rpm HDD) and a Macbook Pro (2.2GHz, 2GB 667GGHz DDR2, 160GB, 5400 rpm hard drive):

The interesting things is that it really isn't that much slower. They also have raw Xbench results as well. Xbench for my Macbook Pro vs. MacBook Air are:

In the above higher is better. I'm really unclear on the disk tests as you'd think a 5400rpm 160GB drive would do better

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OK, I had some trouble getting an iPhone (jailbroken, but locked) to work and now it is always in recovery mode. After much searching, iphone.unlock.no seems to have the answer, which is to downgrade to 1.1.1. The biggest problem is that I forgot that you have to recover the firmware back to the 1.1.1 version. So you have to do two downgrades. First with recovery mode and then with the firmware reload. It is incredibly confusing and I made mistakes all day, so here is a detailed guide:

1. Assuming you have a phone that doesn't have 1.1.2 preinstalled (e.g., has a newer boot loader), do the following
2. Check your version of itunes, it needs to be version 7.5 or lower. Get older version from filehippo.com. On a PC, goto control panel/add and remove programs and uninstall itunes, then run itunes 7.5 installer. On a Mac, delete the iTunes in /Applications and then delete /System/Private Library/Mobile Framework and then install itunes 7.5
3. Now turn off your iPhone by holding the power button for 15 seconds, plug your iPhone into your PC. Hold the HOME and the Power button for fifteen seconds. The thing will come on with an screen saying plug into the PC.
4. Now download 1.1.1 from iphone.unlock.no list of firmware locations
5. Start iTunes and you should see a screen that says iPhone is in recovery mode and you have two options, Restore or Upgrade
6. Now hold the Shift key and click on Restore, if you've got a PC, on a Mac, it is Option and click on Restore and select the 1.1.1 ipsw file you downloaded earlier. Repeat click on RESTORE.
7. The firmware will then reload and you will get an error from iTunes that is normally 1604 or 1015, this is superious but you will still see the recovery screen, so you have to kick it out with a PC/Mac program.
8. Exit itunes.
9. Download the 1.1.2 Jailbreak. Turn off any firewalls like Zonealarm on your PC. Install Java if you have a PC. Macs already have Java on them. Run Windows.bat on your PC. Run jailbreak.jar from your Mac.Click on Boot from Recovery and you should see the thing reboot into a normal screen. You might have to Control-C the Java program as it can hang waiting for reboot.
10. You should now see the Activate iPhone screen on your iPhone
11. Now Bypass Activation by putting a Sim card in and then you go thought this very complex sequence, where you slide for emergency
12. Dial *#301# which makes the phone call itself
13. Answer the call and tap Hold and Tap decline. This gets you to the dialer screen. Nice trick!
14. Tap contacts and then the + icon and then Add new URL called prefs: and then add another called i.unlock.no and choose Save
15. Now tap on the prefs: URL and you magically get to the settings menu. Click on About and make sure you are at 1.1.1. Sometimes the install fails and you'll have to try it on another computer
16. Tap on Wifi and connect to your access point
17. Tap on Autolock and select never
18. Tap on HOME, slide the emergency call unlock and dial 0 call and get back to the full dialer screen
19. Tap on Contacts and tap on the contact you just made
20. Tap on i.unlock.no and you should get to Safari and then hit the jailbreak me link
21. At this point you will have 1.1.1 firmware and some strange baseband most likely the 1.1.2 version which is 4.02G, so if you just want to get your phone working again, you have to downgrade the firmware too. Note that if you are just going on to 1.1.2, you don't have to do this since unlocking 4.01G (1.1.1 baseband) doesn't help you with 4.02G (1.1.2 baseband)
22. As i.unlock.no says, Tap on the Installer icon and then go to Tweaks 1.1.1 and install Oktoprep
23. Now download the 1.1.2 firmware, connect the phone to the computer and open iTunes, it will show a screen saying, hey this is a new iPhone, what do you want me to sync. Don't sync to anything
24. Now hold down the shift key for windows or option key for Mac
25. Note Hit UPGRADE, not RESTORE, I made this mistake all day, you are not restoring but upgrading and you don't need to put the iPhone into recovery mode.
26. After the installation is finished, you have have an activation screen
27. Exit itunes
28. You should already have jailbreak 1.1.2 on your PC or Mac somewhere, run windows.bat or jailbreak.jar for PC and Mac respectively. Click on install SSH and change the password from alpine and remember that password. Jailbreak.jar will now upload lots of stuff and you should see all kinds of numbers flying by as it uploads 31MB worth of junk. You will also se a progress button saying Jailbreaking...Reading flash image and then writing flash image and finally it will say your device will reboot several times and you should be jailbroken
29. Now you can unlock your phone, first tap on Settings and enable Airplane mode
30. Tap on Setting and General and make sure you are in Auto lock never
31. tap on Installer and then Utilities category and locate anySIM 1.2.1, (Don't run this unless you are in Airplane mode!)
32. Since 1.1.3 didn't break the IPSF exploit you can unlock the 1.1.3 baseband.

The main tricky part I've noticed is that there is something called the Mobile Development framework. You can really get Independence confused by what is there and you get this strange "FAILURE. Error registering for callbacks from iPhone." As modmyiphone.com says, you have to go to /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ and delete the MobileDevice.framework folder and reinstall iTunes 7.5 or lower. Actually the post says 7.6 works, but the documentation in Independence 7.2 says you need 7.5 or lower. Go figure.

When hacking away at iPhone software many times, you need old versions of iTunes. Filehippo keeps track of all old versions. Very handy!

In general, they have a great list of common freeware likeAd Aware, etc.

Alex was asking about the classic Civil Rights songs and of course We Shall Overcome comes to mind. I didn't realize that it was actually a relatively recent song that Pete Seeger adapted from a traditional gospel song and was originally from a melody called "No More Auction Block for Me" and the famous version is by Joan Baez from 1963.

Some other classes are Blowin' In The Wind by Bob Dylan which is still wonderful.

And it brings up Protest Songs in general like This Land is your Land

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I'm biased. While, the small handheld cameras are nice, for really great image quality, you do need a nice dSLR because of lense quality. Right now, the leaders are Nikon, Canon and Sony is coming on strong. All have shipped new cameras at the entry level now with the Canon EOS 450D. Cameralabs has a good quick comparison. Here are recommendations right now:

If you don't have any lenses yet

If you don't have any lenses yet, then this is the big decision, because the main investment in a digital SLR is not the body, but the lenses that you buy. Right now, my lense investment is literally 20x the body investment, so that's the big decision. There are 2.5 major families right now to consider. Canon makes its own imagers and has the most worldwide share, but Nikon has lots and lots of lenses and uses the higher volume sony imagers. Finally, Sony acquire Minolta (the old #3 in cameras) and is really adding lots of technology.

Right now 99% of all folks can get a 12 megapixel camera with a superzoom (12x) and that is just about all the camera that they will ever need. Each of the vendors now has such a model, so here are the top recommendations:

• Nikon D40x and Nikon 18-200 lense. This is a great combination. The lense is image stabilized and quality is very, very good. When you grow up a little, you can get the incredible professional quality 70-200 F2.8 lense or really anything that is F2.8 in that family. Finally, when you really grow up, the D300 is just an amazing camera. It is also 12 megapixels, but it is amazingly fast. You can take pictures at ISO 3200. What that means is that the relatively slow 18-200 with the D300 at F/3.5-5.6 can take pictures in the same light as a D40x does with a very expensive F/2.8 lense (each doubling of ISO, means you in effect get double the light, so a F2.8 lense at say ISO 1600 is equivalent to an F/1.2 lense at ISO 400)
• Canon XSi and Sigma 18-200 lense. This camera doesn't come out until April this year, but is the response (finally!) to Sony and Nikon just kicking them. No review yet on this one, but it has a 12 megapixel (up from 10 megapixel) and hopefully will have a faster imager.
• Sony. This is the dark horse, but the great features here are great image quality (same imagers as the Nikon) and built in optical image stabilization which means you don't have to buy lenses that are stabilized.

If you are a Nikon lense person already

I'd say right now the right choice is probably the D300 because it is such a fast camera. Although expensive at $1500 plus, this body is really quite remarkable. it has a 1.5x lense factor but most importantly it takes great pictures at ISO 1600 or even ISO 3200. Drool, drool.

You can use your existing lenses, but if you don't have one, getting the superzoom listed

If you are a Canon lense person already

Then you are in a little bit of tough spot right now. The Canon 5D is a full frame camera that is great but pretty old now. Feels like this is going to get upgraded soon, so I'd wait for that. Abset that, the Xsi is a pretty good value, although doesn't have the speed potential that the D300 does.

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Well, iphone.unlock.no seems to have the best advice for what to do and it is a great FAQ. In short:

1. If you have 1.1.2 unlocked and jailbroken, then there is now an official 1.1.3 jailbreak. You don't need to re-unlock since 1.1.3 didn't change the baseband firmware. Main thing is DO NOT USE ITUNES to upgrade to 1.1.3
2. You can now downgrade the pesky bootloader in an out of the box 1.1.2 (that is V4.6 bootloader) to a more amenable version 3 bootloader. Unfortunately, you have to disassemble your phone and touch some "test points" on the motherboard, so it is not for the faint of heart!
3. If you have an unlocked 1.0.2 phone or have a bricked 1.1.1 phone (IMEI is 0049) then you need to repair the phone by virginizing it. This is now easy, you just add http://i.unlock.no as a Source in the Installer.app on your iphone, then make sure BSD Subsystem is installed from the System category and The Virginizer is installed in the Unlocking Tools category.

As an aside, the very best iphone hacking sources seem to me to be:

• i.unlock.no
• ModMyiFone.com

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Well, the Macbook Air shipped today and everyone from Engadget and on are running reviews. Not much new to report except that folks love the keyboard, the screen and the thinness and folks really don't like:

1. Battery life is only 2.5 hours. I only get about 2.5 hours with my MacBook Pro, but it is depressingly far away from five hours. My old Sony VAIO 2.5 pounder did a real five hours with a bright screen, but it was minature at 11" vs 13" and the processor was mindblowingly slow. Basically enough for one h.264 movie and a little internet browsing.
2. The headphone jack is so recessed, you have to start chopping away like the iPhone at your various headphone jacks. I did this for my Etymotic and it is a pain and the USB is so recessed that you can't fit lots of flash adapters or 3G modem adapters. Sigh.
3. The 80GB is slow at 4200 rpm, so folks are saying the 64GB SSD (solid state disk) should be better, but it hasn't shipped yet so no comparisons.

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It's been a while, but if you want to backup an audiobook that is on a CD, you don't have to record it in full 44KHz glory, instead, you can use reduced settings. Here's a guide for doing it with iTunes....

1. Choose iTune/Preferences on the Mac (on the PC, it is Edit/Options I think)
2. Goto the advanced tab and select MP3, Custom... and pick 64Kbps, mono and 24KHz (this actually gives you 32Kbps mono as the dialog is a little strange), make sure you do not select VBR as at these low levels, variable bit rate actually increases file sizes.
3. You should get about 4 minutes per megabyte with this encoding and it will sound with human voices
4. Start up iTunes. Insert your CD iTunes now uses GraceNote to find the CD title
5. The CD titles should now come up and ask you to import, say yes and it now converts it to .mp3 files and puts them into your iTunes library
6. Now download mp3merger or mp3 merger
7. Load all the various files in and make it one big mp3

BTW if you like the Lame MP3 encoder (the best!) rather than what Apple uses, there is a free utility called Audion which includes the Lame encoder.

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