Category: computers

Stuff White People Like – So Good it HURTS!

by Vawz, posted in biodiesel, blogging, Coffee, computers, consumerism, Environment, Humour, Life, Scooters

I can’t help myself, I love my Vespa, If I am not in my veggie powered 4WD (with Apple sticker on the back window), I drive my Vespa to sit in a non-franchised, un-corporate cafe drinking fairtrade organic coffee, in front of me on the table is my Apple Macbook with a Molskine notebook on top and my iPhone alongside.

I AM A STEREOTYPE – aghhhhhh, I need a new life!  🙂   This website I found has caught me out. I am predictable, readable and … aghhh it hurts so much I could not help but laugh … and laugh  … and laugh. I had tears running down my cheeks. Christine has been saying the things this guy blogs about for years to me. This is so clever!

He was on Triple J last week apparently. He writes about Things White People Like, here is his list – You need to visit his site!

3 Way Sync

by Vawz, posted in computers

I love geek stuff like iPhones and Apple Macbooks.

This last 24hours has seen me download 2 applications that I think I will enjoy;

1) Nuevasync

2) Calaboration 1.0.2

Nuevasync is my way of getting around a MobileMe account and paying a lot of money every year for something that this Nuevasync does for free. It Syncs my Google Calender and with my iPhone Calender. Well, you say, I am an Apple purist and only use iCal. Well we will get there – wait a minute. The reason I wanted to do this is because Christine is often wanting to know what I am up to, or to put some family event into  my calender and has to wait until I am around to do it or she rings me and tells me to put it in my calender. Now She can pull up my Google Cal on her Windows PC and mess with my schedule (and contacts list!)

But what happens with iCal? Well for some they will throw out iCal (Apple Calender) and just start using the on-line Google Cal, or just their iPhone diary. But I like the iCal, well maybe I am just used to it. And what of those days when I can’t find my phone to read the diary and the Internet is down so I can’t see the Google Cal…this has never yet happened…but maybe one day it will. So I need to draw in iCal to the sync as well. That is where this Google App they call Collaboration comes in.

Collaboration simply sets up a shared calendar between your Google Cal and your iCal Calendar. Easy? Well almost perfect…

Downside – On my iCal I have multiple calenders in different colours. Work, home, birthdays, and another google cal I have subscribed to from a guy called Tom Sine with special events and notes on it.

The Sync, in fact either of the above 2 programmes do not differentiate when syncing, so when I go back into iCal, I just have all my events and appointments in one colour and I have to turn off my other calenders as I now have a new calendar selected called Scott Vawser Google Cal and it contains all the info from my other 2 (Work and home) calenders and I see double of everything. So once I deselect them I now have matching cleanly synced calenders – iphone, Google and ical all up to date pretty much all of the time!

I love it!

Oh – Phil M, Thanks for the tip 🙂

Playing in The Shed

by Vawz, posted in computers, Woodwork

Well aside from being a geek and playing on my Mac, I also like to do other things!

So far today, I have managed a stunning 2 hour paddle along the coast in my sea kayak, returned to hand over the car to Christine, for the kids swimming lessons then I headed for the shed and finished building a little ‘workbox’ for my MacBook. You see with the keyboard and mouse, I figure the nice white board on the Mac will last much longer if I don’t touch it 🙂 I just put it up on a little frame and look at it from a distance and don’t touch. When I want my desk all clean I just tuck everything under the MacBook in its little box! The wood was leftover from a shelf I am building for the backdoor of my car…you know fold down for coffee on the road, you don’t need to get out the table, just open the back door and fold down the little table…you want a photo don’t you. Ok I will finish it today and take a snapshot. In the meantime enjoy my MacBook Riser (I made that up all by myself!)

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Kayaking and Microsoft (sent from my Mac!)

by Vawz, posted in computers, Humour, kayak

The Top Ten Ways The Sport Would Be Different If Microsoft Built Kayaks:
10.  A particular model year of kayak wouldn’t be available until AFTER that year, instead of before.
9.  Every time you wanted to try a new paddle, you would have to buy a new kayak.
8.  Occasionally your kayak would stop dead in the water for no apparent cause. No amount of paddling
would budge it. You would have to tow it back to the launch site and restart your kayak. For some
strange reason, you would simply just accept this.
7.  Two people could not both paddle your kayak unless you paid extra for a ’95 kayak or NT kayak in
which case you would also have to buy an extra seat and expensive new charts.
6.  A sophisticated marketing blitz would make you feel like a second-rate tasteless slacker for failing to
upgrade your kayak. OOPS — wait a minute — that’s ALREADY happening.
5.  Sun Microsystem would make a kayak with 70% less hull drag, half the weight, watertight in all
conditions and twice as stable. Unfortunately, it could be used on only 5% of the existing rivers.
4. Your Microsoft kayak’s compass, weather radio, and sump pump would be replaced with a single
“General Kayak Fault” warning light.
3.  The enthusiast press would get people excited about the “new” features of Microsoft kayaks, forgetting
completely that they had been available in other brands for years.
2.  Microsoft’s inconsiderable owners manual would spawn a whole cottage industry of outsiders who
would write hundreds of books explaining how to paddle your Microsoft kayak. Amazingly, we would
buy all they printed.
1.  If you wanted to go kayaking in a group with your club members or friends (known as Network
Kayaking). EVERYONE in the group will have BUY special group kayaking accessories however, only one
member of the group (known as the kaysysop) would have the foggiest notion of exactly what they did
and no one else would be permitted operate them.
Unknown Author

New Program To Play With

by Vawz, posted in computers

Evernote is one of those programs that you hear about and think “yeah, whatever”. But I downloaded it the other day and have played with it a bit after work today.

It’s a kind of multi-media organizational tool. You can grab emails or bits of them, photos, video clips, snap shots off your phone, screen shots off the web, whole clips from the web, pages, anything really. You pull them into this high tech scanning tool and slot them into the right folder (you preset). When you want to find it again you go to a ‘spotlight’ (Apple Mac) style search and put in a word.

Let’s say you took a photo of an elephant at the zoo, in the photo was the sign next to his cage that says “African Elephant”. The text recognition tool picks this up and pulls the photo in, along with any other references to “elephant” in your Evernote collection.

It ultimately could replace multiple folders in your email program, multiple book marks in your web browser, and loads and loads of crap in your folders that you are never too sure whats in there and how to find it.

Sure Mac’s search function “Spotlight” can do a great job of searching all though quick, but Evernote seems to capture things with such ease.

I can email direct into my evernote account online from anywhere, or send any stuff straight from my phone, so no matter where I am within reason, I can ‘clip’ stuff and drop it into Evernote. Months later, I just do a search for the keyword associated with that item and wooomp – there it is, along with any other associate files or ‘clips’.

Geek? Yep!

(They do work with Windows)

My Home Page

by Vawz, posted in computers

What do you use as your main homepage when you turn on your browser? Your own blog or webpage? One that is associated with your work place, a favorite passion or hobby? The news? A generic google page maybe?

I have found a customizable one that I am able to just stick whatever I like on it, a bit like a Google one only more user friendly. You even get a selection of pretty photos to chose as a background!

Check this out, it’s new, local and the developers are open to tips and suggestions.

Apple Mac

by Vawz, posted in computers

How ironic … an hour after I posted the below comments about loving my Apple Mac – it crashed! Big time, it wont start and it is making a crunching sound on the inside, simialr to the sound of teeth grinding, which mine are doing right now 😦

I Love My Mac

by Vawz, posted in computers, technology

I do indeed love the Apple Mac!

I use Firefox as a browser, I know there is probably more argument over what people use as a browser than if people use a Mac or the other sort of computer.

But I love having no mouse on my laptop! I love keyboard shortcuts!

So here, for those Mac / Firefox users are some great keyboard tips in case you were wondering –

1. ⌘ + l = focus address bar.

2. ⌘ + d = bookmark current page.

3. ⌘ + k = focus google search bar. (I like this)

4. ⌘ + f = find.

5. ⌘ + g = find next.

6. ⌘ + t = new tab.

7. ⌘ + w = close current tab. (one I never used but will now)

8. ⌘ + shift + t = reopen accidentally closed tab (Best one ever!).

9. crtl + tab = tab through tabs.

10. crtl + shift + tab = tab backwards through tabs

Oh Bugga

by Vawz, posted in computers

I stuffed up bad and now I need your help to get me out of this mess!

Many years ago I set up a MS Access Data Base at Whitford Church which I bought from a guy in Melbourne. It is a pretty good db.

Recently they asked me to come and clean it up a bit. So I brought in a new version to install (it has a back end on the server and all) But I could not do it, it was beyond me.

So I just put everything back where I found it…and thought I could just walk away…ahghhhh nope!

They can’t use the database at all now and I can’t fix it, so

CAN YOU HELP ME? Are you in Perth? Will you be able to come and do it? I will buy you some chocolate, I can’t promise you money, I am asking the Church about paying someone some money, so there might, I say might, be some money in it. It would not just be about fixing my stuff ups, but also about installing the new version and transferring data across to it.

The guy in Melb is willing to work with you on it all.

Help??