every word of it.

So in preparation for the iPad and in the spirit of simplifying my life, I’ve decided to get rid of extra computers. I’m in the process of switching from a giant Linux file server to a tiny ReadyNAS NAS. And I’ve decided to get rid of my Dell laptops. I have a Dell Vostro A90 and a Dell Latitude D600. I’ve put the Vostro A90 on Craigslist.

So far I’ve gotten one reply from a David Woodgate, woodgate962@gmail.com It’s so obvious a scam, it’s a cliche.

His first email

Hello, I am very much interested in buying your item which i see on craigslist list.Is the item still up for sale?

What stands out? The terrible English? Maybe this person doesn’t speak English as his first language, so let’s ignore that. How about he doesn’t ask anything about the Dell? He refers to it by “item”.

Anyways, I reply. Maybe this guy is just an idiot.

Hi David, Yes the item is still up for sale.

His reply is even better

Thanks for your mail. i really appreciate your response to my mail. like i said i will like to buy this item from you and i want you withdraw the advert from craigslist. i’m using this opportunity to inform you that i wont be able to come and inspect the item or pay by cash cos i have been advice by craigslist never send payment via bank transfer ,check, money order or sending cash by post,that is why it will be safe and secure for us to complete this transaction through PayPal though i am a us citizen and i am willing to buy this item as a valentine gift for my cousin and i would appreciate it if i can pay through paypal.mean while i’m willing to offer you the sum $150 for the shipping.However if you don’t have paypal account you can just log on to www.paypal.com and set up an account it is easy and secure to pay and receive money through paypal.pls get back to me asap Thanks

My favorite part from that? Playing cautious by following best practices from Craigslist regarding money. Yet, Craigslist recommends dealing locally to avoid scammers. Also, I don’t know about you, but I constantly mention to people I’m a US Citizen. And I love that he’s paying half of my asking price in shipping.

So yea, anyone wants to buy a Vostro A90? It runs Mac OS X and (if you insist) XP.

Quit Adium and Delete

~/Library/Caches/Adium/Default/DirtyLogs.plist

~/Library/Caches/Adium/Default/Logs.index

When Adium restarts and you open up the transcript viewer, Adium will reindex everything.

It’s true. They know they have the best product available. And they know that they will really, really, really, really have to piss me off before I switch to another service.

My Residential Gateway has been resetting sporadically for the past 2 months. Note the word sporadically.

sporadic |spəˈradik|adjectiveoccurring at irregular intervals or only in a few places; scattered or isolated

UVerse phone support seem to have trouble with this word.

I’ve called UVerse an innumerable amount of times complaining about this problem. And the tech on the line will rattle off the same steps – have you checked the power cable/have you reset the residential gateway/is the problem occurring now. And I indulge them. After all, I did the same job. And I know they’re just referring to a knowledge base. Sometimes this will result in an offer for a call back. This is when I have to explain to them the meaning of the word sporadic – “Yes, you can call back tomorrow. But it might be fine tomorrow and the next day, and the next, but then it’ll reset. Anyways yes, you can call me back.” Because really, it’s a very rare occurrence if they do follow up.

Twice now I’ve had a technician make a house call. The first time was a few weeks ago. That guy said it was a problem with the line and he’d schedule a line tech. I don’t know if that happened. But I do know that after his visit, I was fine for some time.

Yesterday, I had another visit. This visit was primarily to replace my DVR. Last week it deleted all my recordings and refused to record anything afterwards. I mentioned the RG problem to this guy, and he said it was a problem with the “bridge tap on my line”. And he would schedule a line tech to remove that. I don’t know if that happened. But a half hour ago, my RG reset.

UVerse is now up to “really, really, really”. I’ve started logging everything now. I know I should’ve started keeping track weeks ago.

UVerse, don’t make me switch to Road Runner or Dish or DirecTV – I love the guide too much.

Are you getting errors like ‘A Volume Failed To Mount’ after you upgrade Netatalk?

Delete the .AppleD* folders at the root of your shares. Or just mv them to a backup if you don’t trust me.

.AppleDB/ .AppleDesktop/ .AppleDouble/

Handbrake is wonderful. And now it’s even better – since you can now encode from any source, not just DVDs.

Anyways, on the download page they have available a .deb for Ubuntu 8.10. That’s fine and dandy, but I’m running 8.04. So time to compile!

Following the guide – you’ll eventually encounter an error like

LibX264 ./lib/libx264.a
patching file encoder/slicetype.c
Hunk #1 succeeded at 487 (offset 108 lines).
Found yasm 0.5.0.1591
Minimum version is yasm-0.6.1 or nasm-2.0
If you really want to compile without asm, configure with –disable-asm.

    cd dirname ./x264.tar.gz && CONTRIB=pwd &&
    rm -rf x264 && (gzip -dc x264.tar.gz | tar xf – ) &&
    cd x264 &&  patch -p0 < ../patch-x264-idr.patch &&
    bash ./configure –prefix=$CONTRIB –enable-pthread &&
    make libx264.a && cp libx264.a $CONTRIB/lib/ && cp x264.h $CONTRIB/include/ && strip -S $CONTRIB/lib/libx264.a

…failed LibX264 ./lib/libx264.a …

The issue is that the yasm version in the 8.04 repository is too old. So you need to build your own version.

$sudo apt-get remove –purge yasm 
$wget http://www.tortall.net/projects/yasm/releases/yasm-0.7.2.tar.gz 
$tar xvzf yasm-0.7.2.tar.gz 
$cd yasm-0.7.2 
$./configure 
$make 
$sudo checkinstall

Once that’s set, you should be able to build Handbrake with no issues. Hooray!

I wrote those last 2 entries using Microsoft Live Writer. It’s a really great program. It’s simple to use, and I like how everything works.

But sadly, it only runs on Windows. I either have to run it in my VM, or Remote Desktop into my crummy Dell laptop.

So MacBU, please please port Live Writer to MacOS.

Thanks!

I have a 20GB iPod from 4 years ago. It’s one of these

It’s a classic.

I got it free when I bought my Powerbook G4 (the greatest laptop Apple has ever made to date).

I use it in my car. It’s why I don’t listen to the radio and why I love my commute to work.

Well it’s getting old.

See the battery life was never stellar to begin with. But since I only use it on a charger, that never really becomes an issue

Unless it’s a Sunday.

If I don’t drive anywhere over the weekend, the battery dies. And when the battery goes, so goes the play counts. I have to sync it by Sunday, otherwise by Monday morning, the battery will be drained. And since it’s getting colder, the battery life is shortened by the weather, so I have to act faster.

So all the precious play count information – information I need for my playlists get lost*. At least 5 days worth of data – 7 hours spent driving – never happened. And what’s really sad, is that all those tracks that I keep replaying over and over, because my remote control lacks a rating button, I lose. The idea being that eventually when I sync, I can see the exceptionally high play count and rate the track.

The solution to all these disappointing Sundays

1. Apple make an iPod with wi-fi syncing.
2. Zune work with iTunes and MacOS

*It’s not really consistent – sometimes I lose the data, sometimes I don’t

Dear MS,

I appreciate Windows Search 4.0. Finding things in Outlook is a lot faster.

But what the hell is this?

I understand that the folder is not indexed. But why do I have to use Search Companion? If you know that the folder is not indexed, why are you even showing me the new Windows Search – just take me straight to the stupid dog.

Thanks

We Are Keeping Netflix Profiles Dear Raishad, You spoke, and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are. We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you. -Your friends at Netflix

Yep, my blog is powerful. So far it’s saved 30 Rock, Pushing Daisies, and now Netflix Profiles.

Sadly, I just couldn’t save Arrested Development, or Speed Racer. But I’m ahead though, and that’s what matters.

Speaking of Speed Racer – not one person asked for a ticket refund. This either means that no one reads this OR that everyone who felt compelled to see Speed Racer after my post, loved it. I think it’s the latter.

Sadly, it looks like Speed Racer is out of theatres. Until I’ve seen Hancock and The Dark Knight, Speed Racer remains the Summer Movie of the Summer.

Are you excited? I am. Hopefully we’re excited about the same thing.

Today, Eclipse Ganymede was released. Eclipse is a software platform that has an amazing plug-in system that allows it to disguise itself as a Java Development Environment. That’s how it sneaks in. “Don’t mind me, I’m just a Java IDE.” And then all of a sudden you’re using it for reporting.

But, I love Eclipse. Most days, I spend my entire working day staring at Eclipse. So it’s nice that it’s a pleasure to use and continues to improve.

I’ve already mentioned the bread crumbs. Honestly, I haven’t made much use of them in practice. It’s a nice feature to have, but I find it is faster just to use the Package Explorer + Outline to get where I need to be.

A feature of Ganymede that I love and use all the damn time is the enhanced search results.

This is an example search. Notice how the results list the context of where the term was found. It makes scanning a list of matches easy.

One of the features I’m excited about is the Save Actions

I haven’t really used it, since I just found out about it. But it looks to be a nice time saver. Performing a lot of clean up automatically for you.

Also kind of interesting and part of the Ganymede release is the Eclipse Communication Framework. This allows for Collaborative Editing. Collaborative Editing isn’t new, but it could be more useful now that it’s “standard” from within Eclipse. We’ll see.

The “New and Noteworthy” is a mile long. It really is amazing that the Eclipse Foundation can coordinate a release with 23 different projects.

So thanks Eclipse, for making my life easier.