Letterman's Review

OK, well not quite what manufacturers want to see.... but this is great!

Quickie Review - Locker Widget 1.1

Quickie Review - Bluecouch Software - Locker Widget 1.1

Locker widget has one purpose. When you double click it it locks your Mac. This may seem silly, but it really is useful for when you have to go grab that latte refill at Starbucks and leave you iBook on the table or when your in the library and have to go 20 feet away to get that next reference book. Simple, elegant, free and most import it's a universal binary so it will run on the older Power PC systems and on the new Intel versions of the Macs. Go grab it!

From the web page....

Locker is a Dashboard widget. It has a very simple and limited usage: When you double click it, it will lock your computer. You will end up at login window, just as if you had used the fast user switching menu item.

Apple Battery Recall

Looks like this list was updated. Everybody.... go check em again :-)

LINK at Apple.com

Battery Exchange Program iBook G4 and PowerBook G4

Apple has determined that certain lithium-ion batteries containing cells manufactured by Sony Corporation of Japan pose a safety risk that may result in overheating under rare circumstances.

The affected batteries were sold worldwide from October 2003 through August 2006 for use with the following notebook computers: 12-inch iBook G4, 12-inch PowerBook G4 and 15-inch PowerBook G4.

Apple is voluntarily recalling the affected batteries and has initiated a worldwide exchange program to provide eligible customers with a new replacement battery, free of charge. This program is being conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and other international safety authorities.

Identifying your battery

Please use the chart below to identify the battery model and serial numbers that apply to your iBook or PowerBook. If the first 5 digits of your battery’s 12-digit serial number fall within the noted ranges, please order a replacement battery immediately.

To view the model and serial numbers labeled on the bottom of the battery, you must remove the battery from the computer. The battery serial number is printed in black or dark grey lettering beneath a barcode. See photos below.

Computer model	Battery model number	Battery serial number range
12-inch iBook G4	A1061	ZZ338 - ZZ427 3K429 - 3K611 6C519 - 6C552 ending with S9WA, S9WC or S9WD
12-inch PowerBook G4	A1079	ZZ411 - ZZ427 3K428 - 3K611
15-inch PowerBook G4	A1078 and A1148	3K425 - 3K601 6N530 - 6N551 ending with THTA, THTB, or THTC 6N601 ending with THTC

Click the images for a larger view.

Widget Dilemma - Part II

Here is a great posting / set of directions to get widgets on your desktop for free.  This doesn't create a new program, but it temporarily moves them from the Dashboard layer to the desktop.  It's pretty cool and works very well.  From Ask Dave Taylor I present to you the solution.....

It's not only possible, but it's pretty easy and darn fun! Here's what you need to do...

First, open up Terminal (Applications --> Utilities --> Terminal) and type in the following, exactly as you see here:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES

You can just copy and paste from this Web page if you're concerned that you might type in something incorrectly, of course.

You'll get another regular system prompt within Terminal if it works, there's no other output to the defaults program.

Now log out of your account by choosing Apple --> Log Out, and log in again (You need to restart Dashboard).

Ready for the fun now? Press f12 to bring Dashboard up, then drag one of your Dashboard widgets around. While you're still dragging it around (that's critical: keep that mouse button down!) press f12 again.

Poof! Your Dashboard vanishes, but the widget's still visible. Move it to where-ever you want on your screen and it's there, running, fully functional, without the rest of Dashboard around!

The whole article can be accessed here... LINK  I thank Dave for a great how-to tutorial....

Widget Dilemma

Widgets are cool. Widgets are fun.  One problem, when you use them you loose track of everything else on your Mac because those cool widgets live on another layer.  Why?  I dunno but it's a pain I tell ya :-)  The Dashboard, area where the widgets live, might as well be on another machine for all the convience of working with it :-)  So, I went a questing again for something to fix the problem.  I found two good solutions, one for $9.95 and one for free.  They are different approaches but both get the job done.  In this post I will talk about Amnesty Singles.

Amnesty Singles is a drag-and-drop utility to convert widgets into small stand alone applications.  The created applications give you the options on size and refresh rate.  The refresh is very important as many widgets rely on constantly updated data to perform there tasks.



I tried this out on several widgets and all worked flawlessly.  I was very pleased with response time and I will be registering this software soon as it is well worth the $10 for the ability to run with out using Dashboard.

Flash Bags - USB flash drive with a twist

I would love to test these in person, but I have not found a US distributor.  Perhaps they will show up on Ebay :-)  I found a blurb about these drives on Boing Boing.  The drives inflate as you add information to them to give you there status at a glance instead of checking through My Computer in Windows or More Info on a Mac.  Kinda cool.  Go check em out!

	flashbag USB Flash Drives with micro pump

Blog News

Namaste!

Well, as I alluded to in a previous post I have indeed split the blog again.  We now offically have the "GeekZenDaddy Network" :-D  Going forward I will be posting Buddhist and Zen items here.  I am doing this to make my life and my readers lives easier.  So, head on over if you want to see, it is up and running.  In fact, I already have 8 or 9 posts over there to get the ball rolling :-)

Yours,

GeekZenDaddy

Spambox.us

Hello everyone! Today I have quickie review of Spambox.us which I just heard about the other day. Spambox.us is a website that allows you to setup a "fake" email address for a specified time from 30 minutes up to year. Once a mail is sent to the "fake" address it is forwarded to you real email address. This is great for places that you have to sign up for to access, after all BugMeNot will not work for everything :-)


Here is a real example from my own life. My wife and I had a disagreement about who the band playing in a TV commercial was. So I found this great site and sure enough they had the answer for us. Oh, yeah, and as expected..... she was right :-) BugMeNot did not work for the forums in which the answer was, so I had to register. If I had known about this site at the time, this is what I would have used.

Last.FM - Not ready for prime time

I use Last.FM at work on my Windows PC. It works great. Basicly Last.FM is a service a lot like Pandora in which you set up sreaming radio staions and they provide links to buy the music that you like. The largest difference between them is the implamentation. Pandora uses a java applet on a webpage and Last.FM requires you to install a player.



The mandatory player is very buggy on OS X at this point. I tried setup on a Mac Mini (non-intel) and on my G4 iBook. In addition I had a friend attempt the same setup on his Intel based iMac. On bot the Mini and iMac the installs went as planned with no errors. However when we attempted to run the program it would launch and the shut down with no errors at all. I was not even able to install Last.FM on my iBook at all.



We tried installing from a clean boot with nothing else running and rebooting after install to see if the program would run. No success. At the moment it looks like Last.FM is not ready yet. I will report my findings to there tech support and see if we can make it work. I will update this review as new information becomes available.

It's Sept. 11th

Bow your heads and remember the event that changed America forever. Hold no malice since hatred only creates more hatred but remember.

SnapNDrag - Screen Capture

Since I have started to even consider doing a reviews blog I have seen the need for a good screen capture tool. I have been playing with the Mac print screen key combo, but it is awkward and does not give me any control on what to capture or when by using a timed shot. I came across SnapNDrag via Google search. It looked simple, flexable and fast... just what I needed. This software delivers just what it says. I dropped the file into my Apps folder was up and running in about 30 seconds. There is a setup feature, but it's really not needed. This program just works. Just click and drag as the below image shows. There is support for multiple file formats PNG, TIFF & JPEG are included.

SnapNDrag is designed to be simple and intuitive. There are four buttons on the left side of the window. The buttons correspond to these four modes of capture: Selection - lets you select an area to capture Window - lets you select a window to capture Screen - capture the entire screen Timed - capture the entire screen after a delay

The above picture and verbage is from their website. After using this for two weeks doing hundreds of sample screen caps, I give this package 5 out of 5, honestly there is no way to improve. If they add more into it the program would slow down or become more difficult to use. Truly a great program and I highly recommend that you go to Yellowmug and get a copy for yourself!

Cool Meditation Software for the Mac OS

Meditation Timer

After questing around the web to find a meditation tool to help me in my sitting I discovered there aren't many out the for the Mac. I came across Meditation Timer at the Mac Update site. It looked like it would do the trick so I gave it a whirl.

I have been using the software for about a month and a half and it works great. Basically its a simple countdown timer with a few extras. The software allows you to set a delay before start, a gong or bell noise at specified intervals. You can use your own sounds in mp3 format from your personal collection or from sound repositories on the web. Here is how from the included help file....

Adding Sound Files:
You can add your own sound files easily by adding an MP3 to the resources folder. Right click meditation timer, select "Show Package Contents", and open the 'Contents/Resources' folder. Drop MP3s here and Meditation Timer will automatically detect them.

The coolest feature is that you can export your sessions to iTunes. That means you can drop the mp3 on your iPod and sit in a park or anywhere else without the need to take your Mac with you :-) I have tried this at work using my headphones during lunch. The headphones distract me but the feature is great if you have a small set of portable speakers to plug into your iPod.

This program has become a part of my daily meditation sits due to the KISS factor. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. The only thing I thing would add to improve the program is bundling mp3 importation into the program. If you meditate give this a try, I feel you will be very happy with it.

Welcome Everyone!

Welcome one and all to my new review blog. I split this off of my main blog because I would like to do a lot more reviews of software and gadgets but felt that the audience who wants that does not want to see my opinion on the latest Paris "Squinty" Hilton scandal. (BTW - busted for DUI last night) You can always hit up my other blog for that kind of stuff at GeekZenDaddy :-) And now..... on with the show!