Happy on the Planet

My Guitars...

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 18:28:00 +0000

It would appear that I am collecting guitars! This wasn't the intention but has become the reality....

Guitar 1 - Ovation, Adamas W597 (carbon fibre bowl backed electro acoustic six string)

Guitar 2 - Washburn, WP-50 Les Paul Electric Sunburst

Guitar 3 - Ibanez, s520EX, Rock Standard with Floyd Rose Trem

Top Cydia Apps I Use

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 17:12:00 +0000

As I have said in the past, I use my blog as both a place to share thoughts and ideas but also a place to hold items I may want to refer to in the future.

So, in the spirit of the latter, if you have an "I" device and use cydia you may find the following apps useful (or essential!)

Sources

p0dulo.com
cydia.xsellize.com
cydia.zodttd.com/repo/cydia
cydia.hackulo.us

Applications

Action Menu
Action Menu Plus Pack
Activator
AirPlane SBSettings
AllPlay
AppQuit Activator Actions
AutoCorrection SB Settings
AutoLock SB Settings
Black Keyboard
CyDelete
FullScreen for iPad
GameBoy ADX
Go Native
iFile
iMame4All
iRetiner
iRetinerGui
NES ADX
PullToRefresh
RemoveBackground
RemoveBackground SBSettings
Reset Safari for SBSettings
RetinaPad
SBSettings
ScrollingBoard
Scrollingboard SBSettings SB Dock
SevenHabits
Snes ADX
StayOpened
TruPrint
VMOJI 4
YourTube

Keyboard ninja - super fast shutdown for Macs (no mouse required)

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 06:19:00 +0000

Well, it's been quite a week for keyboard ninja with a number of new shortcuts landing in my lap and leaving me reeling as to which to type up first!
Today's tip is for Mac's only so all you other platform users can look away now!

One thing I find when working is that i get engrossed in what I am doing, be it at home, on the train or at work. Far to often I look up and realise that I have been merrily working away and time has marched on. When this happens I usually end up with either a half aborted shutdown laptop or worst still find myself late for the next thing (which trust me when we are talking about getting off of trains is a royal pain!).

So based on this you should be able to imagine my delight at finding a shortcut that allows me to power off my Mac without any delay.

Fast Reboot
If you want to reboot and you don't feel like shutting down your apps one by one or waiting for Mac OS to walk you through them, press Ctrl+Cmd+Eject to reboot your Mac immediately, with no alerts or warning dialogs.

Fast Shutdown
If you need to shut down and run out the door, press Ctrl+Opt+Cmd+Eject to shut down immediately, also without alerts or warning dialogs. Be careful using these commands though: you won't be prompted to save your work or review your open apps first.
Slower Version
You can also press Ctrl+Eject (or press the power button) to bring up the power management menu and select whether you want to reboot, shut down, sleep, or do nothing.

Fast Force Quit Front Application
Remember you can always press Cmd+Opt+Shift+Esc to force-quit the front-most application if that's what's making you want to reboot.

So there you are, another instalment of keyboard ninja,
Until next time, leave the mouse alone.
Dg

Keyboard Ninja - Fast Window Switching in Windows

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 08:46:00 +0000

In this second instalment of the keyboard ninja series I wanted to give you all a lovely little tip for switching between active desktop windows quickly.

We already know that ALT+TAB brings up the task switcher and allows you to move to another window without touching the mouse.

Today’s tip however bypasses the task switcher altogether and simply maximises the next open window (works best with few windows open).
To try this out press ALT+ESC and see what happens, stands to reason that you can rapidly repeat this key combination to cycle through the open desktop windows.
That’s it, until next time, leave the mouse alone!!!
Dg

Keyboard ninja - create new folders in windows or mac without touching the mouse

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 05:43:00 +0000

We all know that the key to speed when working the desktop is to leave the mouse alone. So in the spirit of mouse free computer use I am starting a new mini series called keyboard ninja. These articles will appear on my blog and focus on nifty keyboard tricks that will help you stop reaching for the desktop rodent.

So, today's tip .... Did you know you can create a new folder in explorer in windows 7 or finder on the mac with a simple keyboard shortcut.
Windows 7 - CTRL + Shift + N
Mac OSX - Command + Shift + N
There you go, simple, and, given these are supposed to be bite size nuggets I will sign off there

Until next time, leave the mouse alone.

Technology security for the new world

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 06:24:00 +0000

The rate of growth within technology has never been linear and whilst it would be a fair assumption to prescribe that there must be a natural ceiling to this exponential and continuous change we haven't seen it yet and there is no visible slowing in sight.

In today's commercial world IT security architecture has become more complex, business critical and omnipresent present with services residing on both sides of the corporate data centre boundary. All of this architecture in essence is there to provide access to data in a manner that is secure and safe from malicious or accidental corruption, theft or disclosure.
It comes as no surprise that with our data centres growing in scale and the sheer volume of data collected by every organisation that the amount of time and effort focussed on security in all senses has increased dramatically over the last ten years.
The introduction of truly intelligent malware, bot nets, mirror services and numerous other not so nice technology has meant that data centres around the world are now shored up with a wealth of security appliances who's collective aim is to stop the bad stuff getting in.
Whilst security appliances in their own right are an absolute necessity today's sprawl of bespoke hardware has resulted in an ever more complex estate that requires maintaining, supporting and protecting every single day of the year. These devices all require a robust patch management plan and time in the cycle to actually perform the required upgrades which by their very nature are unpredictable in their frequency.
If the recent high profile security breaches that have littered our national press in late 2010 have taught me one thing it would be that if a group of determined, informed and motivated individuals wants to get access to your data centre, the likelihood is that over a period of time they will.
Regardless of the size and scale of your data centre protection, the shininess of your technology or the sales pitch that sealed the deal, all, I repeat all, appliances have flaws in their design, their software or their implementation.
Having watched with interest from the sideline the ongoing battle between Apple and the jailbreak community over the last four years I am repeatedly amazed that each time the hordes of developers employed by Apple manage to patch an exploit used to unlock the Apple devices within hours the community has found an alternative route and the whole cycle starts again.
Using Sony as an example. When they were attacked by Anonymous in early 2011 the initial breaches took the form of distributed denial of service attacks that simply overloaded the remote systems to the point of failure. Once Sony overcame that challenge the response was a more focussed attack on the security devices that were implemented to protect their estates. This intense and prolonged attack resulted in device exploits being found and access to underlying systems gained. Ultimately this resulted in Sony having personal data copied from their systems, a PR nightmare and four to six weeks of downtime while they restructured their estate and regrouped. Ironically, their revised security model did not save them in the longer term, the reason the attacks stopped? Simple, the attackers lost interest and moved on to other targets.
As I started saying earlier in this article, if someone wants to gain access badly enough then they will. Also I said that networks are designed to stop people getting in. These two gems have always driven major architecture design choices.
In today's world the design approach originally employed must change. If we are to even begin to protect our corporate assets then we must adopt a different thought process when designing architecture.
Today's threats dictate that we must design our networks as if they have already been breached, as if there is already bad, malicious software within our estate. Employing this slightly unnerving thought process means that we can start to build in such topics as segregation, damage limitation, zero trust and network awareness. Network administrators must assume the worst and therefore establish a programme of continuous detection and removal.
For the record I am not suggesting for a split second that IT professionals should disregard security, far from it. Continue your peripheral device patch management, maintenance and reporting. I addition look at your user accessed systems, look at your power and super users, look at that server that isnt quite performing as it should. Learn to be suspicious and understand that malware is pervasive, intelligent and hides itself well even in the face of scanning.

Armed with a slightly modified thought process we can build more robust networks. Reduce overall complexity, costs and ultimately downtime.
to be continued .....

De Bono’s SIX THINKING HATS

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Mon, 16 May 2011 10:52:00 +0000

The six hats represent six modes of thinking and are directions to think rather than labels for thinking. That is, the hats are used proactively rather than reactively. Everyone is able to contribute to the exploration without denting egos as they are just using the yellow hat or whatever hat. People can contribute under any hat even though they initially support the opposite view. Putting on and taking off is essential. When done in a group, everybody wear the same hat at the same time.

White Hat thinking

This covers facts, figures, information needs and gaps. "I think we need some white hat thinking at this point..." means let's drop the arguments and proposals, and look at the data base."

Red Hat thinking

This covers intuition, feelings and emotions. The red hat allows the thinker to put forward an intuition without any need to justify it. "Putting on my red hat, I think this is a terrible proposal." Usually feelings and intuition can only be introduced into a discussion if they are supported by logic.

Black Hat thinking

This is the hat of judgment and caution. It is a most valuable hat. It is not in any sense an inferior or negative hat. The black hat is used to point out why a suggestion does not fit the facts, the available experience, the system in use, or the policy that is being followed.

Yellow Hat thinking

This is the logical positive. Why something will work and why it will offer benefits. It can be used in looking forward to the results of some proposed action, but can also be used to find something of value in what has already happened.

Green Hat thinking

This is the hat of creativity, alternatives, proposals, what is interesting, provocations and changes.

Blue Hat thinking

This is the overview or process control hat. It looks not at the subject itself but at the 'thinking' about the subject. "Putting on my blue hat, I feel we should do some more green hat thinking at this point."

Why are CD's 74 minutes long?

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 20:17:00 +0000

When the Compact Disc Digital Audio standard came out in 1980, there was a curious fact about it: It was 74 minutes long. Not 60 minutes. Or an even 70 minutes. Seventy-four. And it was all one deaf man's fault.

The fault of a deaf man and one of the best musical compositions ever written, one that gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it

The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, the final great work of a Herr Ludwig van Beethoven, of Bonn, Germany. But how?

Picture this: The 1970s, the greatest rock era of them all. Plus, disco. The exact year: 1979. The year the Rolling Stones recorded Emotional Rescue, Debby Harry rocked everyone with Heart of Glass, and Chic made the world dance with Good Times. It was also the year in which Philips and Sony were working on the first audio CD standard. Philips wanted a 11.5-centimeter disc, while Sony wanted a 10-centimeter format. Both were enough to fit any of those vinyls, the smaller size capable of storing 60 minutes of 16-bit 44,056 Hz stereo music.

But that wasn't enough.

Norio Ohga said so. Ohga was a man mad about audio. He trained as an opera singer and, after listening to Sony's tape recorder for the first time, he sent a letter criticizing its audio quality. He was offered a job at the company, and his influence was so big that he became president of Sony in the 80s.

But, back then, he was just overseeing the project and he demanded that the CD format should be able to play back the whole Ninth Symphony. According to Philips, the "longest known performance lasted 74 minutes [...] a mono recording made during the Bayreuther Festspiele in 1951 and conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler." 60 minutes wouldn't cut it, and so it became 74 minutes—12 centimeters.

At least, that's what some people say. Others say that it was famed Austrian orchestra and opera conductor Von Karajan who wanted the format to hold the entire Ninth. Von Karajan was instrumental in making the format big among the audio connoisseurs, and put that as a condition for supporting it. However, Philips' chief engineer Kees Immink has a completely different story. He says that 12 centimeters was the final length because it was a neutral size. Neither Sony's nor Philips'. But that, my friends, I don't want to believe, even while it's the truth. I prefer to believe that it were the crazy German and the mad Japanese that made it 74 minutes. It's just so much more romantic.

20 things i learned ...

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 20:08:00 +0000

If you have some less than tech-savvy friends (or family!) that are a bit confused about what cloud computing, HTML5, DNS, or the other ins and outs of the internet, a new web site created by the Google Chrome team explains it clearly for non-techies.

20 Things I learned is a short online book—not an eBook, but a book-like HTML5 creation—designed to explain some of the finer points of the internet to those that don't understand. It's got quite a few long-standing basics, like DNS, IP addresses, and cookies, while also explaining some of the more recent trends, like webapps, HTML5, cloud computing, and more. You can flip through pages cover-to-cover, or jump to specific sections from any point in the book. It's a good resource when something like Wikipedia might get too technical, so it's a nice companion to Google's latest video how-tos for parents initiative.

http://www.20thingsilearned.com/

Free space by deleting old Ipod backups

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 20:04:00 +0000

From the files of "I can't believe I didn't think of this", Reddit user keydemographic discovers just how much space those iPhone, iPod, and iPad backups can take up on your computer. If you're running low on space and your favorite maintenance toolisn't helping, you may find that iTunes is hogging a few gigs of your system in

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes

(~/Library/iTunes or ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/ on your Mac)

Just head in there, delete the backup folders, and watch your hard drive free up tons of space.

Know your bolts

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 19:45:00 +0000

sometimes the things that people will post stun me, some times they just make me smile. :)

so, from Makezine.com

Change System Preferences by script

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 19:41:00 +0000

Sometimes it'd be nice to be able to make a change in System Preferences without going to the trouble of opening that utility and then navigating to the preference pane you want. Macworld reader BrentT had that problem: He wanted a simple way to turn Internet Sharing on and off. His solution: a clever little AppleScript. Even if you don't care about Internet Sharing, you could use his code as the basis for a script of your own.

tell application "System Preferences"
activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"
tell process "System Preferences"
click menu item "Sharing" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
delay 2
tell window "Sharing"
click checkbox 1 of row 11 of table 1 of scroll area 1 of group 1
delay 1
if (exists sheet 1) then
if (exists button "Turn AirPort On" of sheet 1) then
click button "Turn AirPort On" of sheet 1
delay 1
end if
click button "Start" of sheet 1
end if
end tell
end tell
end tell

A faster way to install Cydia apps

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 19:01:00 +0000

First of all, Cydia is awesome, no question about that. But if you have anything but a 3GS or 4G, it can be painfully slow to load and that can be a deterrent for keeping things updated. Let’s have a look at a much faster way.

You will need SSH enabled on your iPhone/iTouch to begin with. If you do not, you must install OpenSSH from Cydia and probably the SSH Toggle for SBSettings. Also you’ll need to install Apt from Cydia. Look for ‘Apt 0.7 Strict’. Now go ahead and SSH into your device. Be aware that you cannot use the apt tools while Cydia is running. The commands you will use the most frequently are as follows:

apt-get update
Updates the repositories. Equivalent to refreshing in Cydia.
apt-get upgrade
Installs any updates available.
apt-cache search
Search the repositories
apt-get install
Install a package. If there are dependencies, you will be prompted to continue.
apt-get remove
Uninstall a package
dpkg –l
Lists all installed packages
respring
Respring your device from the command line

A couple of things to note is that for install and remove, you can list multiple packages separated by a space. When searching, the beginning of each line is the package name. Sometimes it will be a single word, though usually it will follow the pattern: com.companyname.appname.

Even if you only ever plan on using Cydia for managing your packages, I would highly recommend installing Apt (along with syslog). Ever installed something that really screwed your phone or been stuck in a reboot or respring loop? I know I have, and it’s no fun. If you’ve got Apt at your disposal you can connect via SSH and remove the offending package if you know what it is.

Otherwise you can do the old tail –f /var/log/syslog and watch for clues as to the which app is responsible. The source for this hint is iPhone World; it's been extremely helpful.

The Genius Bar [Apple]

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 18:55:00 +0000

The Genius Bar

What follows is a very intense trip to the Genius Bar.

"For some reason, this hinge on my MacBook Air, as you can see here, isn't closing all the way. It kind of clicks and then just stays stuck there, not quite closing. See?"

"There's always been some error, some amount of neurological disconnect between what we're looking at and what we think we see. The area of the brain that controls parsing visual cues essentially into reason can play some interesting tricks on us. The reward, arguably, for parsing visual cues into information or reason is emotion, isn't it? In other words, you see something and you feel a certain way, don't you? Which gets interesting when you look at the way emotions cue chemical relationships inside us with everything from dopamine to adrenaline, and how we have memories—of everything from falling in love, to the rush of victory, to the crushing hallow of loneliness—tied to those chemical relationships. So, in a way, we have to ask ourselves: what is the chemical and emotional reward we're hoping to get from what we're convinced we're seeing? Or as two scientists from Stanford said, more poetically and assertively, 'Reward circuits can whisper in the ear of memory circuits.'"

"So, it's... see how the hinge, like, sticks in that one position?"

"Right, the hinge."

"What was that other stuff you were saying?"

"Nothing. Forget it."

- - -

"Hey, how's it going? I think there's something wrong with the volume on my iPhone. It works fine when I listen to music, but, um, I can barely hear people when I'm on the phone with them. I've got Apple Care."

"Man has been writing about the rigors of love since the dawn of time. Greek mythology, the bible, the comedies and tragedies of Shakespeare, and obviously the list goes on to include a movie you saw last month or a pop song you may have listened to today. And, very obviously, heartbreak is probably foremost on the list of things going wrong with matters of the heart. But, the thing I find interesting is that nobody seems to be asking the question: how much longing and heartbreak is absolutely manufactured by us, ourselves, as individuals, for the purpose of a predictable socialization process? The National Library of Medicine will show you thesis after thesis on adolescents and how they experience pain within the context of psychological pressures that inform the socialization process at that age. Put plainly: every sixteen year old under the sun will go through a stage where they can't stand their parents. Why? Well, because the socialization process we're undergoing that age is really this matter of coming up against the knowledge that we're becoming adults; that we won't be children forever; that we, indeed, are children no more. And what comes with this realization? Well, we understand that, at some point over the next handful of years, we are going to have to leave the nest—we're going to have to leave our parents and get out into the world as adults and find what it holds for us. But our heart struggles with this; here are the two people who gave us life and nurtured us; here are, quite possibly, the first two people we've loved. We can't imagine leaving them, so our brains start a process of differentiation; in short, we manufacture reasons, no matter how thin their premise, to hate our parents."

"So, um, I can hear music on it, but when..."

"It's temporary, it's nothing serious, this disdain we have for anyone who has cared for us up to that point; if puppy love is a term that serves as a barometer for how seriously involved one's heart might be in the concern of loving someone, then you might call this kind of adolescent hatred of parents "puppy hate." So why haven't we made more study of the pain people encounter in their late twenties, or in, say, middle age? There's certainly some pretty predictable behavior in post-adolescence. People hit their fifties, for example, turning on a dime to get divorced, falling in love madly with someone usually younger than them, and then, within a year or two, they go through another severe heartbreak when the secondary affair fails them. And, make no mistake, it almost always fails them; it's predictable; it's completely quantifiable. We have to ask ourselves: how much pain do we experience in our lifetime simply because we have to manufacture it in order to navigate a strait of absolutely predictable socialization for the age we're at, no matter what our age?"

[Long pause]

"I can't hear people on the phone. The iPod volume works fine, though."

"Do you even have an appointment?"

- - -

"My computer crashes—the whole O.S., not just the application—every time iTunes crashes. But every time I come here, I can't get it to do it."

"That's weird. Let's take a look at it here. So, when other people are around, you can't recreate the reality that happens when you're alone?"

"Please don't go on a big thing about matrix mechanics and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Please? I get it, the whole thing where the observer is not external and neutral, but through the act of observing and measuring becomes, himself, a part of observed reality. I don't have time for a bunch of bullshit; I have to get this fixed before I travel next week."

"Wait, what's the principle thing you're talking about?"

"How long have you worked here?"

Visualized: Google's periodic table of APIs

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 18:53:00 +0000

The world of Google APIs and developer tools can be a confusing one, but the company has now at least brought a bit of order to the chaos with its own take on the periodic table of the elements. As you can see above, Android occupies the top spot normally reserved for hydrogen in the actual periodic table, and the remaining APIs and developer products are all grouped into their appropriate categories -- and, of course, linked to their respective websites. Hit up the link below to check out the table in its interactive form

Original Page: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/28/visualized-googles-table-of-apis/

Stop Win Desktop from Crashing

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:25:00 +0000

The Explorer process runs a lot of important things in Windows, and when it crashes, it can really slow you down. It turns out, however, that you can sandbox Explorer windows so if one crashes, it doesn't drag your whole system down.

One option in Windows Explorer that I find extremely useful is the option to separate out the taskbar and desktop from the other open Explorer windows in two different explorer.exe processes. This makes sure that the taskbar and desktop stay alive if explorer.exe happens to crash, which it does quite often in my experience.

This is especially useful in computers that are used by not so computer savvy people, who won't know to hit Ctrl+Shift+Esc and run explorer again in case of a crash. I find it a timesaver too, because I experience lots of crashes when exploring my phone memory in Explorer via Bluetooth.

In Windows 7, there is a straightforward option in Windows Explorer under Tools > Folder Options > View > Launch Folder Windows in a Separate Process (Not to be confused with "Open Each Folder in a Different Window" under the General tab).

In Windows XP and before, a registry hack will do the same thing. Open up Regedit and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer, right-click in the right pane and create a new DWORD called DesktopProcess with value 1.

Note that sandboxing this process will be a bit more resource intensive than keeping them as one process. However, if you've got fairly recent hardware, this'll probably be a welcome change. Now, if and when Explorer crashes, you'll only lose that window and not your entire desktop.

Google Apps Mail Getting Rejected as Spam?

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:26:00 +0000

Disclaimer: this posting is not my own work, simply a repost of an article I discovered after days of searching for an answer….. posted here to ensure I dont lose it again!

author credit to : http://www.labnol.org/internet/authenticate-google-apps-email-with-spf/13877/

The majority of email spam on the Internet originates from forged addresses because SMTP allows any computer to send emails claiming to be from anyone.

For instance, a spammer can put your email address in the “From” field when sending out bulk emails and the recipients may therefore incorrectly assume that the mail is coming from you. If any of them chooses to report that spoofed message as spam, its your email address that will be affected in the long run.

Authenticate your Google Apps Domain with SPF

To prevent spammers from forging the “From” field of their bulk messages with your email address, you can consider using a validation system like SPF (short for Sender Policy Framework). It basically allows the email recipients to verify that the server sending the email is authorized to send email on behalf of the domain that is found in the sender’s email address.

Let me explain. If the IP address of my mail server is 1.2.3.4, I can add an SPF record to my web domain saying that all messages coming from this particular IP address. ISPs can match the mail server address mentioned in my domain’s SPF record against the one present in my emails and accordingly pass or bounce messages to their customers.

How to Implement SPF in Google Apps and Gmail

Let’s say you have a Google Apps domain at xyz.com and you are using the Gmail service for your incoming and outgoing email.

To add an SPF record to your domain, open the page from where you can edit your domain’s DNS records. Then add a new DNS record of type “TXT” and set the value as

v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

Save the changes and this new DNS record should propagate across the Internet within the next few hours. If you are interested in the technical details, here they are are:

The entry _spf.google.com means that any server that is allowed to send mail from the IP addresses of Google Apps mail servers is also allowed to send mail from labnol.org. The~all directive means that email messages that are not sent from an approved server should still be accepted but may be subjected to greater scrutiny.

How to Check SPF Records of your Google Apps Domain

To ensure that your SPF record has been successfully added to your web domain, fire your command prompt and run the nslookup command in the following sequence:

nslookup

set query=txt

xyz.com –> replace this with your domain name

If the answer contains the google.com string that you have added in the previous step, it indicates that SPF is successfully enabled for your Google Apps / Gmail.

Verify SPF Records with an Email Message

Finally, to verify that your SPF record is live and working, just send a blank email message to spf-test@openspf.org and check-auth@verifier.port25.com from your Gmail address.

These services will send you an instant reply containing the results of the SPF check – see example. If you see a “pass” against the SPF check, that means things are in place and it should prevent your Gmail messages from getting rejected as spam because now the recipient can distinguish forged emails from the real ones with a simple check.

Start.IO the minimal, customisable home page for us all

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 13:15:00 +0000

For those of us that spend an unhealthy amount of time online our start pages are without doubt the key to getting from where we are to where we want to be (normally as quickly as possible).

Over the years I have tried many hosted home pages such as iGoogle, Only2Clicks, 3x3 to name a few. My styles have ranged from minimal (about : blank) through to content rich and heavy (iGoogle).

With 2011 upon us I felt it time for a change and have discovered another hosted home page service called “Start.IO”. What Start.IO does is allows you group and display a page of your most commonly used links in a minimalist style. On top of this it also allows you to create you own HTML page to host the links (which can include CSS and Javascript too).

Other clever features include:

Link tracking (highlights a link when the page has been updated)
Click counting (lets you know how many times you visit each link)
Public or Private home pages (login required or not!)

So, there you have it, 2011, a free service, it must be worth a try….. who knows you may even replace your start page with start.io.

regards,

Dan

Replacing me.com with google.com

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:55:00 +0000

For the last year I have run mobile.me accounts in order to get a multitude of email accounts, address books and calendars in sync for not only me but my increasingly tech savvy family.

Mobile.me for the non technical reader is Apple's subscription based service that offers hosted email and file storage.

Last month I migrated any files hosted on my iDisk to the ever popular Dropbox service in turn leaving my iDisk empty and redundant.

This month I have migrated my Wordpress blog to a Blogger (owned by google) hosted blog which although less functional is certainly feature rich enough for my purposes.

Finally, I opened a google apps account (free) and pointed my happyontheplanet.com MX and DNS records to google allowing me to have family wide google hosted accounts for the following google applications.

Mail
Contacts
Calendar
Sites
Docs
Blogs
Reader

The advantage I have is that creating new email addresses, aliases, blogs and websites is far easier than before, centrally managed and on one core platform.

thank you google for making this so easy to achieve.

thats enough from me for now.....

take care

Dan

Living with an iPad and justifying an iPhone 4

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 07:40:00 +0000

When Steve ( jobs of course ) said the iPad would be magic, we smiled, not solely through cynicism but also because we have all heard the Apple dream many times before and realise that marketing and reality don't always go hand in hand.

So, what have the first few weeks of iPad ownership been like?

Without doubt day one was something special, new toy special .... We marvelled at its screen, basked in its lovely fluid interface and chewed on anybody that asked "does it make calls" or "is it not just a big iPhone?".

Days two to three were uncomfortable as the justification of ownership kicks in. Being a self confessed gadget addict I am more than familiar with the pang of guilt that attempts to marry cost to function. I am also more than familiar with the fact that the first week after the honeymoon period is a make or break time for any technology and the simple truth that 75% of purchased technology is mentally consigned to the scrap heap within 1 month of ownership.

I am also pleased to note that with the iPad the honeymoon is over but the device is growing in appeal day to day.

For those that ask "should I get one?", please don't ask me to justify your indulgences I have enough challenge ugh my own! What I will say though is this. If you, like me, have an addiction to technology, spend more than 2 hours per day online, have a defined need to be connected everywhere in a format that makes sense, then at the very least try the iPad.

For me it really starts to make sense in my commuting. I travel over 3 hours per day by train, thats fifteen hours per week, sixty hours per month and after that the numbers start to eat at you if work them out. The iPad makes sense because I have access to the web, to all the app store applications and rich media or web 2 experiences on a large format screen. I have my email, contacts, diary, music, podcasts, news and even games in one device and that to me is worth a thousand blackberries.

At home, the device is more casual than the macbook and yes its lack of flash irritates me but does not prevent me enjoying the web in a less formal environment. The device has quickly become my tool of choice for catching up on news stories and even TV thanks to sites like iPhone catchup. When at home the excellent stream to me application makes viewing or listening to networked media a breeze with realtime transcoding of bulky files to a format more appropriate for the small screen (which in a living room with two children and a wife all jockeying for remote control ownership is a godsend)

So, has it changed me ...... Of course not, lets be realistic, what it has done however is change the way i consume media and made it all a rather enlightening process.

Does it replace my MacBook? Still no, the Macbook is still great for processor heavy applications like Photoshop and developer tools.... But lets face facts, It would be nice of Apple to deliver the panacea, a device to replace all others, but doing so would only close off several other revenue streams for Apple ....... So its not going to happen in my lifetime.

Does it mean I wont be needing an iPhone 4 ...... Erm nope, it simply means i wont be needing the top end of the iPhone 4 as the majority of my media is on the pad.

Cheers

Dan

Location:On the train ( battle to cannon street)

The iPad, first few days reviewed

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 05:13:00 +0000

Over the years I have watched from the sidelines while technology vendors released new technology to the gadget obsessed masses. Normally I know instantly whether I will be one of the few early adopters or whether sanity will prevail and I will sit back and wait until the much anticipated second revision.

The iPad certainly fell in to the latter category, after all Steve Jobs said I needed one, and God did I!

I pre-ordered my iPad on the first day possible in the UK and then counted down the agonising 18 days to launch hoping that for the sake of all things good that the iPad would live up to the hype and deliver all the touchscreen goodness I had been promised.

By chance the device arrived a day earlier than expected which came as a pleasant surprise and with the ritual unboxing the device was mine.

First impressions were good, typical to the Apple ethos "design is king", the iPad is a very net and tidy piece of kit with no build quality issues. The software is familiar (given its identical to the iPhone) and the battery life really does stack up to the ten hour usage claims.

The soft keyboard is actually very usable although I think you really do need to be a confident touch typist to get the most from it. I would have to say on that front that for the most part I am typing at about 70% of my normal speed within three days. In fact this post was created using the word press application for iPad!

So, what does the device lack?

Well, enough noise has been made in the gadget world of late regarding the ongoing feud between Adobe and Apple. Yes, the device does need Flash and i can only hope that this is a matter of time and politics.

USB access would be useful as would a native print architecture.

Anything else i would want have been catered for in iPad O/S version 4 due out in the autumn (think multitasking)

Being the true boy that I am it was only a matter of time before the phrase "Jailbreak" came to thew front of my mind and with a shiny new iPad in hand (and very little installed) I decided to give it a go. Jailbreaking the iPad with "spirit" took literally seconds to complete and left me with an open access device and Cydia installed for all that non AppStore goodness.

So, in summary do I now know why I "needed" an iPad? Kinda, what i do know is that my macbook has had a lot less use since and that my hour and a half commute to work is a lot more pleasant. Don't get me wrong, I like most do not think the iPad will supersede the laptop or net book market but certainly provides a casual alternative for web, email and apps.

Based on what I know now, would I still blow 700 quid on an iPad ...... God yes!!!

Regards,

Dan

Let it snow, let it snow, lets go

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 07:50:00 +0000

As starts to the year go, January 2010 has been a real doozy! I took 2 weeks off over Christmas and genuinely felt recharged, enthused and raring to go come January the 4th. Unfortunately mother nature had better ideas and decided in her infinite wisdom to drop several inches of the cold stuff over the UK.

Before I go any further, may I just say that contrary to most adults, I actually love the snow. It makes everything look so clean and is kinda pretty! Lets face facts January without snow in the UK is normally grey, wet and cold and that’s what I don’t like.

So with the excitement of Xmas over and done with for another year, the remnants of feasts still littering the larder and the excesses of new year still fresh in our minds, the snow provided a welcome pseudo extension to the festivities.

What does “get my goat” is the UK’s totally ineffective public transport service, or more importantly the shenanigans they play with their timetables in order to remain on track for their SLA’s.

My local train operator (southeastern) have month on month put lovely posters up at our stations letting us all know what a fantastic job they are doing with 98% of trains running on time etc. This all looks very promising and if it were true I would not be loathed to pay the 3.5k per annum for my season ticket. As always though the devil is in the detail and on this occasion Beelzebub has been on fine form, in my eyes what souteastern have performed is a stroke of evil genius.

Step 1) when the going gets tough, the tough cancel the services and provide a revised timetable.

Step 2) make the new timetable as useless as you can (for instance provide a service the starts at 8am and runs half way there before terminating in turn provide another service that runs the remainder of the journey.

Step 3) announce that its better to run a reduced service than to run a failed service

Step 4) ensure that no trains run after 7pm Monday to Friday

Step 5) to ensure commuters understand that you are totally inept in terms of service management ensure the freight only services run all day and night without issue and run empty ghost services up and down the track every 15 minutes 20 hours per day (but don’t let anyone on them!)

Heres the clever part, by reducing the timetable and running safe services southeastern do not breach their SLA and therefore do not have to provide a discounted service in the following calendar year. they can continue to say that their service is at 98% or thereabouts and here’s the real kicker, they still have our money! Us annual season ticket holders have paid for services that did not run, have been condensed on to fewer trains and have suffered the embarrassment of taking 5 hours to arrive at work. through all this if we think laterally, souteastern have made proft! (less trains = less overheads = more profit).

I must state that I fully appreciate that the recent “big freeze” has been extraordinary and that I don’t expect any of our public services to be geared up to dealing with this weather. That said I also expect them to take it on the chin and accept that they have provided a shocking service to the public which as a result should cost them in revenue. After all we cannot all change the rules because the unforeseen caught us on the hop.

So, weeks 1 and 2 of the new financial year have been interesting from a commercial perspective, fun from a personal perspective and now all I want is for a sense of normality to return. I am so pleased that the great British public battled through the Snow and that as a result my managerial duties have been easier than anticipated.

I leave you with my favourite memory of the snow which was my three year old daughter (Olivia) who opened the front door on the first day of snow, launched herself immediately onto her back and proclaimed “Snow Angel Daddy”, she then followed this up by rolling onto her front and screaming “Swimming snow angel daddy”, truly priceless.

For now, thanks for reading.

Dan

Call of duty modern warfare 2 - Through my eyes

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:41:00 +0000

Every now and again a game comes along that captures the imagination, sets your pulse racing and immediately becomes so addictive that sleep quickly becomes an optional extra.

Call of duty six has been that game. before we begin I won't profess to being a pro gamer, nor a military specialist, in fact if there's one lesson this game has taught me it's that in the event of a serious gun related conflict I will be either a) hiding under a table or b) faking the need to reload in turn letting my comrades wear bullets like medals! but that is just the point, even a casual gamer such as me with skills at the bottom end of the elite scale can find immense enjoyment in running around wildly picking off the baddies, and do you know what, by the end I found myself pretty comfortable with military jargon, vaguely aware of north and south (compass) and on the whole felt pretty confident in my shooting and dodging abilities.

Game makers can learn a lot if they remember that as humans we simply want to feel that we are good at something. therefore, don't make the game so hard we lose interest!!

From a visual perspective the effort that has gone in to creating this masterpiece is obvious, in fact a lot of my more bloody deaths were attributed to me staring inanely at the scenery instead of shooting enemies (or hiding).

COD6 boasts a range of game modes including single player story and challenge modes, local multiplayer as well as the hugely popular online multiplayer mode.

It is commonly upheld that the single player mode is a little on the short side with game play lasting in the region of six hours however, what it lacks in the story department it more than makes up for in the other game play variations.

So thank you call of duty, you have marked my return to gaming with a welcomingly addictive shooter, I look forward to Cod7 and trust that it will come with more bullets, more corrupt officers waiting to shoot me in the chest and more tactical nukes looking to bring havoc to whiskey hotel (yup, that's the White house!)

Digital Home Complete .... For now!

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:52:00 +0000

Today is a sad day indeed, sad because i find myself digitally complete, by this i mean my quest for the ultimate digital home is complete and there is no tinkering left to do! For about six or seven years I have been building my digital home setup. To clarify, this is in essence a way of storing, managing and viewing digital media throughout the house, replacing digi boxes, dvd's, cd's and photo albums and ensuring all technology plays nicely together whilst making the experience robust enough for a wife or child to use!

I won't pretend that the experience has been an easy one, nor a cost effective concept. In fact at times it's been a royal pain, labour intensive and expensive venture that has cost me both mentally and financially a small fortune. This said however I admit it has been fun on the whole and become a labour of love that had taught me a lot about what is possible and mote importantly what is not.

For now I am going to sit back, take stock and enjoy the fruits of my labour even though there I get an unnerving feeling every time I realise there is no more tinkering to do, that everything works a it should and that ultimately I have to find a new hobby or break something!

Take care

Dan

iPhone - all calls go to voicemail (fix)

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Gwalter) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:53:00 +0000

My iPhone over the last few weeks has been losing calls! By this I mean that the phone does not ring but I recieve either a missed call notification or a voicemail message. At first I thought this was me not hearing the ringtone or being in a location without signal but after overhearing a colleage discussing the same issue with o2 customer services I am relieved to hear that I am not the only person suffering this issue.

more details after the link including a fix

So, o2 have stated that in some instances the iPhone will reset the voicemail resulting in all calls going straight to voicemail (as if the iPhone is busy!).

there is a number of things you can do to try and force the fix listed below.

Firstly, make sure you are in a position whereby you have access to a secondary phone and your iPhone has a good signal.

from the iPhone dial 1760 to disable voicemail
from the secondary phone dial yur iPhone and see if it rings
if it does ring then great, simply dial 1750 from your iPhone to re-enable voicemail and retest

if this has fixed the issue then great, if however it has not you will have to contact o2 and they will be able to reset the voicemail from their end.

One last thing I discovered whilst playing with this. Most phones have the ability to change the delay between ringing and going to voicemail, the iPhone does not! This said the below code will allow you to modify the settings.

simply dial the following as if you are making a call

*61*<full international voicemail number>*11*<voicemail delay>#

in my case on o2 in the uk I dial *61*447802091901*11*20# to create a 20 second delay.

please note that delay periods can be 0 to 30 seconds but only in 5 second increments.

until next time,

Dan