I was reading or listening to a podcast (can’t remember now) a while back about OpenDNS and thought I’d give it a try. The idea behind OpenDNS is that it claims to provide faster internet connectivity, increased reliability, and protect against fraudulent sites. All of this done for free. You simply need to change your primary and secondary DNS settings to the following IP addresses:
- DNS 1: 208.67.222.222
- DNS 2: 208.67.220.220
I ended up configuring my router so that all computers on the network would benefit from the OpenDNS settings. While I didn’t do any formal speed tests, web sites did seem to load faster. Ultimately, I ended up setting my router back to it’s default settings. Here’s are some reasons why:
- I found it annoying when OpenDNS would try to help me out with misspelled URLs.
- I have concerns about privacy since all my web traffic is routed through OpenDNS.
- OpenDNS does not play well with Virtual Private Networks (VPN). You can jump through hoops to get this to work, however.
This might be a nice upgrade for the non-tech crowd and general web surfers but not for me. If you search the web for other articles on OpenDNS, you’ll find that the general opinion seems to be a mixed bag.
© Discover Card
Should you be doing a little holiday shopping this season and have a Discover Card in hand, you might think about earning yourself a little money back on their Holiday Mall Promotion. You can find the details below by following the link but here are some quick highlights:
- Get a $20 gift card for every $200 spent at select malls.
- Valid from 2007-11-1 to 2007-12-31.
- Original receipts must be kept.
- Only a max of 5 gift cards can be issued per account.
These gift cards work just like credit cards and can be used anywhere that Discover Card is accepted. You can also use this promotion in conjunction with the current %5 cashback shopping bonus. This promotion seems to happen every year, so keep it mind for future use too.
Started using the FREX to commute into the Denver area and have to say this is a really great service. While it can take around an hour to an hour and a half each direction, this time difference is easily put to good use due to the WiFi service (using cellular technology). Interestingly, I can keep a solid network connection (VPN included) without interruption the entire trip.
From the FREX, I make a short connection via the RTD lightrail system and hoof it the rest of the way in.
I still get better price per mile on the motorcycle but, of course, I can’t work at the same time or ride through the snow.
Attended another Refresh Denver gathering tonight. This time it was held at The Hive which is near REI in downtown Denver in a basement. The following are a few shots snapped from the iPhone:
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I was a little late getting to the party as traffic was heavy and the place itself was a bit of a treasure hunt. Greg Owen from Effective UI was the speaker. He was quite knowledgable about the Adobe AIR platform but I can’t say that I learned a lot from the presentation. I think I was hoping to see real-time coding splendor from within the Flex Builder IDE. Oh, well. Chip’s demo of Map My Pix is worth checking out. Chip demonstrated with Map My Pix that a user can drag and drop photos onto a map pulling timestamp and location information from the EXIF data found in images (although I’m not positive how the location information is captured as I write this).
After the meeting I got a chance to talk to Mike Hostetler from Crowd Favorite and ate dinner with Scott Balay from Triple Jack Poker and Heather Morgan from LaunchPad Interactive at Protos Pizza (which is on the first floor of the same building as The Hive).
It is really nice to see the Refresh Denver group growing. The Hive was packed and everyone is enthused and curious about technology. For me, this is a welcome change. Something I’ve been trying to find for some time now.
For additional information, check out Chip’s wrap-up notes.
Introduction
The default power settings are a little annoying. Here is what I have found that works best.
Getting Started
Launch System Preferences from the Applications directory or via the main menu by clicking the Apple icon and selecting “System Preferences…”. Then click on the “Energy Saver” icon.
Power Adapter Settings
The following illustrates my custom settings where I force the machine to never sleep and keep the monitor alive for at least an hour. Handy for those long downloads or performing tasks that might take several hours to complete.
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Battery Settings
For the battery settings, I ended up using the defaults. Specifically the “Better Battery Life” setting.
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Screen Saver Settings
The screen saver as found via the “Desktop & Screen Saver” icon within System Preferences is never truly used in battery mode. However, it is still important important for the power adapter settings since the display will not turn off until after an hour has passed. I opted to set the screen saver to turn on after 10 minutes of inactivity with password protection enabled:
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Caffeine
Finally, for those times when you want the computer to stay awake permanently with a simple click, check out Caffeine. This application and other useful information can be found on my Mac OS page.
The Search Regex plugin for WordPress is an essential plugin to have when you need to make multiple post/page edits at once. The plugin allows one to search for a string and report results, show what would happen if a string was replaced in multiple posts/pages, and perform the actual task. The plugin also supports regular expressions.
In my case, I needed to replace all references of “lightbox” in my posts/pages to “lytebox” instead. Here is an example:
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Although the screenshot above does not show it, I am replacing “lightbox” with “lytebox” which yeilded 646 hits:
I would, of course, backup your WordPress database before doing anything too complicated in case things go wrong. This plugin and many more can be found on my WordPress page.
My 4GB of Crucial Memory arrived in the mail today and I promptly went about installing it:
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Installation was a breeze and took very little instruction. Of course, if you need steps, you can easily consult the manual that ships with the MacBook Pro. I would warn that you should have a precision screwdriver set around before attempting to install as you’ll have trouble trying to unscrew the super tiny screws to the memory casing. I ended up using a #0 Philips head screwdriver:
After the install and powering up the MacBook Pro, I was greeted with increased memory stats via the about dialog:
Here is a view via the Activity Monitor:
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For the curious, the full stats on the Crucial Memory I ended up using is:
- Module Size: 4GB kit (2GBx2)
- Package: 200-pin SODIMM
- Feature: DDR2 PC2-5300
- Specs: DDR2 PC2-5300, CL=5, Unbuffered, NON-ECC, DDR2-667, 1.8V, 256Meg x 64
I’ve always used Crucial Memory in the past for the custom machines that I have built with great success. It looks like the quality continues with the Mac but time will tell.
© VMWare
I was just about to give up on VMWare Fusion when I noticed that they released Version 1.1.0 and solved the full screen issue! Now I can COMMAND+TAB between my applications on the Mac without constantly popping out of full screen mode of my virtualized environment on my Mac OS. That was unbelievably frustrating.
Now I am really torn as to whether I like Parallels or Fusion better.
I’ve been subscribed to the various Channel Flip channels for the past couple of weeks now and have to say I am impressed. What I really like is that each show is short and to the point. Makes for fun and fast viewing of information. Here is the current offering from Channel Flip in case you haven’t checked them out yet:
- Unwired - Mostly about gear and gadgets. Hosted by Wil Harris who is also driving force behind the Channel Flip network.
- Discus - A movie review site that is always entertaining to watch. Make sure to watch for the piggy-piggy-snack-snack segment at the end.
- Play:Digital - A great way to get quick highlights about current games on multiple platforms. One of my favorite sources of game news now.
