Documenting a clean install of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

13 Sep 2009: I’m one of those obsessives who likes to reformat his hard drive and reinstall everything from time to time. Even if it doesn’t speed the system up with Macs like it so obviously does with Windows, I just feel better knowing that my machine only has on it what I need to have. With major operating system revisions coming along every year or two, coupled with buying a new Mac every two or three years, I probably end up doing a fresh installation once a year. I’ve done this so many times that I have a list of core applications with any installation notes/codes, which makes things a lot easier (a bit like having a packing list for holidays). However, [...]

Why I bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1

12 Aug 2009: Well, here it is, my brand new Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 camera, which has just arrived here at Cherry Hinton Blues Towers. It took me several weeks of research and indeed soul-searching to opt for this groundbreaking camera, and I thought I’d pass on the information which helped me choose one here. If you’d like to add any more helpful links, please use the comments below. Firstly, why the soul-searching? Easy – it wasn’t a Canon or a Nikon. Every (and I mean every) decent photographer I know told me the only choice in an SLR is between these two. Even when I discovered that for the first time, genuinely high quality video recording has now become available in SLR – [...]

Sandwich Toaster deals at Amazon UK

29 Jul 2009: Sorry, we were just talking about sandwich makers, toastie makers, Brevilles, whatever you like to call them, and we wished ours was still working. I was surprised there seem to be so many on the market, so here you go… help yourself to a Sandwich Toaster at Amazon. Click the picture below to see everything they’ve got available there at the moment.

GeekChart – more pointless fun

23 May 2009: Cherryhintonblue’s Geek Chart This is fun. GeekChart reckons it shows your activity on all sorts of social media sites in the form of a pie chart. I’m not quite sure about the accuracy of what it’s come up with for me, but it does say it gets more accurate over time, so we’ll see how it changes. I can see a lot of people putting this on their blogs in time though. You can click on the chart to see stuff, and I have a public GeekChart page.

Apple Time Capsule – cheap at the price

11 May 2009: I won’t do a full review of my new Apple Time Capsule here because there are millions of reviews all over the place which you can read, but I want to address perhaps the only problem which most of the reviews bring up: the price. All I’d say is: “Have you ever set up a wireless network at home …and do you put a cost on your time?” I had a wireless network at home which allowed my laptop to go online, and the “router” also acted as a hub which connected my desktop Mac to the cable modem directly, and to my printer. Not that complex, although I remember spending hours setting it up a few years ago. For [...]

Sky HD remote control and Yamaha YSP receiver

10 May 2009: This is one of those blog posts which is more for my future reference as it is for general interest, but hey, if you’ve found this on Google and it’s helpful, glad to have been of service. Firstly… What I did when my Sky HD remote control stopped working I’ve no idea why, but the standard remote for my Sky HD box just decided it wouldn’t work any more. It wasn’t the batteries, because the little status light flashed when I hit buttons. So I went off in search of a reset, and here’s the one recommended to me a few forum searches later: - Press [TV] - Hold [select] and [red button] together for around two seconds (until the [...]

4-20mA Aerospace Widgets news

10 Mar 2009: This post is a bit silly. Sorry. Apparently, the 4-20mA current loop standard is important in widgets for the aircraft market. At least, it is as far as this page about 4-20mA Aerospace Widgets is concerned. I made the page up just now, to show how companies can build an authority page on search engines for niche subjects they might be involved in. The page took me about 30 minutes to create, and even if it was a real subject, assuming I was knowledgeable about the subject, it shouldn’t have taken any longer. Anyway, let’s see how it does in Google, shall we? Here are links to the Wikipedia pages about 4-20mA, aerospace and widgets, just to help the whole [...]

VAT, the Flat Rate scheme, AdWords, AdSense and confusion

9 Mar 2009: I’ve just spent far too long (as is always the way) trying to find out what I should be doing when it comes to accounting for VAT with my AdWords, Amazon affiliate marketing and AdSense activity. The confusion stems from two things: firstly, these services are supplied from other EU countries (with different VAT rates) or from outside the EU; and secondly, Google usually charges most UK advertisers Irish-rate VAT on their AdWords and apparently, if you’re a business (which you almost certainly are, if you’re using AdWords), they shouldn’t be charging you that VAT. All this leads to everyone I’ve spoken to not understanding how much money they should (or shouldn’t) have been paid to or from Google and [...]

MacBook Pro power cable splits and frays

14 Jan 2009: The power cable on my MacBook Pro started to show a few problems after about six months. Firstly, the little charging light didn’t come on properly until you waggled the ‘MagSafe’ connector around a bit in its socket. Then, eventually, you could see the cable cover was beginning to come away from the plug, exposing the wire underneath. Not good, especially as I’d treated the power cord with as much care at the MacBook itself. A bit of research revealed that this has happened to loads of people, and apparently Apple did acknowledge the problem last year, although I can’t find any official reference to it now. With the MacBook about 10 months old, I took the power brick into [...]

Sky HD box shows FAILED a lot, and broken picture

22 Dec 2008: My second gadget-related failure of the weekend was my Sky HD box, which had spent the last two days showing a couple of problems: scheduled recordings were showing “FAILED” even though their transmission time hadn’t been reached yet; and the picture was breaking up, but oddly only on certain channels. Of course, nobody buys Sky’s expensive warranties, and they charge £65 to come and take a look, so as ever with these things, it’s off to Google. This was a hard one to track down, because it’s difficult to describe the problems in the same way as everyone else, but it turns out that loads (and I mean loads) of people are having the same problem. It’s caused by some [...]

2nd Gen iPod Nano Red gets red hot

22 Dec 2008: Two electronic gadget failures on the same day, and in both cases the solution was online. I’ll blog about my Sky+ HD box showing “FAILED” recordings in a moment, but first, my second generation red iPod Nano from early 2007, which this morning showed a “Sad Mac” icon, something I hadn’t seen on an Apple product since an old Quadra 840AV back in the 90s. I assumed it would need some sort of hard reset, but the normal reboot (press the menu and select buttons together for 6 seconds) wasn’t working, so I thought it was probably discharged, and not even recharging via the usual USB connection to my iMac. Acting on some advice online, I tried recharging using a [...]

Philips Warm Intimate Massager review

6 Sep 2008: The Times seemed to get something of a scoop with its review of the Philips Warm Intimate Massager. Apparently it’s going to be on sale in Boots and Selfridges, which is nice, but I doubt that many people will be brave enough to buy them there – instead they’ll all flock to Amazon. Here’s the product page for the Philips HF8410/00 Warm Intimate Massager at Amazon UK. According to the Times report, the Philips Warm Intimate Massager is a “gently vibrating device to help couples get in the mood”, aimed at “established couples who are put off by smutty presentation of the existing range of massage devices”. The report is the best link I can give you at the moment, [...]

Google Analytics integration with Adsense data

4 Sep 2008: Several blogs have picked up on a post which appeared on a blog called The GoogleCache a couple of weeks ago, detailing the author’s experience with a new facility to integrate Google Analytics with Adsense. Oddly, the post disappeared, but you can still get it by subscribing to the site’s RSS feed. In case you can’t, here’s what the “Google Adsense->Analytics Beta” is going to offer. There’s a new option in the Content Tab of Google Analytics which leads you to the new data. Firstly, there’s a whole bunch of stuff for management reporting, including Adsense Revenue per 1000 Visits, Adsense Ads Clicked, Adsense Ads Clicked per Visit, Adsense CTR, Adsense eCPM, Adsense Ad Units Viewed, Adsense Unit Impressions per [...]

One month away…

3 Sep 2008: Well, I’m one month away from the kickoff date for my new venture, Business Marketing Online, and we open sales for the first product, the Business Marketing Online Insider Programme, next week (8 September). I’ll be blogging its progress here – we have no subscribers yet (because we haven’t started sales, duh) but a lot of interest, and I hope to pick up the first few clients from that go-ahead bunch of people who’ve been keeping in touch over the summer. It was even suggested that I make an introductory video, which I did, and here it is – yours truly talks about how to improve your business website.

Acer Aspire One – Sunday Times recommended

13 Jul 2008: The Sunday Times today featured a review of the new generation of “solid-state” notebook PCs, which are faster and more reliable than traditional hard drive-toting laptops. Below I’ve tracked down the models they’ve reviewed, and given you links to the product information pages at Amazon UK. BEST BUY Acer Aspire One This great little machine is released on 11 August, but order it today as demand is bound to be massive. Why? Because not only does it tick all the boxes, but it’s just £220 (even less than the Sunday Times review model!). For just carrying around, accessing the web and email, and writing documents, it’s state-of-the-art. And a fetching shade of blue. Note that the other Acer Aspire One [...]