- Semper Fi -
I thought I beyond being surprised by the depths to which Microsoft will stoop to gain a user. Sadly this week has proved that I am not and I viewed the latest attempts from Redmond to woo users to the newly minted Internet Explorer 8.
The strategy this time is to offer the chance to win $10,000 to those prepared to use Internet Explorer 8 to pinpoint clues which reveal the location of the cash.
So after a fantastic night chatting with MacBiters in the MacBites chat room during WWDC I eagerly downloaded the release version of Safari and installed it.
While I’m installing I ponder the slightly surprising decision to revert the top mounted tabs to their original location but I’m sure I’ll get used it again.
Trouble is after downloading it and installing it I didn’t get as far as seeing the tabs. Instead I was greeted with this:
In the midst of the iMac fiasco I made the decision to buy a Mac Mini. I’d toyed with purchasing one before deciding to wait for the inevitable upgrades – trouble was Apple took far longer than I anticipated to upgrade the Mini.
Well the upgrades finally arrived and I bought a base model priced at £499.
I had a specific job in mind for the machine, as well as it being a spare system available in the case of a failure elsewhere. That job was for it to act as a host for several external hard drives and the two office printers. By hosting the external drives on the Mini I would be able to run backups and archive data to discs without impacting the performance of my main workstation.
So where were we up to with the story of the repair from hell?
Oh yes Friday, 24 April 2009 no news, status “Repair in Progress”.
Worse than that I haven’t had any communication from the Store regarding my e-mail sent 4 days ago. This is despite a promised investigation, by the staff member identified only by a first name, I have heard nothing at all from anyone.
As those of you who follow me on Twitter or those who have heard the Mac20Q Roundtable Podcast or the International Mac Podcast will know I am the *not so* proud owner of a sick iMac right now. Many of you have contacted me with advice and/or support for which I publicly thank you all now. I thought for posterity I should detail the whole sorry saga, here goes …
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!!
I promised myself that I would be proactive in the blogging stakes this year, not to mention with MacBites, and now look … it’s February, in fact it’s half way through February, and not a single post from me.
I do have plenty of excuses, err, reasons 
Including an enforced hospital stay … please don’t think I went in there willing!
Anyway, back to the point of the post *yes originally it did have a point* I will be making a concerted effort to post some interesting stuff on a much more regular basis. So if you’ve got any requests or suggestions for either me or MacBites now is the time to let me know.
Look forward to hearing from you 
Elaine
If you think that the only thing worse than sitting through another presentation is reading about the technicalities of presenting then this book will make you think again.
First let me state what this book isn’t – it is not an introductory guide to Powerpoint. I for one am extremely thankful for that. Given the number and voluminous tomes out there seemingly dedicated to coaching the production of bullet laden slides this beautifully crafted book is a breath of fresh air.
As an IT instructor I have for several years advocated a move away from bullet point fatigue and have personally delivered several ‘Effective Presentation’ courses. Suggesting that presenters move away from what is perceived as the expected format for a presentation and their comfort zone has been met with a mixture of horror and disbelief.
It is against this background that I approached Nancy Duarte’s new book.
As listeners of MacBites will be aware I have been suffering greatly with streaming Flash video problems in the last few months.
The purpose of this post is provide details of the configuration settings I’ve used on a Netgear router to solve my problem, so if you’re affected read on and see if it might work for you.
Finally, the news I’ve been waiting for a long time – the Liverpool One Apple Store is opening it’s doors on Saturday 26 July 2008 at 9 am.
I’ll definitely be there covering the great event live for MacBites – hope to see you there.
I love the .com button on the iPhone keyboard but often wished it was configurable – what I hadn’t discovered is that it already is!!
Clicking once on the .com does indeed add .com to the current address but holding your finger or thumb on the .com button produces a fly out menu containing extra options.
The precise options vary country by country and a full list is available from iPhone Central at Macworld.
The options shown here are those available in the UK.
How cool is that?