32packets

So I’ve been watching the new Knight Rider Series, and since KITT is supposed to be indestructible, here’s a little goof I found while watching it. If you look at the bottom lip on the front, you’ll notice that a nice chunk is missing off of it since they were going off road. I guess that is KITTs one weakness…

After using a Treo 700p for the past year, I decided to get a new phone, an HTC Touch. I bought it off of a BST forum and just received it on Thursday. So far it is a pretty awesome phone. I’ve put a custom rom on it so that I get the TouchFLO Interface from the HTC which is a really slick interface for the today screen. Bell also offers unlimited data on the device for $10 a month, which you can use any Window Mobile app on, including VOIP, Qik, Google Maps, even youtube. So far Windows Mobile 6 has surprised me, I haven’t had a single crash, the device is very fast, and browsing is a pretty good with Skyfire, not quite the experience that the iPhone gives, but its many times better than Internet Explorer on the device.

The phone also has a built in GPS which locks on withing 20 seconds for me and works amazingly with Google Maps and Live Maps. While it would be nice to get an iPhone, unfortunately I can’t stand Rogers, they have terrible customer service and even worse reception where we live. Lack of 3G in our area also kills the deal. Bell offers much cheaper plans than Rogers, especially for corporate users, so for a similar plan it would be nearly $80 a month where on Bell they charge $35.

Unfortunately, that is the sad state of Canada’s Cell Phone Networks. Hopefully with the spectrum auction that happened recently, Bell and Telus will be able to hit Roger’s where it hurts, and drive down costs for consumers or at least give us another option for HSPA networks.

Many people don’t know that OS X has a built-in Color Calibration tool that works quite well. I’ve calibrated my Macbook Pro’s LED LCD screen and my Viewsonic monitor with it and it is a major improvement over Apple’s default color setting.

To calibrate your screen, open up System Preferences and go to the display pane. Click on the Color Tab and then click Calibrate.

In the Calibrate Assistant, select Expert Mode to get the best color.

Next you will need to move the slider’s until the Apple appears to be neutral compared to the background. Squinting and sitting far back can help. While the screencap below may not look to be remotely calibrated, that is how different LCD panels can be.

You will do a few of these curves, once you are done, it will ask you to select gamma you would like to use. I left it at the Mac Standard of 1.80, you can play around with it if you prefer more or less gamma.

Now you can change the white point. I left it using the native white point since it seemed to be the optimal setting.

Once you are done, it will show you all the technical details of the calibration.

Congratulations! You have just calibrated your monitor, and it probably looks a lot better than before. I suggest running through the calibration assistant a few times, renaming the profiles and then choosing which one you think looks the best, mess around with both sliders.

Also, if you are calibrating an external monitor, there is one other step at the beginning of the assistant which asks you to set the contrast and brightness on the monitor itself.

If you’ve been following my blog, you may have noticed the recent lack of posting for the past two months. There is this game I started playing, you may not have heard of it (Judge Judy hasn’t), It’s called World of Warcraft. If you have heard of it, those three words can explain the lack of productivity, and who knows, perhaps even AIG and the Lehman Brothers were playing it too.

Anyways, I’m thinking of doing another mini-series like my Home Server Guide (Which I’m working on fixing), so if you have any idea’s on something that you would like to see, drop me a line at shawn@32packets.com or leave a comment, I’m open to pretty much anything unless it involves decapitation.

There was a terrible problem with my web host, they apparently nuked my VPS due to a billing error or something. Lost all the data that was on there, fortunately I have backups of the webapps I was working on and a backup of the Wordpress Database. I’m working on rebuilding the blog, so you’ll just see the default Wordpress theme for now. I’ve found the old theme thanks to Time Machine, pretty sure I have all of the plugin’s I need loaded on, now I just have to upload all of the images to fix the how to.

Microsoft just aired their first Gates and Seinfeld ad, all I can say is “What the hell?!?”.

You can watch it below, and if you have any idea what it means, please leave a comment, it makes little to no sense to me.

Just a quick update, but I’ve managed to get OS X working on my Acer Aspire One using Kalyway’s 10.5.2 disc. So far, no luck with wireless as with most laptops, but I’ll be searching around for some drivers that could possibly work with it.

Update: I haven’t found a way to get wireless working, If anyone does find out how, please email me!

As for the guide, I followed Paul’s Complete Guide to install OS X on the Wind, and since the hardware is very similar, it worked on the Aspire One. You can view his guide here.

Acer has a reputation of selling ridiculously cheap laptops. The problem with selling the laptop’s for such a low price is that the components and build quality are also cheap. With the Acer Aspire One, it has none of those. Acer has done a surprisingly good job with their mini note, and having it close to the price of Asus’ EeePC, they’ve entered the game as a very strong competitor.

I picked up the $349 version at Staples, it has quite a decent feature list for the price.

• 1.60GHz Intel Atom Processor N270
• 512MB DDR2 SDRAM (expandable to 1.5GB)
• 8GB NAND flash SSD
• 8.9” WSVGA Acer CrystalBrite Technology (1024 x 600) TFT LCD
• 10/100 Mbps Ethernet LAN
• Acer InviLink 802.11b/g Wi-Fi certified network connection
• Integrated Acer Crystal Eye webcam
• High Definition audio support with two built-in stereo speakers
• Multi-in-1 Card Reader, SD Card reader for storage expansion, 3 USB 2.0, External display (VGA) port, Headphone/speaker/line-out jack microphone jack, Ethernet (RJ-45)
• Linpus Linux Lite
• 9.8”W x 6.7”D x 1.14”H
• Weight: 2.19 lbs
• 1-Year International Travelers Warranty.

Pictures and more after the jump!

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So I am trying to access my Gmail account, and I am greeted with a nice message…

How awesome is that… Fortunately IMAP, POP, and SMTP still work, but the gmail web client is down.

I think this is a first for Google. I can’t remember google ever being down!