It’s a simple program, and just works.

Now you might wonder why I install a program solely for copying and moving. Well I recently had to move a lot of data, and that’s where TeraCopy paid off (pun intended as the program has a free version available…) Since the computer is in my bedroom, and makes some noise - which I don’t like when I am sleeping - I shut it off when I go to bed.

Now this copy-action would take several hours, and well - that would be a bit too much as I was going to bed in less then 2. TeraCopy just started copying away, and when I turned the computer on - and told TeraCopy the next day to copy the stuff over again - it figured out what it had to do

The joy!

Some claim it’s faster then Windows in regards to copying/moving, but I have yet to see any speed improvement. I will admit thought that it has a much smarter file-distinguishing-algorithm then Windows.

Try it… You might like it. If not, well - it’s free so no money lost. Just time.

Now, which program do you use? Windows Explorer? FreeCommander? Sound off in the comments

But if you ever run into this just like me, simply plug the USB-cable of your iPod directly into your computer, and not in an extension cable.

Ding - hardware connected
Dong - hardware disconnected
Ding - hardware connected
Dong - hardware disconnected

and so on. Itunes going crazy of course… as was Last.FM. I did the above… and now it works.

Darnit!

So, enjoy life - the summer holiday and all. Take it easy!

— back in 2 weeks —

Interesting stuff

However, if you use Windows Home Server or the likes please be aware that this may cause internal network-issues. To get around these,  either use an internal DNS-server where all your machines register (advanced setup) or setup static DNS entries in your DNS-tab of your router (simpler)

I recommend setting up OpenDNS servers only on your router, and not on your home-PC’s. This way you can ’solve’ the above issue by just using a local DNS-entry / static mapping in your router to have your network working normally - albeit protected from the DNS vulnerability.

On top of that OpenDNS is really fast and good. And I use it to block miscellaneous stuff, such as phishing-sites and more (free registration required though)

After reading multiple posts and articals I now have a few tools that I live by - short as it may be

So without further ado - the top 10 at this time:

1. Moleskine
   The pocket-sized notebook / scrapbook / agenda / calendar / to-do list… whatever you want it to be.
2. Remember The Milk
   A simple task management system that is straight-forward, integrates into Google Calendar and well, it just rocks.
3. FireFox
   And it’s list of plugins I use, which I plan to post this week.
4. GMail
   Best online mail system so far.
5. Google Calendar
   Works great, simple and integrates with Remember The Milk
6. Pidgin
   Great open-source freeware multi-IM system. It helps to prevent me from loading: Windows Live Messenger, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk and so on.
7. Google Reader
   Great RSS feeder.
8. Launchy
   Application launcher, on steroids. It indexes your Start-menu, so when you start it and type a part of a program name it just finds it immediately. The advantage? Never go through the Start-menu again.
9. Process Lasso
   Lowers CPU-hogging processes to a lower priority - keeping your system available and running while you do other stuff
10. Foobar
    Just music (MP3, OGG and anything else under the moon). And no fancy stuff you never use anyway

Speculation is mounting that Apple plans to enter the £500 laptop fray with a MacBook sporting a 13in screen.

Gene Munster, an analyst at investment bank Piper Jaffray, told Apple Insider that the move is part of an overall strategy to cut gross margin to 31.5 per cent for the current quarter and down to 30 per cent for 2009.

“We believe there is an 80 per cent chance Apple will introduce redesigned MacBooks and possibly new MacBook Pros at lower price points,” he said.

Woaa, might be the one thing that will really start to push Apple in to a lot more homes. More often then not Apple products are considered a niche or too expensive. If they dive into the 500 range it will definately help them target a lot more people. This will be interesting to see

If you compare that to say Steam, InstantAction and the likes, Windows Live really wasn’t even remotely competing. Shame though, because it has a lot of potential.

Well that has now been rectified and from what I understood and heard - they will also start to offer games and content on Windows Live - just like XBOX Live. Finally…

I modified the 404 page to automatically give you a Google search pending on what you were looking for, amongst other things.

You can try the 404 plugin by typing in whatever you want after my URL; http://www.majoraap.com/. For example, you can add monkey-style and the 404 page kicks in and shows you my standard page with the Google Search results for monkey-style on my site.

Read more, including links to 20 highly recommended WordPress plugins after the break

As an additional side note I updated the theme a bit, was in dire need of doing that. I also relayed the RSS feeds via www.feedburner.com.

I also did some backend work which should clean up the place a bit. I hope to enable a few other cool things in the upcoming days (bit of database- and speed-optimization)

If you have your own WordPress site, I highly recommend the following plugins:

1. 404 notifier
   This plugin will log 404 hits on your site and can notify you via e-mail or you can subscribe to the generated RSS feed of 404 events.
2. Adsense Deluxe
   Place Google AdSense ads in your WordPress Posts.
3. AskApache Google 404
   Adds Intelligent SEO Ajax-powered Google Search to 404 pages.
4. Comment License
   Show license terms for your comments form.
5. External Links
   Adds a class=”external” to all outbound links, with various effects that are configurable under Options / External Links.
6. Feedburner Feedsmith
   This plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.
7. Get Recent Comments
   Display the most recent comments or trackbacks with your own formatting in the sidebar.
8. Google Analytics
   Adds Google analytics to your blog, including outbound link tracking.
9. Google XML Sitemaps
   This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO.
10. MyMooMus
    Adds a current mood,music or tv tag line to your posts.
    
11. Official Statcounter plugin
    Adds the StatCounter tracking code to your blog.
12. Old Post Alert
    Show a potential commentor a note if a post is old.
13. Random Posts
    Displays a highly configurable list of randomly selected posts.
14. Search Everything
    Adds search functionality with little setup. Including options to search pages, excerpts, attachments, drafts, comments, tags and custom fields (metadata). Also offers the ability to exclude specific pages and posts. Does not search password-protected content.
15. ShareThis
    Let your visitors share a post/page with others. Supports e-mail and posting to social bookmarking sites.
16. Subscribe to Comments
    Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry.
17. WordPress database Backup
    On-demand backup of your WordPress database.
18. WordPress GRAvatars
    Makes use of Gravatars and MyBlogLog Avatars, places Gravatars, OpenAvatar, Wavatar, Identicon, monsterID or MyBlogLog Avatars in the comments section. Uses the comment authors email to display their Gravatar. It also gives the user an Author Profile picture, based on his or hers Gravatar.
19. WordPress mobile edition
    Show a mobile view of the post/page if the visitor is on a known mobile device.
20. WP Grins
    A Clickable Smilies hack for WordPress

There, that should get you started

I think that it’s kind of ridiculous for a hardware vendor to do this. Oh well.

Other then that everything is going OK at the moment. I am still in the middle of a ‘Getting Things Organized (again)’ mood so I remodelled the room a bit as well as the desk. Nothing too major. I think the biggest change is starting to use Synergy (http://synergy2.sf.net) for my 2 PC’s. I can now literally move my mouse around 3 monitors (2x 19″ widescreens and 1x 17″) It’s amazing and very convenient.

Additionally I hope to be able to start looking for a new living space soon… If I can get that sorted out I’m a happy camper