Archive for April, 2009
No Audio on Macbook (and red light in headphone port)
I have recently had the misfortune of having the sound on my Macbook going off after about 10 minutes, and a red light appearing in the port.
After much research I found out that this is actually a VERY common problem (c’mon Apple you should fix this up). It seems to relate to plugging non-Apple plugs into your headphone port. Mine certainly happened when I started plugging in a lead to go to some external speakers. The problem is caused by a little switch inside the port which is there to sense whether they plug you plug in is optical or not. The larger plug size seems to cause it to somehow waver between detecting it as an optical port and not.
The standard advice to fix this is to ram your plug in and out a few, or to stick something in there and fiddle around at roughly the 7 o’clock position. I tried this and it worked for 10 minutes, then went off again.
What has worked for me is the advice from Macriot (sorry I can’t put the link in as Safari 4 crashes when I try, but it is http://www.macriot.com/article.php/20080718032528619). They say:
f you have these symptoms, we recommend a very gentle and minute tinkle of WD-40 into the audio output jack, followed by gently inserting and removing the audio input jack a few times. At least until the sound is returned to normal and red light ceases to glow from the audio output jack.Remember, we said “tinkle” not spraying into the jack like there’s no tomorrow…”
This seems to have done the trick for me and I have now been complete with audio for the last 4-5 hours! Hooray!
Apple iPhone Rumour
I am going to start a new rumour that the iPhone will include an HD video camera as per the Flip MinoHD (just bought by CISCO as the next big thing) and the new cameras from Kodak/Sony etc. The video will synch straight into iMovie to give the iApps integration and will synch with iTunes.
I’m not sure whether this will actually happen, but it makes sense and would be very cool! C’mon Apple…..can’t wait until June!
NSW Schools Lenovo Netbooks with Photoshop!
I have just read that the NSW OLPC for schools system has approved Lenovo IdeaPad S10e netbooks with Adobe Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver on them, as well as ‘free’ versions of Windows and Office.
I have to say that there are a few issues I can see here. Firstly free software from MS!? There is no such thing as free! Even if it is provided free, the cost is that MS will expect a return by pushing the user, and the school down the Windows route rather than Mac or Linux. Not that good for a department of education to get suckered into that one!
Second issue is Flash, Photoshop and Dreamweaver running on a netbook with 1GB of RAM and integrated graphics card on a 10″ 1025×576 screen![b] You have to be kidding me![/b] Maybe you could get them to load up, but do any work! Checking Adobes website for PS CS4 they require a 1.8GHz or faster processor and a 1024×768 screen, Flash recommends a bigger screen and Dreamweaver requires a 1280×800 screen. Obviously these netbooks don’t meet this requirement.
This is not good for Adobe or the students. The students will get frustrated with the UI and slow or none existent performance and Adobe will lose customers as they will think their software is buggy. Oh, and I should add that we will pay for this too.
IE8 InPrivate Filtering, A Google Killer?
In the final release of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) there is a feature called InPrivate Filtering. What this does is as follows: -
Today websites increasingly pull content in from multiple sources, providing tremendous value to consumer and sites alike. Users are often not aware that some content, images, ads and analytics are being provided from third party websites or that these websites have the ability to potentially track their behavior across multiple websites. InPrivate Filtering provides users an added level of control and choice about the information that third party websites can potentially use to track browsing activity.
Although this would seem like a good idea, and to be fair has to be enabled on a per session basis, is this a thinly disguised dig at Google Analytics?
Most sites these days tend to use Googles Analytics stats package which puts a cookie in the browser to allow the package to track repeat visitors etc.
Although Google don’t specifically say much about what they get out of Analytics the last code update made it fairly clear that site owners could track across domains, so it seems likely that Google are too.
Obviously this information is valuable to Google for advertising purposes, but it also ensures that potentially all of us are being characterised probably without any identifiying information, but characterised all the same.
InPrivate filtering seems to be Microsofts approach to reducing the amount of data Google can collect. By blocking Analytics cookies you are essentially also blocking Googles, and the individuals websites ability to track you. A smart move on Microsofts part.
As mentioned earlier this has to be enabled on a per session basis, so is it a shot across Googles bows saying that if your not careful, we’ll block 65% of the information you receive?
What is my feeling on this? As a site owner, I would hate analytics, or any other stats package to break. This helps me improve my site for others and is an invaluable tool. However I am concerned that information on my browsing habits could be being collected on me to serve me ads., or for some other purpose I would hate to consider.
On the other hand I don’t see MS as a fighter for our rights either. Seems to me that this is just good business for Microsoft, and if they can make it seem like they are doing good at the same time….