advice – Page 4 – Vinko’s Thoughts On…

November 8, 2005

Go For It 10.4.3

Apple released “Mac OS X Update 10.4.3” on Halloween, October 31, 2005.

I had previously advised my Macintosh friends to hold off on upgrading their own Macs until I have tested it. Now I have ran it on my PowerBook 12″ for over a week without any problems I believe that it should be safe for my Macintosh friends to upgrade their respective systems.

NOTE: The following steps are the recommended steps to upgrade any Mac OS X versions. It is especially important given the number of fixes that this Apple update included.

Backup all you important files. I had always advised everyone to make frequent backups. You will thank me when time comes to recover from one of those backups.
Run Disk Utility (Location: <user folder>/Applications/Utilities/) and perform a Repair Permission on your boot hard drive
Download Apple’s “Mac OS X Update 10.4.3 Combo” from Apple’s web site (it should be around 109MB in size)
Restart your Mac in Safe mode. To do so, all you have to do is hold down the Shift key while restarting
Mount the disk image (the .dmg file) of Mac OS X Update 10.4.3 Combo and then execute the update, following the instructions on the screen
After the installer ask you to restart your Mac, run Disk Utility (Location: /Applications/Utilities/) again and perform a Repair Permission on your boot hard drive

You can keep up with all the issues that others may have with any Macintosh updates or Macintosh software by going to MacFixIt.

Enjoy!

August 13, 2005

Geo Location

Today I decided to use my account on Flickr.Com to highlight some of the photos I had taken over the years, which are stored on Fotki.Com.

To make it more interesting, I have introduced the cool features from GeoBloggers.Com into my photos. If you click on the GeoBloggers link in the photo descriptions on my Flickr pages you will be able to see where I took the respective photo (with the link).

ScreenShot

This is type of the Geo Meta data information had been embedded into my pages. Like my Home page and My Weblog.

With the help of GeoURL.Org, you can now see all the other webloggers and site owners located near me; physically. You can try this out anywhere on my site you see the GeoURL “chicklettes”

I will be adding more features like these to the rest of my site. So keep checking back.

August 12, 2005

Adding Geo Tags to Photos

I like what Phillip Torrone describe so much that I added his technique to my photos on Flickr. Along with the other Geo Meta data in my site.

You can read about it in My Weblog entry.

Guide to Visiting World Expo 2005

After visiting the World Expo 2005 in Nagoya, Japan I like to share some of my experience for those who may wish to visit it.

The World Expo 2005 runs from March 25 – September 30, 2005 is hosted by Japan in the Aichi Prefecture area, Central Japan, near the city of Nagoya.

World Expo normally happens every 5 years and Expo 2010 had been won by China and will be hosted in Shanghai.

Advanced reservations are a must, if you like to visit all the popular pavilions without spending all your time waiting in lines; they are very very long. Waiting in line for 2 hours is not unusual. Advanced reservations are only available if you have an actual physical ticket, because the reservation system requires you to enter your (12 digits) Ticket Number. At the time of writing majority of the pavilions’ advanced reservations are already full until June 26th.

Majority of the “most popular” pavilions issue “numbered tickets” for entry. You can read all about the different rules of these pavilions to plan your visit.

Some of the pavilions I think any visitors should not miss are:

Toyota Group Pavilion – its robots and “personal mover” show is a must see. Tickets goes extremely quick and if you do not have advanced reservations, you will want to be in line for the “numbered tickets” distribution at least 1.5 hours prior to the time at which they begin (twice daily).
Mitsui-Toshiba Pavilion – this is where you can experience the joy of staring in a Hollywood style movie. Although advanced reservation is suggested, you can also wait in line for entry.
Japan Pavilion Nagakute – has one of the most interesting video presentation.
Global House (Blue House) – featured the world’s first 50 meter wide video screen by Sony.

Here are some of the pavilions you can safely skip:

JR Central Pavilion – this 3D movie of the world record maglev train is so boring, if you are tired you can easily fall asleep.
Earth Tower Nagoya City – although it has a world record size kaleidoscope, it definitely does not worth the long wait in line.

If you want to cover all the pavilions most will want to visit, you will need at least 3 days, given the amount of time you will be spending in line ups.

Dos

Do bring along a hat.
Definitely prepare some rain wear if there is any chance of rain in the forecast.
Do wear comfortable shoes and clothing.

Don’ts

Don’t bother with eating at the German restaurant in the German/French Pavilion.
Don’t bother bringing any drinks to the Expo [Editorial: except water carton, not the bottles you get from the convenient store], due to security reasons all drink containers are banded.
Don’t miss the evening performance at Koi Pond

Definitely go there on a weekday, don’t even think of going on a weekend or Japan public holiday, if you’re planning a short visit to the Expo.

I found the best and most direct way to get to the Expo from Nagoya is via the Higashiyama subway line to Fujigaoka (290 Yen) where you transfer to the Linimo (Japan’s first maglev train) to Banpaku Kaijo station (340 Yen), the Expo’s North Gate, which will place you at the entrance closest to the Corporate Pavilion. On subsequent visit to the Expo you may want to consider getting off one station before, Koen Nishi Station, which is closest to the Expo’s West Gate, where you can visit the Global Common 3, 4 & 5 Pavilions.

Two last things to remember though, the transportation to and from the Expo are most busy in the morning and after 18:00, and all pavilions close 1 hour before the Expo closes (22:00).

BTW: please feel free to check out my short photo documentary of my visit to the World Expo 2005.

I hope by reading this article it will make your visit to the World Expo 2005 a more enjoyable one. See you in Shanghai 2010.

March 26, 2005

Recipe: Beef Burgundy

Beef
Celery
Carrots
Garlic
Bay Leaf
Thyme
Pepper Corns
Red Wine
Bacon
Butter
French Onions
Olive Oil
Dijon Mustard
Sea Salt

Marinate the beef with chopped carrots, celery, garlic and pepper corn in red wine over night.
drain the beef and separate the vegetables.
Seal the beef in a hot pan with olive oil and sea salt.
Fry the bacon in a hot pan with olive oil.
Add the marinated vegetables into the bacon with Dijon mustard.
Add a large portion of butter and the french onions.
Add the beef and the marinate sauce to the fried bacon and vegetable then slow cook for 2 hours.

February 17, 2005

Switch Or Not To Switch

About 3 years ago Apple Computers began an advertising campaign and section of their web site; “Switch” dedicated to the Windows users who recently switched to the Macintosh platform, or as Apple puts it “seen the light”. The just of the campaign was just to share the stories and experience of prior Windows users who recently switched to the Macintosh platform.

With PDAs there had been a similar migration, but from Palm OS to Windows Pocket PC, but the stories and experience is not as favorable for Microsoft.

I recently was speaking to one such PDA user who switched from a Palm device to a HP iPaq. One important thing is that this individual had been a happy Palm user for many years and the only reason she is using an iPaq is because her previous Palm died on her, and her (non-technical) boyfriend decided to buy her a replacement, but bought her in stead a HP iPaq.

For a layman average PDA user, the iPaq and more specifically the Windows Pocket PC is not as easy to use and more complex compared to the Palm OS. After a few months use of the iPaq she is now fallen back to use Post-It Notes. It got to a point where she has Post-It Notes stuck to the back of the iPaq. Now that is ironic. Unfortunately, I did not have a camera with me otherwise I would have a picture of it here.

This individual has decided that she will purchase a new Palm device very soon.

So as you can see forcing people to switch is not the right approach. Apple and Steve Jobs had the right idea. Steve always thought that his company has good products and they will just speak for itself. So he and his company just concentrate on developing amazing revolutionary products.

October 31, 2004

Compatibility

It has been just over a year (1 year plus 1 day) since I modified my whole web site to be “World Wide Web Consortium” (a.k.a. W3C) compliant.

For those of you who do not know what W3C is, you can read all about it at their web site. Here is a paragraph from the W3C web site.

The World Wide Web Consortium was created in October 1994 to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. W3C has over 350 Member organizations from all over the world and has earned international recognition for its contributions to the growth of the Web.

What does all this mean? My site is now mostly Standards complaint. When I say “Standard” I am referring to the only justified set of standards on the Internet, which are those from the W3C. Some browser manufactures may claim “standard” compliant, but they are not referring to the same thing. They are talking about what users are “forced into accepting”, where certain manufactures made available only their technologies to users to define its own “standards” within their respective platforms. This to me is not “standard” to the true meaning of the word and spirit. A proper Standard must be accepted and agreed upon by a body of industry members, and made available to anyone who asked. That is the bases of the W3C Standards.

Since my pages are Standard compliant, they will behave and work the way the technologies were specified. Functions like Navigation Menus work the way they suppose to, all compliant pages passes the W3C validators, and most importantly these pages will work with all past, current and future versions of Standard complaint browsers.

Some of you may have noticed the paragraph of small print I have at the bottom of many of my pages.

This site is best viewed with a W3C compliant web browsers like “Mozilla”, “FireFox”, “Opera”, “OmniWeb” and “Safari”. To enjoy all the functionalities of this site you will also need to have the “Flash” and “QuickTime” browser plug-ins installed.

So if you’re using one of the non-Standard compliant browsers to view my site. You are not only missing features but much of the content I have.

Photos Menu Miscellaneous Menu My Stuff Menu

To make the lives of those visitors who are insistent of using non-Standard compliant browsers I have added a new menu item “Site Map“, so at least they can see and find what they are missing unlike the many visitors already visit my site with Standard complaint browsers.

If you like to one of those Standard compliant browsers yourself, here is a list:
1. “Mozilla” (Mac OS or Windows OS)
2. “FireFox” (Mac OS or Windows OS)
3. “Opera” (Mac OS or Windows OS)
4. “OmniWeb” (Mac OS or Windows OS)
5. “Safari” (Mac OS)

So go ahead and download one or more of these browsers and enjoy my site like many of my other visitors.

February 24, 2004