The new multitouch trackpad does not come with a physical button, but it can detect “idle” fingers on the trackpad so when resting my thumb I can still use the trackpad as if the thumb was not in contact with the pad. Most of the time. If I am to move my thumb only the slightest – which I typically do when I try to tap-to-click with my index finger – it will start interpreting my movements as multitouch gestures and very diffrent things than I intended will start to happen. Most annoying.

After searching for a software solution to disable the lover one third of the trackpad I got pissed of and typed “I hate the macbook multitouch trackpad” and guess what, I am not the only one. First hit in the result list is Kustaa Nyholms site over at sparetimelabs.com, which on his Multitouch page explains why he hates the trackpad and what he did to fool it into behaving properly. I have to admit, It’s a sexy solution

Now my thumb rests nicely on a piece of former DVD case, and my erranous click rate has gone down to zero. It even looks good, although I will try to get some thinner double sided tape and do a better job with my scissors to get it perfect. Thanks Kusti!

Enter: Gowalla. This is more of a social networking thing compared to geocaching, it helps you see where your friends are, and their status updates. Gowalla is actually quite similar to geocaching, in that it has geographical spots that you can find, and you can log that you have found them on the system’s website or on a mobile client. However, there’s a lot of small differences. While Geocaching uses various physcal containers that you actually have to get a hold of in order to write something in the enclosed log book, Gowalla only reqires you to be in the proximity of a spot in order to log – or Check In to – the spot. This means you can find and log the spots without even getting out of your car, and you don’t need to worry about getting a cache muggled which may result in unwanted attention from law enforcement and so on – a great advantage in urban areas. Also placing spots is a lot less hazzle with Gowalla – there’s no formal requirements for placing a spot and no approval process. So anyone can play Gowalla very easily. Geocaching also has this more or less unwritten rule that one should only find a cache once, while Gowalla encourage you to find the same spot multiple times by introducing a leaderboard for each spot. Gowalla even has virtual “cache content” (swag) that’s trackable like Geocaching’s travel bugs. But I can’t say I’m really into that part of Gowalla -yet.

Of course, Gowalla is a more virtual game, and is as such not really much suited for the family sunday trip with kids – the instant reward of having your toddler/child finding tupperware treasure chests in the woods is something Gowalla just can’t provide

For the Norwegian readers out there this piece on NRKBeta has more about Gowalla. Translated version here.

Fosshaug burde blitt bura inne i tillegg, men ein kan ikkje få alt ein ønsker seg her i verda.

Aftenposten ITPro Domenebloggen Dagens IT

Tidlegare har eg i alle fall prøvd å vere påpasseleg med å ikkje legge ut fødselsdatoen min på heimesida mi, Facebook, MSN og liknande. Då eg no vurderte å registrere meg som brukar hjå Eniro for å få skrudd av fødselsdatoen min blir eg møtt med dette bruksvilkåret:

Ja, jeg samtykker til at de personopplysninger jeg har lagt inn kan gjøres tilgjengelige i denne og andre søketjenester fra Eniro Norge AS.

Trur ikkje det, nei.

Denne saka har fått stor merksemd på Twitter under taggana #eniro og #enirofail, i tillegg til at nettavisene no ser ut til å hive seg på.

digi.no digi.no VG Dagbladet

Den orginale saka finn ein på NA.se.

Digi.no og ITavisen.no har også plukka opp saka – legg merke til korleis artikkelen på ITavisen berre er eit popularisert samandrag av den meir utfyllande artikkelen til Digi

Den omtalte chaten gløymde dei begge å linke til, den finner du også hos NA.se, med eit kort utdrag i tillegg.

Hei.

Vi satt og snakka litt på IRC her i kveld, og ein kar lurte på kva i all verden ein "AAAA limpost" var. Eit kjapt google-søk avslører at den einaste plassen dette ordet er brukt er på http://www.norid.no/registrar/sos.html . Heller ikkje der var det forklart kva ein limpost er.

Etter litt kreativ gjetting trur vi at det er snakk om ein glue record. Stemmer dette?

De snakkar og om "SOA-post", "NS-poster" og "A-poster". Etter å ha googla litt (igjen) ser det ut for at det er berre de og Google si norske brukarrettleiing som kallar det noko anna enn SOA-record, NS-records og A-records.

Eg skulle ønske de kunne bidra til litt mindre forvirring ved å bruke etablert teknisk terminologi på nettsidene dykkar. Dersom de meiner at de bidreg til å gjere det enklare for meinigmann å lese dette ved å finne opp ny terminologi er det mi meining at de bommer på skiva sidan folk som ikkje veit kva ein "glue record" er heller ikkje vil klare å finne ut kva ein "limpost" er sidan det berre er de som brukar det - i tillegg uten å forklare kva det er. Hadde de brukt "glue record" ville folk kunne finne hundrevis eller tusenvis av nettsider som kunne forklart dei kva det var. "Limpost" er det umogleg å finne ut av kva er.

Forøvrig er ikkje meinigmann publikummet dykkar heller, så å begynne å finne opp pussige norske uttrykk på denne måten har vel ikkje noko for seg i det heile teke.

Dette er eit ope brev, som også ligg ute på http://ormset.no/wordpress/2009/03/06/kva-i-all-verda-er-ein-limpost/ . Eventuelle svar vert også publisert her.

Ha ein god ... måndag, antar eg.

Med beste helsing, Ola.


However, there is always some wrinkles.

Wrinkle number one was the “Top sites” functionality. It is really slow, and bogs down the browser experience. Luckily, it’s mendable. I found a great list of tips for disabling/re-enabling functionality over at Macosxtips.co.uk. To say goodbye to Top Sites just enter the following in the terminal:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeTopSites -bool FALSE

The other thing was a decent flash block. I usually don’t mind sensible ads on web pages, I even find good deals that way some times. But flash ads are way to annoying, so I want to block them. Firefox has a nice plugin called Flashblock, which I have been using for quite a few years now. It blocks all flash, and gives a clickable flash symbol that will display the flash animation/video. Very useful.

I have been looking for something similar to Flashblock for Safari, but only found SafariStand which is based on blocking/allowing for specific sites… Not very useful, really – or I didn’t figure out how to set it up properly. But after some more googling I finally found ClickToFlash which does the same thing as flashblock and to top it all off is free as in freedom. Me like!


Basic fan control for the Acer Aspire One
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P.S. The mail-notification .deb is prebuilt for ubuntu with SSL support enabled, unlike the one in the Ubuntu repository.


First, the MacBook Pro:

Then, the white little MacBook: