MacRumorsLive Gets HACKED Covering Macworld Expo 2009
This is just plain silly. The MacRumorsLive site (http://www.macrumorslive.com) got hacked only about 25 minutes into them covering the keynote. I took a quick screen capture of when the hack ...
Ongoing Roundup of Macworld 2009 News, Products, Links, etc.
I will be at (or currently am at) Macworld 2009 this week. As you can see, they have been waiting for me (GRIN – see picture below). I'm hoping to ...
Fix It: Opening Control Panel Crashes Windows Explorer on XP/Vista
Have you ever tried to open your Control Panel on Windows XP (or Vista) and every time that you attempted it, you received a “Windows Explorer has Stopped Working” message ...
Ongoing Roundup of Macworld 2009 News, Products, Links, etc.
I will be at (or currently am at) Macworld 2009 this week. As you can see, they have been waiting for me (GRIN – see picture below). I’m hoping to visit quite a few vendors and see what new gadgets and technology are being announced. If you are a vendor, please contact me here. I will be on Twitter (@HighTechDad) which is probably the best way to get a hold of me.
Rumor Round Up
From what I have read, there will be the following things may or will be announced by Apple at WM09:
- 17” Unibody MacBook Pro (Definite)
- Updated Mac Mini (Definite)
- iMovie/iLife/iWork moves to the Cloud (Definite)
- iPhone Tethering (Most likely)
- iPhone Nano (Maybe – I think it will be during the Developers Conference)
- Revamped Apple TV (Maybe)
- Various other things
MacRumorsLive Gets HACKED Covering Macworld Expo 2009
This is just plain silly. The MacRumorsLive site (http://www.macrumorslive.com) got hacked only about 25 minutes into them covering the keynote. I took a quick screen capture of when the hack first reared its ugly head:
After the tasteless insert of “STEVE JOBS JUST DIED” into the live blogging, things just got progressively worse with a bunch of “hackers” claiming to be from “ebaums world”, “4chan” and other sites and ma.thew.net (I believe, taking this from memory). It wasn’t pretty. In fact, it got pretty ugly after a while. Their twitter account was taken over as well. They publicly announced that they had to end their coverage via Twitter.
It’s unfortunate that this type of thing happens. I’m sure that there will be a lot of press coverage of this event.
Read the rest of this entry »
Places to Track the Macworld 2009 Keynote Live
Below is a list of places that are tracking the Macworld 2009 Keynote:
- Engadget - http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/06/live-from-the-macworld-2009-keynote/
- Gizmodo - http://live.gizmodo.com/
- ArsTechnica - http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090106-macworld-ars-macworld-2009-keynote-live-on-ars.html (follow updates on Twitter - http://twitter.com/arsmacworld)
- MacRumors - http://www.macrumorslive.com/
- TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) - http://www.tuaw.com/macworld2009/ (follow updates on Twitter - http://twitter.com/tuaw_mwsf09)
- Macworld - http://www.macworld.com/article/137730/2009/01/expo_live.html?lsrc=top_1
- C|net - http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10131491-37.html (note, page will not be live until Keynote starts)
- iPhoneAlley - http://www.iphonealley.com/macworld
Other ways that you can track it:
- Search.Twitter.com – do a few searches for “Macworld”, “MWSF”, “MWSF09” or “MW09” on Search.Twitter.com
- TwitScoop – check what is trending on Twitter live (sort of like Twitter Search but on steroids) – Twitscoop.com (currently showing some issues)
- TweetScan – similar to TwitScoop. Just search on Macworld or other keywords – TweetScan.com
- Hashtags – many users who are writing about Macworld may be using hashtags (#) to flag the Macworld keywords. When you use a hashtag, you can click through the tag in some of the more popular Twitter clients in order to get a listing of all of the Tweets that contain the tag. Check Hashtags.org (currently showing some issues)
- CoverItLive – this is a popular live-blogging site. If you go to their Search page and type in “MacWorld”, you can see some of the Live Blogging of the Keynote taking place
Fix It: Opening Control Panel Crashes Windows Explorer on XP/Vista
Have you ever tried to open your Control Panel on Windows XP (or Vista) and every time that you attempted it, you received a “Windows Explorer has Stopped Working” message and your entire Windows environment loses all of its functionality? It can be very bothersome and extremely annoying.
This happened to me the other day and there wasn’t a very good explanation or fix anywhere (unless you do a lot of digging through forums and such). So I have done the research for you and found some work-arounds and fixes to get your control panel behaving the way it should.
I described the symptoms above, you try to open the Control Panel and your Explorer just stops working or crashes. Unfortunately, sometimes the Windows Event Log doesn’t capture the cause or culprit, only the result (e.g. Windows, not Internet Explorer, crashing – that is the screen shot to the below).
Most likely what has happened is that one of the items contained in the Control Panel has become corrupted, either due to an update or something else. In my particular case, I was on Windows XP and the Control Panel item in question was a control panel named “igfxcpl.cpl”. Googling it didn’t produce much that I could go with but eventually, I came up with the generic way to troubleshoot the problem.
How to Promote Teamwork Among Siblings
The holiday season is upon us and let’s face it, my kids have lost their minds. Just like the sun’s gravity, they are being pulled closer and closer to extreme naughtiness. Despite my best efforts to prevent this pull towards chaos, their blatant disregard for my authority (for some reason, my wife still has a commanding presence over everyone, me included) and general holiday excitement that has them vibrating in their chairs has driven my kids towards insanity. Ok, but whose kids aren’t a bit nuts around this time of the year with the promise of vacation trips, no school and, of course, presents; it’s hard for me not to be a little insane myself.
So in order to maintain some type of order within our household (the big, cracked wooden spoon still holds some threatening power though), I decided to come up with my OWN Naughty or Nice list. I told my kids that I would evaluate them at the end of each day and then give each of them individually either a “plus” (if they were good), a “check” (if they were OK) or a “minus” (if they were bad). I haven’t figured out what they get in the end…I had threatened to take away their presents so maybe I will say that based on their score, they will get their presents or not.
I happily drew the grid on our whiteboard on the fridge, with careful columns for each child and rows for each day remaining until Christmas. And then I filled it out based on their behavior that night prior to going to bed. And then I started thinking and it dawned on me that I had made a HUGE MISTAKE!
I was promoting a competitive environment between my children. Just a few weeks prior, my wife got mad at me for doing the same type of competition with my statement to my girls: “Let’s see who can get ready and in bed the first!” I must admit, it worked really well the first time. But the next time, there were emotional breakdowns by the ones running more slowly, accusations at me for helping our youngest, barely brushed teeth, you get the picture. It wasn’t pretty. And, I was severely chastised by my wife about this. Lesson learned, or so I thought.
So, with the concerns about encouraging sibling rivalry instead of comradery buzzing in my head, I decided to talk to my wife about the Naughty or Nice list that I had come up with. The intensions regarding the list were good, at least I thought they were. My kids, who are always trying to please, would be encouraged to do “good” instead of “evil.” But then my wife and I spoke and she explained her ideas and what she does to encourage teamwork between our daughters. She is the expert. She is the one that has to deal with the “getting ready for school” chaos that ensues every morning. And she has a strategy that seems to work.
HTD Twitter List: Gadgets for Under $100
I’m trying something new here. I am going to run a quick series where I will ask a question to the Twitter-verse and then will compile the answers in a list which I will call the “HTD Twitter List“. The list will contain all of the recommendations (within reason) of products or services that people tweet to me, as well as a quick product description, link to the product page, suggested price, Amazon link, Twitter-er who submitted it and my quick comments on it. I’m considering even throwing in a quick poll at the end of each article where you can vote on what you think the best item on the list is. Who knows where this will go. It may be wildly successful or it may just die an ugly death. I’m always open to ideas and suggestions on this. Oh…and be sure to follow me on Twitter.
So, let’s start with today’s question: “What do YOU think the coolest Gadget under $100 is?” (Original Tweet). Price that is listed is either normal retail (that I could find on their product site) or Amazon’s suggested price. For your shopping pleasure, I have linked many of the products directly to Amazon. In most cases, the Amazon price is significantly lower than suggested MSRP.
Here are the nominations:
- iPevo PoV USB Camera
Using Twitter is like Fishing
I’m an on and off fisherman, mainly fly fishing; I worked in a few fly fishing shops in my youth (gasp, I’m not THAT old, should I say “youth”?). Also, recently I installed Flick Fishing for the iPhone and have spent numerous hours on my commute trying to hook fish. Well, that go me thinking. Since part of my job as a Technology Evangelist is to grow my social network so that I can do my job even better and reach even more people, I spend a couple of hours a day (in fragments) working with Twitter. (For those of you who don’t know what Twitter is, watch this video as it explains it well.)
As I try to communicate about various technological items from software to hardware to other services, I find that sometimes people understand things better through analogies. So here is one to ponder: Using Twitter is like Fishing. Here are some ideas why I think this is:
- Size matters
- You have to choose the right “gear”
- Lures & Baits
- Catch & Release
- It’s a challenge and a sport
- It’s a social yet individual activity
- “Casting” is an art
- Landing the “big fish”
- Practice makes perfect
- Navigating the waters
- Ponds, streams, lakes, oceans
Let’s go into this a bit more, shall we say, go into deeper waters.
Size Matters – with Twitter, there are always people who are jockeying to get to the top and catch the most fish (have the largest Twitter follower count). Some of the big fish out there are Barack Obama (146,500 followers), Kevin Rose (78,000) and Leo Laporte (66,000). These “fishermen” have really forged their way to the top using a variety of techniques in order to land the most “fish.” Some have simply thrown dynamite into the water (Obama & Kevin Rose) because of their high visibility, while others like Leo Laporte have used skill and dexterity through quality posts and content to catch their followers. The more fish caught (followers you have), the better you are equipped and experienced to do some of the other items on this list.
