The idea is that you install this little System Prefs application and using the hot key combo COMMAND + SHIFT + 4 you can grab a selected area and it is automatically uploaded to the grabUp website and a unique (and fairly ’secure’ – due to its convoluted nature) URL is created that you then paste in to your mail, web page or IM so that anyone you want to see it can.

It is very useful, but I have a few reservations (maybe these niggles will be ironed out in future builds). Firstly it overrides the default functionality that OS X already has for grabbing a selected region of the screen. So if I didn’t want to send it to the grabUp site and just save it to my desktop I have to disable the app in my System Prefs. Not that useful in those cases. I could easily just paste the link and download it from the site. That to me sounds a little long winded and of course won’t work at all if I am offline. This needs changing – it either needs an override or moving to another key combination – Perhaps COMMAND + SHIFT + 5 (I’m not sure if this already does something on OS X though).

[UPDATE] I’ve just noticed that is doesn’t replace the selection functionality built in to OS X. It just augments it. So it still places your screen grab in the folder you have specified (the default ids your desktop, mine is in a folder called Screen Grabs – hence why I missed this). So one of my initial grumbles is now null and void :D [UPDATE]

Secondly, while it’s great the links are unique and therefore somewhat secure (in the loosest terms). There is no way for me to find a grab I have uploaded again unless I manually save the URL myself. I’d rather have the option of having an account so I can manage the files I have uploaded, set permissions, delete etc

Overall a great idea and probably very useful for the vast majority of casual users. Personally I’d like a few more “advanced” features. Regardless, if you haven’t tried it you can get a copy at grabUp.com

For those who want to have a go themselves here are the relevant links and instructions. Remember though, firmware updates are potential opportunities to ‘brick’ your hardware. So read the steps, re-read them, print out anything you need prior to starting this and make sure that your phone is fully charged and securely connected to the USB data cable. If you ‘brick’ it you have been warned and I accept no responsibility.

First things first, you need to head over to this page and grab a copy of the latest version of Nemesis Service Suite. This will allow you to update the country product code – as some ‘badged’ phones will not update to the latest firmware if you don’t alter the code – this is generally for no real reason. However if you are unsure about doing this STOP RIGHT HERE.

Once you have Nemesis installed head over to the Nokia Blog and follow the step by step procedure to flash your Nokia N95. One thing to note is that the download link for the Nokia Software Updater is invalid. You can download it from the European Nokia site here.

Once you’ve got both bits of software installed you are ready to ‘rock n roll’. The whole process takes about 10 minutes once the firmware update starts, so not too long.

A quick side note for those N95 owners who use a Mac. The Nokia Software Updater is a windows only piece of software so you only have a few options.

1. Stick with the current firmware and pretend you have Flash Lite 3.0
2. Find a friend who was a PC and install all of this stuff on it and flash your phone (not ideal)
3. Boot camp your Mac and load up windows (if you don’t already have a boot camp partition this can seem a bit excessive – I don’t)
4. Use a virtual machine like VMWare Fusion* and flash it via a virtual version of Windows (This is what I did)

* I didn’t test it via Parallels as I don’t use it anymore due to the massive CPU and RAM load it has. Plus the last time I tried it the virtual USB interface failed to recognize that the N95 was connected. It may work now, but as I said, I haven’t tested it.

A note for UK Nokia N95 users, I have a T-Mobile N95 (revision 1.0) so I used the EURO 1 – PLUM product code which is 0536062. There is a complete list below the firmware update process on the Nokia Blog, if you’re not sure which one to use I’d suggest a quick google – alternatively have a read of the Nokia Blog. :)

Links

• Nemesis Service Suite.
• The Nokia Blog.
• Nokia Software Updater.

However the other day I was trying to phone a client and my phone just kept disconnecting – literally the moment it actually made the connection – this continued on and off for the entire day. I initially thought it was one of the apps on my phone getting a bit too clever for itself and taking out the connection. Further investigation though discounted this. So at that point it was time to call T-Mobile Business support…

Long conversation short, it seems that T-Mobile are doing work on providing improved levels of 3G coverage over a greater area of the UK. The knock on is that you will likely get random disconnects when trying to make calls if you have 3G active.

The way around this is to turn off the 3G and just use GSM. To do this go to Tools > Settings > Phone > Network > Network mode and select GSM as opposed to Dual mode. Now that sorts out the connection drops, but the real kicker in this saga is the fact that they are doing this work all over their network for at least 2 months and Business support couldn’t confirm where exactly they were doing it (well obviously it is where I am at the moment). So no real solution, more of a work around while this goes on.

The Business support bod then went on to assure me that 3G wasn’t that important “…as it is only used for video calls…”. Yeah right – Data, hello!

If it continues I’ll be resorting to a good old letter of complaint.

So if you have $49 left over from Christmas you could be onto a winner (plus if you have any of the apps already you can gift them to your friends).

Anyway, normal service will resume shortly as my workload is starting to lower finally :p

Firstly I have disabled Spotlight from indexing ANYTHING. This seems to be a bit drastic, but it pretty much stopped 90% of my issues straight off the bat. Secondly, I have disabled anything to do with iDisk or .mac (including mail accounts). This seems to have restored the stability and calm I was used to with Tiger. I have yet (touch wood) had a single lock up or crash since doing this.

So for all of you out there still having problems try this, YMMV but it might just sort it out. Now I can get back to developing…

So I backed up all of my files (both on a network and on an external disk, this time opting for a totally fresh installation. Boy that was an eye opener. It appears that Leopard disks may not be created equal as one would assume – After this installation I went on to install XCode tools – This crapped out, my disk saying there were “issues” with the package and I need to take it back to Apple (something I will be doing next week).

OK, well that botched installation (as XCode has started to install stuff and it resulted in a VERY unstable machine), was duly wiped and yet another installation was attempted – all I can say at this point is that goodness it wasn’t Windows as those installs take days! Anyway after this installation everything seemed fine and Apple had just released the 10.5.1 update. Then the lock ups started, intermittent keyboard lock ups, programs just stopped responding (force quit wouldn’t quit them), trying to mount DMG’s or extract zips failed with all manner of errors. Bizarrely enough a reboot resolved all of these- until they started to happen again. The my iDisk started to complain, by complain I mean I noticed it wasn’t doing what it should. Finally this was just one hard reboot too many for Leopard and I got a massive corruption of the drive – it would crash as soon as it tried to load the boot loader.

So on to install number 4 (if my calculations are correct). Now during all my “fun and games” I started to notice some constants, lock ups and apps not responding, plus DMG’s failing to mount all appeared to be linked with .mac running an automatic synchronization, or iDisk having it’s own attempt at auto syncing (as it always fails now). So I have turned all of these off and all seems to be stable. For the moment at least.

Now iDisk and iSync worked perfectly until they released 10.5.1 so perhaps if the fix for the security hole in “back to my Mac” has screwed it all now. That way if none of it works no-one can connect – Problem solved.

Oh and yesterday I lost sound – It bongs on startup, Leopard is convinced I have no audio hardware. Thankfully Audio Hijack fixed that issue.

Am I pissed at all these issues? Well yes and no. Yes, as I rely on this machine to do my client work on and if it goes down it costs me revenue (and potential data loss). No, because I run a lot of bleeding edge stuff, a lot of my old apps are not confirmed as Leopard compatible and well if it annoys me that much I could go back to Tiger.

What does really piss me off is that Time Machine doesn’t support network backup if you don’t happen to have a shiny new XServer running Leopard Server….

Would I recommend you upgrade, sure go for it…If you like installing stuff :p

The problem with these drives is that they are firmware locked (They encrypt the firmware on the drive so regardless of the software by-passing of the region code, the drive knows what its region is and no software is going to tell it otherwise).

Bummer huh?

Well I’d kind of resigned myself to the fact that until the MPAA et al. realized that region coding sucked and didn’t contribute to nor stopped piracy that it would be a fact of life and we’d have to live with it.

Scratch that thought! Today is a new dawn :p You see I’m writing this on my shiny 17″ MacBook Pro while watching a region 1 version of Blade on my (until 5 minutes ago) RPC-2 region 2 internal Superdrive…Anyone who knows anything about DVD encoding and region locking will know that there is a chance in hell of watching a region 1 DVD on a RPC-2 region 2 device. Yup my drive is now region free!

I can change the region as many times and to any region I choose, when I choose. So if you are willing to take the risk of turning your Mac DVD drive into a cute looking post box read on to find out how.

OK, firstly I will make this very clear.

IF YOU DO THIS, YOU RUN THE RISK OF PERMANENTLY DAMAGING YOUR DVD HARDWARE. TO THE POINT THAT IT WILL NO LONGER WORK. APPLE WILL NOT COVER IT UNDER WARRANTY AND IT WILL COST A LOT TO REPLACE.

You have been warned, and if that didn’t put you off this is how you do it.

• You need to know the type of DVD drive you have in your Mac so open the System Profiler (Apple Menu > About This Mac > More Info… > Disc Burning)
• Write down the Model and version of the drive installed (it’s should be in bold at the top of the right pane)
• Locate the entry on the right that is titled “Firmware Revision” – Mine is FAV1 (write this down also)
• Head over to this site: Various RPC1 Apple Firmwares for Matshita UJ-8xxx Drives
• READ THE ENTIRE POST
• Now read this post: Matshita DVD-R UJ-85x For MacBook Pro
• Download the relevant firmware (DO NOT PICK A SIMILAR ONE as this will not work. If it’s not present you could try PM-ing ben11 and asking him if he has a version in progress for your model and firmware)
• Follow the READ!.txt included in the zip you downloaded
• Update your firmware as per the instructions included in the READ!.txt

If successful give it a test. The image below shows what you should see once flashed – the important bit in the image is the RPC-1 (region free) entry.

Once you have followed the procedure (and the above steps are just a guide – full details can be found via the links). You’ll need a few apps to check it has worked. I have placed links below so you can grab them easily:

DVD Info X – This queries your DVD hardware and will return information that isn’t easily accessible natively in OSX

Region X – You’ll need this to manually change your region settings when you want to play a DVD

Finally a BIG shout out and thanks to ben11 over at The Firmware Page(THIS LINK APPEARS DEAD – I’m in the process of looking for a cached version) for taking the time and trouble to provide a solution to this niggling problem of region locking. Way to go m8. Thank you.

Adobe have kindly sent me a promo code to get the 3 day pass for only €500 (plus 16% tax) which I believe is about €300 off the original price. For all my UK buddies who can’t do the Math on the conversion from Euros to Sterling it’s approx. £340 (plus the tax).

To my mind this is a steal. Even the original ticket pricing was a bargain and this just sends it over the top on the value stakes. Now a few things you need to know:

The offer is only valid until September 14th 2007 (so 2 weeks)
The code is: ECM297
The URL to book them is: MAX Barcelona 2007

You shouldn’t be reading this far down as you should be on the site booking tickets :p and for those interested yes I will be there propping up a bar taking in the view :D

(Andrew Shorten European Platform Evangelist for Adobe has more info here).

See you all in Barcelona in October

1. Support Mac OS X with an actual desktop client – not some crappy web browser solution
2. You get 1GB 2GB of space for free – no fee whatsoever (so up until last week more space than Apple charged $$$ for)
3. If you do sign up it’s only $4.95 a month for UNLIMITED storage (and I do mean unlimited :p)
4. It is encrypted from your desktop to the server and back again
5. It has just been updated on the Mac and is even better than before (and it’s also Windows compatible too)

Before you ask, no I don’t have any professional dealings with them. I just wanted to let new Mac users know that there is a pretty good cost effect online back up solution out there. However if anyone from Mozy does read this I could always do with a longer subscription :p

Check them out here

I’ve heard Adobe employees pronounce it as “koo-ler” so I thought I’d find out which is correct (if there is indeed a correct way, or necessity to have one more correct than the other).

So “Color” or “Cooler”. I like it either way, although I do tend to pronounce it as “Cooler”.