Christian Riley's Stuff

What is the best Eggnog?

Chris — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:42:01 +0000

After trying a few more than a dozen different eggnogs that are available, the top three are listed below. And best of all the Horizon Eggnog is low fat and organic.

Horizon Organic Eggnog – best of all it is low fat too.

Fresh Market Jersey Milk Eggnog.

Gustafson Farm Traditional Holiday Egg Nog.

All three are sold in one quart containers. All three are rich and creamy. Images of Horizon Eggnog, Fresh Market Eggnog and Gustafson Farm Egg Nog are below so you know what to look for!

Know of one that you think is great that we should try? List it in the comments below!

Mac OS X Virus help and tips – And a Walled Garden for OS X?

Chris — Wed, 18 May 2011 21:22:21 +0000

ZDNet’s Microsoft report has a hyped report today on malware hitting the Mac. This issue in this report is not a virus or a worm, but a trojan. A trojan does not exploit any security hole in Mac OS X, it relies on social engineering. This means that it tricks people into installing software that then does something to the computer. This trojan tricks you into thinking it is an “official update” when it is not. In this case the malware calls itself “Mac Defender” or “Mac Protector” when it is exactly the opposite to further confuse people.

One solution for Apple is that they may end up going to a completely App Store approach for installing software eventually for OS X. I suspect that Apple will start by making the App Store the default for software installation. Apple will likely leave an option for users to turn that off, perhaps in the Accounts section of System Preferences. This gives a compromise where people who need to do so can use whatever method they want to install Mac OS X software and naive users will be much more protected. Remember that 99% of computer users out there know very little about computers. They think a Computer Science degree or Computer Engineering degree means you “know how to fix computers” when it means nothing of the sort. Kind of like an “electrical engineer” can come and wire your house or a “mechanical engineer” knows how to fix your car. It is a question of lack of knowledge.

The question here is: how much do you protect users from their own naivety/credulity/stupidity (depending upon how you want to phrase it)? I believe that in the long term, like it or not, the trend will be that Mac OS X (and most operating systems) will migrate to the walled garden approach for just this reason.

In the mean time, some steps you should take to help keep your Mac safe from viruses, trojans, worms, and other malware:

1. You should never run as an “admin” account. This means that in the Accounts section of System Preferences your user should not have “Allow user to administer this computer” checked. You should have one account, perhaps named “admin”, that can administer your computer. Your regular account should not do so.

2. You should not type that “admin” account name and password in unless you are absolutely sure that you know why you are being asked to do so. For any trojan to be installed and infect your computer, you have to have typed in the admin name and admin password. And then the first time you launch it you have to click okay to launch something downloaded from the Internet.

3. Run software update automatically and frequently. Daily, automatic is best.

4. Do NOT click on unknown links in emails.

5. Do NOT open unknown email attachments.

6. Only download software from the Apple Mac OS X App store or from known, trusted websites.

7. Do NOT ignore warnings from Safari, Firefox or other browsers about sites that contain malware.

8. In Safari, turn OFF “open ‘safe’ files after downloading”.

9. Use HTTPS – secure encryption when possible.

10. Some anti-virus software to consider:

ClamXav is free anti-virus software (real anti-virus)

(* I use the word ‘virus’ in the title merely because most people do not know the difference between a virus, worm, trojan or other malware.)

Samsung WB700 review – missing vivid mode

Chris — Tue, 17 May 2011 01:19:42 +0000

The Samsung WB700 digital camera has been out for a few weeks now, and while many of the features are nice, it does not perform as well as the HZ30W and HZ35W.

I can only give it an “OK” rating. Compared to the HZ30W and HZ35W the pictures are not as vibrant and the colors are not as true to life. I have to also say that the same is true compared to the TL34HD. Photos are plenty clear, and certainly the zoom function is good, but the colors just don’t look life-like, unlike the HZs and the TL34HD. The better parts are, of course, the 18x opitcal zoom and some other little improvements in the camera. The zoom on the WB700 works well and the camera itself feels a bit more compact and solid than the HZ30W/HZ35W.

One thing that it is also missing one function I liked on the HZ30W/35W (and TL34HD) and that is the “vivid” mode. I believe all the other modes are all still there, but not “vivid.” Seems like a strange thing to leave out and it would be helpful in order to get the camera to record the colors closer to what the eye sees, since the Samsung WB700 isn’t doing that on its own.

In general, the camera is an okay upgrade to the HZ30W. Personally though I would keep my HZ30W and wait until the next upgrade before buying. Hopefully Samsung will realize that the vivid mode is handy and add it back in.

Philadelphia Cops point gun at man legally carrying

Chris — Tue, 17 May 2011 01:17:42 +0000

Philadelphia Cops point gun at and detain man legally carrying. The police officers involved here should be fired, their behavior and language was completely outrageous.

iPad USIM9997 error

Chris — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:58:43 +0000

If you are on a 3G iPad and check your “Cellular Data” and click “View Account” and get a USIM9997 error, it could be a simple fix. I was connected to the internet via WiFi since it is fast. Apparently if you are not connected via the AT&T network, you will get an error. So, it turns out that turning on “Cellular Data” so that you are using the AT&T 3G network fixed the problem for me. Just a helpful hint. ;-)

Apple TV 2 (2010) review – a bit disappointing.

Chris — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:12:18 +0000

While some of the features in the new Apple TV will be appreciated, it is a BIG step back in terms of sharing your own content around your home.

Previously content from your computer was easily shared via “My Movies,” “My TV Shows,” photos, music and the like. In the new version all that content is under a “Computers” menu with sub-menus there. The sub-menus are organized, but not in a seamless way. Nothing like having “MY” [continued] content right with the main menus.

It makes one wonder if Apple will be phasing out the purchase of content in the Apple Store eventually and going to an all rental model. If so, this is a terrible decision because people want to be able to buy a movie. For example, Toy Story because kids want to watch a movie over and over. Renting the same movie 50 times means it won’t be rented – people will buy the DVD or the Blu-Ray.

Likewise, in previous versions you could share certain photo albums with certain Apple TVs and not others. Now with Home Share, it is share with all or none.

The pros are that it is faster than Apple TV version 1 and will offer improvements with iOS 4.2, but right now, the cons greatly out-weigh the pros. One of the great benefits of the Apple TV was being able to share photos and your own content easily and that has taken a step back.

Why are shows that you have purchased locally being treated differently? Perhaps in order to allow storage in the “cloud.” The most logical method to allow continue movie and TV Show purchases but to relieve the purchaser the necessity of storage management is to store the purchases in the cloud at the Apple North Carolina data center.

Un-boxing the Apple TV 2

Chris — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:24:55 +0000

Pictures of un-boxing (e.g. un-packing) the Apple TV 2 for those of you who are interested:

Apple TV Shipping Box

Continued…

Apple TV Box

Apple TV Box, back

Apple TV Box inside

Apple TV 2 contents

The Apple TV 2 remote is much longer than the Apple TV remote, but a little narrower.

Apple TV Ports

3TB Barracuda XT Seagate drive performance on a Mac Pro

Chris — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 14:50:04 +0000

After testing the first version of the Seagate 3TB with xbench on a 12-core Mac Pro, here are the results. It should be noted that this is the first version of the 3TB Seagate Barracuda XT and that the widely available versions due out soon(?) will likely have improved performance characteristics.

Four 2TB Seagate Barracudas on RAID Card, RAID 5:

3TB Seagate Barracuda on RAID Card (single disk, not RAID 5):

3TB Seagate Barracuda Drive not on RAID Card:

1TB Western Digitial Black not on RAID:

3TB Internal Drive on Mac Pro

Chris — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 01:46:05 +0000

Screen shots of the 3TB Seagate Barracuda XT on the Apple Mac Pro without a RAID Card.

As you can see without a RAID Card the Mac Pro can make use of 3TB internal hard disks without problem.

Here is the drive used:

Seagate 3TB Barracuda Internal drive

Disk Utility screen shots are shown here:

Seagate 3TB Barracuda Internal drive showing 3,000,000,000 bytes on Mac Pro

3TB Drives in a Mac Pro RAID Card

Chris — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 01:29:46 +0000

3TB Drives in a Mac Pro RAID Card show up as 2.2 TB in RAID Utility and Disk Utility. Screen shots follow: