Posts
The best SFTP program for Mac OS X
I was asked by an old UNIX hand who recently switched to Mac OS X for a good SFTP program he could use. Here’s my response: … (Read More)
Pinterest, a social network for … women?
I teach a course about social software at Washington University in St. Louis called From Blogs to Wikis. As part of keeping up to date with that course, I try out new social websites & services. Recently I heard about Pinterest, a new site/service that describes itself thusly: … (Read More)
Why use $() instead of ` (the backtick) for command substitution?
In my book Linux Phrasebook I told readers that if they want to use the output of a command inside another command (known as command substitution), they should use $() instead of ` (the backtick). In other words, instead of this: … (Read More)
Installing 3rd party software on your Synology DiskStation DS411j
Note: I recently purchased a Synology DiskStation DS411j & I’m putting up posts about things I figure out. This is part of that series. … (Read More)
Set up the Synology DiskStation DS411j to support UTF-8
Note: I recently purchased a Synology DiskStation DS411j & I’m putting up posts about things I figure out. This is part of that series. … (Read More)
Find out which CPU your Synology DiskStation uses
Note: I recently purchased a Synology DiskStation DS411j & I’m putting up posts about things I figure out. This is part of that series. … (Read More)
Logging in to the Synology DiskStation as root
Note: I recently purchased a Synology DiskStation DS411j & I’m putting up posts about things I figure out. This is part of that series. … (Read More)
Need a 3 TB hard drive? Here’s one solution
My Synology DS411j NAS arrived today, & it’s busy right now formatting hard drives, a long process (well, it is if you tell the NAS to check for bad sectors & the drives are 1.5 TB each!). My plan is not to use RAID—I don’t need it—& instead use each drive as a separate volume. This will give me the following: … (Read More)
Chipotle loves lorem ipsum—who knew?
Just got back from picking up my lunch from Chipotle, sat down, ate it, & was looking at the bag, when I noticed what was on one side: … (Read More)
Stupid design decision of the day, number 2
For lunch Jans & I went to San Sai, a local fast food Japanese restaurant. Standing in line, I noticed this sign in front of the people taking orders: … (Read More)
Stupid design decision of the day
I use MacUpdate Desktop to keep my non-Apple apps up to date, & my subscription (a quite reasonable $20 per year for up to 5 Macs) expired. Time to renew! I headed over to https://www.macupdate.com/members/renew/, chose Credit Card, and filled in the form, & pressed Renew, only to get this screen: … (Read More)
Finally ordered the Synology DS411J NAS!
Well, my wife finally said it was OK if I purchased something I’ve been talking about for a good long while: the Synology DiskStation DS411J, a 4-Bay NAS. I’m tired of cheap hard drive enclosures that fail after a year or so, & I wanted the extra features in a good NAS. NAS devices made by Synology get superb reviews & ratings, & the DS411j seems like the one to meet my needs. I just ordered it from Amazon for $359, & it should arrive Thursday. I’ll let you know how it goes! … (Read More)
My favorite tech gadgets I purchased in 2011
My favorite new1 tech items & gadgets of 2011 contain some expected items and a few surprises. Note the new. In sheer hours, my MacBook Pro & iPhone would probably win, & certainly if you were asking my about my favorite tech items those would be at the top of the list, but neither was new. OK, I did get a new iPhone this year—the 4S—but in the interests of giving other things their due, I left it off. ↩ … (Read More)
HDTV antennas enable cutting the cable cord
Nice overview of several different HDTV antennas over at PC World in an article titled “Kiss Your Cable Bill Goodbye With These HDTV Antennas”: … (Read More)
Google’s design & HTML sloppiness
Oh, Google—your lack of style & sloppiness amazes. I was setting up a new Google Apps account recently (for this very site, no less!) & I was appalled at the sheer amount of ugly junk on the Dashboard for my Google Apps account. Look at this: … (Read More)
How to remove the RSS feed for comments in the Twenty Eleven theme for WordPress
It took me a while to figure this one out, & I couldn’t find a clear answer using Google, so I thought others might find this useful. … (Read More)
A non-Apple user visits the Apple Store for the first time
One of the students in my Using Everyday Technology course at Washington University in St. Louis decided to act as a secret shopper for an iPad 2. She had never owned or even used an Apple product in her life, & had never been in an Apple Store. She also visited Target & Best Buy, in addition to the Apple Store. This was the last few paragraphs of her midterm: … (Read More)
Best videogames of the year, 2011 edition
Wired put out its list of the 20 best videogames of the year for 2011, & it seems to me to be a worthy list. Sure, there are debatable items on it—what good of a list would it be if there weren’t?—but overall it seems like a good starting point for anyone who wants to check out fun, challenging games. … (Read More)
Tweet of the month re: SOPA
From @jamieforrest: … (Read More)
Even college students are noticing the Android fragmentation problem
This is from a final paper a senior at Washington University in St. Louis wrote for my Using Everyday Technology course: … (Read More)