Like many people who have made the switch from a PC to a Mac, Joel Evans has learned how to manage a work-around or two. I read with some interest an article which he forwarded me this morning, because it details some of the frustrations I was experiencing when syncing my iPhone to Entourage. I was becoming increasingly frustrated because events that I’d enter into the iPhone would not transfer back to my MacBook, which was causing me to miss appointments (totally not cool!). It eventually got so bad that when I stopped using my Exchange account, I also abandoned Entourage and went to iCal, the native Mac calendar application. Looks like I wasn’t the only one…

Out of the box the iPhone is supposed to sync effortlessly with Entourage. While that’s the claim, in the past I’ve had more than my share of issues. Sometimes the syncing just doesn’t work, other times it syncs from the iPhone to Entourage but not back again. I’ve tried a number of “fixes” in the past and a couple of months ago I couldn’t take the strange behavior anymore so I moved to just iCal and left Entourage out of the equation.

I have been thinking about getting another Hosted Exchange account because I am about to start using a Windows Mobile device again, but the idea of how I would move all of my data back to Entourage was proving rather daunting; I didn’t see an easy way to do it. Luckily Joel also reached that point slightly ahead of me…

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I’ll be the first to admit that my backup habits leave something to be desired.  Saying that I back up once in a blue moon might be too kind.  I’m amazed that I’ve made it this far without a catastrophe.  So, when I first saw the HP MediaSmart Server, I knew that I didn’t just want one, I needed one.  I loved the idea behind it…a small box with only network and power connections designed to backup up all of your household computers and act as a media/file server as well.  The 500Gb model was in my price range ($499.99 after a $40 instant discount on the HP Employe Purchase site).  It seemed to be a lock for my next purchase and then several small things happened.

•    1 Tb hard drives became widely available…still at quite a premium, but available.
•    I realized that the HP device could only be purchased with 500Gb hard drives.  The 1Tb model that HP sells has 2 500Gb drives leaving only 2 slots available to put more drives.
•    A couple of months before I was going to buy the HP MediaSmart Server, I checked the website and found that they had removed the instant discount, effectively increasing the price to $540 before shipping.

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I’m coming up on 2 months since I installed my Car PC, and I have to say it’s been great. Stability has probably been the most impressive thing, I haven’t had any issues with it crashing, and restart it maybe once a week to flush to memory and generally keep Windows happy.

I also received the final piece of the dash puzzle, a spare ash tray. Since my stock ashtray was woodgrain, I didn’t want to ruin it and paint over it (a. because they are worth a fair bit of money and b. I want to be able to return the car to stock when I sell) so I bought a black one to matchup with my freshly painted dash.

The whole strip that runs down the middle of the car, from the vents to the cup holders, have all been painted a glossy black. It’s great that it all matches, instead of two shades of matte black and a woodgrain ash tray

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Got a Canon point-and-shoot? If the answer’s yes, you might have a more powerful camera on your hands than you realise. Wired How-To Wiki has a great article today on how to apply custom firmware on a Canon camera to super-charge its capabilities. The Canon Hacker’s Development Kit (CHDK) can add new features to your camera - like adding the RAW file format and the ability to run scripted actions - as well as enhancing the existing hardware (such as boosting shutter speed from 1/1,600 to 1/60,000 of a second).

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Twitter account? Guilty. Jaiku account? Guilty. Never update those two microblogs after getting a Facebook page? Guilty.

If you haven’t yet discovered the fun world of microblogging, it’s a great way of keeping tabs on what your friends and online acquaintances are up to without having to make the effort of actually contacting them directly. And vice versa. Depending on the service you’re using, you get a certain number of characters (usually 160) to do with as you will, and the usual style of posts ranges from what you’re currently doing, to how your day’s been, to what mood you’re currently in.

What surprised me is the number of emails I’ve gotten in the last couple of weeks informing me that so-and-so is following my Twitter feed - despite the fact that I haven’t updated it in months! Hmmn, this makes my Internet self feel guilty for not making more of an effort. So I decided to do a bit of research and see whether anyone had come up with a microblogging aggregation service that would let me post one status update that would be pushed out to all of the microblogs. Okay, I lie, I actually just read about said service in my RSS feeds, but it makes me sound more proactive if I say I went out and looked for it!

HelloTxt is a free service that lets you update your status across pretty much all of the Web 2.0 services that offer this feature. The well-known ones like Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Plaxo, LinkedIn and Pownce are all on-board, but there are some I’ve never even heard of, like Gozub, Feecle, Fanfou and Meemi. All you have to do is sign in to all of the services you use through HelloTxt, then update your status message from the Dashboard. In my quick tests, updates are pushed out to all the specified services immediately, and there’s also a mobile version that’s optimised for small screen sizes.

In Oz I don’t think we’ll see this sort of...

• Online Dating: the Do’s and Don’ts
• The DoneRight Timer-Because the Kitchen is No Place for Math!
• Photo Viewing Made Easy - Review of iWindowsMobile EyePhoto
• USBFever 2-in-One Car/Home 2 port USB Charger
• HTC Touch Diamond: Update
• Review: FotoFusion – Making The Sum Of The Parts Equal More Than The Whole
• HTC Touch Diamond: First Impressions
• Unboxing the Sprint Samsung Instinct
• The MWg Zinc II Windows Mobile Pro Review, Part Two
• Review: Orb Mod 2 Speaker System — Getting A Big Sound From A Small Speaker System

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