Recently i have found myself getting more and more annoyed with the
iPhones autocorrect. Due to my job and often urge not to use the
queens english i find myself fighting with the autocorrect wizard.
Often having to type my word three times before it will leave me
alone..
Well not anymore.. Simply by typing the letter z and then moving the
curser behind it, so its essentially part of every word you type until
you press space and move onto the next word, completely vexes the
autocorrect system and it really does leave you alone.. However,
unlike switching it off completely if you do make an actual spelling
mistake it will still underline it, allowing u to return to the word
later and selecting the correct spelling.
Once you are done, delete the z and send your message/email etc.
One downside I have noticed is that with the z in place you can no
longer double tap the space bar to type a full stop. However, this in
my eyes is a small price to pay for an autocorrect free life!! 
As some of you may have noticed there has been a distinct lack of posts of the site for a while. After my new years burst of at least one post a day I managed to create a bit of a problem. My current provider claimed that my site and it’s 150 hits per day was crippling their CPU.
Because of this I have spent the last few days trying to mop up any errors\dead posts\bad links etc. After several failed attempts WordPress was suggested. Now, I have been an avid subscriber to Joomla for many years and it’s the framework on which many of my sites are built on.
However, at the risk of being bumped up to a dedicated server package I have had to give WordPress a go. So here we are, I have migrated all of my old content over – now starts the mammoth task of putting it all together and the redesign\development of my all new template.
So you may find there are certain areas of the site which have small… errm.. how can I put this… Issues…. An this is because they are still under construction. I am hoping to have the site fully operational by the 1st of Feb this year, when I can start all over again with my ‘at least one post a day’ attitude.
Your patience is appreciated whilst I get the site off the ground again.
Thanks
Mike
One of the drawbacks of using an internet service providers own router is that some of them such as the Thomson TG585′s web interface locks away the more advanced settings. A good example of this is the ability to switch to a third party DNS service such as Google or OpenDNS. These third party DNS providers can often be much faster then your service provider’s own DNS servers, so therefore offer a much better internet browsing experience.
Luckily the Thomson TG585 does have a little bit of a ‘back door’ that you can use to set up your preferred DNS settings.
All you need to do to make use of this ‘back door’ is:
| DNS Server | Source | Label | Metric | Intf | State |
| D 212.50.160.100 | 10 | Internet | Up | ||
| D 213.249.130.100 | 10 | Internet | Up |
dns server route add dns=208.67.222.222 metric=0 intf=Internet and press enter (Replacing ‘internet’ with your Intf string)
dns server route add dns=208.67.220.220 metric=0 intf=Internet and press enter (Replacing ‘internet’ with your Intf string)
That’s all there is to it, now all you need to do is head over to OpenDNS, logon to your dashboard and tweak your settings as you see fit. Then sit back, relax and enjoy an OpenDNS powered internet experience.
For reasons yet unknown my Apple MacBook Pro has recently been testing my patience. A few days after Christmas this year the Hard Drive decided to give up the ghost. So off I went to my local Apple experts KRCS, they fitted a new hard drive for me and I went on my way. Less then a week later my MacBook started powering off without warning when it was nearing the normal low battery alarm state. So back I went to KRCS – who kindly gave me the number for the Apple Tech Support line.
10 minutes in a queue and I finally got through to someone who appears to have resolved the issue.
After initial diagnostics it was clear to him that the battery was not running at full capacity, the information in ‘About My Mac > More Info’ showed the full charge capacity at only 10126, this was not right so we went on with the repair. Powering down the Mac the technician advised I first needed to press and hold shift, control and alt on my keyboard whilst pressing and releasing the power button. Although the Mac didn’t power up, the LED charge light on my power supply flashed from amber to green and back to amber again.
Now, whilst holding down control, alt, command, P and R on my keyboard I was asked to power on once more. This time the normal Apple chime could be heard, not once but twice. On the second chime I was asked to release the keyboard keys and boot up the mac as normal.
Logging back in it was clear to see the ‘Service Battery’ indicator had disappeared, and a quick check in the system profiler showed the battery back up to 10222 mAh. Now, although I am yet to perform a full charge/discharge cycle the Apple tech was happy that the battery should now be back to normal. Watch this space – if not a new battery is on it’s way!
[span class=attention] Now – although this has worked for me, I suggest you use the method above with caution. Not all cases will be the same, and incorrect use of commands may cause more harm then good! I would strongly suggest you speak to your local Apple dealers such as KRCS before you attempt the above. [/span]
If you think you have your Mac set up perfectly, so much so it’s just the way you like it. Have you ever considered you may be missing something? Perhaps the local weather, your current IP, drive capacity or maybe even a dynamically updating list of memory hogging apps direct on your desktop?
GeekTool is a systems preferences module for OS X, which gives you the ability (through use of scripts) to add various informative ‘GeekLets’ onto your desktop. Anything from the Analog time to RSS feeds.
Using GeekTool you really can ‘beef’ up the power of your Mac’s ‘wallpaper’. There are countless examples of well implemented GeekTool scripts to be found on Google so check them out.
Once you have bagged yourself a copy of GeekTool, you will want to start implementing some handy scripts.
Simple scripts such as:
date +”%I:%M %p” will give you hh:mm am/pm
These and many more scripts besides can be download the Mac OS X Tips website.
One of my favourite implementations of GeekTool can be found here, if you have one, post them up below.
