Visit MaxTheITpro.com

[Karen, Kenya]
WELL FOLKS, all good things must come to an end. Blogger has been an amazing tool for me to express my thoughts to myself and to interested web surfers around the planet. It's just that WordPress has improved in soooo many areas that I'm addicted to its features, power coupled with its ease of use. In fact, I've combined my Go Africa Go! & this weblog into one using categories and tags in WordPress.

So...goodbye Blogger! I will always have a special place for you in my heart because it was you that made it easy for me to express myself when I embarked on my incredible journey to East Africa 3.5 years ago...and that was only supposed to be a 1 week business trip. :-(

Update your bookmarks: http://MaxTheITpro.com

Insane Microsoft patents

[Nairobi, Kenya]
THIS IS crazy! How on earth did the US Patents Office issue Microsoft with a patent for "page up" and "page down" functionality? What are they smoking over there? Most importantly, what qualifications does one need to work for this particular US government department? :-)

Microsoft patents 'Page Up' and 'Page Down'

Been there, done that...
Surely these peeps must know that page up and page down functionality has been in existence for a looong time. Right? Just check the original IBM PC back in the late-70s/early-80s to see my point. And didn't Wang Laboratories have page up and page down in their original word processors 30 years ago.


Great forum comment...
This dude name rossasaurus in the above ZD Net Talkback said it best:

Patently Absurd
Maybe they should patent a system for demonstrating computer failure by displaying a predominantly blue screen with little else upon it and no response from any interactive input; and while they're at it, maybe they should Trademark the term "Blue Screen of Death" :)

Ha ha ha. I couldn't agree more. Yo, Mr. Ballmer, why don't you request a patent on your infamous BSOD? After all, it's a "100% original" Microsoft invention. :-)

How to install WordPress on Mac OS X

[Nairobi, Kenya]
WELL, I'M about to take the WordPress plunge folks. I'll have to take Expression Engine for a spin later on because I still believe it's waaay more powerful since it's based on the amazing (and free) CodeIgniter PHP framework. By the way, WordPress (WP) is a content management system (CMS) that allows you to easily create powerful blogs and websites - all from your web browser. It's been downloaded millions of times over, and has a passionate (almost fanatical) following.

Freebies everywhere
Most amazingly, WP has tons of FREE themes that you can use to make your site look professional as hell. I'm not sh!tting you folks! Some of the web's best designers create free themes for WP because they want to help it gain world domination. In addition, they're tons of free plugins that you can add to your WP install that'll make it jump through hoops, fly to the moon, cook your dinner and make your website or blog do some amazing tricks. Good lords, I sound like a WordPress whore already. Gees, I'm sooo pathetic!

See you on the Net
In short, say goodbye to expensive web developers folks!! The web and open source software are a lethal one two punch when it comes to this sort of thing. Ditto for Linux, the powerful BSD Unix variants (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD), Python, KDE, Zope, Plone, Drupal, Eclipse, TrixBox, Mozilla Firefox, OpenOffice, PostgreSQL, MySQL, FirebirdSQL, TinyERP, Care2X, OrangeHRM, SQL-Ledger ERP, ERP5, and a ton of other free software of exceptionally high quality. This is why I love the Internet, and why I'm such an Internet whore. Knowledge is power folks, and TV - aka the idiot box - just doesn't do it for me. Sorry Hollywood.

Suffice to say, my days over here at Blogger are numbered. Then again, who knows? Google has billions of dollars in the bank and I'm sure they'll improve things - eventually. However, I'm tired of seeing so many beautiful WordPress sites created by peeps who are way less techie than me. Heck, most of them can't even write a program that prints "HELLO" on the screen. Enough is enough! I want in! :-)

Installing on Mac OS X
Most of you already know that I've ditched Windows in the same manner that every hardliner Republican cronie has ditched president George "lame duck" Bush. :-) Anyhow, if you want to install WP on OS X, then peek this link: Installing WordPress on Mac OS X Tiger. Personally, I prefer to use XAMPP for Mac OS X by Apache Friends as my LAMP stack on OS X instead of using the built in Apache server or configuring anything. Screw that! Besides, XAMPP ships with the latest PHP 5.x build since PHP 4.x is sooo passe.

On the other hand, you're free to use this Google search string to get even better help results: Installing Wordpress on OS X.

Happy virus-free Mac computing! :-)

Where is the 64bit Flash Player?

[Nairobi, Kenya]
WELL, IT looks like 64-bit computing is starting to catch on over in the Windows camp with 64-bit version of Windows Vista picking up steam. The problem that's annoying the sh!t out of everyone is the super slooow release of a 64-bit Flash player from Macromedia (er Adobe). Looks like peeps have to use 32-bit Internet Explorer on 64-bit Vista whenever they're surfing pages with Flash content. That sucks!! I urge you folks to peek this very interesting Tech forum over at ZDNet.

Dear Adobe, can we please have a 64-bit Flash player?

So, have any of you gravitated to 64-bit computing yet? You do know you can get 64-bit versions of Linux and FreeBSD for free, right? :-)

Apple bytes into 64-bit computing...
Thank goodness the current version of Mac OS/X (aka Leopard) is fully 64-bit. And why shouldn't it be? After all, it's based on the rock solid BSD Unix and Mach architecture that's legendary in research circles. Anyhow, I'm more interested in 64-bit open source server products like MySQL, PostgreSQL, FirebirdSQL, TrixBox, Exim, Postfix et al. Since you have more addressing memory in a 64-bit operating system, programmers have the ability to create some truly POWERFUL software applications that will usher in a new era of computing. Apps dealing with encryption, sound, graphics, video, or querying large data sets will fly through the roof. This is the exciting part. Here's the kind of power Mac OS/X programmers are gonna have when developing native 64-bit apps using xcode 3.0:

• 64-bit addressing of up to 16 exabytes of virtual memory and 4 terabytes of physical memory
• Full 64-bit arithmetic
• 64-bit development tools
• 64-bit performance monitoring tools
• Seamless deployment
• LP64 data model
• Common source base support

Ah yes, I'm so glad to say goodbye to Windows. Looks like some sweet computing times are ahead in the Apple Mac realm. Heck, just look at all of these smashing hits: iPod, iTunes, iMac, OS/X, iBook, MacBook, and now iPhone 3G. Apple is indeed on a roll, and now she's got more cash to do more and better things since the big kahuna (CEO Steve Jobs) returned to save the company from disaster a few years ago. Besides, Jobs' credentials are waaay more impressive than Bill Gates.

Cheers!

Downgrade a Toshiba Satellite A205 laptop from Vista to XP

[Nairobi, Kenya]
GOOD LORDS, what an agonizing experience I've been going through over the past day or so. In a nutshell, my good friend, "Mrs. C." in Karen, just purchased an el cheapo (KShs 36,999) Toshiba A205-5800 laptop from DaveTech Kenya with crappy Windows Vista Basic on it for her business. Yuck! Now, it's not a bad system (1.8GHz Celeron, 1gb RAM, 120gb hard drive, WIFI b/g, 15" screen, DVD-RW etc.) at all - for the price. My only gripe: Why did DaveTech give "Mrs. C" a North American power plug with this machine? Oh well...I don't want to know the truth.

King Dave is in da house...
By the way, Dave seems to be eating up the competition alive down here when it comes to getting really great deals on new/used laptops and desktops. I'm sure his hardware competitors in the bustling downtown Jamiia Plaza are happy as hell that he moved his overcrowded (and always jam-packed) shop to the Twiga towers, which is about a 4 minute walk from them. Heck, I've lost track of how many store locations this dude has. I certainly wouldn't waste my time competing with his ridiculously low prices if I were a newcomer. Advantage: The Kenyan consumer.

Mac addicts, reveal yourselves...
After becoming a Mac OS/X convert over the past 3 months or so, I find it painfully agonizing to even fathom tinkering with a Windoze (er Windows) machine. Ya know, after a while, using a Mac (iBook, MacBook, iMac) with OS/X becomes almost like a cleansing ritual. You realize just how fuc#ed up you were for ever getting into bed with Windoze...almost to the point of being ashamed for wasting so much precious computing time (money?) tracking down drivers, bug fixes, doing general registry maintenance, viruses, worms, trojan horses, and what not. Please, somebody bitch slap me for putting up with this sh!t. Damn, I feel sooo used and abused by Micro$oft (the $ sign in the name highlights just how bloody wealthy Microsoft is) and its hardware cronies.

Serenity now...
Anyhow, without having to reinvent the wheel and explain the entire process, let me just say that the reason you can't install XP on a Toshiba A200 series laptop (or any modern PC) is simply because XP can't see the SATA hard drive. SATA is just a better, faster, modern implementation of the ATA hard drive reference standard. Hence XP Setup gives you that "Yo dude...I don't see a fuc#ing hard drive. Just where did you plan to install me? Please quit and leave me alone...as#hole" message. Well, it might as well have said that. :-) But don't despair folks, my trusty search companion (Google) was more than willing to help me sort out my problem of ditching Vista for XP.

Get the goods here...
Without further adieu, here are the links you should browse:

• Download nLite (deployment tool for bootable unattended Windows installation)
  
• Toshiba A2oo drivers support forum on Whirlpool.net.au (great job Zofod, thanks for the private download link)
• Satellite A205-S5804 and WinXP (BSOD on first boot) - Any help appreciated!
  
• The Technology Muse
• Downgrading Windows Vista Home Basic to XP Pro on Toshiba A205-S5800
• Downgrade vista to xp with your Toshiba A200 PSAE3C-xxxxxx Model
• Marvell Yukon drivers

Final thoughts...
Please don't ever let your friends (perhaps your enemies) use Windows Vista Basic on a damn Celeron (a Core 2 Duo is okay) computer. You'll find your machine will run a lot faster (and more reliably) because it's not stuck with all of Vista's alleged improvements. Micro$oft, you guys really screwed up on this one. And shame on Toshiba for making it so difficult to track down the XP drivers for their A200 series laptop. It's as if M$ put a gun to their heads in a Tokyo boardroom and threatened to pull the trigger if they gave customers the opportunity to ditch awful Vista. I'm loving my Mac OS/X computing even more now. Why? Because Windoze users (like I once was) are suckers for cheap computing. Always remember this: "You get what you pay for" and "Time is money." Right?

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Related links:

• OS X or Windows Vista?
• MacBooks rock, mega patch for OS X
• Downgrading from XP to Vista
• NoteBook Review Member Vista Tips & Tweaks Guide (stuck with Vista? Try these tweaks!)
• Top Windows Vista Tweaks You Can Find
  
• Windows Vista: The Complete Guide: How To Make Vista Start, Run and Shutdown Faster
  

OS X or Windows Vista?

[Nairobi, Kenya]
SO, IS Windows Vista better than Mac OS X? This is one of the most hotly discussed topics in cyber space. Quite frankly, I've just become a Mac convert after scoring an iBook G4 (1 GHz PowerPC G4 chip, 640 MB DDR RAM, OS X 10.4.11) of a friend. In short, I'm hooked on OS X, and ya know what? "I AIN'T GOING BACK...TO WINDOWS. NEVER!!!!" Yep, you heard me folks! MaxTheITpro is now a 2-timer who's cheated on Windows to start a long lasting love affair with Apple's deliciously sexy line of Mac laptops, desktops and software (OS X, Mail, iLife).

It's the little things...
Why did I break up with Windows? Well, she just didn't pay any attention to me. For instance, I'm tired of catching all of her STDs (System Transmitted Diseases) when we're together. Also, she has this insecure desire to be continually updated with the latest (bug) fixes in order to make me (and her) feel safe and secure about our "relationship." There are times we'd be "together" and then she'd flip out on me, and get all blue in the face. Sometimes I'd insert my stick (USB) when we go on dates at the cyber cafe, and she'd give me a damn virus even though she's supposed to have protection - considering she's been around the block (Windows 95/98/ME/SE/XP) for so long now. You call that love? :-)

In short, she was just a fussy gal that everybody wanted to take for a ride simply because she's good at "playing games" and performing other unique hard/soft-ware tricks that no one else had an answer for. Plus, she was much cheaper to take home on dates compared to that red hot Apple gal. But I've learnt my lesson: You get what you pay for. :-)

Viruses be gone...
All joking aside, I just can't overemphasize to you all how "LIBERATING" (in more ways than one) it feels to go to a cyber cafe, connect my iBook to the network and not have to bloody worry about viruses. Heck, I've always been nervous as hell whenever I insert my USB stick into one of those sleazy Windows PCs at the cyber cafe, and then take it home to my "innocent" desktop PC. I've lost count of how many times that damn autorun file has started up upon connecting my USB stick to the home PC. Then, it proceeds to load a nasty virus, worm or trojan horse on my machine. You can see it just by hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL and peeking your process list. Remember those annoying AdobeR.exe entries? Well, no more worries folks! What's good about OS X is the fact that it's based on the rock-solid BSD Unix architecture that goes waaaay back to the 1970s at that great American institution of higher learning: The University of California - Berkeley. Oh, BSD stands for Berkeley Software Distribution.

Mac die hards, reveal yourselves...
Ya know, I've read a lot of reviews on a wide range of topics since I became an Internet whore around 1993. Never in this period have I read a review that's as moving as this one. This dude's passionate beliefs about Mac computing is truly moving. He's sold me. See for yourself!

It took awhile for me to understand this article...then it hit me. You can't write an article about why Vista is better than Mac without your tongue planted firmly in your cheek! Congratulations - you had me going for a bit :-)

The essence of the article is that Microsoft makes broken software intentionally - a blatantly ludicrous concept. It is broken, that is for sure. It is broken because they don't know how to do it right, don't want to take the time to do it right, have such powerful marketing that they don't need to bother...but certainly not because it is better that way. Nobody is customizing Windows XP or vista because it is easier with all the broken parts. They customize it in a huge, costly and never ending effort to compensate for it's flaws - not to celebrate them. In the Windows World, the word "customize" is a euphemism for "fix." They do it because they have to.

With the Mac, which just works right out of the box perfectly, there is nothing you need to fix, or "customize" for most people (some gamers and scientific apps aside). Anything you can do on XP/Vista to actually customize usability you can not only do easier on a Mac, but now you can do almost identically with VIsta, because they knock off the Mac OS. But why even bother - the Mac works just fine as is for most people and is easy to learn.

Microsoft has been knocking off the Mac's usability features for years, and never more "transparently" so than now with the coming of Vista. The real customizations users need aren't in the user interface anyway - they're in the hardware - more memory, bigger hard disk,faster graphics - and these days the Mac can keep up with anyone there. A Mac APPEARS less customizable to XP/Vista users only because it doesn't need to be fixed or customized, but they need a justification to "believe" in. Like many mindless fanatics, so called "believers," it is a blind act of faith not founded in facts.

That also applies to the more software argument. Other than some very technical, scientific or business apps or some games, most users will never need anything that is not available, and working better, on the Mac. You don't even need Parallels to switch to Windows, unless it just makes you feel better or saves you the cost of replacing some software you already have. I do audio & video editing, photography and retouching, Powerpoint, flow charts, web development, office apps, you name it - all on the Mac. And there are some things I do now on a Mac and never could do on a PC.

And then there is the experience of FREEDOM the Mac gives you, freedom to get your work done without worrying, freedom from hours every day fighting off viruses and malware, freedom to just love and enjoy your computing experience. There is no price for that, it is quite literally invaluable. So there goes your cheaper PC argument. If you value your time, your “cheap” PC is far more expensive than the highest priced Mac, far too expensive to even be in the running. At minimum wage, a PC user is probably spending over $1,000 a year as a premium or service charge - for the time they spend servicing their own PC. Bill Gates made his billions stepping over the dead bodies of million sof Windows users. Businesses that bought PC's because they seemed cheaper have been spending untold billions on computer support, repair and maintenance. In terms of total cost of ownership, productivity, reliability and every other measure, Microsoft has stifled industry, crippled innovation and reduced productivity. In the long run, there is never anything really gained by using something cheap and low quality to substitute for a quality, well made and effective product. The short term gains are illusions.

Since its inception, Apple has been reinventing every market paradigm it touched, inspiring innovation and creating new opportunities. The Apple II virtually invented the modern personal computer. The Mac, inspired perhaps by Xerox, reinvented computing. The Laserwriter reinvented publishing and typesetting, with help from Pagemaker. The Newton, though not successful at the time, was a vision of the future of PDA’s and smart phones ultimately leading to the iPhone, which successful or not will reinvent the cell phone for everyone. The iPod reinvented the MP3 player and turned the music industry on its ear. The Intel Mac is just such an opportunity.

What has Microsoft given us – incremental improvements in an operating system that was and still is a bad knock off of the Mac/Xerox concept? Crushing innovation and competition to the point they were investigated by the Justice Dept.? An OS so full of holes that it can never be secure (perhaps intentionally- ever wonder what happened to the vigorous pursuit of MS by the Justice Dept., and why they suddenly didn't feel a need to keep pushing the industry for a "back door" into all computers in the name of national security?). Office apps that basically just copied, bought out or scavenged, and destroyed other existing products that were actually less bloated and better in some ways? The Xbox? Well, ok, I’ll give them that one.

I have a Powerbook G5, which I will keep another few years since I have learned to love life without anything from Microsoft (I love using open source software). I wouldn't exchange even this slightly older Mac for the latest high-end Vista notebook ... though I would consider donations of a new MacBook :-)

What about you? Are you now convinced that Mac computing is the greatest thing since sliced bread, Barrack Obama, Bal en Blanc, The Winter Music Conference, The World Electronic Music Festival, and House Music? I knew you'd see things my way. :-)

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Related links:

• Review: Mac OS X Shines In Comparison With Windows Vista
• Vista vs. OS X? We want to hear from readers
• Apples Tiger vs. Windows Vista: Who Comes Out Ahead?
• Windows Vista Beta: A lot like Mac OS X
• CrunchGear.com - Apple vs. The World: OS X or Vista?
  

Get Free POP/IMAP from GMail

[Nairobi, Kenya]
I REMEMBER when I used to be a Yahoo! Canada email whore. I had the choice of downloading my mail via POP in any of my favourite email clients like Thunderbird, Eudora, Pegasus or Outlook Express.

Anyone with a yahoo.com email address didn't get this privilege though. Instead, you had to pay something like $19.95 per year, which also increased your email storage to 1Gb. And Hotmail teased you a bit by allowing you to download your email into Outlook, but no luck if you were using a competitor's email client. Thank you Microsoft! Back then, it would've taken a miracle for netizens to get free POP and IMAP service. In fact, Hell would have to freeze over first.

Hell freezes over...
Well, I was shocked when Google first announced it's revolutionary GMail service. The fact that they gave you 2Gb of space totally screwed Yahoo and Microsoft. But they also included a lots of FREE goodies that everybody else was charging for. Overnight, paying for POP and IMAP services became a thing of the past. I haven't looked back since.
In short, I'm a GMail addict. Yes, I still have my Yahoo Canada email addy, but I'm in love - with GMail. It's like meeting the woman of my dreams who's smart, sexy, witty, creative, dignified, a great cook, charming, yet "naughty" under the sheets. Once you find a woman like that, you can never let her go. Ditto for GMail in the realm of email hosting. Yep, I'm hooked for life.

POP vs IMAP...
To quickly find out the differences between POP and IMAP, just peek this blog post on the GMail blog. For those of you blessed with a constant, reliable broadband connection, IMAP is the way to go. In all honesty, now that Google gives me a whopping 6771 Mb (6.8Gb) of storage space, I haven't used POP/IMAP services in a looong time. What's shocking is that I'm a power user and I've only used 10% of my space so far.

Besides, I'm here in East Africa so I just check GMail on my Nokia 6070 via Safaricom or Celtel's EDGE/3G/HSDPA mobile network. I surfed to gmail.com/mobile and downloaded a tiny, slick app right onto my Nokia that feels like a tiny desktop email client. Heck, it's fast as hell!! Those Google programmers sure know how to write "gooood" software that goes down nice. :-)

You are currently using 728 MB (10%) of your 6771 MB

Well, at least I know of a top notch POP and IMAP service that's free when I'm ready to use it once again. For now, I'm quite happy using GMail either in the Mozilla Firefox browser or on my Nokia.

Now, imagine being on a safari or hanging out somewhere remote in Kenya and you're still able to read your email since most of the country is covered by EDGE...and the cost is only something like 10 or 12 Kenya Shillings per megabyte. That's a paltry US 20 cents for sending and receiving a ton of emails or web browsing. Simply amazing!

Thank you Safaricom, Celtel and Google.

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Related links:

• GMail vs Yahoo vs Hotmail
  
• GMail is Annoying me TODAY (I'm happy now!)
• Download your Hotmail messages via POP3: FREE
  
• Send and receive large files with Pando
• Pocket PC How Tos, Tutorials
  
• Skyping - Everybody's doing it!
  
• Shooting arrows at MS Exchange Server
• Change is very good: Say goodbye to MS-Exchange