Since I got my Mac mini in November I've been having problems with my Logitech G500 being very 'laggy'. I don't know if this is down to the fact that it is across 5m worth of USB powered hubs and so on or if it is a problem with OS X. It does work fine when I plug it straight in to the USB 3.0 port on the back of the mini but even when it is across the hubs it works fine on Windows 7.
So I found a fabulous solution called Smooth Mouse. If you experience lag on your mouse you can download it here:
On Mac OS X, you have many different ways to take screenshots:
- Command + Shift + 3 - takes a fullscreen screen shot of the system and saves it to the Desktop
- Command + Shift + 4 - takes a screen shot of an area that you select using the selection rectangle that appears after then stores it on the Desktop
- Command + Shift + 4 then SPACE - takes a screen shot of a selected window on the display and stores it on the Desktop
- Command + Ctrl + Shift + 3 - takes a fullscreen screen shot and stores it on the clipboard
- Command + Ctrl + Shift + 4 - takes a screen shot of an area that you select using the selection rectangle that appears after then stores it on the clipboard
- Command + Ctrl + Shift + 4 then SPACE - takes a screen shot of a selected window on the display and stores it on the clipboard
I use the second one the most, because I find it more useful to have a copy of the screen shot on my system. But the problem is, I end up with too many images on my desktop.
I'd really like to fix this by making the screen shots go to my Pictures/Screenshots/ directory. So a bit of looking around the web and I found the solution using Bash:
To start with open up a new Terminal window. This can be found in Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app.
Write/copy the following on a single line:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Pictures/; killall SystemUIServer
And you are done!
I am very sad to say that IKEA has discontinued their range of GALANT desks (like my own). This means that the very popular among IKEA Hackers corner desk can no longer be found in Ikea.
Proof of this can be found here.
This desk, which I've modded myself (I've added a shelf using the infamous CAPITA and a LAIVA TV bench), has been discontinued since last year meaning that those who need to replace parts of the desk can no longer. It has been replaced by BEKANT as a corner desk. BEKANT can have it's height adjusted using an electronic mechanism but unlike GALANT does not have all the modifications such as the additional parts as options.
Today, I discovered a few security enhancements that I could apply to my website so in the next few days I will be working to improve the login system further as well as making the site more reliable when dealing with threats.
I'd like to thank Jonathan for his unsuccessful attempts at breaking into my website and Ben for suggesting it.
I just wanted to share this article because I was never a fan of Flash on YouTube:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/30/flash-youtube-nostalgia?CMP=share_btn_tw
I am glad that Flash has finally been ditched in favour of the newer HTML5 standard. My website only uses HTML5 video, there are no Flash videos to be found on my site.
I will say however, this article does remind me of some of my favourite early YouTube videos that I saw all the way back before YouTube even became the monster it is now (in fact before Google owned it). I particularly loved the 'End of the World' video back in the day (although I think I saw it before YouTube existed on StupidVideos.com).
Lately I have been working to improve the cable management in my room and it feels like it's always an on going task. Now I've finally got to the stage that it's no longer an issue after completing it by buying an IKEA SIGNUM cable manager:
My cables in 2011, before my BlueLounge CableBox even
Around 30 cables run along here, yet they don't really affect my room at all.
8 of the cables run right around the desk and have zero impact on the appearance thanks to cable trunking.
My Mac mini, which is mounted to the bottom of my desk, has five cables (currently) that run to it and are neatly hidden in Ikea cable trunking.
Another three run all the way to the far side of the desk and are connected through the USB hub on my monitor
The cables that run around my bedroom are now trunked - reducing dust and making it more pleasant to the eye. I've left corners open so that they can reach the sockets
Finally, my personal switch in my room (which connects to our main network through an RJ-45 on the wall which has been there since 1999) is found in a basket under my desk.
You can also read about my other cable management tools such as the BlueLounge Soba cable management system or the BlueLounge CableBox and how they've helped organise my wiring better.
Oh yea, and I achieved this with flat cables too, which are a fantastic way of routing cables around a desk like this.
I will likely do a tour of my bedroom soon, as this is long overdue.
There are more photos in my Photo Gallery of Petro.
I have mentioned that I would be adding new tutorials to my website in the past so this may not necessarily be new news, but hey, nothing like a site update.
Most recently, version 3.6 of my website was released, a new version in the way the site is coded, making the site more consistent on the server side and easier to manage.
Very recently after, I started to work on a new tutorial on CSS. This is the first of many planned tutorials and will hopefully be finished by May this year. As well as this, I've had emails and comments stating that my PHP tutorial is good, but since reading through it myself, I find it a bit too short and have decided to extend it far further with a new section on Advanced PHP planned.
These are all planned for the CSS tutorial:
- Width, height, padding and margins
- Borders, box shadows, border radius and box sizing
- Colour, backgrounds and gradients
- Fonts, font families, font weights and styles
- Pseudo-CSS selectors
- Advanced pseudo-CSS selectors
- Adjacent sibling selector
- Child selector
- Descendant selector
- General sibling selector
- Universal selector
- Minification and combining CSS
- Optimising CSS
- Cross platform and browser compatibility
- jQuery and CSS
- Shorthand CSS
- CSS @ rules
- Precedence and specificity
- Server side generated CSS
- Introduction to responsive web design
- Tablet and smartphone friendly CSS
- Printer-friendly CSS
- Advanced responsive CSS
- CSS content
- CSS transitions
- CSS transformation
Bringing it all together
Yesterday I worked tirelessly to make my site more modular and many new fixes. On top of that, I have just made my site far more flexible and easy to update.
I'm expecting to be able to work on my site in a far better way now as well, keeping it far more flexible and making changes far easier. As a result I released version 3.6 just yesterday, 1st January 2015.
Happy 2015!
So 2014 has almost come to an end, and with that I've just done another of my summaries of the last things I did in the year.
Last meal I ate: Baked potato with cheese
Last thing I had to drink with a meal: Coke Life
Last place I went out to eat or drink: Goblin Ha'
Last film I watched: James Bond - Goldfinger
Last game I played: Pokemon Omega Ruby
Last song I listened to: In Dulce Jubilo - Mike Oldfield
Last person I have sent a text to: Daniel Graham
Last friend I have spoken to in person: Daniel Graham
Last TV programme I have watched: EastEnders
Last major purchase for myself: Mac mini 2012
2014 to me was not a very good year, university has been tougher than ever and my depression has managed to seep back into my life. As well as this, I lost the wonderful little Petro, who I still miss dearly. On the brighter side, we now have another rabbit - Sweep, who is turning out to be a lovely rabbit too. We also now have a hamster - Henry, who is also a lovely little fella.
On the website front, this site has been finished for months and was officially released as version 3.5 in May this year - the finalised design of the site. Since then only minor tweaks have been applied to the site.
