This is totally off-topic, but… My main computer (work and home — it goes everywhere with me) is a MacBook Pro. Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that the trackpad button has been sticking, like it has something stuck underneath it. Cleaning crap out of the keyboard is easy enough - just run the Shop-Vac over it and everything gets sucked out. But the trackpad button? That’s an entirely different story. [more]

While I realize this isn’t exactly on topic, I just wanted to point out an excellent digital camera site: KenRockwell.com. If you’re looking for really informative articles on a wide range of photographic topics, as well as detailed reviews and user guides for a ton of different cameras, then this is the place for you. You should probably start in the tech section, which is titled “How to Do Anything Photographic.” It’s a huge page with links out to a compilation of technical articles, photographic tips, camera and lens reviews, etc. While this site can admittedly be a bit overwhelming at first, if you spend a bit of time poking around you’re almost sure to find a ton of useful information. If you’re into photography, you should definitely stop by and check it out.

And no, I’m not being paid to write this. I’m just a huge fan.

After one relatively major false-start, I’m now running Windows XP on my MacBook Pro. I’ve set up a dual-boot configuration using Apple’s Boot Camp, and it’s working great… In fact, I’m writing this from post from Win/Firefox right now.

Why would I want to do this? Mainly because I have some work-related software that is PC-only, and I don’t have a PC at home. It’s also nice for accessing the occasional website that requires Win/IE (there are still some out there). And finally, it’s great for web development, as I can now check what things look like from both the Mac and PC sides.

For those that are interested, I’ve thrown together a few notes on the installation process… [more]

This is a bit off topic, but a reader (and self-proclaimed newbie) named Ranjan left a comment early this morning asking what’s a Blog Carnival, and how do you participate? Both are good questions, so I thought I’d answer them here (along with three more questions that Ranjan didn’t think to ask). Let’s take them one at a time. [more]

This is totally off-topic, but… When was it that The Weather Channel started devolving into the MTV of meteorology? Remember when MTV actually played music videos? Back before they started running reality show after reality show? Well, it seems that The Weather Channel has decided to turn their back on trivial little things such as actually reporting on the weather. Granted, they’re not nearly as bad as MTV when it comes to ignoring their raison d’être. But have you actually tuned into The Weather Channel recently? I did just that over the weekend, and was sorely disappointed. It seems that they’re branching out further and further into things like ‘Storm Stories’ or specials about volcanoes, etc. Yes, they still do “Local on the 8s” (local weather reports every ten minutes at 8, 18, 28, etc. after the hour). But I’d at least expect to see a ticker scrolling across the bottom of the screen at all times giving you actual weather information. Perhaps they’re better during the week, but I’m not near a TV on weekday afternoons.

A bit off-topic here, but I recently got a shiny new 15″ MacBook Pro and my Firefox plugins have been driving me nuts… My workflow relies on the Shubert IT PDF Browser Plugin, and plain old browsing requires things like the Flash plugin. But following the migration from my old PowerBook G4 to my new MacBook Pro (using the Setup Assistant, which is very slick, I might add) these things stopped working. [more]

I just ran across a fun (albeit ugly) site that lets you send e-mail to Santa Claus and receive an instant, personalized reply. Good stuff. If you have kids, you should definitely check it out: E-mail Santa.

Call me a snob, but it bugs the crap out of me when people write by ear and end up butchering the English language. Case in point: it’s “SHOULD HAVE” (or SHOULD’VE), not “SHOULD OF.” As in: “I should HAVE (or should’ve) written about this sooner.” The same goes for “could have” and “would have.” While I’ve run across a bunch of other cases like this in my meanderings across the web, this is the one that comes to mind right now. Again, I know that I’m running the risk of being a grammar snob by writing this, but if nobody ever told you, then how would you know? Now you do. Feel free to leave a comment with any other grammatical annoyances that you’ve run across. I now return you to the regularly scheduled programming.