This was found on macosxhints.com via digg.com:
I was shocked to discover that the Gmail Notifier, as distributed by Google, defaults to sending your Gmail password over the network in clear text every time it checks your inbox for new mail. This is incredibly insecure, especially since Google has plenty of smart people who now how to secure internet communication. They have the capability to enable secure communication as proven by the ability to access Gmail entirely over HTTPS (by using https://mail.google.com as the entry point). As it turns out, there is an easy "hack" for Mac users to switch Gmail notifier to HTTPS as well:
Pull down the Notifier menu (either Calendar or Gmail), hold down Command and Option, and click Preferences on the menu. You’ll see a hidden settings editor. Enter SecureAlways in the Key field (upper and lower case must be entered as shown) and 1 in the Value field, then click Set. Quit Notifier and start it up again. From now on, all connections with both Gmail & Gcal will be https. Thanks to this comment on the O'Reilly blogs for this trick!
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Friday, July 06, 2007
Sansa MP3 players
I currently own an 8 GB (e280) version of the Sansa portable music players. I bought my first 4 GB unit about 18 months ago. Overall, I really like the device (small, light, decent GUI, priced right), but I have to say that if I hadn't bought the $29 extended warranty from Best Buy, I wouldn't be a happy person.
About two months after I bought the first 4 GB unit, the screen had a series of diagonal lines across it and the device was locked up. I took it back to Best Buy and they happily replaced it under the extended warranty. This happened four more times over the following 8 months (sometimes the device just wouldn't power up anymore).
When I returned it the last time, the 4 GB model had been discontinued so they gave me a full refund of the original purchase price. I didn't feel like driving around town shopping for another player so I checked out what they had for the same price (about $249). The 8 GB model was there, and they had some iPod Nanos for a few bucks more. I decided to stick with the Sansa if I could buy another extended warranty, but I couldn't help but think "Surely they've fixed the quality problems by now." Six weeks later, it died. That was in January 2007 and I've had two more e280s die since then.
You may be asking "what the heck are you doing to these things?" I'm not rough with it, I keep it in a neoprene case, it doesn't get wet, etc. I take pretty good care of the players, so it must come down to poor manufacturing quality.
All in all, I would recommend buying one, but only if you buy a "no questions asked" extended warranty and you don't mind driving back to Best Buy/Circuit City every 6 weeks or so to exchange it
About two months after I bought the first 4 GB unit, the screen had a series of diagonal lines across it and the device was locked up. I took it back to Best Buy and they happily replaced it under the extended warranty. This happened four more times over the following 8 months (sometimes the device just wouldn't power up anymore).
When I returned it the last time, the 4 GB model had been discontinued so they gave me a full refund of the original purchase price. I didn't feel like driving around town shopping for another player so I checked out what they had for the same price (about $249). The 8 GB model was there, and they had some iPod Nanos for a few bucks more. I decided to stick with the Sansa if I could buy another extended warranty, but I couldn't help but think "Surely they've fixed the quality problems by now." Six weeks later, it died. That was in January 2007 and I've had two more e280s die since then.
You may be asking "what the heck are you doing to these things?" I'm not rough with it, I keep it in a neoprene case, it doesn't get wet, etc. I take pretty good care of the players, so it must come down to poor manufacturing quality.
All in all, I would recommend buying one, but only if you buy a "no questions asked" extended warranty and you don't mind driving back to Best Buy/Circuit City every 6 weeks or so to exchange it
Final Second Life entry
I forgot to make an entry after I abandoned SL, so here are my final comments on the application (for now at least).
I did meet a few cool people there, but everything was so oriented towards the sex industry (there are an inordinate number of transsexual prostitutes there). Once you meet a friend or two, then what. You hang out at someone's house, go to an overcrowded night club (the more people there, the slower everything runs), or just fly around exploring stuff.
If you are a little creative, you can try to build stuff, but land is pretty expensive so you might want to reconsider spending a lot of time building a house.
So, I transferred all of my transferable stuff to people I knew, gave my money to a club I would sometimes hang out in, and canceled my account. If SL goes more mainstream, maybe I'll go back, but I just think that with the current trend, it will not be sustainable.
I did meet a few cool people there, but everything was so oriented towards the sex industry (there are an inordinate number of transsexual prostitutes there). Once you meet a friend or two, then what. You hang out at someone's house, go to an overcrowded night club (the more people there, the slower everything runs), or just fly around exploring stuff.
If you are a little creative, you can try to build stuff, but land is pretty expensive so you might want to reconsider spending a lot of time building a house.
So, I transferred all of my transferable stuff to people I knew, gave my money to a club I would sometimes hang out in, and canceled my account. If SL goes more mainstream, maybe I'll go back, but I just think that with the current trend, it will not be sustainable.
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