You can add a simple hack to ‘Stocks’ to show currency conversions.

For GBP to USD add the following into a new stock:
GBPUSD=x

or for GBP to NZD:
GBPNZD=x

I thought I posted this ages ago – maybe i didn’t…

Here’s how to show ‘hidden’ applications in the OS X Dock:

defaults write com.apple.Dock showhidden -bool YES

I’m flying Singapore Airlines soon, back to New Zealand and have discovered that even economy has power plugs to power your laptop computers. They say that the plugs are *not* intended for charging the battery, only enough power to run the computer. The types of plugs they support are:

• American 3 pin (earthed)
• American 2 pin
• Australian 3 pin (earthed)
• Australian 2 pin
• European 2 pin
• Japanese 2 pin

The plugs plug into the arm of your seat, so careful if your seat mates need to get out for a wee and don’t yank out the plug half way through watching your favourite Dog Show.

I just heard an interesting advert on the radio from BT, saying “if a conversation is worth having – use your BT landline”. Sounds like BT are feeling a bit left out in the cold while most people these days favour the ease of mobile phones rather than be tied to one fixed line.

Plus at £38 a month is a bit steep for a fixed line…

When I arrived in London at the start of August 2006, the pound was 3.2x the NZ dollar.

Now, November 2009, three and a bit years later, the pound is 2.2x the dollar.

Check out this graph from fxstreet.com:

I made the decision to drop my iPhone and go with a phone that i can actually use. The Nokia E71 has many benefits over the iPhone, such as a physical keyboard, longer battery, actually make and receive calls.

It should be arriving within the month, so i’ll post how great it is then.

Until then, check out the review

Updated:
Ali asked me, no.. Ali slandered me before leaving work this evening saying how much i’ll miss the iPhone. Well here’s some reasoning to my decision:

Nokia does everything the iPhone can but has;

• Physical keyboard
• Dual modes (work/personal) to separate work from fun
• Faster 3g hsdpa
• Camera with autofocus & flash
• Flash (lite?) support
• Zip/Unzip
• Java apps
• Longer battery life (6 days heavy use)
• Fully customisable alerts (SMS/mail appear on sleep screen, light glades every 10sec for unread message waiting)
• Proper mail formatting
• Read, Edit save documents

Things I like about iPhone that I’ll miss;

• iPod
• Google Maps (but Google Maps & Ovi is available for the Nokia
• Safari (best mobile browser ever to date)
• Apps, app/music store – but hardly ever use 3rd party apps, purchase over the air
• Interface is awesome

Things I don’t like about iPhone;

• Heavy lag in cold boot (startup time is about 1min 30sec, then about 10sec resting/freeze before login)
• Some lag when multitasking (listening to iPod while composing this message, keys freeze/can’t answer calls about 1/10 times)
• It’s stupid auto orientation (sometimes I don’t want it to go landscape)
• Not very accessible (have to look at the screen to type, have to turn on and unlock to check mail/messages)
• Camera sucks and no flash
• Reception is rubbish for wifi/voice/data
• Can’t save/edit/format documents from mail
• Touchscreen is easy to navigate but cumbersome at times
• Battery life suuuuucks (iPhone can’t sleep to save battery when in standby!?)
• Looking like a bellend typing with one finger, uncontrollably focused on the iPhone

Maybe some of these issues are because my iPhone is jailbroken and or it needs a reset. I accept that. But I end up getting more upset with the iPhone, expecting it to do something which i suppose it’s not really supposed to do.

Things that won’t be good on Nokia:

• Media player won’t be as good as iPod
• Camera is 3.2 but some uploads on flicker look blueish

These reasons made me make my decision.

In summary, i think the iPhone is a great toy/media/web tool. It’s fancy looking and does neat tricks – but when you actually need to do something that YOU want to do, it fails on so many levels.

I’m supposed to be attending a friends party tonight, but she only announced the details on Facebook. This is a bit of a problem as Facebook has currently undergoing “maintenance” apparently.

Yes, most people have a Facebook account, and it’s a great way to announce mass-audience messages – but it shouldn’t be confused with email/invitations. Now why is sending email more difficult than a Facebook invite? Is it the visibility of seeing who’s attending? Is it the avatars/facial recognition? Or is it the open-ness which makes Facebook differenciate from regularass email?

Facelark sucks. Now i’m late, probably.

I’m sure i’ve posted this before. Here’s how to rip a CD/DVD byte for byte in Terminal. This method works great for damaged media.

dd if=/path/to/InputFile of=/Path/to/OutputFile bs=2048