Simon Toon's Blog

Online bookies

2012-01-16T14:21:00.003Z

My new favourite website is http://www.joeje.co.uk - for all your online betting needs!
Not really, just a joke.

SecureClient for Mac OS X Lion

2011-08-06T00:37:00.001+01:00

Well, I've got CheckPoint VPN-1 SecureClient for Mac OS X Lion 10.7 and it's working just fine. I find it faintly ridiculous that they are restricting access to the download so if anyone is without and desperately wants it, talk to me.

Blank printouts from Word X on Mac

2011-03-05T22:42:00.005Z

User was having problems printing from Microsoft Word X on her Mac (latest Snow Leopard). Printing to PDF produced blank PDFs. Printing to the printer resulting in blank pieces of paper. Yet creating a new test document from scratch (just typed a few words into the page) was able to produce a valid PDF.

A quick review of the Console log showed the following:

05/03/2011 21:51:07 [0x0-0x17017].com.microsoft.Word[176] WARNING: Font "Arial" with style 1 can't be handled by the imaging system. This document can't be drawn/printed with this font.

Turns out there were two copies of Arial on her Mac: one in the central Library folder and one in her personal Library folder.

I removed the copy from her personal Library folder, restarted Word, and all was then working fine.

Securing notes across my devices

2011-03-03T23:18:00.005Z

I wanted a secure way to access and edit text notes on my iOS devices (iPhone and iPad) and also on my 'desktop' devices (Macs and Windows), with the notes synchronised across all of those devices, so that any amendments on one device would show up swiftly on all of the others.

I was already using the excellent Dropbox in conjunction with PlainText (on my iOS devices), TextWrangler (Mac), and WordPad (Windows) to work with clear text. Using these tools I can read or edit these text files on any of these devices. I also use Dropbox to sync other document types, including Office/iWork files, but only read access on the iOS devices (although I know there are Dropbox-enabled 'Office' apps available) — but as long as I could edit my text files from my iPhone, the Office files could wait until I got back to my Mac.

This setup was so useful to me that I started wanting to put sensitive information in there. Work stuff: Unix commands, reports, IP addresses, usernames, even passwords. But that's not really a good idea, is it? You don't put sensitive work information on a 3rd-party storage service — well, not unless you can encrypt it in a way that no-one else can decrypt.

I was already using encrypted .dmg files on my Mac to store sensitive data, but I wasn't aware of any tools that could open these on iOS or Windows.

Hence my search for an encrypted equivalent of this toolset began.

Has anyone else found the solution yet? I tweeted the question. I audiobooed my question. No answer was forthcoming.

I searched the Apple App Store for words like 'encrypt', and all I seemed to get were password manager/autofill apps. One of the most popular and expensive ones of these seemed to be one called '1Password'. Some of my Twitter friends seem to like it. But that's not really what I was after. I wasn't looking for an app to auto-fill my passwords into websites.

Evernote is a tool I've been trying to find a good use case for for a long time. They've got encrypted note support... but not on the iOS apps, it seems.

Pop the text in a draft email on our Exchange server? The iPhone talks to the server using SSL, so that's fine, but would all my email clients store their local cache in an encrypted form? No.

Then I thought, why not look on the Dropbox website - they seem to have a healthy ecosystem of 3rd-party companion apps. So I scanned through their page of apps (https://www.dropbox.com/apps), and found a few promising ones...

1Password (http://agilewebsolutions.com/onepassword) is the popular password manager/autofill app, but not cheap, at $14.99 for the iPad/iPhone version, $39.95 for the Mac version and $29.95 for Windows.

SafeWallet (http://www.sbsh.net/products/mac_os_x/safewallet) seemed similar to 1Password but at a lower price ($15 for the Mac version, $3 for iPhone).

Password Touch (http://www.passwordtouch.com/) has the advantage of being compatible with the open source 'Password Safe' database, meaning the desktop application would be free, and the total cost could be just $3 for the iPhone app. Unfortunately, the desktop version is Windows only!

Codebook (http://getcodebook.com/faq) seemed like a more pertinent app. Rather than being a password manager, this was actually intended for big chunks of text. That's what I was actually after! Again, based on some kind of Open Source encryption standard but with their own proprietary twist which means there's effectively no desktop counterpart. So no.

So, with the last two apps ruled out for technical limitations, I was left with the choice of SafeWallet and 1Password — both of which have a trial version of the Mac desktop app available to download. So I downloaded both and installed them on my Mac.

I pasted a nice long chunk of text into a text note in SafeWallet, but it only showed about 3 lines, even though all the text was in there, and I could find no way to resize the text box to make the viewable area larger (to make it actually practical). Not encouraging.

Then I fired up 1Password. The whole look and feel of the app was much more secure and trustworthy somehow. I created a secure note. A nice big text box, and even a space at the bottom of the note to drag and drop attachments onto. That was much more like it! Sync'ed it to Dropbox. Very simple and intuitive. But would it be this good on the iPhone?

There's no free trial version of 1Password for iPhone. And the trial version of SafeWallet doesn't do syncing.

I searched on the web to see if I could find any reviews of 1Password on iPhone that would cover the notes feature. YouTube had a bunch of video reviews, but these all focused on the password management/autofill functionality. I feared perhaps the notes would be inaccessible on the iPhone, or at most read-only.

And then my friend Pewari (http://pewari.may.be) came to the rescue with an audioboo. She was a very happy user of 1Password on her iPhone, and though she had never used the notes feature, she was kind enough to try it out and in the very same boo she reported that indeed it did work!

That was all the recommendation I needed. I then bought the iOS version on my iPhone, installed it, connected it to my Dropbox, and 'boom!' there were all my secure notes.

So now I'm happy. I may even start using it as a password manager/autofill tool, too, as people seem to rave about this functionality. Sure, I know after 30 days the trial version on my Mac will expire, and I will have to shell out $40 to retain desktop access, but I think it is worth it. I can keep my text safe and secure. It's backed up, it's easily accessible and amendable on all my devices, and I can be sure it can't be read by anyone but me.

Thoughts on Magic Mouse

2009-10-31T00:09:00.001Z

I've been using my Apple Magic Mouse this evening and it does not disappoint, though I feel now like the whole Mac OS needs to be updated to take advantage of the subtleties of the mouse/large trackpads on modern MacBooks. (I'm also hoping for an update to the MacBook trackpad software to incorporate the marvellous momentum scrolling feature from the iPhone and Magic Mouse.) The additional quality now endowed on these touch interfaces is great and enhances the efficiency of interacting with the existing O/S's (both iPhone and Mac OS X), but I feel there are further enhancements to be made and I'm sure Apple have these in mind. Snow Leopard gets us ready for something radical to come. Coverflow makes much more sense with Magic Mouse, and is probably indicative of the future of all file navigation.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Today, for the first time in my life

2009-05-18T21:24:00.002+01:00

Today, for the first time in my life, I had my daughter open the front door to let me into the house.

GoDaddy 20% off up to two domain names .COM .ORG or .BIZ

2009-05-09T17:01:00.003+01:00

Well, Go Daddy is offering another unique offer at the moment. 20% off the price of up to two domain names of the .COM .ORG or .BIZ variety, using source code gdr0506k when you check out. This offer expires on May 10th 2009, but if you miss the deadline, or you want to see whether you can get a better discount, then why not try these source codes:

10% off any order* : SLAM1

20% off £35 or more* : SLAM2

30% off a .com domain: SLAM30

Of course if it is .COM domain names you are after, then the SLAM30 offer of 30% off is better than the 20% off you'd get with GDR0506K.

Find out more on the offer, or other offers I've got for you, at: http://slamidolpodcast.com/offers/ or http://slamidol.com/offers/

* Some restrictions may apply. See GoDaddy site for details.

Blame the shepherd, not the wolf

2009-02-10T13:32:00.010Z

I can't believe the BBC are scapegoating the bankers. Looks like the UK Government is trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes by making it seem like the fault of the greedy bankers and their excessive profiteering and bonus-awards, taking advantage of the public outrage at the bankers being awarded such large bonuses using tax-payer bail-out money.

Okay, so the bankers are not going to be popular folk heroes, but the Government shouldn't be allowed to make it look like it's not actually the Government's fault. It is the Government's fault.

Face it, bankers are employed by corporations to make as much profit as possible in the next reporting period (a year, a quarter, whatever). They are not incentivised to look after the long term interests of the bank that employs them, or the nation as a whole. So of course they behaved in the way that they did. Unless they did something illegal then there is nothing for them to apologise for!

It's like blaming the wolf for eating the sheep that have been left out there in the field. It's in their nature; you can't blame them for that. The finger of blame should be pointed, in this analogy, to the shepherd, whose responsibility it was to look after the sheep.

And so it is the financial regulators (i.e. the Treasury, as the FSA doesn't actually have the teeth) that we must blame for the financial problems the UK is currently undergoing. And the financial regulators are appointed by the Government.

We cannot even blame the bank bosses for going to the Treasury asking for a bail-out. They presented a simple choice to the Treasury, telling them that their companies would collapse if they didn't get an injection of money, and would the Treasury like to take the opportunity to do so in the interests of the UK economy? Seems fair enough. And again the Treasury, and ultimately the Government, failed the UK population by just handing over a huge wad of cash without placing on it certain conditions, or even going as far as nationalising them.

So, we shouldn't accept the bankers as scapegoats, thereby absolving any culpability of the Government or the BBC's beloved over-borrowed consumer who was stupid enough to buy or remortgage an overpriced house, or take out any other forms of credit that they simply cannot afford to pay back.

Don't be fooled.

New Bargains Website for Parents

2009-01-09T23:23:00.003Z

I'd like to tell you about a new website for Parents. It simply has bargains for Mums and Dads in the UK. So, it's pretty much UK bargains for parents.

One of the great things about this site (as opposed to most others) is that it takes a very straight-forward approach:

What you see is what you get

You don't have to give out your address to anyone

You don't have to sign up for a newsletter

And you don't have to sign up for so-called freebies where you then have to remember to cancel a subscription at a later date, and worry whether the company will get your cancellation in time

Check it out at www.PennyPinchingMum.co.uk

GoDaddy Discount Codes for 2009

2009-01-09T23:07:00.002Z

Looking for GoDaddy promo codes or GoDaddy Coupon codes for 2009? So many of the GoDaddy discount codes out there have expiry dates, which can be very frustrating indeed. Well, these ones have no expiry date!

Non-expiring GoDaddy codes

An old favourite is SLAM1 which gives you 10% off pretty much anything on GoDaddy.

Then there's SLAM30 which gets you 30% off your DOT COM, equivalent to $6.95 per year.

If you spend a bit more you can use SLAM2 to get 20% off GoDaddy order £35 or more.

Expiring GoDaddy codes

Save yourself a massive 25% off ALL your domain name and web hosting purchases at GoDaddy.co.uk when you spend £50 or more using the promo code SLAM25. Sadly, this one expires on January 15th, 2009.

Emilia doing some more walking

2008-10-01T09:26:00.000+01:00

Emilia doing some more walking on 27-Sep-2008

Emilia walking unaided on 27/9/2008

2008-09-28T16:32:00.000+01:00

Later that same day, we captured this footage of Emilia walking unaided, and managing more than just 2 steps!

Emilia walking on 27/9/2008

2008-09-27T11:12:00.000+01:00

Well, she only really has the confidence to walk for more than one step if she is holding onto someone with at least one hand.

Nipper News Blog

2008-09-17T18:26:00.002+01:00

If you haven't checked it out yet, please go on over to http://nippernews.co.uk/ and have a look at the new blog my wife is doing on there. There's a iPhone-optimised page too, which you can see here: Nipper News.

Some of the most important stuff she's posting on there is about safety issues, and of course some great bargains for parents, whether you have a baby or teenagers or something in-between.

And you can subscribe to it as an email newsletter, too!

Setting column width, not minimum column width

2008-08-29T23:58:00.005+01:00

I've been working on a web page formatted for iPhone, and in this context the width of the page and the content on the page, is very important. First of all you don't want the page to be too wide, because then the text might be too small to read. But you also want the entire page to fit within the width of the screen, because no-one wants to have to scroll from side to side when reading lines of text.

So, of course, you can use a table and specify the width of cells and table, but this actually sets the minimum width - if the content is wider than the specified width, then the cell or table will expand to suit. In my case it is a long string of continuous text without spaces in, specifically a long URL.

I'm sure the wiser ones of you reading this will already be thinking CSS. Indeed, it gave me the answer. Specifically, CSS version 3, which is not supported on all browsers. Luckily iPhone's Safari browser is one of the few browsers that does support CSS3.

The answer came from searching for how to force text to wrap to a specific width, i.e. <p style="width: 900px; word-wrap: break-word"> which I found from this page:

http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t373091-wrap-long-url-in-table.html

Just bold

2008-08-24T22:38:00.001+01:00

So, now that that's working, the next question is what is the minimum? Can you get away with just having the first 5 words in your posting being in bold, or do you really need to have a mixture of italics in there too? This one just has the first 5 words in bold. We will see...

This time I'll include italics

2008-08-24T21:54:00.001+01:00

Well, something seems to have inserted unintended carriage-returns into my last post, so that proves, I guess, something. Maybe if I include some italics in this post, and some bold, then the richness of this text will prevail...?

Rich text or not rich text, that is the question

2008-08-24T21:47:00.000+01:00

So, that is good news. Sending a rich text email from gMail does not
prompt those spurious carriage-returns to be added. So, what about
Apple's Mail program on the Mac? I have just set up my gMail account
on my Mac's Mail program, just so I can test this, and the email I am
writing is rich text, in the sense that if I go to the Format menu at
the top of the screen it gives me the option to "Make Plain Text" --
which implies that it must already be in rich text form. But so far I
have not included any italics or bold or any other formatting, so
maybe it will make an executive decision when I hit 'Send' and will
unilaterally send it in plain text form only...

More spurious carriage-returns

2008-08-24T21:36:00.001+01:00

Well, there we are, the plain text email from gMail seems to have put in those unwanted carriage-returns. Annoying. Okay, well this time I am going to try with a Rich Text email within gMail. This sentence should be in italics. All the text so far is all on one line, so we'll see what happens this time...

Spurious carriage-returns

2008-08-24T21:28:00.001+01:00

What is it with spurious carriage-returns, or line-feeds, or whatever
is the correct name for them? First we had some problems at work
because some Javascript Include files were being exported from our
repository on a Windows PC and therefore included Windows-friendly
line-feed characters at the end of every line, and therefore made the
file itself slightly larger than it was in Unix format, and this then
caused the Javascript compilation limit to be reached, breaking the
page. Not good. Just goes to show another reason why Unix is better
than Windows.
And then with this email posting to Blogger shenanigans! It seems that
somehow in the email to blog post process, some additional line-feeds
or carriage-returns appear. Why is that?
Anyway, this is a plain text email written in gMail. I wonder whether
it will be affected...

How to post to Blogger from your iPhone via email

2008-08-23T23:04:00.006+01:00

So, my starting point was the old problem of the lack of copy and paste functionality on the iPhone. How on earth would one be able to post links to interesting web pages on one's iPhone without memorizing and typing back in the URLs? The answer comes via the use of email. So when you're on an interesting web page you can hit the plus button and there's a choice of 'Mail link to this page'. You can then craft an email that includes a link to that URL, along with any commentary, and send that off somewhere to an email address.

And blogging services such as iBloggin and Blogger have facilities that allow you to publish blog post via email. Here's the help page from Blogger:
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=41452&topic=12461

Well, I set this up for this blog, but I had some confusing teething troubles. It seems this help page was not as helpful as it could have been...

1. When it tells you to keep the email address secret as anyone could post on your blog, that would lead one to believe one could send the email from any email address, wouldn't it? Well, I found that it only posts my email contents if I send the email from the email account belonging to the Google Account for that blogger identity. CORRECTION (24/Aug/08): It now seems like possibly it posts email contents from gMail addresses only, and maybe from any gMail address. As I learn more I will update this post... CORRECTION (29/Aug/08): It seems like all those .Mac emails I sent before eventually were accepted and started turning up as blog posts after a few days of delay. Now I'm very confused.

2. If you allow other authors to post on that blog, they will have to set up their own destination email address if they want to post to the blog via email.

I hope those two lessons will be useful to someone reading this and they will waste less time than I did in setting this up. Still, it was worth it for me in the end!

Sent from my iPhone

35 Free MP3 Songs

2008-05-01T22:44:00.001+01:00

35 Free MP3 Songs from eMusic - Adele: Chasing Pavements, Cold Shoulder; Cut Copy; The Weepies; Spoon; Aphex Twin; Aretha Franklin; and many more... click here.

Seesmic Slam, tenth respondent: keepdafunkalive

2008-02-12T09:38:00.000Z

Seesmic Slam, ninth respondent: kosso

2008-02-12T09:37:00.001Z

Seesmic Slam, eighth respondent: Steve Purkiss

2008-02-11T23:13:00.000Z