God only knows how many times I’ve whined on Twitter about the sharp edge on my MacBook Pro right where your wrists rest while working on it. I swear to Buddha that after 15 minutes of working on this thing I have lines deep enough imprinted in my forearms to make people think I’m trying to slash my wrists! Furthermore, this laptop nearly makes me want to!!!

But tonight I’d had enough. After a marathon session of pain, I finally got off my lazy butt and did something about it. So, here is a video of me taking a file to my MacBook Pro and doing what Apple should have done long, long ago!
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Twitter Comments

	Kimroen RT @johnpoz: YES! I did mod my MacBook Pro ==> Video RANT: Taking the (Sharp) Edge off the MacBook Pro - http://OneMansBlog.com/macbookpro
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	lisamariemary RT @johnpoz: Video RANT: Taking the (Sharp) Edge off the MacBook Pro http://onemansblog.com/macbookpro
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	OriginalVlatte RT @johnpoz: Video RANT: Taking the (Sharp) Edge off the MacBook Pro http://onemansblog.com/macbookpro
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	3rdEden RT @aj_wood: RT @johnpoz: Video RANT: Taking the (Sharp) Edge off the MacBook Pro http://onemansblog.com/macbookpro
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	aj_wood RT @johnpoz: Video RANT: Taking the (Sharp) Edge off the MacBook Pro http://onemansblog.com/macbookpro
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	koswolf I want to do this, but not f it up. RT @johnpoz: Video RANT: Taking the (Sharp) Edge off the MacBook Pro - http://OneMansBlog.com/macbookpro
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	StevenRay Re: @johnpoz Nice I love it! \n- Taking the (Sharp) Edge off the MacBook Pro - http://OneMansBlog.com/macbookpro
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	johnpoz YES! I did mod my MacBook Pro ==> Video RANT: Taking the (Sharp) Edge off the MacBook Pro - http://OneMansBlog.com/macbookpro
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	Zig7 RT @johnpoz: Video RANT: Taking the (Sharp) Edge off the MacBook Pro http://onemansblog.com/macbookpro
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	jimbeaug RT @johnpoz: Video RANT: Taking the (Sharp) Edge off the MacBook Pro http://onemansblog.com/macbookpro
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I’ve had 5 different people ask me for camera recommendations, as well as a couple of other folks asking me about camcorders, in the last week alone. Because it’s just that time of the year when people want to pick up a new camera to capture the holiday cheer.

Well, I’ve got two digital camera recommendations – depending on what you are looking for – and more importantly I’ve broken down exactly why these are the two cameras that you should get. (Jump right to the pocket sized Canon G11 or the SLR sized Canon T1i)

Of course, there are a LOT of cameras on the market, and I even own a few others, but for the vast majority of users I think these are the two best all-around cameras you can get. And I intend to make some video tutorials about how to take some really great photos with these cameras in the near future. So if you get one of these specific recommendations then you’ll be able to follow along when I put out the videos.
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	Zig7 RT @johnpoz: Camera Reviews: Canon Digital Rebel T1i SLR and the pocket sized Canon PowerShot G11 - http://onemansblog.com/cameras
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	V_Tsavdaridou RT @johnpoz:Camera Reviews: Canon Digital Rebel T1i SLR and the pocket sized Canon PowerShot G11 - http://onemansblog.com/cameras
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	johnpoz Camera Reviews: Canon Digital Rebel T1i SLR and the pocket sized Canon PowerShot G11 - http://onemansblog.com/cameras
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A while back I chronicled my 51 Favorite Freeware Apps for Windows because it helps me keep a list of what I need to install when I’m trying to set up a new PC. And of course I also listed the 50 Free iPhone Apps I Love and Use, and even my Free Themes and Apps for Blackberry Curve. Well, it’s about time I do the same for my Mac downloads! So here is a list of all of the various Mac Freeware I install when setting up a new machine:

System Tools

• GeekTool – A very powerful panel for your system preferences which adds all sorts of command line like functionality. This is for power users only.
• Growl – This is a little add in that improves just about every other application by adding instant notifications to your Mac. Works with Adium, Firefox, Skype and many more. Get it!
• Skype – The absolute standard for making calls through the Internet. I use it for communicating with my partners in Lebanon as well as for doing Podcasts and interviews with others around the country.
• Carbon Copy Cloner – Useful for making copies of your hard drive to upgrade to a new computer, or even for automated backups to protect your data.
• atMonitor – This is a critical application, as far as I’m concerned, to manage your computer’s overall health. I primarily use it to keep an eye on my CPU usage and ensure that I don’t have an application running away with all my processing power. That heats up your machine and wastes your battery. Another option is MenuMeters if for some reason you prefer it.
• The Unarchiver – Software for uncompressing Zip, Tar-GZip, Tar-BZip2, RAR, 7-zip, LhA, StuffIt and many other formatted files, common when downloading from newsgroups or other online sources.
• CrossLoop – Allows you to take over a computer remotely with permission from the other person to help with troubleshooting and things like that. Good for helping the family out… (My previous review.)

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	johnpoz 27 Mac OSX Freeware Applications I Use and Recommend - http://onemansblog.com/macfreeware
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I’ve seen a few decent writeups on the History of the Internet, but this short video crams a working history into about 8 minutes that anyone can follow.

Now, it will start using some funky technical terms like TCP and IP, but they introduce it in such a way that I think almost anyone can understand it. Give it a listen.

And don’t forget to check out The World Wide Web Circa 1994 and the “Ancient” Internet TV News Special from 1993 if you didn’t see those before. I find the olden days fascinating. :-)
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Twitter Comments

	indexcol A Video History of the Internet\nhttp://onemansblog.com/internethistory
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	tyman00 RT Good for the non-technical >>> @johnpoz: A Video History of the Internet - http://onemansblog.com/internethistory
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	TTPaiva A Video History of the Internet - http://onemansblog.com/internethistory (via @johnpoz)
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	Zig7 RT @johnpoz A Video History of the Internet - http://onemansblog.com/internethistory
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	johnpoz A Video History of the Internet - http://onemansblog.com/internethistory
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I’ve been doing a lot of photography with my Canon 5D Mark II 21MP camera, and each image taken in RAW format is about 25MB! So, needless to say, I’ve been using up a whole lot of hard drive space. Even though I upgraded my MacBook Pro to a 500GB drive a month ago, it’s only got less than 100GB left on it. So, I went looking for MORE!

Well, it turns out that Seagate is making a 640GB drive which will actually fit in a standard laptop. While there are a couple of other 2.5″ drives that are larger, they are also thicker and won’t work in most notebooks. So, the Seagate was what I wanted! Only problem – they aren’t selling it yet!

Doah! Well, no matter. Because I found out that I could buy a Seagate FreeAgent Go 640 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive from Amazon.com, and being the warranty voiding freak that I am, I had no problem with trying to rip the drive out of this case to stick in my laptop (the video of me doing just that is below). Here’s the Seagate PDF on the FreeAgent Go for more info.

Well, guess what. It worked! And now I’m posting this article from the world’s first laptop computer with a 640GB hard drive! Of course, that happens to be my 17″ MacBook Pro. Oh, and if you read along I’ll show you how you can do it too!
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Twitter Comments

	RobertVinet This is my kind of hack: "The World's First 640GB Notebook" http://onemansblog.com/640gb (via @johnpoz)
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	prettylink RT @johnpoz: Introducing the World's First 640GB Notebook (It's a MacBook Pro)! http://onemansblog.com/640gb
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	robocco woohoo: RT @johnpoz:Introducing the World 19s First 640GB Notebook (It 19s MY MacBook Pro)! - http://onemansblog.com/640gb
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	johnpoz Introducing the World 19s First 640GB Notebook (It 19s MY MacBook Pro)! - http://onemansblog.com/640gb
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Before I switched to Mac, I used to love to use NetStumbler for Windows. It is a tool that allows you to find any WiFi network and learn a lot about them. This tool even lets you make note of GPS coordinates and do a little thing that people like to call WarDriving. Not that I would know anything about that.

Problem is, there is no NetStumbler for Mac. However! After a lot of searching I came up with a couple of cool alternatives:
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Look, there is no delicate way to put this. Bob Donovan, I hereby formally invite you to participate with me in a no-holds-barred MMA style cage match to be broadcast on live television. I’m 100% serious. Because I want to kick your ass, and I’m quite sure I can do it too.

Wait! What’s Going On Here?

My other dear readers may be asking themselves, who is this Bob Donovan, and what exactly has he done to John P.? Well, I’ve got no idea who Bob Donovan is, but what he did to me was send me an annoying Twitter spam with a link to nothing other than an affiliate site (belonging to 10 Best Hosting 2009).

Oh, and that link does nothing other than direct traffic to the Web site link http://www.10besthosting2009.com/#1492937361/. You see that number at the end? I’m sure that is an affiliate tracking link, and 10 Best Hosting is paying this spammer to fish people in to their Web site. That is assuming they are not directly behind it!
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Twitter Comments

	johnpoz Yeah right! The SPAMMER accepts my $5,000 offer for a cage match: http://onemansblog.com/bobdono Here: http://bit.ly/5WdXfU
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Have any of you Mac users noticed that if you have Time Machine enabled, it will absolutely drag your system down when it decides to perform a back up while you are working? It was driving me absolutely nuts until Cali pointed me to a little freeware application called Time Machine Editor 2.1.

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Ok, I’m about to go on and on about how much I love the Brother MFC-9840CDW Color Laser Multifunction Center with Wireless Interface and Duplex, but before this turns into a giant love fest, let’s start with the bad news. Software installation is a bit of a nightmare.

Software Installation

I installed the printer to work on three different Windows machines and one MacBook laptop. The MacBook installation went best, but not without issues. However, the Windows installations were all three a nightmare.
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Twitter Comments

	johnpoz @strobist It's a color laser, and a tad large, but I LOVE mine if you can make room for it: http://onemansblog.com/MFC-9840
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For those of you who have been long frustrated by the fact that you can’t have a reasonable freakin FaceBook username, and instead have to have something like http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1529863541, well the times they are a changin’!

Tomorrow you are going to be able to choose your own username for your shortened FaceBook URL. So, you could get http://www.facebook.com/SexyBeast for example (that’s probably already been pre-assigned to me. Sorry.). But you are going to have to compete with millions of other people who are trying to do the same thing! So you better get there quick, and pray to the gods of everything technical that the FaceBook servers can handle the onslaught! (I’m betting they WON’T.)

Choosing a name is supposed to be simple. Just go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ and I guess as long as you are logged in you’ll be able to pick it. Right now it just shows a countdown timer, and I already had problems loading the page once, so I’m telling you the demand is going to be fierce.

Anyway, if you’re a loyal OMB reader drop your new FaceBook URL into the comments when you get it so I can go check you out! Oh, and friend me while you’re there if you haven’t already…

If you ever try to play certain movies on your Mac without having the correct driver installed, you are going to get nothing more than a black screen. No fear! Perian is here to save you! Just download and install this little applet which adds itself to your System Preferences menu, and you can watch all those movies you weren’t previously able to view.

If that alone doesn’t do it for you, it’s possible you need to install the DivX codec and maybe even the XviD codec. If anyone knows of other drivers that help play media on the Mac, please drop a link in the comments!

Well folks, I just followed the iClarified guide to jailbreak my iPhone, and now I’ll be able to take and stream live videos from it. So eventually when I get it working you can look for more video updates from on location as I travel around and stuff.

One of the things that you can do is set up custom startup and restore images, and I spent a lot of time searching for some good ones. So these are the ones that I had saved in case I wanted to use them. The blog here seems like as good a place as any to put them.
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