Not sure if people are stupid.. or just have too much money.

Recently, there seems to have been an influx of videos appearing online (or perhaps it’s just me noticing them later than everyone else) where gadgets are being destroyed or tested to see if they perform some pointless random task. As I watch some of these videos I think to myself; are people seriously this bored in day to day life, or are they just stupid? Or is it just as the saying goes; “Simple things amuse simple minds”?

I remember growing up we weren’t rich or poor, more so somewhere in between, but I learned everything has a value no matter how cheap or how expensive it is. This leads me to believe the current generations think everything is disposable or they simply do not see the value in things, taking everything for granted.

So what exactly am I referring to you ask?

Well, just today I came across an ASUS ZenBook being used to cut an apple, because it seems eating an apple whole is quite a difficult task for some.

The other day whilst getting my regular morning fix from Gizmodo, I came across a video of the new iPad versus an Assault Rifle.

And who can forget the ‘Will It Blend?’ series on YouTube featuring the Apple iPad to name one of the many decimated gadgets. Perhaps the guy can put his face in the blender and see if that blends too.

Oscar Wilde sums my thoughts up quite well with one of his quotes:

“What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” — Oscar Wilde

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Disabling the ‘add to cart’ button in Magento is a lot easier than you think. Initially, I sifted through a lot of useless information and complex workarounds to this problem before I decided to code up a solution myself.

Prerequisites
By following this guide, I’m assuming you have some knowledge with the following things: an understanding of how Magento’s attributes and attribute sets work along with a basic knowledge of customising Magento themes. Finally a basic knowledge of PHP coding to edit the code to suit your needs.

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The successful outcome of getting Transmission 2.42 working on FreeNAS 8 came from a notion of mine; “If there is a working port of 2.13, surely you must be able to get the more up-to-date 2.42 version working on FreeNAS too?”

And well, it turns out that you can. What gave me the idea that installing version 2.42 was certainly a possibility was a “how-to” guide on the SourceForge forum:

If you’re content with running version 2.13, follow this guide: http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freenas/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=10959

Prerequisites
By following this guide, I will assume you have a basic understanding of unix along with setting up and configuring FreeNAS. Before installing Transmission, there are a few things that need to be done:

1. Enter your router’s IP into the default gateway
Log into the FreeNAS Web UI, expand Network, select Global Network Configuration and in the IPv4 Default Gateway box enter the IP of your router. For example, mine is 192.168.1.254. This is also the same IP address you use the access the router’s administration page. This is needed so that the package manager can fetch the transmission install files.

2. Enable the root user login
In the FreeNAS Web UI, expand Services and click on SSH, in the pop-up window tick the Login as Root with password option and press save. Then we need to turn the SSH service on; to do this click on Control Services and toggle the switch for SSH to ‘on’.

3. Show console messages in the Web UI footer (optional)
Although this step is optional, I think it’s handy to have to ensure transmission is working without any errors. In the FreeNAS Web UI, expand System, click on Settings and click on the Advanced tab. Now tick the box next to Show console messages in the footer (Requires UI reload) and press ‘save’. Then simply press F5 and you’ll see a black console window with greet text appear in the bottom left hand corner of the Web UI.

4. An SSH client
For Mac users, you can use Terminal found in your Applications/Utilities folder. For Windows users, you can use PuTTy.

5. Setup a directory where you plan on keeping torrents and associated files
To streamline the process, have a directory created where you plan to keep downloaded torrents and associated data (See Step 1b for more).

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This is by far the best ‘bang-for-buck’ modification you can perform on your iMac. Well, apart from putting in lots of RAM. Best of all? It’s a very simple and straight forward procedure that takes approximately 25 minutes to complete.

I won’t lie, I was actually talked into upgrading to an SSD by several friends, the only problem was cost. Last weekend I decided to finally bite the bullet and purchased a 120Gb Intel 320 Series drive. I highly recommend doing your research before going out and buying just any drive as all drives are susceptible to problems, some just less than others. From the research I did, it seems the Intel drives are a great middle ground in terms of reliability and performance.

Prerequisites
Firstly, Whatever SSD you do end up purchasing, I suggest that you find out if you need to update it with a more recent firmware as not all SSD’s ship with the latest one available. For instance, I upgraded to the latest 320 Series firmware as it offered a fix for a certain issue which occurred with power loss.

Secondly, assuming you have purchased Mac OS X Lion, you’ll need to create a Lion Install on a USB key, see the following guide on how to do this: http://www.cultofmac.com/105527/how-to-make-a-bootable-install-disk-of-mac-os-x-lion/ Otherwise, have your Mac OS X Install DVD handy.

And finally, be sure you have Torx T8 and T10 screwdrivers handy.

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I guess I’m just a big kid, because I love animated movies. So when I saw “A Turtle’s Tale: Sammy’s Adventure” I got quite excited as it looked promising. But that wasn’t the case..

.. Well, for me anyway. I’m not quite sure what it is about this animated movie that left me a bit disappointed. The last animated movie I saw was How To Train Your Dragon and I loved it to bits. So much so, that I think I’ve seen it close to half a dozen times. It had a simple, straight forward plot was an action packed ride.

With Sammy’s Adventure, I figured by looking at the quality of animation and storyline, I was in for an “animated adventure”, I was wrong. I’m sitting here thinking about the movie and how to write this review, and I’m a bit confused to say the least.

A sea turtle who was hatched in 1959 spends the next 50 years traveling the world while it is being changed by global warming.

By reading the brief plot outline, one would assume the movie is about what’s stated (which most movies are). Yet, I’m thinking otherwise. First and foremost, I have to say that this animated movie is really strung out, even though it only went for 1.5hrs, it really felt much longer. The company I watched it with agreed, I think some were starting to fall asleep at one point.

Secondly, I feel they tried to fit too many concepts into this film. From chasing after a female ‘Sammy’ meets at the start of the movie, to finding a so called ‘secret passage’, all mixed in with ecological and environmental messages which I must say became cliche after a while. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a good thing that these messages were put in, but it almost felt like they were being shoved down our throats after the first two.

Thirdly, one could clearly tell this movie was intended to be watched in 3D with the amount of specific visual sequences present. I counted at least 5-6 sequences where a character was isolated purely to ‘pop-out’ at you and display the visual effects of 3D. I was only able to see the movie in 2D, so I was a bit bummed about that.

In terms of characters; I think they could of done a lot more in this area. Some ques from Finding Nemo would of come in handy.. Where the main character talked to some other characters, they didn’t even verbally respond. Only in action or gestures. Now, I’m not sure if this was intentional but it just seemed out of place for some reason. One example were some additional voice dialogue could of made an action sequence a bit better was when a great white shark was chasing Sammy, I think it would of added a bit more ‘thrill’. I didn’t really find myself becoming attached to any of the characters either.

In saying the above and whilst this is not a Disney or Pixar production, overall it was very well made. But perhaps it was simply intended for kids.

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