Last month, I got my iPhone [finally - 32 gig] and decided to pair my iPhone and X5i so that I can listen to music and Audiobooks while commuting, in the office, or at home.  I hadn’t really thought about how much I really liked this combination until I walked to the water fountain to pour out some water and left my phone on my desk.  This was an “I didn’t even think about my phone because it is on my person 90% of the time” moment; next thing I know, I am rounding the corner and thinking gee will I loose my connection?  Will my devices stop working because I am about to put a second corner and 40′ between them?

I have to say that I was very happy to still hear music as I dumped out the water and then headed back to my desk.  There are some design changes I would make to the X5i, but that is because I have a big head and thick ears . . . but between the two devices I am in audio heaven!  I hardly ever pull out my ear-buds, unless the X5i is recharging.

iron wil

For a laugh, check them out here.  John Hodgeman makes these commercials classic.  Justin Long make a great straight man.

iron wil

This is a simple app that integrates with your address book and is easy to use.  I don’t send a lot of snail mail; but this will make my envelopes much more legible.

I am sure mail men (& women) everywhere will rejoice.

iron wil

In the presentation he discusses the stifling of creative thought and the anti-user generated content movement by corporations.  He emphasizes the importance of letting ourselves interpret our surroundings and the events that we are living through via mixing media.

Check it out here.

iron wil

This week my iPod started acting up and it wouldn’t sync with our iMac no matter what I did. I even booted my MacBook up on the XP partition and converted it to a Windows based iPod [file format]. I double checked the firmware, and even restored it [5 times].  Nothing worked.

So, Thursday was a horrible, long day without music or netcasts or audiobooks. Thursday night I got it to load netcasts & audiobooks, which made Friday a much better day. Today, Lauren took my iPod to the nearest Apple Store and they looked at the screenshots I took and listened to the story. The Genius put my iPod to his ear, heard the HD grinding and said, well, let me get you a replacement. Needless to say, the 60$ in Apple Care [which ends on the 25th of November]- worth it!!!

I recommend that people pay for the Apple Care when they buy the products because the service and value is HUGE.  I know it sounds crazy to somel however, I have found it to be very worth the extra cost. It is also much cheaper than what you can get through PC manufacturers for the same kind of service and ease of replacement.

I know of others that have needed to make a statement to get problems resolved (i.e., Michael). However, these cases are the exception to the rule; and in Michael’s case the rumor mill said they replaced his MacBook after he posted the video.

Personally, once you go Mac, you don’t go back.

iron wil

I have to admit that since day 1 I have looked forward to their morning news.

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Next select Standard TrueCrypt Volume.

You need to now select the device you want to encrypt.

You then get a warning about creating an encrypted volume.

You will now see confirmation that your volume has been selected.

Select your encryption.

You will be shown information about the device’s size.

Next you need to give your volume a password.

You will be given a warning about password strength at this point.

The next step is to format the device.

TrueCrypt will tell you the Flash drive will be formatted.

When TrueCrypt is finished it will you will get a notice telling you that the device will mount twice. Once via the OS and then after you mount it with TrueCrypt.

Your Volume has been created and is ready to use. You will need to mount it at this point to access it.

Once you have mounted the drive it will show up in My Computer or on the Desktop for Mac Users.

You can format the volume from the Disk Utility or Windows format tool.

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This How-To will show you how to set up a Container. I will publish a PDF this weekend that will include this post and the TrueCrypt Volume post that will follow shortly.

Let’s begin. First download and install TrueCrypt from here.

Now you will launch TrueCrypt and select Create Volume.

This is a bit misleading because this is how you will create both container and volume. Next you will need to choose Create a File Container.

Okay, in the next step you will select Standard TrueCrypt volume.

Now, you are going to create the volume type. This container can be created on a Flash drive, external hard drive or anywhere on your computer.

In this example I have created the container TrueCrypt.txt which will look like a text file to Windows until you try to double click it. Once you have given it a name it will show up like this.

Next you Select your encryption type.

You will now select your container size and give it a password.

You will most likely receive a password notification unless your password meets their recommended password strength. I selected yes and moved on because my password was less than 20 but closer to 15 characters in length.

The next step is to select the containers file system and format it.

Can I say wow again? I just got home from watching ‘The Dark Knight‘. I have to give you some background at this point. When I was about 12 or 13 my father introduced me to the comic books that he was reading, which happened to be Ironman and Superman. I quickly found that I liked other characters.

I landed squarely on Batman and I hit that spot hard. I became a huge fan and started reading every Batman comic book printed every month. He became an ideal, a dream, and Hero. In some ways, I grew up with him.

I was very critical of the 4 Batman movies made with Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, and George Clooney. None of them lived up to the Dark Knight of the comics. Michael Keaton came close with his grim approach and so they are okay. The last 2 don’t exist – at all.

Batman Begins was a great start and addition to the Batman of my youth. The Dark Knight continues that story and really shows the non-fanboy the true face of Joker. No offense to Jack Nicholson; but he just wasn’t it. My wife was creaped out by Heath Ledger’s performance. I have to say that I was very impressed.

I give it 5 Stars.

iron wil

p.s. Batman: Gotham Knight, you need it.

p.p.s. – one of my poems.

I love Filezilla on a WinBox, but for the Mac I have to agree with Spencer, it needs work. CyberDuck was not very impressive, it worked; but I always had trouble getting it to work. Transmit, is very nice – but I didn’t want to spend the 30$. The price is reasonable; but I wanted something for free. I don’t know anything about Fetch.

FireFTP, a FireFox plug-in that is cross platform compatible. It has a simple and easy to use interface. It opens a tab right in FireFox and it has become my favorite FTP client.

iron wil