Compared the freebies offered in

1. Courts – in Orchard road
2. EpiCentre  Somerset- in Orchard road
3. EpiCentre  Wheelock place- in Orchard road

Endedup buying from EpiCentre  Somerset in Orchard Road, writing this post on my new MBA.

Which Macbook did I buy ?

Specification, 13 inch screen, 4 GB RAM, 250 GB SDD  HD, 1.7 Core I5 CPU

so far so good !, by the way Epicentre Singapore has good reviews on Macroumors and most of the other forums !. I normally buy my Apple products from the UK, either online or at the Regent Street Apple shop (near Oxford street).

A lot of research went in to buying this,

Cheapest place in the World to buy a Macbook Air is Singapore !

Singapore prices are cheaper than in any other country (OK, this is only true about the Apple products, everything else except Food is pretty expensive here.). Compared to the UK (1350 GBP), buying a Macbook Air 13 inch (4 GB RAM, 250 GB SDD  HD, 1.7 Core I5) is 350 GBP cheaper (just found out that the pound sign is not there on this keyboard !). So I managed to buy for about 1000 GBP and got 3 freebies

 Freebies

Same Prices in all shops, the only difference is in the freebies. The best ones were from Epi centre

1. keyboard protector
2. palm guard
3. Bluetooth mouse

No Apple Shop in Singapore !

There isn't an Apple shop in Singapore, but there are 2 kinds of Authorized Resellers

1. Premier Resellers  – They can't sell OLD models as new ones, and do other dodgy things so I endedup buying from a premier reseller – this is the safest option.
2. Resellers

Avoid These Shops when buying any Electronic Products !

1. Sim Lim Tower
2. Sim Lim Square – Especially Cameras like DSLR, too many touts and too many "You buy Now I discount" offers which are too good to be TRUE !
3. Lucky Plaza

Apple Hardware Test – How to Test your Newly bought Macbook Air !

OK, I just thought of this the day after the purchase , anyway it's best to test before leaving Singapore !

1. Connect the power adapter  – Extended testing takes about 1 Hour
2. Remove all other all external devices
3. Restart while holding down the "d" key on the keyboard.
4. Select the language from the Test screen
5. Run the extended test – takes about 30 minutes with 4 GB or RAM using a Core i5 1.7 Ghz

Minor Issues with the Macbook Air

1. No  £  sign – only $ is available - Just solved it –> SHIFT + 3 is the key combo for British pound sterling (£) symbol for GBP {# is, Option + 3} on a British Keyboard
2. Bluetooth File Exchange  – There is no Get files button to transfer files from the Phone to the Macbook Air , the Solution is to go to the Photos folder, then select all (Command + A) then Double Click and it will prompt to select the Folder to save the images on the Mac

That's all for now !

The  buying experience at the Regent Street store was a mixed one, first I was ignored by all apple sales people, this went on for about 1 hour, then I went and asked someone, who was quite irritated that I didn’t know how to buy an iPad. So the way to buy an iPad is to go to the counter/till and ask for one.

I did just that and was quite grumpy at the time…because of being ignored and rudeness of staff. The guy at the till was brilliant, he offered help to setup the iPad there and then which I initially refused, but then thought why not, it’s part of the experience …

So we waited for a mac to be free so that we could connect the iPad at the store and activate to get the 3G access etc. I chose the 1GB plan with O2. Plan to get out a bit with the new iPad.

Before buying spent quite a bit of time researching to see that it would match my requirements, one of the main issues was lack of multi-tasking , which is actually not a problem.

Named the iPad Judy after my first pet. So Judy is quite busy these days, especially when I feel like having a lie in (Churchill style) and do some work !

So some of my research before buying Magical and Revolutionary Judy was

1. Cutting sim to micro sim  — if you plan to buy a non expiring normal sim for vodaphone and use on iPad

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2741292

http://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=137

2. iPAD  UK vs USA [¬£699 vs ¬£520] ¬£180 difference
I was thinking of going to New York to purchase the iPad, so that I could save £180 and at the same time check out the city. But was not going to wait until I got time off to do this.

List of requirements
———————
Ethernet port  –> Not on the iPad
Jailbreak -> still waiting to do this, need a windows box to run the jailbreak software, won’t work from a windows on a vmware running on a mac
Skype –> obviously no video ! but chat and audio works fine.
word/ openoffice –> NO, planning to use iWorks or pages
Dropbox –> installed the app but yet to login, I am waiting to jailbreak first, so that my files will not be accidentally deleted while syncing.
shell access need to run Bash, php, python–> Jailbreak w/ sprit, no idea whether judy can run python
Flash –> http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-install-flash-on-your-ipad-complete-how-to-guide/ –> yet to try
Frash
GPS –> the free app works fine with 3D GPS

iPad Jailbreak guides/ tutorials

http://www.redmondpie.com/jailbreak-ipad-3.2.2-ios-with-limera1n-video-how-to-guide/

http://www.macstories.net/ipad/how-to-jailbreak-the-ipad-with-spirit-and-install-your-first-cydia-apps/

Finer points when JailBreaking

Turn iPad into airplane mode.

Cydia did not show until I powered off and on again my iPad

http://docgadget.blogspot.com/2010/05/apptrackrorg-excellent-site-for-yr-ipad.html

Apptrackr

DocsToGo
Atomic Web browser
LogMeIn injector
iTeleport
I use iSSH, great VNC support, nice keyboard, function key, and scaling.
I also use it for straight SSHing into my Macs and Linux boxes.
iFile

Hope this helps, will update when I jailbreak Judy and clear up when I get time.

2) log in as SuperUser / O2Br0ad64nd

3) type these lines (replace each x with a random character from 0-9 or a-f, e.g. e6:93:25:5b:c3):

ip ifdetach intf=O2_ADSL2plus
ip ifconfig intf=O2_ADSL2plus hwaddr=02:03:06:BE:AD:BE
ip ifattach intf=O2_ADSL2plus

4. Type ‘exit’ to exit the router console and get back to the command prompt.

Please be careful not to messup your router.

This might void the warrently, so always check with O2 before doing anything on their equipment.

This is just for educational purposes so I take no responsibility for the consequences of your actions.

iPAD is for

1. Surfing the Internet
2. watching video
3. streaming music and
4. reading e-books

Steve called this the ideal replacement for netbooks, which are just cheap laptops !. According to industry experts this is an attempt at gaining market share on the

1. sony ebook
2. Amazon Kindle
3. Barnes & Noble

ebook niche.

Steve Jobs is doing a great presentation in San Francisco as I write this, to launch iPAD. From what has been released so far this is a

1. Hybrid between an iPhone and a Macbook, like a giant ipod touch. Actually more like a giant iPhone !
2. All iPhone apps can be run on the iPad
3. 1GHz Apple A4 processor
4. 16GB, 32GB, 64GB built in flash memory
5. 10 inches (9.7 inches)
6. 1.5 lbs (about .7 kg)
7. only half (.5) inch thin !!!
8. 10 hour battery life with video / 1 month standby capacity !!!
9. Wifi only  ($499 (16GB), $599 (32GB) and $699 (64GB)) or
10. WiFi + 3G ($629 (16GB), $729 (32GB) and $829 (64GB).)
11. Wifi  802.11n, with backward compatibility
12. 3G
1. Two 3G data plans with AT&T, $15 (250GB) and $30 (unlimited) each month
2. No contract !
13. Bluetooth 2.1
14. LED-backlit display with IPS technology
15. Display adjusts according to the way you hold it to give optimized viewing (accelerometer)
16. No multitasking ? not too sure about this one
17. No voice calls
18. Flash ?
19. Soft onscreen virtual multi touch keyboard,
20. Finally the price has been announced,  $500 ? more information from http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/appletablet/appletabletb543.jpg
21. No camera ?
22. Is iPad a replacement for macbook ?
23. will be available late March  2010, the 3G only version will be available world wide in about 2 months time (by the end of March)
24. iTunes built in, but you need to purchase new apps etc even if you own them on iphone or elsewhere.
25. Smooth scrolling
26. iPhone style virtual sliding switch for unlocking
27. Curiously the ipad.com domain is now owned by Apple !

when I tried to install mynewdomain.com on my shared hosting server using the addon domains within cpanel

I got the following error

Addon Domain Additions

There was a problem creating the addondomain. Show Details

Error from domain wrapper: Domain already exists, it was not added.: mynewdomain.myserverdomain.com

I didn’t quite understand what the complaint was about because it said Domain already exists

However this is a new domain that I was trying to install!

OK, here are the steps to troubleshoot

Check

Whether you have a subdomain with the same name already created?

You need to check within the /public_html folder (this is where you will have separate directories for all your sites hosted on the server)

Make sure that there is no other folder with the same name, it is common to have a folder with the same name if you have installed domains with the same name but with different extenstions. For example

mynewdomain.com

mynewdomain.net

if you are using the automated addon domain process which comes with cpanel then both domains would try to create the folder “mynewdomain” within /public_html and would give you an error when installing the second domain.

OK, so to avoid the problem you need to change the folder name for the new domain you are trying to install, then there will not be a clash of names within /public_html

OK so Next time if this happens it is possible to change the name of the subdomain

When adding the new domain , the 2nd option is to create the subdomain name.

If you are using cpanel this one is automatically populated with a folder name for your site in /public_html

That is creating the subdomain without clashes !.

I usually like open source software or Mac software. But now Microsoft has come a long way from the buggy and user unfriendly software produce a few real gems !

I started using Windows live mail and quite like it ! By the way this was installed as part of the process when I installed Windows Live Writer (WLW is the other good software by windows and it’s free. ) at What is the best desktop client for WordPress 

I tried to setup Windows Live Mail to access a Gmail account,

Before doing this I did a bit of research by Googling for “windows live mail gmail”

After reading through the various tutorials I was not too impress with having to configure gmail accounts manually, so as always I conducted my experiment looking for an easy way

and found one !!

OK, All you have to do is

1. In Gmail Settings –> Forwarding and POP/IMAP –>  choose Enable IMAP –> Save Changes
2. In Live Mail  -> Enter
1. Email address [thisismyname@gmail.com]
2. Password for the Gmail account
3. Display Name [This is my name]
3. This is where it gets easier in my approach,  DONT tick Manually configure server settings for e-mail account ! then Click Finish on the Next screen

This will successfully configure Windows Live email for Gmail in just 3 steps !

Enjoy, as always if you would like to share you experience please leave a comment below.

The process is a bit tricky because you do not want to mess your other databases in the hosting account because that can destroy your other sites !

I thought it will be a simple matter to import the file but as always sql never works without giving errors.

During the import of sql (through phpmyadmin), I kept getting the following error,

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

SQL query:

–

– Dumping data for table `wp_flickr_post`

–

INSERT INTO `wp_flickr_post` ( `uid` , `name` , `value` )

VALUES ( 1, ‘commercial_only’, ’1′ ) , ( 2, ‘legacy_support’, ’1′ ) ;

MySQL said:

#1062 – Duplicate entry ’1′ for key ‘id’

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

OK so how did I fix this ?

Simple,

Dropped all the tables inside the database so that I had an empty database and nothing else.

Then I tried to import the sql file and it went very smoothly without any problems.

So the lesson I learnt was that If I am importing an sql file, especially to setup a new site or to move a site, then I should always remove all the tables within the newly created database and then do a fresh import.

It really helps if you know at least the basic SQL commands because then you will be more confident to troubleshoot. After all the SQL dump of the site that you get in a .sql file is nothing but SQL statements.

As always if you have any question as always leave a message below.

www.yoursite.com/tag/keyword

What you actually wanted was

www.yoursite.com/keyword

Because this would be better for SEO purposes and the Search Engines like Google would prefer this format and rank you higher.

Another problem with this is that the same page is reachable through both urls above, so there is a chance that the search engines might get the wrong idea and think that you have duplicate content on your site ! This is simply not good for your site as far as search engine traffic is concerned.

The solution to fix this problem is to use “Redirection” [http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/redirection/] which is a WordPress plugin to manage 301 redirections. With a 301 redirect the search engine bots will be forwarded to the correct format of the URL so you can avoid any duplicate content issues as well.

OK so this is how I fixed it ….

Redirect Tag pages
==================
/tag/(.*) => /$1

This will match any URL that starts with /tag/, and will redirect it to the same URL but without /tag/. For example,

http://onlinembadegreeprogram.co.uk/tag/university-of-maryland-university-college-umuc-business-administration-mba-degree/

will be redirected to a URL without the /tag/

http://onlinembadegreeprogram.co.uk/university-of-maryland-university-college-umuc-business-administration-mba-degree/

I’ve tried various things including modifying the php files within wordpress but still without any luck until I tried this….

So if you wanted to get rid of this category keyword here is what to do…

In the Permalinks options, set the "Custom Structure" to

/%category%/%postname%/

and your "Category Base" to

/.

By the way if you still have not improved your URL structure for WordPress then I would do it immediately because it is very important for the SEO for your site. For example it is always a good idea to include the keywords that you are targeting within the URL.  Things like the domain name and URL count heavily with search engines when they rank your site for specific keywords.

Please let me know whether this worked for you, and if you have any suggestions or questions by leaving a comment below.

This is very easy to enable, you just need to go to

System Preferences –>

Select Sharing under Internet & Wireless

Select Remote Login

Now it’s testing time,

1.Test to make sure that the SSH server is running

netstat -ta | grep ssh

you should see some entries listed as below.

2. Now that you know that the SSH server is running, you can do a quick test on your own mac by logging into the ssh server using the loop back address 127.0.0.1

ssh yourusername@127.0.0.1

As always please leave a comment below if you need any assistance with doing this on a Mac.