Bacon may be the most amazing food ever, almost everyone shares a love of the look, the smell, the taste. What worries me is that some people like to do more than just cook and eat bacon. They like to play with the flavor, mix it with other well known products and even make a video of bacon being used in many different ways.

A few of my favorites are:

Chicken Fried Bacon

Healthy it ain’t! Chicken Fried Bacon is the newest fad in fatty foods, courtesy of Frank Sodolak at Sodolak’s Original Country Inn in Snook, TX. Texas Country Reporter Bob Phillips stops by for a taste.

Francis Bacon - The Written Word of Bacon

Kevin Bacon - 7 Degrees of Bacon

Kevin Bacon & Francis Bacon

More bacon stories to be added soon.

How do you find the .ipsw file on a Mac?

Easy – Open Terminal and type the following line

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

- hit enter then type the next line -

killall Finder

Close Terminal, Finder will reopen and you will now see your hidden folders.

Navigate to users/Library/iTunes

for iPhones look in “iPhone Software Updates”

for iPods look in “iPod Software Updates”

You should see the .ipsw file here

find an ipsw file on a Mac

Twitter is a hit in Japan, succeeding where other social networking imports like Facebook have foundered as millions “mumble” – the translation of tweet – and give mini-blogging a distinctly Japanese flavor.

The arrival of the Japanese language Twitter service in 2008 tapped into a greater sense of individuality in Japan, especially among younger people less accepting of the understatement and conformity their culture is usually associated with.

A mobile version of Twitter started last October, further fueling the Twitter boom in a nation where Internet-connecting cell phones have been the rule for years.

These days, seminars teaching the tricks of the tweet, as the micro-blog postings are known, are popping up. Ending Japanese sentences with “nah-woo” – an adaptation of “now” in English – is hip, showing off the speaker’s versatility in pseudo-English Twitter-speak.

What’s different between Japanese Twitter and other languages? – It’s possible to say so much more in Japanese within Twitter’s 140 letter limit. The word “information” requires just two letters in Japanese

Twitter in Japan (image from CNET)

Hi All,

We celebrate St.Patrick’s day a little differently in Ireland, here are some facts for ya’all!

• We wear Shamrock (It has 3 leaves, not 4). St. Patrick used it to explain the Holy Trinity
• St. Patrick was not Irish, he was born in either Wales or France
• No Irish person has ever eaten Corned beef and Cabbage! The Irish were the main exporters of Corned Beef, we can’t stand it and ship it out of Ireland
• It’s not mandatory to wear green in Ireland on St.Patrick’s day, pinching someone could get you hit
• It’s St.Patrick, not St.Patty or St.Pat
• There are no snakes in Ireland – Snakes are cold blooded  - it’s too cold.
• Potatoes originated from Peru and Chile
• Riverdance was created by an Englishman – we are off the hook
• Items you cannot buy in Ireland include – Lucky Charms, Irish Spring, Killians Non-Alcoholic Irish Beer, Corned Beef and Cabbage – see #3
• The Czech Republic drink more beer per capita than the Irish, but the Irish spend the most on Beer / Wine / Spirits
• When the Irish are not drinking they are writing and inventing
• The Irish were the first to legally produce whiskey
• Guinness was invented by an Englishman
• More people live in Georgia than in Ireland
• Ireland has been ruled by the English, French and Scandinavians (Vikings)
• The Irish have invented – Radiotherapy – Yes, luckily for everyone in Elekta, we invented that for you. Lunar Charts (300 B.C.) don’t believe the Myans, The Beaufort Scale, Induction Coil, Hollow Syringe, Seismology, Stethoscope, Guided Missile, Submarine, Nickel-zinc battery, Portable defibrillator and we even discovered Pulsars
• The Irish have won the most Nobel prizes for literature
• Craic in Ireland means good conversation, not drugs.
• Ireland is the only country in the world where windmills turn clockwise; in every other country, they turn counterclockwise.
• The harp is Ireland’s official emblem. Ireland is the only country in the world to have a musical instrument as its national emblem.
  

Enough.

Slan,

AINDRÉAS

• Director – Kathryn Bigelow
• Best Supporting Actress – Mo’Nique in “Precious”
• Best Actress – Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side” – not my choice, but I think she will win
• Best Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds”
• Best Actor – Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart”
• Best Movie – Hurt Locker

Avatar will get a few awards for special effects

Fantastic Mr. Fox best Animated

1. Right-click the cell which contains the comment.
2. Choose Show/Hide Comments, and clear any text from the comment.
3. Click on the border of the comment, to select it.
4. Choose Format|Comment
5. On the Colors and Lines tab, click the drop-down arrow for Color.
6. Click Fill Effects
7. On the picture tab, click Select Picture
8. Locate and select the picture
9. To keep the picture in proportion, add a check mark to Lock Picture Aspect Ratio
10. Click Insert, click OK, click OK

So I was at Barnes and Noble getting a few books for Rory to read and I walked past the Black History month section and something caught my Eye.

Black History Month

Now look a little closer at the book that maybe should not be there.

Sneaky Crackers

Black History Month #FAIL!

Startup can be more fun if you know this:

Press X during startup Force Mac OS X startup

Press Option-Command-Shift-Delete during startup Bypass primary startup volume and seek a different startup volume (such as a CD or external disk)

Press C during startup Start up from a CD that has a system folder

Press N during startup Attempt to start up from a compatible network server (NetBoot)

Press R during startup Force PowerBook screen reset

Press T during startup Start up in FireWire Target Disk mode

Press Shift during startup start up in Safe Boot mode and temporarily disable login items and non-essential kernel extension files (Mac OS X 10.2 and later)

Press Command-V during startup Start up in Verbose mode.

Press Command-S during startup Start up in Single-User mode (command line)

youtube

First off, try to use your company name as your username on YouTube. If you discover someone is already using that name check around the office to see if anyone set that account up, if no one comes clean you can actually request the account from YouTube. Check how long it has been since they have logged on. If it is over six months, you have a good case, considering that is your domain name. Same goes for Twitter.

Even if you can’t get your company name on YouTube as it is taken by another legit account, you have to consider settling for a word or phrase that describes your products. For example the company http://www.elekta.com is using this channel very successfully – www.youtube.com/wearefightingcancer – it fits their model and actually it works for them.

Tip -

- Tag your videos the same way you would use keywords in a web page.  Choose some targetted words e.g. if you are in the Digital Arts fields – “3D animation” and other less heavily searched words, “educational training videos”

- DO NOT REPEAT keywords. YouTube will take the commas away from keywords and make it into a sentence almost. So don’t say “3D Animation, Cool Animation, Awesome Animation” as it will default to “3D Animation Cool Awesome” – You will end up tagging the video with “Cool”, “Awesome” – not so bad, but you are a business, not a 14 year old surfing dude.

- Should I include client names when displaying the work we have competed? – your decision, may be nice to ask them first to make sure it doesn’t steal their thunder or release company secrets.

Other tips.

- Make your channel looks like your website, you are allowed to upload a background, change colors, fonts, links, etc.

- Always provide a link to your website in every video, fill in all the Additional information on your video (this Neuroscience Axesse Video has tons of info and a link to the product on their website – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhFQey6Asyw&feature=related)

- Try using different categories if you can, gives you a little more scope.

- Use the metrics inside YouTube to see who is visiting you, who is embedding your video. Contact them, could be a sales lead there…. Become friends with a lot of people, try first with similar companies – not competitors, add your friends, look at other videos and ‘Favorite’ them, build a community, comment on videos.

- When creating a video watermark it or start and end the video with your logo or website link. If someone embeds the video on their site or blog you will have a free ad.

- Offer a link to your website to view the video in HD if you have a streaming server or users can download the file.

Hope that helps.

Yes, Windows has it by default, why not Mac? Well you can always push F11 to view the desktop, but what if you want a dock icon to do this? easy..

Open Apple Script Editor (Machintosh HD > Applications > System Utilities > Apple Script Editor)

Choose File > New

in the code window type

(* AppleScript Show Desktop *)

activate application “Finder”

do shell script “/Applications/Utilities/Expose.app/Contents/MacOS/Expose 1″

so you now have something like this:

Save this. File > Save As – “Show_My_Desktop”, change File Format to Application, check the Options box “Run Only”

Save

If that works you will not have an icon on your desktop like this:

Drag this into the dock, then click it. All done.

If you want it to look a little better, then change the icon. To do this read my previous post Change An Icon in Mac OSx