Airport Not Always Connecting to Preferred Wireless Network

I love my mac… and I love my shiny new wireless home network. But each morning, when I turn on and log into my computer, I get a little pop-up: "None of your preferred [wireless] networks are available. Please choose another network". So I find my home network in the list of available networks. I choose it, type in my snazzy password, check the box that says "remember this as a preferred network". And dive into my morning.

But then tomorrow comes, and I'm back at square one. It's nothing big — but I can't really start my day until I'm online, so it's a bit of a hassle. So yesterday I turn to my friend Google: "mac not connecting automatically to a preferred network", I type. And voila! There's a wonderful thread over at the Mac Rumors Forums: Airport Not Always Connecting to Preferred Wireless Network. I don't know who JSweeny is… but their response was a day-maker:

1. Move “System Preferences.app” back to “Applications\”.
2. Delete all instances of “Preferred Networks” in “Network Preferences”.
3. Delete all “Airport network password” instances in “Keychain Access”.
4. Restart your Mac.
5. Add/Join applicable preferred network using the Airport pulldown menu or in Network Preferences (as if for the first time). Use “Advanced” in “Network Preferences” to confirm the existence of your preferred network and the correct settings. Use “Keychain Access” to confirm the existence of the applicable “Airport network password” instance and the correct settings.
6. Restart your Mac. The OS should now find your preferred network and join it on its own.

Problem solved.

Man, I love the internet!

Web Tool: iConcert

I'd like to introduce you to a wonderful little add-on for iTunes — it's called iConcert. It produces a calendar of up-coming concerts for artists in your iTunes library. It's mighty handy, and because it's a plug-in for iTunes, everything is tidy and in one place. And it's even available for those folks on a Windows machine.

I first read about it at Lifehacker, way back in January. Better late than never, eh?

Web Tool: Freecycle

I'm a web geek; I use a lot of web tools... and sometimes I'm reminded by my friends that half of the stuff I take for granted is utterly unknown to folks who see the sun more often than I do.

Take Freecycle, for example. I came across Freecycle a couple years back when I was trying to declutter my life.

I had a lot of stuff that I didn't need... but it wasn't quite right for the thrift store basket. Like... unpainted, assemble-yourself furniture that never got put together; a bag of antique glass beads that I came by; partially used cans of quality paint. I think you get the idea. Anyway, I couldn't drop the stuff off at Deseret Industries because they'd either refuse it (mattresses, jeans with holes), or would probably break it (dishes), or would just have no idea what to do with it (cables from old computer set-ups).

Enter Freecycle.

Freecycle uses Yahoo Groups to connect givers with takers. How does it work? From the web site:

When you want to find a new home for something — whether it's a chair, a fax machine, piano, or an old door — you simply send an e-mail, offering it to members of the local Freecycle group. Or, maybe you're looking to acquire something yourself. Simply respond to a member's offer, and you just might get it. After that, it's up to the giver to decide who receives the gift and to set up a pickup time for passing on the treasure. Our main rule: Everything posted must be free, legal, and appropriate for all ages.

You can find (or start!) your local chapter using the Freecycle site.

I belong to the Salt Lake City chapter of Freecycle.

Hattip: PSFK and A Green Idea, who reminded me that not everyone knew about one of my favorite web tools.

Crowing over Technorati

Just after I attended the Utah Bloggers Conference — where I heard so much about the service — I decided to join Technorati ( here's my Technorati profile) — a blog-centric networking and search site. It was simple ( and free, of course ), but I really didn't make too much use of it until this weekend.

This weekend, I decided to tag/categorize my posts, so that technorati's search engine could parse my site more readily. It's been a pretty big undertaking, and I'm still not done ( it would have been much easier if Blogger — my current blogging system — supported categorization out of the box... but they don't ). But I'll be done soon... and I wanted to take a break for a moment to encourage each of you to consider signing-up for a Technorati account.

Why?

Well, simple, really: each of you probably have a blog... and except for the few of you who keep it a secret, you each want to be read by folks. Technorati can help you with that: their search engine is used by 100s of thousands of bloggers to comb the blogosphere, and their results are recognized and valued by Google. Let's put it another way: Technorati can help you get readers directly ( through their search engine ), and indirectly ( through improving your Google ranking ).

So what's stopping you?

:)

( And no: tagging your posts like I do isn't necessary... I just do it because I'm sick sick sick. )

Where on Earth?!

So, it's time I come out of the closet: I'm a map geek.

It's true... I love maps: making them, collecting them, reading them, appreciating their beauty — I even use them once in a while.

That's why I recently gave-in, and created a Platial profile of my very own. Now I can tell stories in a new and wonderful way: using maps (like one showing all the towns I've lived in, or another that I'm building now that will show all the LDS Temples)... and that's also why I've started to geotag the photos in my Flickr account. I started because I came across a wonderful geotagging bookmarklet from Flickr user Aemkei that is as easy as point-and-shoot photography ( bookmarklet found via this discussion thread ).

Very fun!

Oh the Places You'll Go!

So.

I recently discovered a wonderful service (in beta) that allows me to describe my life — not in words ( per se ), or in photos, or in music — in terms of places I've been... the service is called Platial. Yes, there are a couple of other ones out there, but none of them seem as polished as Platial... so I decided to sign-up.

I've got a Platial profile, of course, which you can now find in my sidebar. My first map is "places I've lived".

A little Amazon Goodness...

So. Paul Bausch of all sorts of fame rolled-out an update to his amazing Amazon feed-builder.

What's the big deal? Well, I'm a big fan of Wendell Berry and Craig Thompson, of Naguib Mahfouz and books about New Urbanism... and now, with the help of PB's delicious feed-builder, I'll be notified whenever something new comes from any of these authors or meets the "New Urbanism" search criteria, so I can add them to my Amazon wish list... and I think that's pretty darn cool. Add that to Amazon's pre-existing wish list feeds, which let you monitor other people's wish lists for additions ( you can find a wish list's feed on its "home" page ), and I'm in heaven.

Thanks, PB!

Author's note: So, as a direct result of the feeds I subscribed to this weekend, my Amazon wish list has grown from 1600 to more than 1800 items. Good heavens!

Thou art as fat as butter.

Whee!

A Shakespearean insult generator.

: )

( Thanks Clark! )

How Do You Use Del.Icio.Us?

So I finally added a link to my del.icio.us account to the right-hand sidebar — right there with links to my Amazon wish list, my Flickr account, a list of posts and comments I've made over at Metafilter, and a link for people who'd like to Google me (and not just wring my neck). It's nothing special yet, as I'm still populating it with my 4,000 or so bookmarks (which is a strange way to experience the past), but I'd like to know how others use it? Do you actually subscribe to friends' del.icio.us accounts? Do you recommend bookmarks through del.icio.us to friends?

YesOrNo

So... Biz Stone has a social networking idea that I like: "create a way for people to loop in their friends when trying to make a major life decision. So you post a question and then email all your friends to visit the page and vote yes or no".

It's a good idea... but I have two comments.

First, "email" is spelled "e-mail"... and second, wouldn't this be better as a mobile phone-enabled application? My friends are not always near a computer, but they all have mobile phones... and I want fast feedback.

Hm...

Web Tools: Filler Text

A few days back, Alessandro Fulciniti, over at Web Graphics, had a great idea: wouldn't it be nifty to auto-fill HTML documents with filler text?

Here's the scenario:

You're designing a web application or site, and you need to flow-in some text to test your design. Do you manually flow-in text and then manually back it out? Or do you have a script to do the flowing for you?

Alessandro (and I agree) voted for the later.

Alessandro's script is lean, clean, and useful, but it required that you add/change ID tags for each element into which you wish to flow text. Which is a serious draw-back, in my opinion, as many designers use IDs extensively, and having to change each of these just to test something seemed unwieldy.

I got to thinking... what we really need is something that is easy to use and _doesn't_ impact the bones of the template in question. So I chatted with a couple of friends of mine: Aaron Shafavoloff and Paul Huff, and we came up with what we think is a better implementation of Alessandro's excellent idea.

It still uses javascript, which is faithful to the idea of separating form, function, and content... you insert a link to the javascript file (I wish Blogger hosted small files) in the header, as usual. And then you insert a short tag whereever you want filler text. I'll discuss the tag itself in a moment... but first I should answer a question that struck me early-on: what value does a javascript and a small tag have over just cutting-and-pasting?

I guess it depends on your workflow... but I already insert small holder text in all of my templates... "[PAGE TITLE]", "[BODY TEXT]", and so on... so swapping those (which have limited use) for another short tag which will give me a lot more functionality seems like a no-brainer.

So what does the tag look like?

[FILLER TEXT (recipe)]

It's two square brackets filled with the prefix "FILLER TEXT" (it's case-sensitive, but you can change the string in the javascript file), followed by a recipe for generating the text itself. The recipe follows a basic syntax:

(#(TAG(.class)))x(#w)

Here are some examples:

• [FILLER TEXT]


• [FILLER TEXT 25w]


• [FILLER TEXT 3 x 25w]


• [FILLER TEXT 3P x 25w]


• [FILLER TEXT 3P.body x 25w]


• [FILLER TEXT 3P.body]

[FILLER TEXT] gives you a random amount of text. That's it. Reload the page, and the text changes.

[FILLER TEXT 25w] gives you a 25 word phrase pulled randomly from passage in the javascript.

[FILLER TEXT 3 x 25w] looks for the parent element and repeats that element three times in a row, filling each with a 25 word phrase pulled randomly from passage in the javascript. If the parent element is BODY, then it assumes that you meant to place it in a PARAGRAPH, and will flow three PARAGRAPHs with a random 25-word phrase.

[FILLER TEXT 3P x 25w] creates three PARAGRAPH elements, filling each with a 25 word phrase pulled randomly from passage in the javascript.

[FILLER TEXT 3P.body x 25w] creates three PARAGRAPH elements with the class of "body", filling each with a 25 word phrase pulled randomly from passage in the javascript.

[FILLER TEXT 3P.body] fills three body PARAGRAPHs filled with a random amount of text.

Of course, you could insert any ELEMENT, or any ELEMENT.class, or any quantities... all that is required is that the items be in-order — (element declaration) followed by (word count); that the word count be followed by a "w"; that the two declarations are separated by an "x"; and that the whole shebang is prefaced by FILLER TEXT (case sensitive).

And the great thing is that these can be easily grepped and ripped-out when testing is done.

Here's a (very) basic test HTML document: BEFORE and AFTER

This is the first public beta... so test away, and let us know if you have any problems.

UPDATE: The previous links have been updated to reflect a new home for the files. Should these ever fail, you can always find the Filler Text project at SourceForge.