I’ve setup a custom search engine using Google coop. Feel free to join and contribute more ruby on rails related sites to the engine.

http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=013503384845082438302%3Ak6oeqwx4azi

Or Try it here:

Since Apple won’t give me the new macbook pro I’ll have to stick with the one I’ve got. I used to be a windows user, but since I’m doing alot more Ruby on Rails development these days, the darwin OsX environment is better for that. I have the older version of mac mini, but attempted to use that as development environment but it was just too slow and couldn’t output a dual display. What I’ve been doing before was running Eclipse on Windows directly using a workspace folder in a shared drive on the mac. Then I ssh login through putty and run mongrel on the mini and view the server on firefox from windows.

Here’s a few tips for some usefrul freeware on Mac and transferring your mails from outlook.

Migrating from Outlook to Entourage

This process is more complicated than I thought since they are both Microsoft office products. What I needed to do was:

1. Install Thunderbird on Windows and automatic import Outlook emails.
2. Install Thunderbird on Mac
3. Copy the Thunderbird mail folders from Windows to Mac
4. Download the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner and import mails from Thunderbird to Apple Mail.
5. Install Entourage and import emails from Apple Mail

Migrating your address book to Mac

1. Goto Plaxo and sign up for an account
2. install Outlook plugin and synchronise the address book to Plaxo online
3. Install Mac address book plugin and synchronise from Plaxo online
4. done!

Useful freeware

1. Optimised Firefox 2 for Intel Mac. Also download the osx theme, it’ll look almost like safari.
2. Adium – aggregated IM tool
3. MSN mesenger – I still enjoy the custom emoticons.
4. Desktop Manager – multi virtual desktop before Spaces come out in OSX 10.5
5. QuickSilver – even better desktop search than spotlight.
6. VLC – multimedia player
7. Timeout – break reminders
8. OsXVNC – remote desktop login
9. Eclipse – still my preferred editor since it is free.
10. PathFinder – Finder extension with thumbnail views and stuff
11. Parallels – utilise your duo core CPU with running windows side by side.

I bought my first 17″ macbook pro with 2G Ram last week and only just received it 2 days ago. Now Apple just released the new macbook pro with a lower price and higher specs! The retail price was $4875AUD for me and the new price would be $4239 because it already comes with 2G Ram and 100G HDD 7200rpm is $160 cheaper. I called up Apple today and ask if I can get a refund. The answer I got back was “NO” – because I have upgraded my system to 2G ram and their policy is no refund for modified spec. What the!?

I have just lost $600 bucks in one day because I bought the macbook 2 days early. Why would Apple do this to their customer I don’t know, but I’m very furious. The return policy wasn’t made very clear at all when I bought system. I have always thought I could return within 14 days of purchase. This has changed my whole perspective to Apple and may not buy another Apple product ever again.

I would like to know if anyone else is in my situation and find out what we can do about it.

I would think Apple should have marked down the price of the old macbook pro before they release the new one with the cheaper price. Now my new macbook is 39% SLOWER and 15% MORE EXPENSIVE!! This kind of sales policy is just unbelievable!

I’ve setup a google group for Ruby on Rails developers in Hong Kong. If anyone is interested please subscribe and introduce yourself.

Subscribe to Hong Kong: Ruby on Rails

Browse Archives at groups.google.com

China has not been a great example of innovation or a leader in creativity. The recent blog post from a Microsoft employee claiming a Chinese site ‘stealing‘ their design has caused quite a stirr in the blogosphere. The blog post has subsequently changed title to a softer tone and actually got removed now. Despite all that, Hong Kong is also capable of great innovation and entrepreneurship like anobii, bullpoo, editgrid as reported by Angus Lau.

This new Hollywood movie ‘The departed’ is actually a remake of a popular Hong Kong movie, ‘Infernal affairs’ from 2002. Hong Kong’s movie industry has been at a low since that series, and not very much good films were created. Since the economy was hurt by SARS and movie stars and directors moving overseas to work in Hollywood, HK is lacking the big budget and market required for a new breed.

I recommend playing them together side by side.

Here’s the sequel if you can’t wait for the hollywood version. 🙂

‘The face of Sydney‘ a project by the city of Sydney council, produced the typical average face of a Sydney couple.

Using specialist techniques, thousands of portraits of individual people have been compacted to provide a representative male and female “look” for the 160,000 residents of Sydney’s City of Villages.

It is interesting ot see the Hay Market couple, China town area, looks particularly asian.

Update: What does the average Playboy centerfold looks like?