Note: This post was originally published on iamianwright.com it’s been moved here for archival purposes. Just a quick tip today. I had a client that asked me to do the unthinkable. She bought an iMac several years ago but had only ever used it for Windows XP under boot camp. She asked me to give her more space on the windows side, it was originally configured with the default 32Gb. So after backing up her data I removed the windows partition then created a new, larger one. I reinstalled Windows XP and followed Apple’s instructions (PDF) by installing the drivers from the Leopard disc. ...

Note: This post was originally published on iamianwright.com it’s been moved here for archival purposes. “Why can’t I just dynamically generate product variations with PHP?”, I thought, “Surely that must be how other people do this!”. I’ve been working on an ecommerce site, with Drupal Commerce, for a business that a friend and I have started up. We’re selling sports clothing that is made to order. The customer is able to pick a style, two colours and a size. There are eighteen available colours so for each style there are over three hundred variations that could be chosen. As well as building the site I am creating artwork for the products. They are fairly simple vectors that use only two flat colours with a black outline on top. ...

Note: This post was originally published on iamianwright.com it’s been moved here for archival purposes. I have been running a private Minecraft server for myself and some friends for a while now. We have been playing through a variety of Modpacks, starting with Tekkit then Voltz and yesterday we switched over to YogCraft. On Minecraft servers you have the option to force users to download and automagically install a texture pack when they join. I’ve never tried this before but I thought I’d give it a go as I was starting a new server. The way it works is that you need a zip file containing the texture pack somewhere publicly accessible on the internet and you modify the server.properties file to tell it where to find it. I tried this but immediately realised that there is a limit of 10Mb for texture packs served in this way and the one I had was 38Mb! ...

Note: This post was originally published on iamianwright.com it’s been moved here for archival purposes. My new Lepai LP-2020A+ amp arrived yesterday and I promised a quick review so here goes. I expected it to be adequate at best but it’s excellent! I am not an audiophile but I can definitely appreciate the difference between good and bad audio. The only complaint I have is that the amp does sound a bit muddy if you switch on the tone controls so I have left them disabled. It’s not much of a concern though as I’m streaming the audio from iTunes so I’m using the built in equaliser and it sounds great. ...

Note: This post was originally published on iamianwright.com it’s been moved here for archival purposes. I bought some Mordaunt Short Avanti 902i’s to use as rears for a surround sound set several years ago but have only ever had one living room large enough to accommodate the whole setup. As we now have a large swedish shelving system in our home office I was hoping to finally be able to use these bookshelf speakers that have been nestled in their box for the last four years. ...

Note: This post was originally published on iamianwright.com it’s been moved here for archival purposes. In a moment of clarity I realised I was massively overcomplicating how to go about directing calls. I had wanted the PBX to know if I was out of the house and route calls to the extension on my iPhone instead of my Mac. When I thought about it this evening I realised that’s completely unnecessary as FreePBX lets you set a rule for what to do if an extension is unreachable. So I have now set it up so that if the softphone on my Mac isn’t signed in then the call forwards to the extension for my iPhone. ...

Note: This post was originally published on iamianwright.com it’s been moved here for archival purposes. I’ve been looking at a cheap and flexible solution to having a separate phone number for business calls. I recently came across a post detailing how to use the Raspberry Pi as a PBX. It seems like it will more than cover my needs and as it comes in at under £50 for everything I figured it was worth a go. ...

Note: This post was originally published on iamianwright.com it’s been moved here for archival purposes. A few years ago I bought my parents a Samsung TV as a Christmas present. Recently they have started watching more content on their laptop and my Mum asked if there was a way to connect it to the TV for easier viewing. They have a somewhat ageing MacBook, the white plastic model (long since discontinued) which has a Mini DVI output. So we purchased a Mini DVI to HDMI adapter and some HDMI cables from amazon and with my Mother being a slight technophobe I was invited over to “set it up”. ...

Note: This post was originally published on iamianwright.com it’s been moved here for archival purposes. Something that has always bugged me is the way that you enter symbols on a Mac. I can never find what I’m looking for and tonight was no exception. I wanted to type a musical note earlier this evening, couldn’t find it so I had a quick look online. I found an article that mentioned opening the Special Characters window, which I had already looked in but then it said to choose the Symbols section. ...

Note: This post was originally published on iamianwright.com it’s been moved here for archival purposes. A few years back, before the iPad was announced, I installed a Mac Mini in my car. It worked fairly well but it was limited by the available technology at the time. The touchscreen was purely a touchscreen so you couldn’t use gestures, no flicking to scroll for example. See the video below for a demonstration. ...