Giant iPod found on Google Maps

We've seen Jesus, now we have giant MP3 players. Is there no end to the things people find with Google Maps err Google Local?

Built for Adsense? Try Built for Google Buyout instead

Have you ever heard the term "built for Adsense"? Have a look at this AJAX word processor site, and then come back here and place your bets on how long it takes for Google to buy the company behind it. Edit: Yes, Google already bought Writely, but this version is available for you to try out right now. Via Fosfor Gadgets.

XP on a MacBook Pro pics

Yet another reason to get a MacBook Pro (I think I've almost persuaded myself now) - Accelerate Your Macintosh reader Michael F has posted some photos of Windows XP running on a MacBook Pro.

Smartmovie - now with mpeg4 video

It's been a long while since I posted any 'software updated' news, but regular readers will know that SmartMovie, a movie player for smartphones and PocketPCs, is a particular favorite of mine. The good news is that this exceptional piece of software has been updated for mpeg4 compatibility. The word is that the new codec allows for higher framerates (up to 25fps) and better picture quality. Welcome news, especially considering that SmartMovie was already the best movie player available for smartphones, featuring very good quality xvid video at 10-15 fps.

This week's sign that the US patent office has lost their minds

One unknown California web-design firm has been granted a patent which covers, among other things, Flash, AJAX and Java. Talk about completely fucking insane.

Interesting video interview with Derek Franklin

If you have half an hour to spare (as well as decent broadband, 1 megabit minimum), I would urge you to watch this video interview with Derek Franklin. Franklin is a longtime Flash author as well as the creator of Search Automator and WhoNu.com. Not only is the interview interesting (Franklin comes across as a very engaging fellow), but the quality of the h264 video is simply stunning and well worth a look if you are interested in this sort of thing. Quicktime 7 required.

MacBook Pro hissing noises explained

The Mighty Ars is once again first off the mark with an explanation of the widely reported hissing/humming noises made by the MacBook Pro.

YA MBP review

Yet another MacBook Pro review, this time from the improbably-named Cisco Cheung over at PCMag.

Blocking a website with /etc/hosts in OS X

In an article on parental control of OS X, namely blocking children from accessing myspace.com, Dave Taylor proposes using the /etc/hosts file to accomplish the task. While experimenting with the method I found that I was unable to control the process, no matter what the contents of /etc/hosts.

After much trial and error I discovered that it is the lookupd process that needs to be restarted in order to respect changes to the /etc/hosts file. A reboot will accomplish the same thing, but twiddling my thumbs for several minutes through a shutdown and startup routine was not an acceptable solution.

In case anyone else has the same problem, here is the breakdown of this two-step process:

The default /etc/hosts file looks like this:

To block both http://myspace.com and http://www.myspace.com add a line such as 127.0.0.1 myspace.com www.myspace.com. Fire up Terminal.app and enter these commands:

Now you need to fire up Activity Monitor (Located in OS X's /Utilities folder) and force quit the process named lookupd. You will need to enter your administrator password.

Fire up a web browser and enter http://www.myspace.com. You should now find that the browser is redirected to the localhost at 127.0.0.1. This will be the contents of OS X's /Library/Webserver/Documents/ folder.

Reversing the procedure

First you need to remove the myspace line from /etc/hosts. Head back to Terminal and reissue the pico command you used earlier:

And delete the myspace line. Once again, hit ctrl-X, Y to save and exit.

You now need to again launch the Activity Monitor and force quit the process named lookupd. You will need to enter your administrator password again.

Open up a new web browser window and enter http://www.myspace.com. The browser should once again connect as usual.