Macenstein

Pain like you’ve never felt

Since every current set or Apple earbuds I own now only works in one ear, I went rummaging through my collection of ancient Apple artifacts, and just under the tangerine clamshell iBook I found these, an extremely old pair of iPod ear buds. I don’t know what model iPod these came with, but it must have been from a time before human ear canals evolved into the shape we are now familiar with. The plus side is, these things were built like a tank (which makes sense as presumably... Read More

My wfe’s iPhone stolen: Anyone know how to have Find My iPhone “auto refresh” the location?

Well, this evening the Bride of Macenstein’s iPhone was stolen. While I was of course pissed, I was also thrilled at the prospect of using Find My iPhone to find the thing. We’re in a relatively wussy, crime free town, so I figured it would be kids who took her bag and it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Long story short, we tracked the iPhone down to a restaurant, but were of course unable to actually go around shaking down the help and patrons, even with... Read More

Ok, I Jailbroke my iPhone. So now what?

So last night, around midnight, I decided to Jailbreak my iPhone – the main impetus being I wanted to check out xGPS. Of course the first attempt using QuickPWN didn’t work for some reason, so I had to restore my iPhone, then try again, experiencing success sometime around 1:30 AM. Since then I have had only a little free time to poke around Cydia, the Winterboard and such, but from what I have seen, there appears to be almost as bad a ratio of “crap to gold”... Read More

Anyone know how to program for the iPhone? I have an idea…

Hello faithful readers. Like just about everyone on the planet, I have come up with an idea for (what I feel is) an incredibly important iPhone application that I would love to see made. No, it is not another Sudoku game or tip calculator – at the risk of sounding melodramatic, I feel my app could potentially save lives. Unfortunately, I don’t yet have my C and C++ skills up and running yet, so I am looking for a brainy reader to come to my rescue. The app in question... Read More

Mo’ Apps, Mo’ Problems. Whose iPhone 2.0 migration has gone smoothly?

Not mine, I’ll tell you that much. While I love the iPhone, and the Apps, I do not love the “rickety” feeling my gen 1 iPhone has now, as if I must handle it with kid gloves or risk crashing it. Not that it matters, kid gloves or not, it crashes. And don’t get me started on those hour-long syncs… Mo’ Apps, Mo’ Problems At first the migration seemed to go well. I upgraded my firmware Friday morning, downloaded/bought a few apps, played... Read More

What’s your favorite keyboard shortcut combination?

As someone who has more or less raised laziness to an art form, I am obviously a huge fan of keyboard shortcuts. This afternoon, it occurred to me that my current all time favorite must be hitting the “U” key in Adobe After Effects. This simple button press (when a layer is selected) brings up all the current properties that you have applied keyframes to in a layer, and I would say it has saved me something like 2 years of “expanding layer properties” time... Read More

Attention Boston! Ellen Feiss needs a job

My my, where does the time go? It seems like only 2002 that a 14-year old Ellen Feiss launched Apple’s historic “Switch” ad campaign, and now she’s a soon-to-be college graduate, looking for a job! When interviewing Ellen about her immortalization in song, it came up that she was graduating college and looking for a job in the Boston area. I of course pointed out that a certain brand new gigantic Apple Store might be hiring (after all, I have a feeling... Read More

Damn you, port forwarding!

Anyone out there a wiz with port forwarding that would have a clue as to how to guide me through setting up Roxio’s Streamer? I am using Verizon FiOS and their Actiontec router. Not they they can trouble shoot every router, but Roxio’s joke of a Streamer help section lists only this support page http://kb.roxio.com/content/kb/Toast/000060T?set-locale=en as far as I can tell I have opened Port 10080, but get a Safari error page when attempting to access my stream. Thanks... Read More

Help reunite an old woman with her iPod

Without your help, Evan could be as sad and drunk as the man in this stock photo. Won’t you please help? We here at Macenstein are not exactly what you would consider “nice people”, or “caring people”, or people “with souls”, but even our hard exterior can be melted worn down by constant nagging, and so to that end, we present the case of poor Mrs. Lugh, mother of Evan Lugh, a sometimes Macenstein contributor who is using his powers... Read More

I’m older than I’ve ever been and now I’m even older… So what shall I ask for to fill the void?

My birthday is approaching in 2 weeks, and for some reason, despite being the most materialistic person I know, I can’t think of much to ask for. So i am looking to you, faithful Macenstein readers, for suggestions. Give me some suggestions, up to $500, that you would want if you could have your choice of anything. Tech gifts, gadgets, (Apple ones in particular) are always good, but I’m open to anything… high-tech, low tech, no tech. What are you currently... Read More