The Pool Room

The Pool Room: where all the good stuff ends up

  • Macs Better Than PCs In An All-Windows Environment?

    Some work-from-home solutions involve setting up a Virtual Private Network (VPN) that sends all your internet traffic via your connection to the corporate network. And since big companies like to lock things down, this means you can’t access your private email server, Flickr account, instant messaging app, etc while you’re connected to work. A better…

  • DNA Art?

    Here’s the ultimate in personal gifts – give someone some [art made out of DNA](http://www.dna11.com/). The question is, whose DNA would you use? Your own? Isn’t that a little arrogant? And how creepy would it be trying to get a sample of the gift recipient’s DNA without them knowing?! There’s probably a market here for…

  • Searching For Things Without Knowing They Exist

    Sometimes it can be hard to find information about a product or category of products, especially when you don’t know what the “golden keywords” are for the topic at hand. Here are a few tips to make Google cough up some useful information. If you know of a product that’s kind of what you’re after,…

  • Copilot 2.0 – Control Other PCs or Macs Over The Web

    Fog Creek Software has just released [Copilot version 2.0](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/01/26.html). Copilot lets you remote-control another PC, much like VNC or RDC, with the advantage that it requires zero configuration, works through firewalls, and leaves nothing installed when you’re finished. Great for family tech support! And get this – it now supports OS X. So you can…

  • Wisdom Lost

    Well, my four wisdom teeth came out this morning. Ouch. I wasn’t able to talk for the rest of the day because of swollen and numb bottom lip, jaw and tongue. That makes it really hard to be around inquisitive/talkative one- and three-year-olds! Grace seems to be the only one who understands my grunts :-).…

  • Apple MacBook Pro Update

    Apple has just updated their [MacBook Pros to the new Intel Core 2 Duo processor](http://www.apple.com/au/macbookpro/). It’s probably a little earlier than many had predicted, but it’ll certainly be a well-received upgrade. The new MBPs are slightly faster (clock-speed-wise) than the previous model, have Core 2 Duo, HDD options of 100GB (7200 rpm)/160GB (5400 rpm)/200GB (4200…

  • August 2006 Photos

    Just a quick update to show off some recent photos…

  • WMA to MP3 Converter For Mac OS X

    You wouldn’t think it’d be hard, but I couldn’t find any free OS X software to convert WMA files to MP3 or AAC files so I could listen to them on my iPod. After about half an hour of searching, I went back to a $10 application I found early on in the process and…

  • Wedding Speech – Stuart Campbell

    Here’s a great short video of Stuart Campbell from Scotland, who at 16 was thrilled to be best man at his brother’s wedding. I’ve seen a lot of wedding speeches when photographing weddings, and this would have to rank up there with the best of them! I love that Scottish accent, too.

  • QuickSilver Tips

    I use [QuickSilver](http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/) on my Mac all the time. It’s one of those indispensable applications that I just can’t do without – I really, really miss it on my Windows XP PC at work, but I can’t find any Windows equivalent. There are always new tricks you can learn with QuickSilver. Here are a couple…