They just want to to either link to the website with some specific anchor text (seems pretty straightforward) or follow the twitter account (twitter.com/airport_news) and tweet about the promo. What have you got to loose? I can’t enter it (wouldn’t be very fair as I work here, but there is nothing stopping you!) Good luck and let me know if you enter.

Additionally, they have 4 more to give away on their other ‘new’ portals, check out the promo above for the links to the other sites.

Apple have been pushing HTML5 (One of the few companies on the planet that can openly shun Flash and the web follows):

• Apple came up with the CANVAS and CSS Transforms.
• They gave up Webkit and it’s (just) announced successor Webkit2.
• They openly and very publically blocked flash on both the iPhone and iPad encouraging people to use HTML5 (Vimeo, Google, NYT, and many others quickly offered HTML5 versions of their content).
• The addition yesterday of iAds shows all the cool functionality that can be had from 5.

But while Apple are a proponent of these great technologies, they have also shut their platform down jut a little more, see the new developer terms under section 3.3.1:

Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

If you are Apple, you could argue this is a good thing, completely native code, written from the ground up, no cross-porting, and at the end of the day, we are speaking about Apple here, who traditionally do whatever they want.

The key point here, is that although Apple now has a 63% (US) share of the mobile browser market, and this is surely set to increase with the uptake of the iPad, they really have some clout as to what goes on in the web. The thing is, the web is supposed to be an open platform with many people / entities contributing, refining, updating.

It’s a strange web we weave when a single company can practically change the web over night.

I love what Apple do, their products, brand and general image. Let’s hope things don’t get to closed.

My version reported only 1 database ‘Daylight’ which is part of the Marketcircle product Daylight Express, I have had this removed for quite some time, but OpenBase does not seem to offer an uninstaller – so a bit of shell magic is required.

Open the Terminal and enter:

sudo /Library/OpenBase/bin/RemoveOpenBaseScript

Magic, it will be uninstalled – just be sure to check nothing is using it first or you may have some problems on your hands ;)

A good piece of advice is to always clean up your email before you do a transfer, if you only have 10 – 20Mb of data, then don’t bother – but if your like me and have a 2Gb+ mailbox, a bit of spring cleaning never foes amiss. Simple things – just remove any unwanted inbox items, get rid of those old emails that you have sent, clean the junk mail folder and lastly empty the trash (unless you really want to take it with you) – with any luck your mailbox will now be smaller (saved me about 400Mb).

Fish out your mail files on the Tiger machine, go and visit [Username]/Library/Mail/ and [Username]/Library/Mail Downloads where the [Username] is the name of your account.

Copy all of this information to a CD, HDD or a network location accessible by the new machine. Lastly, visit [Username]/Library/Preferences/and find the com.apple.mail.plist and copy this too.

Now on your new machine, copy all of the files into their respective locations, they are the same locations on a Leopard machine – run mail, and you will probably be asked for the passwords for your account. You can get around this by copying over your keychain from the old system – but that is a conversation for another time.

In the sheet that you wish to copy the date to, open up the preferences (Excel -> Preferences). 

You then need to open up the ‘Calculations’ section of the preferences.

Then simple select and uncheck the ‘Use 1904 Date System’ – hey presto, if you copy data from your ‘old’ sheet, it will magically appear correctly in the new sheet!

Note: If you are using a Windows computer, you will need to go to Tools -> Options -> Calculation Tab.

1. Open Outlook Express. Click on Tools / Options / Maintainence / Store Folder and make a note of it. (It’s nearly always C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\NUMBERS\Microsoft\Outlook Express)
2. You need to convert the .dbx files (that’s the format OE uses for mailboxes) into .mbox files (that’s the format Apple Mail uses for mailboxes). Go and grab dbxconv (download) and dump it into the same directory you noted above.
3. Run….

   dbxconv -mbx -mbxextmbox *.dbx

   ….and wait, will take a while depending on how large your mailboxes are. 1-2Gb should not take more than about 40 minutes.

4. You should now have a directory full of files with the extension .mbox. Get all of these files to your new mac (FTP / Intranet / CD Burn Etc.) Open mail and enter your account detials (default opening on Tiger). Then click File / Import Mailboxes / Other and then find your .mbox files on your computer (where ever you put them). The .mbox files will be grayed out so click choose and on the next screen click OK to begin the import. This may or may not take awhile depends on the amount of mail!
5. Easy peasey, lemon squeazy. Your mail now has a new home!

If you can’t run dbxconv for some reason you can always use Entorage (use a trial, installed on all new macs, or download from Microsoft) – Just drag your mail messages out of outlook and into a folder(s) (organised of you wish), move files to the Mac, boot Entourage and drag the messages in (.eml files). Once they are all in you can click Import / Entourage in Apple Mail.

Added 21st May 2010:
The link no longer works, but a simple google search will find the program elsewhere for you.

1. Remove all non essential files or overtly large files (Final Cut Renders), so I said bye to my DivX collection, alot of print work and some bittorrents – all moved to another HD for safe keeping.
2. Grab a copy of superduper! and then run a complete HD clone while setting the copy to be a bootable backup – that took forever (well, about 3 hours, to my firewire drive)
3. Restart the mac while holding down the option key, choose your FireWire external drive and boot from there, to make sure you have a complete bootable backup copy of your precious mac.
4. Reboot again, and use the leopard disc to perform an upgrade (Hold down C when booting or mount the disc in Tiger)
5. Wait for a while until it has finished and then boot into the goodness of Leopard – Job done.

Always backup your stuff first – you’d be amazed how many people just plough right on in and then destroy their mac and data – trust me – the extra time is worth it. Everything worked fine with the exception of a few applications.

Fixing iPod Mounting Problems under Leopard

1. Open up your Applications directory (Command / Shift / A) and put iTunes into the Trash Can.
2. Go to Folder (Apple / Shift / G) and enter “/System/Library/Extensions” (without the quotes), find AppleMobileDevice.kext and put that in the trash as well.
3. Again – go to folder (Apple / Shift / A) and enter “/Library/Receipts” (minus quotes), find AppleMobileDeviceSupport.pkg and put that in the trash to.
4. Empty the trash (and keep fingers crossed!!)
5. Point your browser at www.apple.com/itunes and grab the latest copy, install and eureka, it’s fixed!

Even if you have loads of music on your mac, it shouldn’t make any difference as your library is stored in Music – I’ve got about 10,000 songs and everything works as normal including iPod Syncing!!!

Look to the top right of your screen, you’ve probably got a clock, battery meter (if your on a laptop), Airport status and maybe a bluetooth icon. Now if you want to easily get rid of them you have 2 choices – visit Apple’s Knowledgebase on the subject or my personal favourite hold down the Apple (Command) key and simply drag them off of the bar – hey presto – gone.Help – I need to get them back!!No problems, open finder and navigate to :

system/library/coreservices/menu extras

and double click on the menu item you wish to add back to the menu area – brilliant!

I love Apple, I love their products, their aesthetics and their whole brand, but choosing a new laptop has become an increasingly difficult task, with reduced product life cycles and Apple’s renowned secrecy, it’s hard to know when to buy and when to wait. I was just going to plonk down the cash (my company was) and get a Macbook, but then your start thinking about glossy vs matt screen (that’s another debte entirely), reduced ram, integrated graphics – I only really wanted it for a bit of web design, graphic design, coding, print work, network maintainence…. ah, you see the problem, suddenly I realise that I need it for a lot of different tasks. Goodbuy Macbook, hello Macbook Pro.

I went with 2gb of ram and the 160gb HDD upgrade. It’s £350 ($680) extra for the additional 1gb of ram and there was no way I’m going to pay that, 1gb extra (2gb stick) of lappie ram can be brought for £150!!

My only two concerns now are

• Waiting for it to turn up
• Reorganising the powerbook with UB applications so the transition goes as smoothly as possible

Although I might just transfer everything over manually, that way I can be sure the laptop will work the way I want it to.