Voted off the Island
Well, I never made it to La Palma. As I posted previously, we were having trouble flying to La Palma from Tenerife in the Canary Islands. We tried one last day to fly but we were thwarted again. Since we missed the window of opportunity for our business plans we decided to return home as scheduled, after a little more sight-seeing of course.
Tenerife was very beautiful, the food was excellent and the people were extremely friendly towards us. I would definitely recommend the Canary Islands if you’re looking for an island-style vacation.
“Stuck” on Tenerife
I am currently in Puerto de la Cruz on island of Tenerife, which is part of the Canary Islands. I said I am “stuck” here because I am supposed to be on the island of La Palma for business but can’t seem to make it there. The small plane we took from Tenerife to La Palma had to abort its landing (at the last second I might add) due to high winds and returned to Tenerife. I have never seen so many people look for the exit and double check if they remembered where the life vests were located. We tried to go again this morning but all flights were canceled so instead we did some sight seeing around the island. The weather has been beautiful, despite the wind, and between the beer and paella, I am certainly having a good time “working”. We will give La Palma one last try tomorrow morning otherwise we will just have to go home. C’est la vie. Wait….that’s French. Oh well.
The LaPazz Graphic Tablet (WP8060-TAB08) on OS X
If you are having trouble with your LaPazz Graphic Tablet on OS X keep reading for the solution.
I recently purchased the LaPazz Graphic Tablet, WP8060-TAB08, from Geeks.com. The product advertises that it works on Intel Macs with OS X 10.2.6 and higher. As you have probably guessed, it didn’t work as advertised. After installing the driver software and plugging the tablet into the USB port on my MacBook Pro, all I could get the tablet to do is register mouse clicks. The cursor refused to move about the screen as I moved the pen. Downloading and installing new drivers from the LaPazz website didn’t improve the situation.
How to Fix the LaPazz Driver Issue
After poking around a bit I realized the driver is not loading at startup. LaPazz creates a new directory at /Library/StartupItems/PenTabletDriver and installs the driver there but for some reason it is not running at startup. Instead I setup the driver to run at login and it worked. To configure the driver to run at login follow these steps:
- Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.
- Choose Accounts from the View menu.
- Click the name of the user.
- Click the Startup Items button
- Click the “Add {+}” button and select the PenTableDriver application at /Library/StartupItems/PenTabletDriver
- Reboot
The tablet should work now!
If anyone has any ideas why the driver doesn’t launch properly on startup I would love to hear from you. Anyway, I hope you enjoy your working tablet.
Online Video Killed the TV Star
It finally happened. Last week I watched more video online than a I did on TV. It is only a matter of time before a significant number of people are doing the same. I hope this forces cable companies to offer a la carte channel price plans. I am currently paying too much money for a bunch of channels that I have never watched while some other channels that I would like are only available on the Super-Duper-Ultra-Premium Plan. Alternatively I can watch what I want, when I want, where I want with video online.
Some of the videos I watch online are traditional network tv shows like ‘Lost’ and ‘Numb3rs’. All three networks let you watch some or all of their shows on their websites. NBC also launched Hulu which streams shows from their various network and cable channels as well as some movies.
I also enjoy some programs that were made just for the net. Revision3 is a “TV network” on the internet that has a dozen or so shows to watch. Many of the shows are quite geeky which is why I probably like them. My favorites are ‘Tekzilla’, ‘Systm‘, ‘Diggnation’ and ‘PixelPerfect’. Using my favorite video player, Miro, I download these shows automatically when new episodes become available. Miro hosts thousands of channels and allows you to search for video on the net as well. For a little comedy I like to watch short clips from the Onion News Network (yes, that Onion). Another popular channel on Miro is TED which hosts “Inspired talks by the world’s greatest thinkers and doers.” I should also mention Joost, which is another video player/platform that hosts both content made for the web as well as shows from traditional TV. I don’t like the interface as much as Miro’s but it is still worth checking out. Finally, if you subscribe to Netflix, you can stream movies instantly to your computer (no joy for Mac users though) in addition to receiving DVD’s in the mail.
What do you watch online? I’d like to hear about some great videos or programs you have discovered.