Daniel E. Markle's Blog

The CSS Cheat Sheet dashboard widget is a useful quick reference when working with CSS. It includes commonly used information on selectors, the box model, units, and inheritance. It is especially useful in conjunction with an editor supporting CSS code completion.

If your ethernet port is not working on OS X (it seems to be most common and/or only on the Intel Macbooks):

• Rename /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration


• Toggle a setting in the Network System Preferences panel


• Setup your Network as desired and test it, the configuration should rebuild and your network should now work

A friend had this happen on his brand new Macbook Pro Core 2. However, it has never happened on mine. This may mean the software preload was bad, especially if this happens on a new machine, so doing an Archive and Install is probably a good idea.

Update: Further testing indicates this problem was caused by bad firmware on a SMC SMCGS16-SMART switch. The problem only occurred upon connection to this brand and model of switch, and was resolved permanently by upgrading the firmware in the switch from v.1.00.04 to v.1.00.06_16.

When configuring a third party router with Verizon.net DSL, the DSL modem may need reconfigured to bridged mode and the third party router configured to handle PPPoE instead of the provided DSL modem. I found this issue in particular with the Westell 6100 DSL modems Verizon is now issuing. An excellent resource in this case is this information on configuring the Westell 6100 in bridged mode, then follow the third party router's instructions for PPPoE. Note the <username>@verizon.net and password configured for e-mail is the same one needed for PPPoE.

Having strange issues where embedded Flash images do not load on some sites but do on others while using Firefox 2.0 on OS X? Update to the latest Adobe Flash Player. The 9.0 r28 update appears to fix these issues.

The Carbonated Orange Beverage Research Association produces a nifty little menu extra called Slim Battery Monitor for OS X. Whenever using OS X menu extras (which I am rather fond of) it is easy to eat up your menu bar real estate quickly, especially on a laptop. Unfortunately the OS X built-in battery monitor is a space hog. Slim Battery Monitor replaces the built-in with a very slim vertical and tastefully colorized version with quite a few more display options than the standard monitor.

I have been using Aperture lately for my digital photography post-processing. The work flow and smoothly working tools are addicting, but I have found a fatal flaw in its handling of RAW files. Aperture has no way of handling hot pixels. These dead pixels are a fact of life on digital cameras; although some cameras map these out for you from the factory, more will appear in time. Adobe, knowing this fact, built hot pixel removal into Adobe Camera RAW. Apple's algorithm, however, not only doesn't remove them, it enhances them into a bright dot, apparently falsely thinking the bright, out of place single pixel is image detail to be enhanced. This causes the single failed pixel to become a bright blob on your photo.