I don’t actually plug my iPhone into my computer that often, but when I do iPhoto always pops up. I like using iPhoto to import photos from it, but don’t want it to auto load. But I do like it when iPhoto autostarts when I plug in my proper digital camera.

37 signals has a solution that involves AppleScript, but I’m wondering if there is a simpler solution? Some setting that I’m missing in my haste and annoyance?

Doodle allows you to easily organise a meeting by setting out some slots for people to select their availability. Stop sending rounds of emails to figure out who can make what and just schedule it already!

Managed to update one of my other blogs to WordPress 2.7 and the latest Thesis theme — went pretty smoothly especially with OpenHook for Thesis. I did a whole new install and imported my old site and had my plugins installed and site configured pretty quickly (couple of hours total).

I very much recommend upgrading if you haven’t already, especially as it looks like it has several SEO features already built in. It also might be a good time to try a new theme that takes advantage of some of the changes in WordPress.

Haven’t used IRC hardly at all in years – I think it’s been since my first year of college in Norman, Oklahoma (yes, “Boomer Sooner”) that I used it heavily. And by use it heavily I mean lots of downloading, but it was more than ten year years ago.

Anywho, I have a few groups that I participate in that still use IRC for meetings, and I joined one of these meetings the other day and found myself needing an IRC client. Colloquy is simple to use and free. Those looking into only using iChat can consider Jabber for extra geek points. BTW, IRC is what people used before iChat (and AIM).

WordPress doesn’t have a linkroll export function, though it does have an import function. Want access to your full set of links to export? Go to: /wordpressinstallfolder/wp-links-opml.php In your browser, and “save as”, making sure the extension is “.xml”. Bonus – Firefox 3 already recognises that it’s an OPML file (what links are stored) in and does the “hard work” of renaming your file for you.

The only drawback is if you are importing it to another WordPress install that it doesn’t import your categories (if you have different categories of links).

Class actions are making their way into Europe, and for those jurisdictions considering them (or figuring out what to do with them), West’s Headnote of the day has flagged a pertinent thought:

Purpose of a class action is to simplify the resolution of complex litigation, not complicate it. State ex rel. Davis v. Pub. Emps. Retirement Bd., 855 N.E.2d 444 (2006)

I’ve just migrated one of the sites I maintain and had to re-edit the .htaccess file to allow /stats to be available. Before, every time I tried to visit foo.com/stats it went to a 404 error on my WordPress install (it couldn’t find the page).

This is because I had URL rewriting turned on with my blog, which allows user friendly URLs but can prevent accessing server stats locating in the /stats folder (because it rewrites that too).

The solution is to edit the .htaccess file, which is a file that tells the server how to behave when it comes to URLs.

I use Dreamhost, which has a solution in its wiki. All it takes is firing up TextEdit in plain text mode and adding the following before the WordPress code:

<IfModule modrewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{REQUESTURI} ^/(stats|failed_auth.html).*$ [NC] RewriteRule . - [L] </IfModule>

I used Cyberduck to FTP into the site, set it to view hidden files (files starting with a “.” are hidden) downloaded it as a *.txt document edited it, and popped it back on the server (again using Cyberduck). Finally rename the current one to something like htaccess.bak (as a back up) and change the name of the file you just uploaded to “.htaccess”.

And you’re done!

Wow – I had no idea how much better the Finder could be in OSX until I watched this video about Pathfinder. Might have to check it out…

Via the Posse List comes this look at where the real cost savings for outsourcing legal work to India – in house legal departments in direct relationships with Indian firms:

Precise costs are admittedly difficult to quantify, but with EDD taking an increasing bite out of the bottom line, corporate America is looking for alternatives, and turning increasingly to India. The review part of the process — the process we know best as contract attorneys — is a key area where outsourcing is the attractive, cost-saving option.

Not great news of course for contract attorneys that make their living from document review projects in the US, but an interesting options for corporate law departments of a certain size.

I use Camino about half the time for web browsing on my older Powerbook (it seems to run faster than Firefox on that machine). Unlike Firefox however, the default Google search always goes to the main google.com, and doesn’t always return the UK-specific search results I’m interested in.

It’s simple to change the settings and get google.co.uk search results, visit the Mycroft project website and search for google.co.uk.

Find “Google UK – the Web” plugin, select “OK”. The final step is to select the magnifying glass icon by the search box on your browser and make google.co.uk the default.

And there you have it – UK results on your Camino searches.