AppleMobileDeviceService.exe

So it appears that this is the Windows service that supports the iPhone (why didn't they just call it iPhone Service?? - maybe they've got more gadgets up their sleeve...) - It adds more crud to one's creaking windows system (that unless you own one of said shiny objects). It can safely be disabled (along with the iPod service) if you want to save a few cycles.

For more info on which services can be forsaken check out the delightful Black Viper's site.

Skype: Error: Invalid argument to date encode

Since Skype 3.5.202-3.5.239 (Windoze) I've been seeing these Error messages: "Invalid argument to date encode" when I click on the tray icon or the User interface. It can be fixed (as mentioned in the Skype forums) by going into "Edit you profile..." and changing "Show my time:" to your Time Zone (e.g. GMT for UK, Lisbon etc) as opposed to leaving it set as "My Computer's".

Even cooler Linux MacBook

When running Linux the MacBook it gets pretty warm (that's just NOT Cool) - so one thing that Ekiga's Damien Sandras recommends is to use this utility to control the speed of the ATI graphics card - It can save around 8 Watts (The graphics don't need to run in 3D capable mode at all times).

Also there's the Mactel Linux site that's working on enhancing Linux on the Mac - they've got a bunch of patches for the kernel - some of these patches also provide for coolin' down...

(Switch off) vmware fusion services in OSX

So you installed the latest vmware fusion - which is pretty nice - but it now leaves a load of crud running all the time. You can stop this stuff by running:

$ sudo "/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/boot.sh" --stop

There's also a bunch of handy stuff in that directory....Things like vmware-rawdiskCreator can be used to create virtual disks to link to existing partitions for booting physically (i.e. those bootable by rEFIt or Boot Camp ) installed operating systems like Linux or Windows.