Testing Geolocation Locally with Chrome and URIs with file://

If you need to test geolocation in Chrome using local files -- where your URL is going to start with file:// -- you need to throw a switch when you start Chrome.

--allow-file-access-from-files

If you're a Launchy user like me, you can do this by starting to type Chrome, hitting Tab, then pasting in that switch.

This issue is documented and tracked here: http://code.google.com/p/chromium-os/issues/detail?id=13009

VirtualBox on Mac OS X Lion Running Windows XP and Accessing a USB Drive

File this one under "odd."

While running VirtualBox 4.1.4 on Mac OS X Lion as the host and Windows XP 3 as the guest, I was having some trouble getting my Western Digital Elements external hard drive recognized on the guest. The external was formatted for Windows and all my data was added from a Windows machine, so I could read it from the Mac, but I couldn't write to it. The Mac would recognize the external, but not the Windows guest. If I clicked on the USB icon at the bottom of the VirtualBox window, the external drive would be greyed out.

Oddly enough, if I started the VM first, had the Windows guest window selected, and THEN plugged in the external, XP would recognize it immediately. The host would not recognize it at all.

While the external was plugged into the Mac with my first attempts, I did add a filter for it under Ports > USB, but I'm not sure if that was really part of the solution.

Whatever. It's working!