As I’ve mentioned before, INSTEON is a new home automation technology from the folks at Smarthome, Inc. But up until today, Mac users couldn’t join the fun because all of the software support for the protocol was happening on Windows and Linux. Perceptive Automation has changed that with the release of a public beta version of Indigo 1.8.0 — check out the announcement here.

If you’re ready to dive in, the best deal is the Insteon starter kit and the PowerLinc V2 USB computer interface.

If you left home automation because of X10’s quirks, now is a good time to rejoin the fold; by all reports INSTEON is much faster and more reliable. Or, if you’re just getting started, you might as well get the very latest so you can start out on the right foot, eh?

Are you ready to get on board with INSTEON?

After my newly purchased Dresden Dolls album finished downloading from iTunes this evening, an unfamiliar dialog box popped up:

Is that new? I don’t remember seeing it before. Maybe I’ve just hit return too quickly in the past and I’m forgetting.

DRM opponents will of course raise the question: is this really My Music now? ;) The Terms of Service outline the rules, naturally, yet after a brief scan, I don’t see anything about backing up.

Of course I know the physical method of how to back up the song files, but it’s remarkable to me that I actually thought of the bigger picture. Legalities and legalese are an integral part of this new world of digital rights and intellectual property and virtual consumption — a world where the text of a helpful dialog box could get you in trouble with lawyers.

Sometimes it makes me want to crawl into a friendly xterm window and shut out everything after 1990. This is the same urge that makes me occasionally boycott megacorporations and threaten to harm my television. Buy a record player from a thrift store and live off vinyl for the rest of my life. ;D

However, I enjoy being able to instantly access pretty much any song ever and so will curtail the urges. Balancing the technophile and the luddite is hard.

If I were an Apple executive, I’d be feeling very pleased with myself at the moment. As the company heads towards 2006, it seems to be riding a wave of good news and optimism about the future.

And it’s not me saying so. Lots of folks are taking opportunities to big up the big Apple.

Walt Mossberg, for example, declares the new iMac G5 to be “the gold standard of desktop PCs”. He goes on: “To put it simply: No desktop offered by Dell or Hewlett-Packard or Sony or Gateway can match the new iMac G5’s combination of power, elegance, simplicity, ease of use, built-in software, stability and security.” This from a man who’s been objectively reviewing computer kit from all kinds of manufacturers for years now. He’s not some random Apple-gushing Mac evangelist (like, uh, me); he’s someone who’s spent a large chunk of his professional life trying out all sorts of computers. He knows good stuff when he sees it.

Then there’s analyst Shaw Wu, who’s been quoted saying: “We believe Apple is well-positioned to continue above market growth rates with arguably the industry’s most powerful and complete stack of hardware, software, and service.” He thinks Apple will reach $21 billion revenue in 2007. By comparison, the most recent quarterly revenue figure was $3.68 billion.

Another analyst, Citigroup’s Richard Gardner, is quoted predicting 2007 revenues of $24.3 billion. He’s told his clients that he’s convinced an Intel PowerBook will show up as early as January.

Gardner’s not the only one expecting new stuff shortly after New Year’s Day. There’s been a series of rumors for weeks now about how the Intel machines are coming along faster than anyone ever expected them to. Think Secret says it’ll be an Intel Mac mini Tivo-ish media center. With Front Row. Mmmmm.

Put it all together, and it makes for quite a pleasing little package of news and opinions for the Apple management to chew over. I’d say it was more than enough to make up for the SANS Institute’s odd assertion that Mac OS X is one of the 20 most critical internet security vulnerabilities of the moment. I’m the first to admit that OS X has holes, just like other operating systems, and that it needs to be kept up-to-date. But to declare it one of the 20 most serious security problems around strikes me as inappropriate, to put it mildly. In my (admittedly limited) experience, it’s my neighbours and friends running Windows whose computers tend to require frequent repairs and re-installs as a result of picking up nasties from the net; I’ve never heard of any of my OS X-using friends having the same problem.

Anyway, here’s to the (presumably) happy guys over at Infinite Loop. Let’s hope the next couple of years turn out to be as good for them as all the financial gurus are predicting.

While you wait for the next episode of Lost to appear in the iTMS, you can bolster your video collection right now for your big-screen iPod (and PSP). A new service called FLiXPO is offering free downloads of funny ads, comedy bits, indie shorts, and a variety of other goodies.

I just tested the service by grabbing a Jerry Seinfeld routine on “Milk.” Very funny stuff and a nice addition to my iPod. You can read how to do it here. The only shortcoming was that the ID3 tags were a little sparse. But that was easy to fix in iTunes.

Overall, I think FLiXPO will be a welcomed service for iPod and PSP video fans. Check it out.

Another day, another browser to play around with. I’d be astonished if Firefox has improved enough to draw me away from Camino, but let’s spend some time with it and see what’s new…

Auto update is an interesting new feature, though I won’t be able to put it to the test until there’s a new version of Firefox to download. I’m curious to find out what happens when an autoupdate is downloaded; does the app quit and restart itself - and what warning does the user get that this will happen? What happens to open windows or tabs? I’ll have to wait for an update to find out.

The preferences pane now looks and behaves like many other preferences panes you find on OS X. It appears as a separate window, rather than a sheet as it used to, and to my mind is fractionally more responsive than before.

Rather to my surprise, because I’m sure it didn’t used to work, the Command+Option+Left/Right Arrow keys work to move between tabs.

Another behavior that seems new to me (but might not be, because I’ve not been using Firefox regularly for a while - in which case, please put me right in the comments) is use of the Tab key to move around the application. Say you move from one tab to another - initially, the focus will be on the page itself. Press tab once and you’ll move to the location bar; again, and you’ll be in the search box; a third time (and this is what I think is new), and the tab itself will be selected. Now you can move tabs just with the arrow keys. And you can re-arrange tabs at this point, too - hit Command+Left/Right to move a tab around. Tabs can be dragged to new positions with the mouse, of course.

There’s a new “Report Broken Web Site” button, whose icon looks oddly out of place when added to the Toolbar. This is not a tool for admonishing lazy webmasters, but rather for alerting the Mozilla team about sites that still break in this version of Firefox. The more such un-cooperative sites they know about, the better things will be in 1.6; at least, that’s presumably the theory. Clicking the Broken button takes you through a short wizard-like interface in which you’re asked to explain a little bit of context, and provide some detail about the error you saw.

Backspace now works as a Back control. Indeed, as claimed by the release notes, moving both Back and Forward through the history is nice and fast. The .dmg artwork has been spruced up (the work of Jon Hicks, I think). You can now import your stuff from Safari (File -> Import…). Under the Tools menu, there’s two new email-related commands: Read Mail and New Message. I use Mail.app, so for me these commands just switch focus to Mail, and open a new message in Mail respectively. I’d be interested to hear what their behavior is when used with other mail clients.

I’ve been playing and browsing with Firefox 1.5 for about half a day now, and so far I have no complaints.

Had a chance to try it out yet?

Over the weekend, my wife received two emails that contained the W32.Sober@mm worm. Since I run Norton antivirus, my computer was able to catch the worm before it propagated to my wife’s contacts. So what does this have to do with backups? Well, when I got this worm it made me realize that there is a lot of precious data on my PC which is extremely vulnerable.

Prior to receiving this worm, I mainly backed up my data because I was concerned with having a hard disc failure. This past weekend made me realize that my data is also vulnerable to an attack from a virus. For example, what if I were to receive a virus that wasn’t caught by Norton? What if this same virus went ahead and removed all JPEGs or MP3s from my machine? What would I have done then?

The amount of important data that an average PC user possesses is astonishing. I currently have about 39 GB of MP3s and 16 GB of pictures on my PC. I don’t consider myself the norm however, if the “average” user has even 25% of the amount of data that I own, this would still be a lot of digital content. If I were ever to loss this data, I would feel horrible. Especially since as of four years ago, I haven’t taken a picture using traditional film. Needless to say, I’ve captured a number of great moments that I would never want to lose.

I myself perform backups to an external hard drive on a regular basis. If I were to receive a virus like I described above, I would more then likely be ok. That being said, nearly none of my friends or family members have any type of backup system in place!

Now more then ever it is important to backup your precious data. We as a culture are becoming more and more dependant on digital content. I hope that this post makes you realize that backing up your digital content is extremely important. Don’t let an incident such as a virus or hard disc failure teach you a lesson. Backup your data before it is too late!

What do you do to protect your data? Do you already have a backup procedure in place?

Last year, I worked out a method to create custom Mail.app announcement sounds by using the say program on Mac OS X, a CLI utility that converts text to speech and can output aiff sound files. And while nowadays I’m of the opinion that a totally hidden email program is a better way to go, it occurred to me earlier this week that it would be cool to have the equivalent of cellphone ringtones for Mail.

I wrote up a relatively simple AppleScript, which you can view below. You can also download ringtone.txt, which you will need to rename to ‘ringtone.scpt’ and open in the Script Editor application. (If you’re unfamiliar with it, a description of Script Editor can be found within the article Hacking iPod and iTunes.)

At the top of the script are five options for you to set.

the_title is the exact title of the track you want to start playing. Likewise, the_artist is the exact name of the artist field.

the_playlist can be customized if you want, but it is set for the main Library and will most likely work fine for these purposes.

start_here allows you to select at what point in the song you want the ringtone to begin, in seconds; set at 0 (zero) to begin at the beginning. The stop_after property is how many seconds you want the song to play; set at 0 (zero) to disable and just keep on playing.

That’s it for the AppleScript. Save the .scpt file wherever you like.

Within Mail, open the Preferences window and go to the Rules tab. Click Add Rule — give it a Description, then choose whatever criteria you’d like — most likely, it will be a From Contains username.

Under ‘Perform the following actions’, choose Run AppleScript from the popup menu, then find your ringtone.scpt via the Choose button. Hit OK and you’re done.

And that’s it! Now whenever an email from ‘username’ comes in, iTunes will switch on and let you know. Whether this is a good thing or not is, like cellphone ringtones, debatable ;) but it’s a good exercise on getting Mac GUI apps interacting together.

To set up separate ringtones for different people, just duplicate the ringtone.scpt file, one for each, and customize the properties as desired. Then set up a Mail Rule for each as above.

property the_title : "Gouge Away"
property the_artist : "Pixies"
property the_playlist : "Library"
property start_here : 23 -- set to 0 to begin at the beginning
property stop_after : 0 -- set to 0 to disable
tell application "iTunes"
 set the matches to (every track of playlist the_playlist whose name is the_title) as list
 if the (count of matches) > 0 then
  if the (count of matches) = 1 then
   set the_track to item 1 of matches
  else
   repeat with t from 1 to the (count of matches)
    if the artist of item t of matches is the_artist then
     set the_track to item t of matches
     exit repeat
    end if
   end repeat
  end if
  play the_track
  set player position to start_here
  if stop_after > 0 then
   delay stop_after + 1
   pause
  end if
 else
  display dialog "No song matches. Please confirm details." buttons {"Yikes!"} default button 1
 end if
end tell

I should probably put in a disclaimer that this worked on my combination of versions: 10.4.3, Mail 2.0.5, and iTunes 6.0.1, and thus may not work if yours differ, or if you’re not a Capricorn, or if Venus is in retrograde.

(Thanks to Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes for some direction.)

In my last post, I covered learning to program with a dialect of Lisp, called Scheme, from resources freely available on the internet from the SICP course at MIT. In this post, I plan to continue this theme by going over a few reasons that I have found for learning Lisp and to offer a few more resources for those of you out there who would like to add Lisp, or Scheme, to their programming repertoire. I want to begin this post by going over some of the advantages Lisp holds for the majority of the programming population—i.e., those of us who will probably never use Lisp professionally.

To start off with, Lisp is a functional programming language (well, ok, not purely functional, but pretty darn close). Now, while there are several reasons for wanting to learn a functional programming language, I’m going to cover just one. The reason for learning a functional language (such as Lisp) that I want to talk about here is the one that I have seen make the most difference to me personally—namely, it makes testing (and, as a side-effect, creating more secure code) easier. I basically picked up Lisp for an AI class I was taking this past Summer, and I immediately fell in love with it. While it can be frustrating to learn, and at times downright impossible, it does eventually reward those who persevere and finally learn to program in Lisp. So, after a couple of failed attempts before this summer, I was pleasantly surprised when I finally found myself starting to grasp the concepts and I was actually able to start writing programs in Lisp. And, to my surprise, in a very short period of time, I was able to write programs faster and more bug-free than in other languages with which I was much more acquainted (e.g., C/C++, C#, and Java).

Now, I’ve never used Lisp in my professional life, however, I began to notice that some of the habits I picked up while programming in Lisp were creeping into my daily programming and were actually helping me out quite bit. In functional languages, side-effects are “generally” avoided. (I say “generally” here since, to my knowledge at least, some side-effects seem to be unavoidable—such as I/O operations, for instance). For anyone new to the term, a side-effect occurs when the state of your program is changed from within a function (procedure, method…whatever). This happens quite often in normal procedural and OO programming, but in functional programming it is avoided as much as possible. After programming in Lisp for a month or two, I noticed that in my daily life I had begun to avoid side-effects in my programs whenever I found it possible to do so. This allowed me to create programs that were much easier to unit test, since all I had to do was check the function’s output to know that it worked correctly. Also, since no undesired changes occurred inside of my functions, my software immediately showed a vast reduction in bugs, not too mention that purely functional code is also immediately thread safe. Being able to test each function as I wrote it, and prove that it worked correctly without exception, meant that my programs would work almost the first time I integrated everything and ran it.

All of sudden everything was working within a try or two (and, sometimes, even on the first try), rather than with several attempts and debug sessions. It was easier to follow the logic of my programs and it became much easier for me to guarantee that changes to my programs in one place would not produce undesired outcomes in others. Suddenly, my learning Lisp was paying off in the real world, and what seemed like just a fun excuse to learn a new language was actually making me more effective in my professional life.

Don’t believe me? Perhaps you need more assurance from more creditable sources. Well then, let’s take a look at some endorsements from some much more lauded hackers. Eric Raymond, author of “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” and former president of the Open Source Initiative, probably put it best in his essay, “How to Become a Hacker”, when he made the following statement:

Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot.

Richard Stallman—creator of GNU Emacs and the GNU C compiler and the founder of the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project—felt so strongly about the language that he embedded a version of Lisp, called Elisp, into his Emacs text editor making the editor infinitely extensible and is one of the main reasons why a text editor written nearly 30 years ago still enjoys such a large following today.

Finally, Paul Graham, author of “Hackers and Painters” (and one of my own personal role models) is constantly writing on the importance of Lisp as more than just an exercise in acedemia. He believed in the efficacy of the language so much that he has spent several of the past few years creating a much awaited new dialect of the language called Arc. He also bet his very own financial future on the language by using it in his own startup—viaweb. In fact, he goes so far as to attribute much of the success of his startup to his use of Lisp.

So, with the backing of such important people in the programming community, the question is no longer why would you want to learn Lisp, so much as why wouldn’t you. Yeah, sure, your boss most likely will not let you use it in your day-to-day tasks, and actually finding a job that does use Lisp (especially one that uses it on a regular basis) is next to impossible, but I think once you get a good grasp of the Lisp language, you’ll be happy you decided to learn it. You’ll see the benefits in no time in the way your programming evolves and becomes much more bug-free, reliable, maintainable, and fast (both in testing and in creation).

In closing, I hope I’ve gotten some of you interested in learning Lisp. Before I go though, I wanted to share with you all a few more resources for learning Lisp just in case you should happen to feel so inclined to do so. All of the links to online resources I’ve included below are free (as in speech). The first two, are actually full texts available free on the internet for download. “On Lisp” is considered to be one of the best texts for learning Lisp, although it is geared more towards programmers already familiar with Lisp (Paul Graham’s other book—“ANSI Common Lisp”—targets Lisp newbies, so it may be better to read it first). “Practical Common Lisp” is a great book for introducing you to using Lisp in common programming situations. It’s largely a giant tutorial, by the end of which you will have created CD and MP3 databases, a spam filter, and many other fun and useful applications. This is a very good read for anyone wanting to use Lisp as a general purpose everyday language. DrScheme is a fully featured programming environment (including an IDE, debugger, GUI library, and more) for the Scheme dialect of Lisp. It was created at Brown University and is freely available for download on nearly any OS. A nice feature, on OS X, it is an extremely simple install. Finally, the last item in the list is a link to my last post. The reason I’ve include this one is simply because I’m lazy. In my last post, I included several links to free resources for taking an online class from MIT on programming in Scheme, and I just couldn’t be bothered repeating them all here (plus, I’m absolutely shameless, and I’m trying to develop a nice following of repeat readers). In the last post, I included links to an online book, class lectures (both regular downloads and iPod compatible versions), and sample questions and other course materials. If you’re truly interested in learning Lisp, check out this post, you’ll be happy you did.

Sources on the internet for learning Lisp:

• Paul Graham’s “On Lisp”
• Peter Seibel’s “Practical Common Lisp”
• DrScheme
• My last post

Well, we’ve finally come to the very end. I hope, after reading this post, that each of you will find yourself with an insatiable desire to learn Lisp. This post, and the one just before it, have concentrated on instilling this desire within you—the reader—and in showcasing some good resources on the internet for satisfying this desire. I’ve introduced just about all of the resources that I know of for teaching you Lisp for free. Any new posts that I make on Lisp following this one will try to concentrate on actually learning or using the Lisp language rather than just linking to other online resources. So, enjoy the links, have fun learning Lisp, and come back again very soon for some interesting tutorials on programming in Lisp.

Oh, and by the way, if any of you out there are using Lisp in your daily life, personal projects, professional projects, whatever, please, post a comment below giving us some of the juicy details. Feel free to talk about how hard it was, what advantages/disadvantages it provided, and/or provide links to websites about your project (especially those containing interesting source code). I know I would love to find out more about how others are putting the language to use.

See you next time.

Please, feel free to post comments on how you’ve used Lisp in the past or are currently using Lisp right now.

There’s a new version of Sinbad out, offering a bunch of neat new features.

If you’ve not used it before, you can think of Sinbad as the alt.Sherlock. It uses a series of modules to help it find information from various web sites and services.

The new version comes with a decent list of pre-installed modules, including access to Craigslist, Wiki Country Facts, and Google Define. I also enjoyed browsing through Wikipedia and the CIA World Fact Book using Sinbad.

Some modules work better than others. In some instances, searching is not possible and you are forced to browse instead. Browsing the Craigslist module worked fine for US locations, but less well for UK cities.

My favorite feature is the preference that lets you choose which Amazon store is searched. Any list of results from any module can be used as the basis for a new Amazon search, and being able to select Amazon UK, rather than Amazon.com, was a major plus for me.

Sony released a firmware upgrade (2.6) for the Sony Playstation Portable.
This update came pretty quickly considering that the 2.5 upgrade was made available in the US on October 13 (just over a month ago).
Here’s what the update includes:

• RSS Channel (in the Network menu where the browser is found).
  This addition is named a bit misleadingly since it does not add RSS text feed support.
  What it does add is the ability to subscribe to podcasts.
  The added wrinkle is that it does not download the podcast file to a memory stick.
  Instead, it streams the podcast.
  I’m listening to a podcast about the PSP while writing this blog and the WiFi light on the PSP is blinking constantly as it streams the MP3 file to me.
  If you want to take a podcast audio file with you for disconnected listening, you will need to download it your PC or Mac and then copy the file over the the PSP.
  
• A WMA (Windows Media Audio) CODEC was added for locally stored (Memory Stick) and streaming audio.
  
• Simplified and Traditional Chinese were added to the browser encoding options.
  
• Volume Adjustment was added to the LocationFree Player.
  
• The browser now supports downloading copy protected video (this was in 2.5 too).
  

And, yeah, yeah, I know it is uncool to upgrade my PSP and remove the ability to use the various PSP hacks. :-)

Got 2.6?

Apple’s latest and, if not greatest, then at least “highly anticipated” application Aperture is on the verge of shipping out.

I’m typing this up as my PowerBook is automatically putting the finishing touches to the final release of FlickrExport 1.3. I’m trying to clear the decks for the next couple of weeks in order to make time to explore Aperture.

I’m interested in this application from all the angles a keen amateur photographer would normally be, but also from the angle of a software developer. I’m keen to see how Aperture is put together and very much looking forward to pulling it apart to see where I can hack around inside.

Of particular interest is finding out whether and how it would be possible to augment Aperture’s export capabilities. For over a year, I’ve been maintaining and releasing FlickrExport, which is a plug-in for iPhoto that extends that application’s export features to add the ability to send pictures directly to Flickr.com.

It will be an interesting detective exercise to see if it’s possible to do something similar for Aperture. Can’t wait to start.

Are you a Flickr fan looking forward to adopting Aperture?

Bare Bones software has issued an update to its free text editor, TextWrangler. The 2.1.1 update is mainly about bugfixes, although there are a couple of new minor features, one of which is a “Register” menu item. Before you scoff about that being not much of a ‘feature’, consider that registered TextWrangler users are in a position to buy BBEdit at a significant discount, so it’s something that could well appeal to a fair number of people.

The list of squashed bugs covers a lot of problems, so if you’ve suffered from any of these, this update should be good news for you.

This follows last week’s BBEdit update to 8.2.4, which was a broadly similar bug-fixing update.

I’ve said it before, and it bears repeating now: TextWrangler remains one of the best bits of freeware currently available for OS X. Few other free applications offer such a wide array of features and such reliable performance.

I was just reading about the rumored Disney Insurance Plan for Lost episodes. The timing of this story is interesting, having just spent a big part of my holiday shoring up my backup strategy so that my pictures, movies, music, and text are protected against hard drive crashes and laptop theft.

In short, a good archiving plan is the best insurance of all. We’ve covered this on Mac DevCenter, with articles such as Automated Backups on Tiger Using rsync and Web Apps with Tiger: Backups and Speed. I’ve also written about Apple’s current solution: How to Set Up Backup 3 and Save Your Data.

Yes, I’m all for creative business approaches such as the plan Disney may be offering for Lost viewers. But the best insurance is a well-planned and vigilantly maintained backup strategy.

So, that leads me to wonder… how are you backing up your stuff?

Anybody working in the PR and marketing field will be able to tell you how much of a pain it is to put any kind of electronic device on an image. Indeed, not only do you have to pay for the right to show the device, you have to pay for the right to show what’s on the screen of that device.

Fonts, icons, titles, menus: almost everything on a computer screen is copyrighted. Unless the screen you show is running OpenBSD, there are very few chances you will be able to simply design it and go to print.

The same holds true when marketing a music player. Putting a song on the screen opens up the doors for endless lawsuits just as much as it does for juicy partnerships. Most advertising agencies and companies are simply not willing to pay a high price for such details and, therefore, end up putting a placeholder that they hope nobody will see.

The result? We commonly see ads featuring players tuned to “Creative Demo Track” by “The Creatives”. How original… In comparison, Apple always shows its iPod playing something real or, at the very least, displaying the best alternative: an Apple logo.

Sure, this is a small detail but it accounts for differences in perception between a product consumers will deem finished and one they will deem half-baked, an ad they will find thrilling and another they will regard as just OK.

Next time you look at a picture, take a few seconds to peek at the screen: its contents reveal more about the company you are about to purchase from than the rest of the ad.

Though I am thankful for many things, these are just a few technologies that I am very thankful this year:

Flickr - It’s where I put all my photos online these days. The set structure, the tagging, the multitude of communities and friends that I have on there, it’s a wonderful piece of tech that’s evolved into an integral part of my online life.

BaseCamp and BackPack is project management I just couldn’t live without. Whether it’s to start planning a wedding, or tracking some of my client projects, this stuff is brilliant and the guys at 37 Signals are just plain wizards.

SpamSieve & Mailsmith - Who here really likes Spam? No one. SpamSieve keeps me 99% spam-free and Mailsmith keeps track of some 30,000 emails over two years. Thanks much to Michael Tsai and Rich and the gang at BareBones for making some really awesome technology that work together so well.

NetNewsWire & RSS - How else am I supposed to read over 150 site, flickr groups and blogs? Seriously?

Technology is an expanding frontier, each year bringing more people in touch with one another. Between Flickr, IRC, email, blogs and RSS, the world is growing to be a smaller and smaller place. With communication comes dialogue and understanding, and those become the ties that bind. Those are what I am truly thankful for this season.

What software are you thankful for?

Laptops are never going to be cheap to repair, but if you’re someone who depends on one as your primary work machine (like me, John Gruber, Jon Hicks - although his plan has fallen apart rather suddenly - and plenty of other folks), you might like to keep note of some of the hardware hacks you can use in case of breakdown.

There’s a natural fear of opening up the case of a computer, particularly a laptop. Fear of “am I just going to make things worse?” Many repairs are not that difficult, but do require a methodical approach and a steady hand. The most attractive feature of home-grown repairs is the astonishing amount of money they can save you.

I particularly like the post by Gregory Dudek on Macintouch, which describes how the backlight bulb in his Powerbook went dead. Getting it replaced professionally would have cost a thousand dollars (might as well buy a new machine); but Gregory tracked down the replacement part on some Yahoo store for just five bucks.

Of course, the procedure for replacing the dead bulb was anything but simple, and his re-assembly lacked the professional finish; but the end result was a machine that worked, and a considerable cost saving. I’d say that was a success.

Do you fear the insides of your computer, or are you a fearless tinkerer? What’s the most complicated repair you’ve ever attempted?

Related link: https://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/23/2128219

There’s a new Ask Slashdot today with a subject dear to my heart: ‘Balancing Use Between Keyboard and Mouse?‘ in which the poster talks about a preference for hands staying on the keyboard. Of course, there are certain tasks when a mouse or other input device is easier, but for a lot of geeks, myself included, the keyboard is usually the way to go.

As a rabid Quicksilver user, I felt the need to post about it in that Ask Slashdot. You’ll find I mention it, oh, probably every other entry here or on my own site. ;) That may be because I seem to be using it every other minute, all the time. It’s that useful.

What’s most profound to me is its dual nature, combining the best of GUI and CLI, not to mention connecting the two worlds. Though arguably not alone among operating systems in this regard, Mac OS X sure does seem to have real power in both, and Quicksilver (among other utilities) help you to exploit that.

Another poster in that Slashdot story wrote that, while switching from Windows to Mac, they missed the ability for the keyboard to access pretty much every menu or widget. This is an area that I’ve found Linux apps often follow along in the Windows model. However, here’s what I wrote in reply:

Not *quite* the same thing, but if you go to the Keyboard & Mouse System Preference, then to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab, you’ll find at the bottom ‘Full Keyboard Access’ — change that to All Controls and you’ll be able to tab to most controls. In that same Preference tab you’ll find a metric crapload of navigation shortcuts for moving keyboard focus among windows, Dock, menus, etc.

Also, there are a ton of sometimes poorly documented Mac UI keyboard shortcuts that even long-time users don’t know about, but which will speed your usage tremendously. There are various places to learn about them — the Help menu in the Finder is a start, but also see https://www.macosxhints.com/ for the occasional gem.

Naturally, fine technical books are available by certain publishers that are great references as well. ;D

The point is that with the latest technologies built in to OS X, combined with various third-party utilities, as well as the Brave New World (for Macs at least) of the CLI, the GUI vs. CLI debate can be limited to — as the original inspiration for the Ask Slashdot was — a question of usability for a given application, rather than an OS debate.

What’s your take on this?

Hi. It appears that there’s more of you than there used to be. It would seem that lots of you have bought Macs because you’re fed up with Windows, or just because you bought an iPod and you thought it was cool, or a mixture of both.

I just wanted to give you a bit of advance warning about some things that might start happening to you now you’ve got your Mac.

Scenario 1: You’re enjoying a coffee somewhere, with your new Mac laptop open on the table in front of you. You’re just surfing randomly. But you notice, over the lid of your computer, some guy giving you a funny look. He’s … smirking in your direction.

It’s OK, you don’t need to worry. This guy isn’t some weirdo, he’s not hitting on you. He’s one of us. He’s another Mac user, and he’s looking at you because (a) he wants you to notice his Powerbook when he pulls it from his bag in a few seconds from now, and (b) he wants to come over and talk Mac stuff with you. He might want to find out what’s on your Dock, or maybe he wants to ask you for tips on launchers, or Getting Things Done, or if you have a favorite outliner, or how you solve The Email Client Problem.

If you’re in the mood for company, by all means engage him in conversation. But if you’re shy, or pressed for time, now is a good moment to avert your eyes. Look down at your own screen, and make a point of not ogling his 17″ Powerbook when it emerges from its protective pouch. He’ll get the hint.

Scenario 2: You’re giving a dinner party, and guests naturally seem to gather around the iMac G5 that is in charge of playing music for the evening. All of them are fascinated by iTunes; one guy keeps minimising windows to watch the Genie effect in action; his girlfriend has taken charge of the Apple Remote and keeps invoking Front Row, then making it disappear.

These people aren’t crazy, they’ve just not had a chance to play with a new Mac before. Put the oven on low to keep the food warm, and let them have a play. Just before you serve, give them a two-minute demo of Photo Booth - then insist that they eat before you let them play with it. If there’s any sign of disagreement, logout of your account with a quick Shift+Command+Q. Your guests will behave like lambs until after dessert. Now, login with a spare “Dinner Party” account and let them go crazy…

Scenario 3: After a particularly depressing and overlong meeting at work, you return to your desk to find your computer (not a Mac) crashed shortly after the meeting started. All attempts to bring it to life fail, and you end up having to bring in the tech support guys. They take your computer away, and you spend the rest of the day desperately trying to track down a spare machine from someone.

Finally, in desperation, you sneak into an empty meeting room and pull your personal iBook from a bag. You’d only brought it to work because you were heading off to see family for the weekend, and planned to show them some movies you’d made; but it’s with you now, and it’s the only chance you’ve got to get anything on your todo list done before the end of the day. You hear that familiar bootup chime, and a smile appears on your face. It feels odd using this machine - something you can rely on, something you depend on all the time at home - here at work, but as soon as you’re logged in you can dive into your work as never before. You spend the final hour of the day working like a demon, and head off for the weekend feeling like you’ve accomplished something.

Add your own scenarios…

Another day, another ethical breach by the music business.
 
Not only has Sony BMG put malicious malware on customer’s computers but the music business in general, of which Sony BMG is an aggressive part, but another record company, this time Warner Music, has reached a settlement with the Attorney General in New York regarding the modern version of payola. From the NY Times; Attorney General “Mr. Spitzer said that Warner executives had obtained play time for songs through “deceptive and illegal” practices, including making payoffs in the form of personal electronics and tickets to the Grammy Awards, the World Series and the Super Bowl”
 
This shows how willing companies like Sony and Warner are to violate the law and trample on the rights of consumers. Not only will they try to buy radio programming, but they try to crack our computers. We need to stand up to them, even though their software will probably not hurt Apple users. Indeed, it may turn out to be yet more evidence that the Apple platform is the safer platform – add corporate back-doors to the list of malware that Apple users don’t suffer.
 
While Sony BMG is now facing a class action suit, much of this could have been avoided if Sony had a strategy, particularly a strategy for the digital world. The mighty electronics giant came late to the computer game, they never saw how popular computers would be. They did not predict the digital music market either and as a response they are furiously trying to catch up. But you can’t catch up, software moves too quickly, simply look at the development of file sharing for an example; kill Napster and a hundred bittorrent sites bloom. If you are a corporation you have to develop strategic thinking to handle the digital world, you have to have an understanding of software. Sony just doesn’t get it.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong . . .

It’s official. Apple has declared Gold Master for Aperture and the first shipments should go out next week. Word has it that the shrinkwrap box will include a printed manual and tutorial DVD.

The first thing I’ll be reporting on is how well it performs on a PowerBook. I’ll use a 17″ 1.5 GHz model for testing. To tell you the truth, my biggest concern isn’t Aperture’s performance as much as it will be managing all of my Raw files on a skimpy 80GB drive. So I’ll be looking at alternatives such as iPods and other portable hard drives to store my data.

More soon…

Now, here’s something you don’t see everyday: Python (IronPython) being discussed and demonstrated on MSDN TV by Jim Hugunin (IronPython’s creator and now a Microsoft employee).

IronPython: Python on the .NET Framework

The show’s description on the MSDN TV web page is described as:

“IronPython” is an implementation of the Python language on the .NET Framework. Jim Hugunin introduces IronPython by showing interactive exploration and GUI building from a command prompt as well as simple embedding as a scripting language in an existing Windows Presentation Foundation application.

Jim shows how to both use and create .NET classes.
If you are interested in using Python in a Microsoft Windows environment, take a look at this video.

Python for Windows software development anyone?

The results are in for our informal comparison of four microphones. If you’d like, compare the mics for yourself before reading the rest of this as I’ll be telling you which mic is which and sharing the thoughts of the reviewers.

Many of the reviews came via email or IM from people I know. An interesting trend is that broadcasters tended to like Microphone B (which is a classic in their field) and musicians tended to like Microphone C. Not only that, but both groups tended not to like the other one. People who liked Microphone B described C as “tinny” and people who liked microphone C described B as noisy. For a studio mic I think I am still going to choose between B and C but the choice is difficult. Rematch below Oh, and yes Ron - I’ve been drinking a lot of coffee.

The Microphones (spoiler)

The mics were: (A) a Shure SM 57, (B) an ElectroVoice RE 27, (C) a Heil PR-40 and (D) a Heil PR-20.

These are all dynamic mics that were recorded into an MBox and into my G5 using Audio Hijack Pro with no processing (other than a pop-filter on the mics).

Microphone A - An old standard

The shows so far have been done with the Shure 57. It’s a great reliable mic and is famous for taking a beating. Here are some paraphrases of the comments we got on A “A nice all-around sound, although a bit flat.” “A is a bit flat but has less noise than D.” “More bass, pretty hot from two inches away.” “Distorted up close.” “Mic A at 2 inches sounded good. Deeper for some reason.” “A second choice, but it has a good proximity effect.” “Excellent noise rejection, quite a bit of bass effect with proximity effect.” “Thin and crispy at six inches, distortion and a huge proximity effect.” “Middle of the road at six inches and boomy without much clarity at three inches.”

By the way - my boss and my wife liked A the best.

Microphone B - Broadcaster’s Favorite

The person who initially recommended I try B gave some of the most interesting feedback on it. “The ambient noise rejection was bad. It will probably be too much trouble even if you take steps to reduce computer noise.” Online feedback added, “A lot more background being picked up, including a slight hum.” Another identified “some noticeable vibration. I’d go with B if you can determine what the vibration is at the first part of the loop.” “B is the clear loser of the bunch.” The RE 27, like all mics in this test, was on the same surface as my G5 and not in a shock mount. It may have been picking up vibrations that way.

So the negatives tended to focus on the hum, the noise, and the bass. The positives were “more treble and midrange, good overall.” “Sounds good at close range.” “B is pretty good all the way around.” “Boomy, full bodied feel, but that may not be the best choice for everyone’s voice.” “B has more bass response than C, which is good, but more ambient noise.” “Mic B, no question. I like the extra bass a lot. At 3 inches, it’s NPR city.” “Best mic at six inches by far.”

A guy I used to work with in radio wrote “B sounds clean and crisp and there was only a slight difference in the dynamics from a distance and close-up.”

Microphone C - Musicians’ Favorite

The Heil PR-40 is clearly marketed as an alternative to the RE 20 and the RE 27. The positive feedback we got for this microphone could go in a press release. The negatives were that it sounded thin or tinny. “Weakest one so far and a bit up on the treble side. Sounds better and rounder at 2″.”C is too treble sounding. You can hear the breath hitting the mic too.”

“Mic C, 6 inches: Very clear and precise; I felt like I heard all that was there to be heard. Great sound, but better be a controlled environment.
Mic C, 3 inches: Yeah, lovely sound here. I even heard what sounded like your chair squeak as you moved away from the mic at the end.” “Mic C seems to have good clarity at 6 inches and still gives a nice rich tone up close. It should perform well in a variety of situations.” “C is the winner — richer sound, less noise, clear.” “C seems best of the four with a little distance. It seems to have a broader spectrum than the others. There is also a
slight noise canceling component in C. It was not as clean up close and I
actually heard a little clipping.” “Excellent noise rejection, slight and pleasant proximity effect, prone to picking up p-popping.”

My sister wrote “I like mic C best–at both 6″ and 2-3″. Your voice sounded clearest with this one, and I heard the least background noise.”

Microphone D - A stage mic

The Heil PR-20 worked much better when worked close than far away. “At 6″ the sound was a bit tinny but with some of the lows accented as well. At 2″ the sound becomes rounder and sounds better. ” “Another middle-of-the-road for me. A little less clarity, and a little fuzzier, although still not as boomy as Mic A. There was slight improvement closer on this one. As an alternate for field work, I’d look at D, and keep it close (or post-process it more).” “Less bass. a little poppy 2″ away.” ” D was a bit thin at 6″ but fattened up nicely up close. ” “D has a richer sound than A but lets more background noise in.” “D is very flat sounding, but is the cleanest sounding (no hiss).” “D felt like it had more background noise than the others” “D: A little tinny at 6″; pleasant at 3″ (probably more proximity
effect than any other).” “I like B overall. But D has a solid clean sound close in.”

The results

The favorites were clearly bimodal. Most people liked the RE 27 or the PR 40. Many of the respondents didn’t even comment on the other mics. Many identified that the decision was clearly between those two while others who championed one of them despised the other. I still find myself on the fence. I like the way I sound better in the RE 27 and yet there is the issue of noise.

REMATCH ADDED To address the noise issue, I moved the microphones ten feet away from the G5 and ran them through the Aphex 230 with a little compression and some gating. Here is a rematch for the

• Heil Pro PR-40, and the
• Electro Voice RE 27

So, did you change your mind?

Related link: https://barebones.com/products/mailsmith/

For a long time, like most users, I have been waiting for the perfect e-mail client. I played with Mail, Thunderbird, Mailsmith and a couple others that shall remain nameless. Of course, that perfect client never arrived and, like everyone, I was forced to curse at my application on a regular basis, no matter what that application was or how much AppleScripting I was willing to perform to add the few features I was the only one on this planet to deem essential.

Yesterday however came the time to take the plunge and invest in a second e-mail client. Why a second might you ask? Because I wanted to keep personal and professional matters strictly separate and thought this was the only true way.

After many months of looking applications up, I had finally declared Mailsmith the best runner-up client, tied in with Mail.app, for very different reasons. So today, I finally downloaded Mailsmith and paid my license fee, silently hoping I was not purchasing an end-of-lifed application — we shall see but I have a bad feeling about that one.

While setting the preferences, I couldn’t help but think at the price tag that so many users find unjustified, especially for a client that does not do IMAP. Well, after checking and unchecking boxes for a good 10 minutes, I now fully understand where that comes from: Mailsmith is, by far, the only e-mail application I know that thinks of a user’s both online and offline workflow. How much work that must have required I can’t imagine.

Want to print and bind your mails, as so many offices still do (yuck!)? Well, you can setup a special “binder” margin. You like to read your e-mails in ProFont but know your boss insists on the Company Font whenever you print them? That can be arranged as well. You yearn to watermark your mails with a custom header? Easy as pie. Plus, Mailsmith integrates beautifully with Address Book and other Apple niceties.

Mailsmith is not perfect but neither is any other e-mail client. It lacks some features that now make Mail.app very powerful such as Spotlight search — which, considering it already has its own searching system, I entirely understand but will without doubt discourage some users. It could use a few optional visual effects, just for Aqua’s sake and it could use, without a single doubt, some IMAP goodiness.

All these little faults however do not prevent Mailsmith from being one of the best clients I have met so far. I’m just crossing my fingers, hoping BareBones thinks the same! There is plenty of life left in Mailsmith, that’s for sure.

[Update 2006-02-24] I have posted some more in-depth thoughts on the topic on the Soup, for those of you who inquired.

The Microsoft Office 12 Technical Beta released last week includes at least one cool goodie for Windows Mobile Smartphone users: OneNote Mobile. One of its many cool features: Take a photo with your Smartphone’s camera and have text in the photo turned into searchable text on the desktop using OCR technology. Check out Chris Pratley’s (a OneNote designer at Microsoft) blog for the details.

Out and About with OneNote Mobile

If you are not familiar with OneNote, you can find out more about it on its Microsoft information site at:

Microsoft OneNote Online

Have some mobile wireless related Office 12 tips? Let us know here.

Ok, so every once in a while, we (as in you and me) get these funny mail messages that just don’t seem quite right…and then it dawns on us — hey, this must be another one of those Windows viruses/worms/covert operations going around again.

I’ve pasted in a screen shot below of the latest one I just received. After trying to Google search for some context, I didn’t get anything back, so maybe I’m privileged enough one of the first unsuccessful targets?

And just in case you’re wondering, after copying the attachment to a safe location and unzipping it, the Windows executable “File-packed_dataInfo.exe” was revealed. Hmm. I don’t remember e-mailing that to anyone recently.

I’m curious as to what investigative process you use whenever you get junk like this. (As if the token “zip” extension isn’t enough to give it away.)

Have you or anyone you know ever fallen victim to one of these things?

How much longer before the first big Mac-based outbreak?

Anyone with the need to write daily notes should take a serious look at Journler.

The name suggests its use is restricted to writing a journal, but it offers much more than that. Written by Philip Dow to meet his own needs, Journler uses every Cocoa trick in the book to bring you additional features and clever ways of organizing your data.

First off, yes, you can use it just to write a journal. Your journal can include styled text, images, audio you record directly into Journler, and links to almost any kind of file you like. Journler includes browser controls for accessing your iPhoto, iTunes and Address Book databases. Wow, this is the kind of clever stuff you expect in commerical apps like Pages, not in freeware.

There’s more. Tabs (keep multiple journal entries open at once), tags (called keywords, but it’s the same thing), smart folders (called Collections, but works just like smart Finder or Mail folders), smooth integration with weblog services Blogger and LiveJournal, a normal or brushed metal window style toggle, and built-in encryption. Even a plug-ins API.

Everything is doable with keyboard shortcuts, of course. Phil even included a “Go to random entry” command. He really has thought of everything. If you’ve been looking for a note-taking application for keeping a personal diary, or for jotting down everything you do during the working day, or just something to manage your weblog with, I’d recommend you give Journler a try.

Comment on this weblog

Related link: https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/8525

Back in the day (say, five years ago), tech pundits would posit every other day that to really cut the cord with Microsoft, Apple needed to provide its own alternative to the Office suite. Now, in the Amazing Future, we find that this process has already begun.

People are daring to dream bigger, though. With the advent of OpenOffice.org, often trumpeted as an Office-killer, not to mention the resurgence of Apple as a brand and Mac as a platform, we are beginning to see a new message emerge out here in punditland: maybe it’s not enough to just cut the cord. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to go on the attack.

While I enjoy the imagery of black-turtleneck-wearing commandos, looking like silhouettes in iPod ads, descending on Redmond as liberators, somehow I can’t believe that’s going to happen.

As for the other side of that vision, I don’t think Apple as a company particularly needs OpenOffice.org. They already have re-done versions of two of the big three Office apps: Pages, the word processor, and Keynote, the presentation app. Throw together a spreadsheet and get Mail and iCal updated to modern standards (not to mention doubleplusgood Exchange support), and your office suite is already there. Which isn’t to say that Pages, for example, has all of Word’s capabilities yet. Some might look on that as a good thing. ;) But it’s a start.

But here’s what I think is the real core issue here: Apple as a company might not need OO.o, but Mac as a platform sure does. Like biodiversity in an ecosystem, software diversity in an operating system is both a measure of its health and a much nicer place to live in. It can go way beyond competition being a good thing — cooperation can be a good thing, too, not to mention cohabitation.

And who knows — as Macintosh resurges, a certain company in Redmond might just come knocking on the door in Cupertino again, instead of the other way around.

So what do you think? Should Apple cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war? Or is it enough to keep the diversity coming?

I’ve been carrying my billfold in my front left pocket for years. No need to get into the details here, other than I worry less about it being swiped on crowded city sidewalks, and I don’t particularly like sitting on a lump in my back pocket.

Marware has released what I consider to be one of the coolest nano cases for us front pocket wallet guys. They call it the CEO Billfold Wallet for iPod nano. Your nano actually fits in the wallet, always ready for a listen.

The Marware CEO nano wallet keeps your iPod handy at all times.

For $35 US, the nano wallet seems reasonably priced and looks well constructed. I have one on the way for testing and will follow up in the talkbacks below once I receive it. In the meantime, just remember not to leave this Marware nano case on the front seat of your car plugged into the cassette adapter… you’ll lose much more than your iPod.

Microsoft released ActiveSync 4.1 for Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone Edition, and Smartphone. If you have a WM5 device, get it now! If you have an older device, stay with ActiveSync 3.8. Here’s a couple of additional tips and hints…

• You can read more about ActiveSync 4.1 and download it from:
  Microsoft ActiveSync 4.1
  
• If you have a Pocket PC or Smartphone running an older version of Windows Mobile, stay with ActiveSync 3.8.
  There aren’t any enhancements or fixes in 4.1 for those devices.
  And, you actually lose the ability to sync over a network (wired or WiFi).
  
• If you use the free version of Zone Labs Zone Alarm,
  you will need to make a configuration change to have it allow ActiveSync 4.1 to work.
  Here’s how you do this.
  Try to sync a Windows Mobile 5 device with Zone Alarm left on.
  Note the IP address is the Zone Alarm pop-up warning mini-window.
  Place this address in Zone Alarm’s Firewall/Zones Trusted list.
  Disconnect your device from the cable (did I mention ActiveSync 4.1 no longer allows manual software disconnection? :-(), then reconnect to re-attempt the sync.
  It should work from now on.
  
• If your Pocket PC or Pocket PC Phone Edition does not connect on a second attempt, turn off the screen before attempting to reconnect it for an ActiveSync 4.1 session.
  
• Tech geek trivia: ActiveSync 4.0 was never available as a standalone download although it was shipped with the first round of Windows Mobile 5 devices and the Windows Mobile 5 SDK.
  

Got some ActiveSync 4.1 tips? Share them here!

I’m auditioning four mics for our podcast Distributing the Future. I’ve uploaded four mp3’s and would love your opinion on the mics.

I’m looking for a mic to use in the studio and a mic to use in the field. What do you hear in these microphones that you do or do not like. There is no processing here so you will hear more room noise than you would in a finished piece of audio and I haven’t put any compression or equalizer on this.

I’ll post what each mic is in a couple of days but would like you to evaluate these without knowing what is what. These are all dynamic mics. Please provide your thoughts on the mics both from six inches and from three inches. Of course if you feel the need to post your thoughts on my voice or my read I can’t stop you, but this time I’m really interested in your thoughts on the mics.

• microphone A
• microphone B
• microphone C
• microphone D

The files are each around 500K and run thirty seconds.

What do you think?

Related link: https://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/11/laser_etched_powerbook.html

You know, if you’re going to etch the shell of your PowerBook with a $20,000 laser cutter, this particular choice seems mighty fine to me. And it likely would have been my first choice given the motif (although a Snoopy WWI Flying Ace to match my tattoo might have been better).

Sadly, I can foresee laser-etched tarsier vs laser-etched gnu flamewars in the future. ;D

(via BB)

How about you? What would you etch into your laptop?

Related link: https://mojo.skazat.com

If you’re having a hard time figuring out which $20 to $40 case makes sense for your iPod nano, take a look at business card cases as a nano case until something custom made strikes your fancy (and wallet).

I found this Swiss Army leather (or at least leather-like) case that fits the nano perfectly at a local Office Depot store for $10. I stuck a few business cards in the pocket in front of the pocket holding the nano to provide a bit of extra stiffening and screen protection. It has been working well for me for the past couple of weeks.

Any other inexpensive nano tips?

Well, I think I’ve heard rumors covering pretty much every eventuality for the release of the first Intel Macs now. The first rumor said it would be the desktop consumer line - specifically, Mac minis - that would go Intel first.

Then it swapped around, suggesting that the aging Powerbook range would be pepped up first, in an effort to keep Powerbook customers happy, and to reward them for waiting so long with their G4-powered laptops.

Now it’s swapped back to consumer again, with Think Secret’s report that the iBook will be first in line.

Frankly, I don’t know what to believe (although I’m more inclined to believe Think Secret than most) and I shall wait until I hear the real announcement direct from Apple.

But whatever machine it is, I’m inclined to believe the rush of rumors saying that the Intel machines will be with us sooner than we expected.

Which in turn makes me wonder - have we already seen the last PowerPC Mac?

I’m thinking of the Power Mac Quad G5, reviewed very positively in this Computerworld article, which describes something sounding like the one featured in the famous “The World’s Fastest Computer” advertising campaign - the campaign that got pulled.

The reviewer writes:

I witnessed Final Cut Pro effects applied in real-time to eight video streams, and performance was barely affected.

Well, sure, but it’s a four-processor machine. It sure ought to be fast.

And I suspect it might well be the pinnacle of PowerPC Mac architecture. There’s quite likely to be newer versions, speed bumps and minor additional features, but if the Intel machines are as close as the rumours suggest, then the sleek silver sides of the Power Mac Quad G5 could well be the last we see of PowerPC.

Shall we plan a wake?

Related link: https://lists.apple.com/archives/QuickTime-java/2005/Nov/msg00036.html

Back when I wrote QuickTime for Java: A Developer’s Notebook, it was assumed that media capture was broken in QTJ. This dates back to a huge disruptive change from Carbon to Cocoa between Apple’s java 1.3 and 1.4 implementations, with Cocoa not supporting some stuff that QTJ relied on. When they got QTJ running with java 1.4, they did so with a scaled-down API that didn’t feature everything from the old version (for details, see this blog on the breakage and this article on the resolution). One of the things left out was a means of getting an on-screen preview of your video capture device.

Because of this, a lot of people assumed that all capture was broken. But most of the capture stuff was written QuickTime API’s that were straight C and not related to Carbon or Cocoa (after all, they got ported to Windows!). I was able to show this in the book, with sections on capturing and previewing audio, saving it to disk, capturing and saving video to disk, and capturing and saving audio and video and saving them into the same file. Plenty of functionality there.

Still, it bugged me that Apple didn’t satisfy the very obvious need for an onscreen preview component. In the book, I tried to fake it with a very slow means of grabbing Picts from the SequenceGrabber and converting those into Java images. It works, but the frame rate was awful, and I closed the chapter with:

I didn’t split that out as its own lab because the performance is pathologically bad (one frame per second — at best), and because it’s an awkward workaround in lieu of a better way of getting a component from a SequenceGrabber. Presumably, someday there will be a proper call to get a QTComponent from a SequenceGrabber — maybe another overload of QTFactory.makeQTComponent( ) — and kludgery like this won’t be necessary.

Good news - this is officially not necessary anymore. There’s a better way.

The story starts with an Apple demo called QDCocoaComponent, which unassumingly bills itself as “shows how to use the Quicktime Sequence Grabber and com.apple.eawt.CocoaComponent to display video in a QuickDraw port (Sub class of NSQuickDrawView) in a Java canvas running on Mac OS X.” Since this draws the camera output into a Java space, this got some people thinking that it might be a means of solving our need for a video capture preview component, provided that it could work with QTJ’s SequenceGrabber (Apple’s sample creates the SequenceGrabber in native code and doesn’t actually involve QTJ).

But the magic here isn’t necessarily the use of a QDCocoaComponent; it’s the use of a “data proc”, which in the native API is a sort of callback that you can register for whenever the grabber gets some data.

Jochen Broz, on the quicktime-java list used that to put the key pieces together. In his message Example for using Sequence Grabbers DataProc to display video in java he sets up the QTJ equivalent, an SGDataProc to get the callbacks

OK, so he’s getting called back. Now what? Here’s the slick part - he manages to get the bytes on the screen entirely with Java. Key to the trick is the fact that the capture device is (or assumed to be) running in 32-bit RGB, a perfectly reasonable color-space for both QuickDraw and Java2D. Here’s the code that figures out a suitably large transfer buffer and creates a Java2D image. Notice how the buffer array gets wrapped by the DataBuffer, and how the WriteableRaster arguments that mask off the red, green, and blue bits in each int:

// Setting up the buffered image
int size = gWorld.getPixMap().getPixelData().getSize();
int intsPerRow =
    gWorld.getPixMap().getPixelData().getRowBytes()/4;
size = intsPerRow*cameraImageSize.getHeight();
final int[] pixelData = new int[size];
DataBuffer db = new DataBufferInt(pixelData, size);
ColorModel colorModel =
    new DirectColorModel(32, 0x00ff0000, 0x0000ff00, 0x000000ff);
int[] masks= {0x00ff0000, 0x0000ff00, 0x000000ff};
WritableRaster raster =
    Raster.createPackedRaster(db,
        cameraImageSize.getWidth(),
        cameraImageSize.getHeight(),
        intsPerRow, masks, null);
final BufferedImage image =
    new BufferedImage(colorModel, raster, false, null);

Then he defines a Java AWT Component whose only job in life is to drawImage the image on every call to paint().

Now, remember what I said about setting up a “transfer buffer”? His callback execute() method looks to see if it’s getting called with video data (it would also get calls for every audio capture timeslice), and if so, it decompresses the frame into a GWorld (actually called a QDGraphics, but everyone in the know casually refers to them by their native name). He then gets to copy the pixels from the GWorld right into the Java2D BufferedImage’s buffer - and array copies, while they do move a lot of data, are native and generally heavily optimized calls.

Then he just has a tight loop that idle()s the SequenceGrabber (i.e., manually gives it time to run), which will call back to the SGDataProc, which will decompress the image, copy bytes, and repaint.

And here’s the result:

So how’s the performance? Granted, it pegs the CPU, and the transition from QuickDraw to Java2D is something you’d want not to do if possible. Still, the println’s I threw in show it’s not bad, once you pardon the startup lurches:

[chrisg5:~/dev/qtjtests/dataproc-sg] cadamson% java DataProcTest2
1 frames/sec
1 frames/sec
33 frames/sec
31 frames/sec
31 frames/sec

I got equivalent results running with the new J2SE 5.0 release 3, by the way.

One other note: in the book, I suggested using a Matrix with your video captures to impose a mirror image effect. iChat does this with its preview window, presumably because it’s more natural to see yourself in a mirror image than to see yourself as the camera does. To do that, add the following lines right after the cameraImageSize is defined:

final Matrix mirrorMatrix = new Matrix();
mirrorMatrix.setSx (-1.0f);
mirrorMatrix.setTx (cameraImageSize.getWidthF());

This creates a Matrix which scales pixels into negative space, effectively flipping them right-to-left, then moves them back to positive coordinates. Replace the idMatrix in the frame-decompressing DSequence’s constructor with this mirrorMatrix to get the effect.

In conclusion, my deep thanks to Jochen — this is a big problem that we’ve been waiting a long time for someone to solve. There’s more that can be done with this approach, not the least of which would be to roll it into a general-purpose, easy-to-use component. Jochen’s code is copyrighted and doesn’t specify a license, so you’ll want to ask him first.

What do you think of this all-Java/QTJ appoach?

If you’ve pulled down the latest J2SE 5.0 Release 3 via Software Update on Mac OS X Tiger, execute the following command in the Terminal:

$ lipo -info /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5.0/Commands/java

If you do this you’ll see the following output:

Architectures in the fat file: /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5.0/Commands/java are: i386 ppc

A bit of translation: Apple’s latest update to Java is a Universal Binary. Interesting, no?

Xcode is, I think, one of the unsung heroes of the Mac OS X era. Apple’s smart decision to invest in developer tools - and to make them available for free - has been one of the factors that really jump-started the small and independent developer scene on Mac OS X.

Central to this package of tools is Xcode, Apple’s Integrated Developer Environment. The first IDE that Apple delivered in the early days was Project Builder and it was good for what it was at the time. Over the past few years, Project Builder became Xcode and Xcode has really gone from strength to strength. The Developer Tools package seems to be set apart from the normal cycle of software enhancements, in that the team seem able to deliver new features as and when they’re ready rather than to meet the demands of a predetermined announcement schedule.

I use Xcode a lot, and I really do like it. People do tend to complain a bit about its compilation performance, and that would be my biggest grumble too, but I enjoy seeing the enhancements that are delivered with each successive version.

That Famous Checkbox

One place in which Xcode got a lot of exposure recently was during Steve Jobs’ WWDC keynote in which he announced the Intel transition. Heavy emphasis was placed on the fact that, if you’re using Xcode, you’re a long way along the road to being Intel-compatible.

Having spent the past week or so building all my projects as Universal Binaries, I can attest that it really is (almost) as easy as popping down that little sheet and clicking the “Intel” checkbox. The Xcode team have done a great job in smoothing the path to Intel for developers.

My one-item wish-list

If there’s one thing I could have in my Xcode life, it would be this. Xcode has a feature called Code Sense - this maintains an index of all the symbols in your project and enables a very smart kind of autocomplete in the Xcode editor. However, there are features of other editors that I sometimes prefer - TextMate’s code folding feature, for example. If Apple were to define a method by which other editors could hook into the Code Sense index and use it for autocompletion in their own documents, I would be in programming nirvana. As it stands, however, I’m happy for now with Xcode’s own editor.

So, to Apple and their Developer Tools team - thank you for a great product and for all your efforts in supporting it, enhancing it and for making the life of this developer a happier one with each release.

Are you an Xcode fan?

Related link: store.apple.com

In another month or so I’m headed back to graduate school to pursue a Master’s in the Philosophy of Technology from Virginia Tech, so I’m thinking, well, maybe this is the time for some new computing gear? Sure, I’ll still have my server-minis, but I’d really like a solid machine that can really handle Aperture. I’ve pretty much decided on a 20″ iMac G5 to handle all my needs in this department, but then I thought, well, I type faster than I can hand write notes, perhaps it’s time for a new laptop!

At first, I was thinking 12″ or 15″ PowerBook G4, as it would be nice to have some serious hardware in the field as well, and the new high resolution screen on the 15″ is particularly crisp and is similar to what I’m using now, but boy are those prices daunting for someone who’s about to become a student again.

So I was leaning toward the 12″ PowerBook, when one of the older models was handed to me by a coworker who had, shall we say, not properly cared for her laptop. Boy. Those things will take a beating, but the case wear is enough to cause me to cringe a bit! After 18 months in the field, her case was well-dinged and the finish was coming off on the top case below the keyboard, causing me to reconsider.

I figured, well, sure, the iBooks are cheap and have lengthy battery lives, maybe that would be a good choice. I had my heart set on a 12″ iBook and a 20″ iMac and perhaps a display to use the iBook with later. Well, I was set until this morning, when Think Secret started talking about Intel iBooks for Macworld San Francisco. Crap. Now what the hell do I do?

Do I buy the powerbook and hope it holds up? Wait for a new iBook that may not natively run all the apps I need? Wait for a magic new PowerBook Intel machine that may come out next year? I hate buying gear before Steve gets his Keynote on in San Francisco.

are you considering a Mac laptop purchase?

In the interests of simplifying my life (and partly as an effort to Get more Things Done), I’ve been giving some thought to the way my computer works and the way I set it up. What’s the simplest setup I could use?

Yesterday I had a chance to find out. Having experimented with Ubuntu Linux on my G3 iBook for a couple of months, I decided the time had come to put OS X back on it. I picked Panther, just to see if 10.3.9 would be faster and more reliable on this old (600MHz) machine than Tiger (some people have suggested this might be the case, in their experience).

So with my shiny fresh Panther install, rather than going through my usual list of must-installs and must-downloads, I paused and considered: how many of these extras do I really need? What could I get away with leaving out? To what degree could I get by with the tools provided by a plain fresh install?

There were some things I had to get on the computer: Camino, natch, and Quicksilver, Tweak Freak, QuickImageCM, and TextForge. But that’s where I stopped; I’m going to wait and see how well I can get by on this machine without clogging it up with unnecessary junk.

What’s the least you could get away with on a fresh, clean Mac

Cingular announced the MEdia Net Live Ticker service that pushes breaking news, weather and sports information to the phone’s display.

Press Release: Cingular’s MEdia Net Simplifies the Wireless Internet Experience by Providing Breakthrough Levels of Personalization for More Than 30 Million Customers and Introduces MEdia Net Live Ticke

The press release says
MEdia Net Live Ticker provides zero-click access to specific personalized headlines and content. Information rolling across the “ticker” at the bottom of the phone display is updated automatically several times daily to keep consumers current with their favorite news, weather, sports and entertainment content; all without pressing a button. MEdia Net Live Ticker updates in the background when the phone is idle and does not disrupt the phone’s normal usage.

Reuters/CNET: Cingular revamps wireless Net services

I have a news push service on my MSN Direct SPOT watch…

MSN Direct (SPOT Watch)

…and find it very useful (useful enough to pay a yearly fee for the service).

If you don’t already have a data plan for your phone, does a service like this interest you enough to add one?

I’ve raved about the wonders of the Camino browser many times before, but one comment I’ve heard from many people is that while they love its Cocoa simplicity and stability, they wish they could tweak just a few more settings to get a few more of the extras they can get on Camino’s cousin, Firefox.

This is where a set of free add-ons called CamiTools comes in handy.

The tools are a series of prefpanes that are added to ~/Library/Application Support/Camino/PreferencePanes, so that they show up the next time you open Camino’s preferences panel. They each do something different.

Some of the extras include a Flash blocker, an images blocker, a toolbar search editor, and an appearance changer (Aqua, Unified or (ugh) Brushed Metal). CamiOptions lets you control use of icons in your bookmarks, change the way Camino identifies itself to web sites (agent spoofing), among other things.

The only downside with using the CamiTools collection is that if you want to make use of all of them, you have a series of six files to download and install separately. Although to be honest, it’s not much more hassle than installing six Firefox extensions or Greasemonkey scripts.

So if Camino appeals to you, but Firefox’s tweakability appeals more, CamiTools might be just the thing to help you make a fairer side-by-side comparison.

Comment on this weblog

I just saw a note on the David Farber mailing list where Dave mentioned that his Mac OS X mail client crashed, and as a result, he lost a month’s worth of messages. I was a little surprised to see that because my impression of Mail.app was that its database was relatively stable and able to withstand loss due to crashing.

One of the reasons that I switched from Entourage to Mail.app was to prevent this very occurrence. I have a combination of IMAP and POP accounts, feeling a little more secure with IMAP because the server stores my mail (in addition to the copies I keep on my PowerBook and backup weekly).

Since I don’t have any details about David Farber’s crash, I thought I’d broach the subject within our community to see if this type of data loss is more widespread than I had realized.

What’s your experience?

Related link: https://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/Sony-BMG/?f=open-letter-2005-11-14.html

I am surprised at the lack of outrage here on the O’Reilly blogs, and on the internet in general. The Sony XCP fiasco is starting to coalesce into a prefect storm, receiving mainstream media coverage and now an open letter from the EFF demanding compensation and public apology, but here it seems like business as usual. That surprises me a bit since many Free Software and Open Source people are politically aware.

I would think the corporate root-kit would incense people who work with computers. Perhaps we have become complacent in the face of all the attacks we face on our infrastructure already and a corporate root-kit is not much of a shock. But to me it is shocking, and frightening.

There was some discussion a while back about the fact the many virii and worms were merely “proof of concept” software and the payload that they potentially might deliver would be devastating. While this Sony thing is not devastating in and of itself, it shows the mindset of large coporations; they are willing to commit acts of near sabotage to protect their perceived markets. It lends credence to the notion that corporations and rogue nations are actively involved in the propagation of malware.

I think we all need to do more to preserve our rights, it seems like they are under attack more today than in a long while.

Thanks for your reply.

Have you encountered any applications that ‘talk back’ to you while you’re using them? Let me give you an example of what I mean.

Sometimes you update an application and you don’t really notice any changes. That’s fine - things have probably changed under the hood, where you can’t see them.

But sometimes you update an application and a change leaps out at you. Sometimes, that change is so well done, so welcome, and so darned unexpected that it brings a smile to your face and makes you want to jump around the room.

My favorite P2P filesharing application, Acquisition made one such change a few months ago.

Now, when you start typing a search query into Acquisition, it instantly gives you a drop-down list of suggestions to help you narrow down your search, and finish typing it sooner, much like Google Suggest. Here’s what I mean:

It’s such a simple little addition, from the user’s point of view (I don’t pretend to know how much work went into coding such a feature, nor would I want to hazard a guess), but it makes the world of difference. Especially when you’re typing in a search string and you’re not even sure how it should be spelt. Simply for getting things done a little quicker, it’s very useful.

Acquisition is helping me out by anticipating what I want to do. The software is second-guessing my next move and trying to help by offering me a way to do it faster. Is this something that’s catching on in interface design? Do you like the idea, or would you rather have software that shuts up and lets you make up your own mind?

Tell me about other apps that talk back

Related link: https://blog.socklabs.com/2005/11/13/feedster-desktop-widget/

If you are a fan of Feedster, check out the new desktop widget for Apple’s Dashboard. When you launch it it shows Feedster’s latest corporate blog entries, but more importantly it has a field to quick search the Feedster index. Big shout out to Feedster’s Nick Gerakines who developed it.

You can download it here or read more here.

In the interest of full disclosure, I would like to point out that I recently joined Feedster as Community Liaison.

Related link: https://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/8231

Last month, Tom Adelstein over on sister site LinuxDevCenter asked the question Why do people switch to Linux? The results of a survey of readers on lxer.com were presented responding to that question, and the results were rather surprising, particularly how little anti-Microsoft feelings had to do with the decision, relative to other factors.

The Mac platform from its inception has been the alternative computing experience — its very first commercial, quite famous nowadays, set it against the then-omnipotent IBM. Since then, its struggles with Microsoft have been legendary. And despite it being a corporation itself, some of its users are rather notorious for being, shall we say, passionate about their computers, a fact that leaves others at the least nonplussed, if not fully turned off.

Things have a way of changing, naturally, and nowadays we have reports of over a million new Macintosh users, hooked in by the so-called iPod Halo Effect. Even before that, however, with the advent of Mac OS X, many technical users who had been pining for a friendly face on Unix found one, finally getting the best of both worlds.

I think setting up Mac versus Linux is missing the point, despite the competitive hooting and chest-pounding that both sets of fanboys like to do at each other. They have a common enemy, as it were, and while competition is a good thing, it shouldn’t obscure the greater picture. In fact, I’d venture to say that it is the belief in competition that prevents one from buying into more, shall we say, monopolistic entities.

Speaking only for myself, I choose a Mac, Linux, or BSD for their stability, security, and power, as well as their ultimate suitability for the kind of work that I do…but also because of how I answer the inverted question: how could I not?

What about you?

How about it? Why do you think different(ly)?

Last month, Tom Adelstein over on sister site LinuxDevCenter asked the question Why do people switch to Linux? The results of a survey of readers on lxer.com were presented responding to that question, and the results were rather surprising, particularly how little anti-Microsoft feelings had to do with the decision, relative to other factors.

The Mac platform from its inception has been the alternative computing experience — its very first commercial, quite famous nowadays, set it against the then-omnipotent IBM. Since then, its struggles with Microsoft have been legendary. And despite it being a corporation itself, some of its users are rather notorious for being, shall we say, passionate about their computers, a fact that leaves others at the least nonplussed, if not fully turned off.

Things have a way of changing, naturally, and nowadays we have reports of over a million new Macintosh users, hooked in by the so-called iPod Halo Effect. Even before that, however, with the advent of Mac OS X, many technical users who had been pining for a friendly face on Unix found one, finally getting the best of both worlds.

I think setting up Mac versus Linux is missing the point, despite the competitive hooting and chest-pounding that both sets of fanboys like to do at each other. They have a common enemy, as it were, and while competition is a good thing, it shouldn’t obscure the greater picture. In fact, I’d venture to say that it is the belief in competition that prevents one from buying into more, shall we say, monopolistic entities.

Speaking only for myself, I choose a Mac, Linux, or BSD for their stability, security, and power, as well as their ultimate suitability for the kind of work that I do…but also because of how I answer the inverted question: how could I not?

What about you?

Related link: https://nintendowifi.com/

Nintendo launched their wireless LAN gaming information site recently. You can find it at:

NintendoWiFi.com

The site has a locator for free hotspots (nearly every McDonalds in my area it seems), WiFi connection tips for both home and hotspots, troubleshooting tips, and information about DS games that are WiFi enabled.

Several Sony PSP games were WiFi ready from the start.
I wonder if promotion of free WiFi access with McDonalds, lower entry cost for the DS (not to mention higher sales), and younger clientele (grade school, pre-teen, teens) will generate more excitement for DS WiFi than I see for PSP WiFi (no partnered free hotspots that I know of).

What’s next for the wireless DS space?

I’ve enjoyed reading the glowing reviews of the Sonic Impact Class T Amp that generates 10 watts per channel from eight alkaline batteries. You can connect your iPod plus a couple of external speakers to the palm-sized device and have a powerful stereo system that fits just about anywhere… and for cheap! I bought mine for $30 at Amazon.

I haven’t been disappointed with the Sonic’s sound. It produces clear, full-bodied output that’s a perfect complement to your iPod. Connect your music using the included stereo mini plug cord, attach the speakers, and you’re ready to rock.

There are a few minor gotchas, as you would expect from a $30 amp. The batteries are difficult to insert, and the jacks for the traditional speaker wires could be better. I’ve gone into more detail about these and other aspects in my review on TDS. But I have to say, for a $30 investment (plus digging up a couple of two-way speakers out of the closet), you have a heck of a good stereo system for you iPod.

Think you’ve got the neurological chops to stand up to the rigors of an MIT education? Ever wanted to find out what’s so great about going to MIT in the first place? Perhaps, you just want to get one of the best educations possible without paying a single dime? Well, now you’re in luck, thanks to MIT’s willingness to embrace the ideologies of the open source community in their classrooms.

In 1999, the seeds of openness were planted by, then MIT Provost, Robert A. Brown. This initiative would eventually grow into what is now a collection of teaching materials (including syllabi, lecture slides, course notes, quizzes, exams, and in some cases, even recorded lectures) for roughly 1,100 MIT courses freely available online for access by students, teachers, and self learners. This collection of MIT’s collective knowledge is known as OpenCourseWare.

The reason I am bringing up this website and all its amazing possibilities in my blog is due to the fact that alongside of offering class materials in the humanities, business, and biology (to name just a few) this website also offers some really great material in the area of computer science. In particular, there is one class I would like to point out to anyone who has ever had the desire to learn programming at MIT, or to anyone who just has a general interest in learning how to program in LISP. That class, in MIT’s extremely strange numbering scheme (there’s some foreshadowing for ya), is known as 6.001 or “Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs”. In this class you’ll learn how to program using a dialect of LISP known as Scheme (see I told you that was foreshadowing).

Ok, so you’ve checked out the OpenCourseWare website that I linked above and found all kinds of great classes you want to check out, right? Well, if not, then what are you waiting for? This is MIT people! The wealth of knowledge that is being granted to you is nothing less than absolutely amazing. Nevertheless, before you get started on some class on ancient Mesopotamian pottery or something, let me point you in the direction of what is essentially “Intro to Programming” for the first year undergraduate computer science student at MIT—Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programming (SICP). This link will get you access to nearly everything you need to take the class. From its OpenCourseWare homepage, you’ll have access to the course’s syllabus, reading list, projects/exams, and best of all—you’ll even find a link to an online version of the textbook used in the class. Believe me when I say that everything you need to take this entire class can be found online for absolutely no cost whatsoever.

Even though the SICP OpenCourseWare homepage host’s a wealth of information, there’s sill quite an abundance of material available on the web for getting the most out of this class. First, start by taking a look at the class’s iCampus website. The two links I want you to take note of here are the ones listed in the “Using the iCampus system for self-study” section (Ok, what’s with all this i-prefixing nowadays? I think I’m going to start referring to myself as iRoach in the future—I’ll be a commodity.). The first link takes you to the iCampus Tutor for the class where you’ll find audio recordings of lectures accompanied by the class slides (note: these are not the full lectures, but they’re pretty helpful, nonetheless, and they play alongside each slide perfectly). The iCampus Tutor also has links to problem sets for you to take that will give you immediate feedback on what you’ve learned so far for each section (this is exactly the same site that students at MIT use when taking the class!!!). The next link that I wanted to point out takes you to a tutorial on using the iCampus Tutor system. This will get you started and on your way to learning Lisp at MIT.

So, I’ve exhausted all of the MIT sites that I want to discuss for this class, but I’m still not done yet. Au contraire—the best is still yet to come. First, if you plan on actually giving this class that ol’ college try, then you’re going to need a copy of Scheme on your system. I recommend, DrScheme. It has a very intuitive interface, very forgiving (as well as very powerful versions) of the language, and it’s a super easy install on the Mac. Get it, install it, and look over some of the intro documentation to get yourself up to speed on using the IDE. Once you’ve installed a version of Scheme on your system, you’ll be ready to start the class. This leads me to my two final links, both of which will get you copies of the actual class lectures (I mean really, it’s absolutely amazing to me that you can get an entire MIT class for free online, how much more could you ask for?).

Ok, so I lied earlier—I still have one more MIT website to send you to. You can download and view each of the SICP lectures for free in either .avi or .mpg formats. I’ve watched the first two and they are very good. So give them a try, if you have any interest in programming in general and Lisp in particular—I think you’ll like them. Finally, we come to my last link for this blog, and this one is definitely only for the hardcore geeks out there. How would you like to carry an entire MIT course with you, in your pocket, on your new 5G iPod? Well, now you can, thanks to weblogger Max Khesin. In his blog, Python and the web, Max points out the website for the original lectures and also goes on to say that he has converted all of the videos to an iPod ready format and has packaged them in an RSS feed so you can easily add all of them to iTunes, and then straight to your iPod. No fumbling around with downloading the originals and converting them yourself—thanks Max!!!

So, I think that’s everything. I’ve tried to include every link to a pertinent resource that I can think of to make it possible for you to take an entire MIT class for free. If you follow through with everything I’ve posted here, within a few weeks to a few months you’ll be able to tell others that you learned how to program at MIT (although, the jury is still out on the legal ramifications of listing this in your resume). So, what are you waiting for? Go forth geek, I give you the keys to kingdom, enjoy!!!

Related link: https://www.oreillynet.com/podcasts/

Launching our podcast page

What a great week for podcasting. I’m in Ontario, CA (California and not Canada) for the debut of the Portable Media Expo and Podcasting Conference. Yesterday I was one of the presenters at Doug Kaye’s Podcast Academy. That was a total blast. There are a lot of impressive people doing good work in this space.

That’s partly why we’re launching the O’Reilly Podcast Page. In the right column you’ll find some of the episodes that caught our attention lately. In the left column you’ll find some articles that have appeared on the O’Reilly Network recently on podcasting. In the center of the page you’ll find some of our own podcasts with the most recent episodes listed. It’s still early days for us, but we’re having a great time with audio.

Currently we have four feeds listed in the center column. Distributing the Future is a show I’ve been producing for a couple of months. The most recent episode is Web 2.0 Day Three. This includes “Vinod Khosla from Kleiner Perkins on the overabundance of money, Scott Cook of Intuit on learning from customers, Sergey Brin on the current state of Google, Dick Hardt on identity, and Safa Rashtchy talks to five teens.” Check out this 50 second promo for this episode.

The FOO Casts feed contains podcasts from O’Reilly and Friends. This includes the three shows that David Pogue did on Mac OS X Tiger including his look at Automator. There is also our preview for EuroOSCON that we did with conference co-chair Nat Torkington. Most recently is the Jonathan Schwartz and Mitchell Baker session with Tim O’Reilly at Web 2.0.

We include the ITConversations O’Reilly Pick of the Week. Although we don’t produce these ourselves, Doug Kaye invited us head down to his vault and pick out a great episode from the past and feature it for the week. This week we feature an interview with Steve McConnell on Software Engineering.

Our fourth podcast in the central column is the MAKE magazine podcast. In this, and many other areas, Phil Torrone shows us the way. Check out his classic cast on creating an enhanced podcast. Of course, Phil is here at the podcasting show presenting on podcast hacking.

Any way - I’ll post more next week on this show and other thoughts on podcasting. Join in the conversation and help us find our way.

Oh, and remind me to tell you about the bug with the microphone.

We’d like to hear from you

Related link: https://www.oreillynet.com/podcasts/

Here is a list of the feeds that we are monitoring for items to include in the right-hand column of our podcast page: www.oreillynet.com/podcasts. They are listed here alphabetically. Please use the feedback area to suggest podcasts we should add to this list. The podcasts must have RSS 2.0 feeds to be included in this list.

• 43Folders
• .Net, J2EE and everything in the middle
• The ColdFusion Podcast
• CNET Buzz Podcast
• Connecting The Dots
• The Digital Story
• Diggnation
• Engadget
• Frankie’s Friday Flashback
• The Gadget Show
• ITConversations
• Java Posse
• Linux Australia Roundup
• Linux Australia Update
• The LinuxLink Tech Show
• The Mac Attack
• Museum of Science
• Nerd TV
• NPR Technology
• NUrd Radio (Northeastern University ACM)
• The Odeo Channel
• perlcast.com
• The Point
• Pro PHP Podcast
• Rocketboom
• Ruby on Rails
• SBS IT talk show
• Security Now
• Southern California Linux Expo
• Swampcast
• Sys-Con Podcasts
• Taking Notes
• Tech Night Owl Live
• This Week in Technology
• The Tool Shed
• Toronto Perl Mongers
• The Web 2.0 Show
• The World Technology

What technology podcasts should we have “In our ears”? Provide a name and a URL of appropriate podcasts that provide RSS feeds.

The headline of my morning paper reports that the Honolulu Airport Wiki Wiki shuttle which inspired the name Ward Cunningham gave to the Wiki web concept and software has been shut down (at least temporarily) at the Honolulu Airport.
But, hmm, actually, the newer air conditioned buses are out and the old open air models (which Mr. C may have seen way back when…) are back in.
So, perhaps, it is hello to an old friend :-).

Honolulu Advertiser: Airport shuts down Wiki Wiki shuttles

Honolulu International Airport has grounded its fleet of electric Wiki Wiki shuttle buses, citing maintenance and reliability problems, officials said.

The buses, which transport thousands of passengers each day between terminals and from arrival gates to the baggage claim area, have been temporarily replaced with older open-air diesel buses and trams.

So, if you are heading to the Honolulu Airport, no air conditioned buses for you for the time being.
Fortunately, the weather is starting to cool in Honolulu, so it won’t be too uncomfortable riding in an open air tram.

Got Wiki Wiki? :-)

Related link: https://www.apple.com/macosx/features/ical/

While there are definitely areas that Apple’s iCal calendaring application could be improved, it is generally a serviceable basic program. One area it could really use help with, however, is with its UI — particularly keyboard interaction. Here’s a bit of feedback (also submitted via the link in the iCal menu) about that very issue. I’m interested to know others’ opinions on the latest iCal (2.0.3). Are that many folks using it?

—-

Hi, there. Thanks for a generally pretty cool calendar application. There is one particular area, however, that could really use some help, and that is keyboard interaction.

Scrolling through the Keyboard Shortcuts list (via the iCal Help menu), there are a number of handy commands available, even for some relatively rare or detailed actions along the lines of ‘Make the selected all-day event start one day sooner’ (Shift-Control-Left Arrow).

For the life of me, though, I don’t see a shortcut for a simple, everyday interactions like checking off a to do item as done. I would suggest the spacebar, which OmniOutliner uses to good effect.

Also, it seems to be impossible to move from the main iCal window over to the Info palette, whether it’s attached or detached, when creating a To Do item. When you create an event, whether by click on the calendar or hitting Command-N, you can tab from the event over to the Info window as long as you’re still initially editing the event’s name. I would really love that to be the case for To Do items as well.

Thanks again, and I hope iCal continues to improve as time goes by.

—-

While researching this entry, I came across a cool tip from Rob Griffiths (of macosxhints.com fame) — you can customize the number of days the calendar window displays by using Command-Option-n, where n is a number between 1 and 7.

What’s your opinion of iCal?

Devotees of Linux and other unixy operating systems, after using Mac OS X for a while, often complain about a lack of virtual desktops.

For those unfamiliar with the idea, imagine that the computer screen you’re looking at was only one of several that you could freely switch between. You might have your email open in one, your NaNoWriMo story in another, and a Terminal compiling something in a third. Or maybe an Office desktop and a Home desktop, dividing it up by real-world context.

Anyhow, virtual desktops have been around for a long time in the X-window unix world and are hard to let go of once you’ve gotten used to the multi-tasking fun. As a matter of fact, the OS X Expose feature is often touted as a replacement for the virtual desktop, a different way of handling numerous windows.

However, there is a handful of utilities available for Mac that more closely resemble the experience. I wanted to mention one in particular, as I’ve been experimenting with it again this past few days. The aptly named Desktop Manager has been around for some time now, and while its stability has been a bit iffy at times (it is in beta), it has definitely gotten better, particularly in recent releases.

You can check out a couple of screenshots here, though it really needs to be seen in action to get the full experience. I usually wind up hiding the menubar pager they show on that page, preferring the standalone desktop pager, small along the side of the screen.

I have gone back to a virtual-desktop-less experience as of last night, though, as one issue I keep running into every time I try this — which is not really related to this cool program. The Mac has never really been a perfect candidate for the concept because of the static menubar per application. It just feels wonky compared to an X-window program that has its own menubar attached. But maybe that’s just me.

One tip: if Desktop Manager does crash (which it did a couple of times on me when navigating the menubar extra), the alarming disappearance of all of your windows may occur. Not to worry: they’re just hidden. Relaunch Desktop Manager, and you’re back to where you were pre-crash.

Do you have a virtual desktop fetish?

Since WWDC I’ve been thinking about this. There are many ramifications involved with Apple moving to Intel. But one that confounds me, and certainly concerns Apple, is how to preserve its grip on hardware sales while doing so.

Apple has always been about the hardware. Mac OS X is about selling computers. iTunes is about selling iPods. This might seem cold at first, but I think it keeps them on track. Many of us have a passion for Apple’s software. To me this means they’ve done a good job of analyzing the situation and executing upon it.

But how’s this equation going to hold up with the Intel switch? One solution seems to be creating tamper-resistant code. Whew. That’s a steep mountain to climb. And how much resource will it require?

At a time when Apple hardware sales are on the rise, the Intel switch seems, well, shall we say “bold”? Of course, dumping the iPod mini for the nano took some cajones. Maybe they can get away with this one too.

Today’s been a pretty good day, not least because there’s a new release of Camino.

I declare it now, in public: I used to be a browser whore, flitting from one to the other every month or so, always drawn to the newest clever widget or the newest smart feature.

But for a while now I’ve been a steadfast Camino user and it will take something pretty spectacular to make me stop using it.

Why do I like it so much? It fits in wonderfully with the rest of the Mac system. It’s stable (I can leave it open for days, with stupid numbers of tabs open, and it never complains), it’s fast, it’s dependable, it doesn’t - as they say of other good apps - suck.

Now the brand new 1.0b1 version, there’s plenty of new features and squished bugs.

Best of all (and yes, I admit, a long time behind other browsers) is a “Are you sure you want to quit with all those tabs open?” dialog. That’ll save me from 10 minutes of swearing on the rare occasions I hit Command+Q instead of Command+W.

Remember when Mike Pinkerton moved to Google and promised us that this was nothing but good news for Camino users? Well, today’s release is proof that he was right, and I think is also an indication of plenty more good things to come.

Browser, browser, browser, browser, MUSHROOM! MUSHROOM!

I was working in the town library - I often do that, to escape the distractions of the internet and sit somewhere warm. Tapping away confidently, I turned and saw my friend Jasper had walked in with his young daughter. She ran off to the children’s section and my friend wandered over to say hello.

He drooled over my Powerbook.

“Nice machine,” he said.

Just before he’d arrived, I’d happened to hit F11 to fill my screen with miniturized Expose goodness. Jasper peered at the tiny shrunken windows and gasped: “How can you see that? It’s far too small.”

Smirking, I held down shift and hit F11 again, for the full slo-mo Expose effect. I watched his eyes pop out.

“Hey, that’s nice!” he muttered.

I was confused, though.

“I thought you had a Mac,” I said.

“Yeah I have,” he said, a strange look on his face. “But it’s - ah - old. About System 7. In fact, I’ve got two machines. One for writing, one for my email. Useless, aren’t I?”

I nodded.

He continued: “I’ve just ordered a Mac mini, though. Should arrive any day now. Perhaps you should come round and show me how things have changed. Looks like I shall need some help to bring myself up-to-date.”

I nodded again.

“Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Any time you like.”

So, what shall I show him? How shall I strike a balance between bringing him up-to-date, and overloading his brain?

I’ve already decided to keep things simple: show him around the new Finder, show him a browser or two (Safari and Camino, probably), and since he’s a writer, show him some writing apps. I suspect that TextEdit, plus the indispensible NanoCount, will be all he needs for most of his work.

Anything else you think he ought to know about?

Don’t be shy now.

I just wanted to point out quickly a couple of other blog sites that seem to have noticed a new Apple product for writing and testing Dashboard widgets. The Unofficial Apple Weblog and AppleNova Forums, to name just a few, have some sparse, but interesting information on what might be a new, very Xcode inspired, editor/WYSIWYG/debugger for Dashboard widgets.

Oh, and if you’re interested there are also some pictures of the new application on Flickr as well.

If this turns out to be for real, not only does it look like we’ll get a great tool for creating Dashboard widgets, but it also looks like we’ll get a nice tool for general web design and javascript testing/debugging also. Cool!!!

It’s funny that whenever I get my head too far in the clouds with what’s happening now in technology, such as with the iPod video, a segment of my reader mail brings me back to the basics. I’ve been reading a lot of notes lately asking about lenses, ISO settings, memory card management, and things like that.

So, on The Digital Story site I’ve begun running a series of posts about photo basics. You can review past tips by going to the “Jump To” menu in the upper right corner and selecting “Photography.”

I’m mentioning today’s tip here because it’s a question that I get often: “What do I do with my memory card after I’ve uploaded my pictures?” Generally speaking, I recommend that you use the “Erase All” function on your camera instead of “Format.” If you want to know more about this, read today’s post, Memory Cards: Erase, Don’t Format.

It was only after encountering one of those really big skies, the kind that makes your jaw drop a little and your eyes ache from trying to take it all in, that I started to think about photo stitching software.

Of course I didn’t have the camera with me on that occasion (that always happens), but the next time I saw a half-decent skyscape, I made sure to take plenty of photos with overlaps, so I could experiment with stitching them together into something nice.

But first I had to find some stitching software.

My first attempt was with Hugin OS X, which has been sitting in my “things to try out” list for a long time. Now I had the chance.

Hugin is freeware, currently in beta development, but is impressively comprehensive. This is an application packed with detail, designed for making high quality panoramic images.

Despite spending some time playing with the app, and reading the (useful and well-written) tutorials, I was unable to produce a decent stitched image. I kept getting odd results after the Optimize stage, but I suspect this might have been a manifestation of a known bug mentioned on the project home page.

But when using Hugin I couldn’t help noticing the level of complexity involved (and I don’t mean that as a criticism). Adding a set of images and clicking control points on each one is simple to understand; but in the later stages of the process, you’re asked to confirm settings for Roll, Pitch and Yaw; and what kind of stitching interpolator you wish to use. This is not an app for digital photography newbies; it’s something that serious (perhaps even professional) people will want to devote time to learning and perfecting.

I searched around for something a bit simpler, and found my way to DoubleTake, which is almost the exact opposite of Hugin.

DoubleTake’s process is simplicity itself. Drag in some images, and DoubleTake tries to automatically line them up straight away. OK, so it never did a fantastic job of this on the occasions I used it, but success at this stage is a moot point anyway; it’s your work of art under construction here, so you drag the images the way you want them to be. DoubleTake’s first stab is just to get you started.

And it really is just drag-things-around simplicity. Once you have everything lined up the way you want it, you click a button to auto-crop and zap! - your panorama is complete.

I liked the instant results, and I loved the swift simplicity. Sure, compared to Hugin, this is limited and will never get you the same kind of results for really complex panoramas. But if all you want is instant panoramic pictures with the minimum of fuss, DoubleTake does the job perfectly. It’s shareware, only 12 bucks, which I think is very good value for money.

Any other recommendations?

Looks like the broadcast world isn’t going to sit by and let Apple dominate TV show downloads the way it’s done with music. Both CBS and NBC have announced they have formed partnerships with Comcast and DirectTV respectively to offer a downloadable selection of their best shows for 99 cents a pop.

What’s interesting about these announcements is that it’s clear that we’re not going to have one place to access downloadable TV content, unless, that is, it’s via a peer to peer network (which we seem to be moving away from based on the recent Grokster case ruling). Maybe someone can step up and aggregate all of this content.

Otherwise, the option of subscribing to iTunes, Comcast, DirectTV, etc, etc, etc to download shows just isn’t realistic. I don’t get to watch much TV now (although I have started viewing Lost via iTunes), and it doesn’t seem like that’s gonna change much.

… or “Why I am never on the same conference circuit as Nicholas Negroponte”

Despite writing on an O’Reilly medium, I must make a confession: I have a very spotty track record of appreciating the potential of certain things in geekdom. Some examples:

Apple had to forcibly ram iChat into my hands before I would see the point of Instant Messaging. Before iChat, I looked on the IM scene as a smattering of half-hearted clients ported from Windows, annoying smilies and absurd acronyms. iChat at least fixed the first of those three problems but it took me a long time to see why IM was even worth considering. Similarly, I didn’t ‘get’ The Matrix until it had been out on DVD for about three years. I only started using Wikis this year. I’m slow sometimes.

I also completely misunderstood the point of Podcasting when I first heard about it. I even blogged some sarcastic words about the whole concept but, when I actually sampled the content, I found it strangely compelling. Suffice to say that Podcasts now occupy about half of my iPod and are by far my main reason for continuing to be interested in iPods.

Before I get too down on myself, I’ll note that there are some other things that I picked up on way ahead of most other people I know. I got my first CD-R drive in 1995, I still have MP3s I encoded in 1996. My personal blog - although that word didn’t exist back then - has an archive stretching back to May 2001 and over 3500 posts. All that, and I’ve been a Mac user since I was in school :-)

However, I have a new confession to make. The very night before Steve Jobs introduced the 5th generation iPod with its well-documented video features, I was openly deriding the very idea. I was staying with a friend in Cupertino and we were sitting around talking about what the next day might bring.

“I don’t know why everyone keeps banging on about a video iPod”, I asserted. “It seems like the dumbest idea in the world!”

I’m here to tell you today that I was wrong again. I’m now seriously considering purchasing a 5G iPod and, again, it’s the so-called “indie” content that’s justifying it for me. Video podcasts are really fun! I’m really enjoying both Diggnation and Rocketboom at the moment.

I don’t own a TV, don’t watch TV and I’m enjoying the BBC’s general radio output less as time goes by. The fact that I can get content that I’m interested in, store it and take it with me to use whenever and wherever is so very compelling.

Attentional Bandwidth

Here are some relative numbers: I consume the updates to 260 RSS feeds every day. I subscribe to 11 podcast feeds, but just the two video podcast feeds that I mentioned before. I read the RSS feeds almost as a background activity. I make time for some podcasts and listen to others as I work. I have to explicitly set aside time to watch a video podcast - time I can’t easily spare in the course of a normal day.

That said, there are many times in my life where downtime is forced upon me. I do a lot of air travel for my day job and those hours spent in departure lounges and in the air are easily filled with audio podcasts - I can only imagine it would be more enjoyable to watch videos at the same time.

Let’s face it - the iPod technology is great, the user experience is nearly perfect, but content remains king.

Like the new iPod? Hate it?

Like plenty of other people, I started at the top of Darrel Knutson’s Mac browsers page without giving its length much thought.

It was only after going through the whole list, then jumping back to the top, that I noticed his casual comment after the inclusion of Flock: “The 83rd browser on this list.”

Eighty three Mac browsers!!?? That’s a lot more than I’d have guessed. And OK, some of them are not really browsers per se, but just include browsing functionality within some other application. In these days of WebKit, that’s bound to expand the list considerably.

I’ve mentioned Sunrise on these pages before; it’s a browser made for web developers, and includes some nice features for instant window resizing and source viewing.

But I’ve never encountered Split Browser before. This app lets you split one window into several browsing windows, then control all of them independently or simultaneously. You can engage full screen mode too. Might be useful for kiosk situations.

Some other things I didn’t know: recent versions of Amaya are available as a Mac binary (screenshot); the latest version of the Shiira browser uses Core Image to add a “page turning” effect when you click your way from one page to another; and PT Bruiser is the world’s only browser designed to take you to Perversion Tracker and only Perversion Tracker. It won’t let you go anywhere else. Shame Perversion Tracker doesn’t seem to be updated anymore, but I guess you can’t have everything. Especially when there’s 82 other browsers to choose from.

Anyone keeping a tally of browsers for other operating systems?

The Honolulu Advertiser reported on a two-car accident attributed to text-messaging.
Two teen-agers were injured in the crash.
But, if your biases (like mine) attributed the crash to them because of their youth, you would be wrong (as I was).
Reading further into the article…

Text-messaging leads to crash

…we learn that the crash was caused by a 52 year-old male
…using his cell phone to text-message his wife. While his eyes were off the road, the car crossed the center line… (quoted from the article — You can see a photo of the Beamer upside down with a crushed front end in the article).

So, let’s practice safe text folks.
If you text, don’t drive.
If you drive, don’t text.
Nuff said.

Do you practice unsafe text?

After a couple months of use, I finally figured out how to evaluate the Griffin TuneBox. If I think of it just as a portable speaker system for my iPod shuffle (or any USB iPod), then the not-very-luggable power brick squashes my enthusiasm. But if I consider the TuneBox both a decent speaker system and a handy charger for my iPods, which it is, my enthusiasm grows. If you’re curious about this $40 accessory, check out my recent review.

Related link: https://members.liwest.at/solar/

WikiNotes 1.0 is a new open-source personal desktop wiki — basically, a text editor with interlinking abilities, in the vein of VoodooPad.

The following was written within WikiNotes during a brief test. Documents are saved as .wiki files. There is a writing area on the left with a sidebar list on the right that can either be a list of pages or a history. I rather like the simple arrangement.

Here we are using WikiNotes. I am wondering how this will compare to VoodooPad. Can you do links with [[brackets]]? Not apparently. But you can do arbitrary links using a link button in the toolbar or from a menu item. No keyboard command for it, but that’s pretty easily remedied.

I’m going to try the HTML export. Not too shabby; barebones, but that’s how I’d want it. There doesn’t appear to be a template file in the app bundle, but there are other ways around that. Creates an index.html page, and all interlinking is handled automatically. Fairly clean HTML. There’s an Export to iPod menu command that’s grayed out. Wonder if the iPod needs to be plugged in.

No import functions. And I’d lose vim integration, but that’s only an issue if I were shifting notanda input over to this, which is not my immediate intention.

CamelCase works, though you can turn it off in preferences.

Nothing else much going on here. Just the basics of text formatting via Cocoa.

The .wiki file that is created is a SQLite formatted text file.

All in all, not anywhere near a replacement for VoodooPad yet (witness ‘About NewApplication’ and ‘NewApplication Help’ in the menus), but a start of something worth keeping an eye on — or, since it’s open source, the start of something to contribute to.

Cocoa gives a developer tons of things for free. From great support for international scripts throughout the text system to a consistent toolbar component, from a full data persistence layer to sharp graphics capabilities, there’s lots to play with.

That said, there are a few things that developers commonly do, or are increasingly going to be doing, where Apple could provide us with a little more help.

Preference Windows

There seems to be a consensus forming in Mac OS X application design. The design of an application’s preferences are commonly laid out by using an NSToolbar as a kind of quasi-tab-view where selecting one toolbar item switches the view displayed in the body of the window. Many examples cme come to mind: iTunes, Safari, NetNewsWire, Mail, OmniOutliner, VoodooPad and many others all adopt this approach.

Problem is, every developer has to re-implement the technique by themselves or use some third-party code. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with reusing third-party code, it would be nice to have the platform developer adopt support for such a commonly re-implemented piece of UI.

Apple already has an architecture for plug-in preference panes inside the System Preferences application. It may not be directly reusable, but a similar approach should be quite feasible.

Predicate Editors

What’s a predicate? It’s the logical statement you construct in Mail’s rules when you say “if Sender contains ‘myboss@bigcorp.com’, move to folder ‘BossMail’”. In the past, this kind of task was only encountered by developers of sophisticated applications which had a need to do filtering or matching on their data. Mail clients have been the canonical example for years.

However, with the advent of Spotlight in Tiger, more and more developers will be writing “smart” versions of the structures inside their applications: Smart Folders, Smart Mailboxes, Smart Albums, Smart Playlists and so on. If Apple were able to step up and provide a customisable set of components for constructing these predicate editors it would firstly save developers a lot of effort but, perhaps more importantly, would lead to greater commonality across the platform.

A Font Preference Selector Widget

Lots of applications need to store a user’s preferred font. Practically every application in which a user edits text or views it requires at least one place in their preferences where the user can set a font. I’m not referring to the Font Palette itself here - that already exists and is usable - but rather to the combination of label, noneditable text field and “Set Font” button that you see in many applications. Examples abound in Safari’s “Appearance” preferences, Mail’s “Viewing” preferences, and many others.

Again, it’s not a huge or difficult thing to implement but it’s a very common thing to implement and providing common things is what having a platform is all about.

iLife Media Browser

Moving away from raw UI components now, I’d like to see Apple break the iLife media browser out of the iWork suite and make it a public framework for all developers to use. Dan wood beat me to mentioning this, but I’ll certainly second his call.

In a broader view, “everything they introduce, when they introduce it”

It frustrates me in general to see many independent developers running hard to follow Apple’s latest UI conventions. From Tiger’s “glossy” look to the little widgets here and there that appear in the latest applications, it just feels like a grand waste of global effort. If Apple would integrate and support these things in the OS when they release them, developers could just use them and not have to reimplement them. Think of all the time that could be spent on making the apps themselves better instead of developers spending time keeping up with Apple’s latest look.

Thoughts on things Apple could help developers with?

Related link: https://www.afp548.com/article.php?story=20051102124001232

Weighing in at 121MB, the OS X Server 10.4.3 Update is no spring chicken. But included in the update are numerous fixes to old problems (lookupd chief among them), but what I really want to point out is what andrina at AFP548 wrote about in the update coverage.

I love the login window enhancements. The standard OS X Server login window by itself is fairly neutral, featuring user and password fields and the hostname. But, like the serial number in the About This Mac field, the hostname is a cycling information display:

It includes the hostname, time/date, machine serial number, and now it also includes the IP address of the primary network interface, as well as whether or not network accounts are available, something that’s becoming more and more crucial.

The little dot in the window can be green (all accounts available), yellow (some accounts available) or red (no network accounts available). This is a great development, and I hope to see more like it for the Login window.

Little dots? No Little Dots? Thoughts?

I just noticed that in the Unit Converter Dashboard Widget (the default one that comes with Tiger), there’s a little band across the top of its window that changes depending on what you’ve chosen from the popup. So Area has a grid pattern, Currency has what looks like a border pattern from paper money, Energy is a row of batteries, etc.

I’ve found my usage of Dashboard has fallen off lately. The four widgets I leave open are the Calculator, the Unit Converter, the Weather with the forecast exposed (important prior to hikes and bike rides ;), and a Calendar. I don’t truly have a need for much else that I don’t get elsewhere.

If I want to look up a Wikipedia article, I’ll probably shift to Firefox if I’m not already there, Command-L to the Location field, and type wiki foobar which will in a moment bring up the fine Foobar article.

The standalone Dictionary.app (under /Applications) works great as well and stays open in the background if I want to head back to the terminal window for a moment. Same goes for iTunes, Address Book, and Stickies.

On the other hand, a set of World Clock instances works great if I’m trying to figure out what time it is for my various friends scattered over the globe. I just don’t usually have them open constantly.

So the ballyhooed* return of Desk Accessories to the Mac is hit or miss, but there are niches where it is good to have, at least for me. What about y’all? Are you still using Dashboard?

###

A bonus hint I mentioned in the comments of another article here… using Spotlight is a great way to quickly open a desired Dashboard widget without all of the usual steps (especially one that isn’t already open). Just hit Command-Space, then start typing the name of the widget — for example, U-N-I-T. The Unit Converter widget will show up under Applications. Best of all, if the one you choose isn’t open already, it will pop it into existence in Dashboard automatically.

###

* from Dictionary: verb ( -hoos , -hooed ) [ trans. ] praise or publicize extravagantly : [as adj. ] ( ballyhooed) a much-ballyhooed musical extravaganza. ORIGIN late 19th cent.: American coinage of unknown origin.

What about y’all? Are you still using Dashboard?

Related link: https://maps.yahoo.com/beta/

Yahoo! has a beta version of its mapping site up at
https://maps.yahoo.com/beta/.
A couple of things struck me about Yahoo!’s beta map site.

• If you are logged into to Yahoo (for email or some other service), the map shows your local area right away.
  
• Searching using the keyword hotspot presented a pretty good list of WiFi hotspots in the area.
  
• Hovering over an item found using a keyword results in a brief text information bubble.
  Clicking on it reveals a full text description and the bubble appears much faster than a Google Maps text info bubble.
  

Overall, it looks like a pretty nice upgrade to Yahoo! Maps.
I wonder if it has an API to create map mashups like Google Maps?

Any other interesting finds in Yahoo! Maps beta?

Tons of possibilities raced through my mind when I first saw the 5th Gen iPod demoed. I know Apple prefers not to call it the iPod video, but how can you think of anything else when it’s in your hands?

I have the 30GB model that’s super slim and the optional AV Cable that enables me to connect the iPod directly to the TV via traditional RCA jacks — two for audio and one for video.

As you may have heard other places, watching Lost or any other compelling production on the iPod’s 2.5″ screen is surprisingly satisfying. Certainly this device will improve train and plane travel for scores of techno junkies who would just as soon leave their laptop in the overhead compartment and watch their handheld devices while traveling. I know I would.

But my burning question was how well does video downloaded from iTMS fare when presented on a full-sized TV screen. After-all, the video’s native resolution is only 320×240… half the size of traditional TV. The answer: It is amazingly good. I have the premier episode of Lost paused on my TV right now, and I’m impressed. In motion, it’s even better. The audio is crisp and a few minor video artifacts only appear in underexposed shadows or large areas of solid color. I had to look to find them.

This means that I can download an episode from my PowerBook, load it on the iPod, and take it on the road, to a friend’s house, wherever, and watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it — a portable video player in my pocket.

For sometime I’ve recommended that any new TV you bring home should have the RCA jacks in the front. I’m hoping that hotels get with this program and provide us with TVs that connect easily to the iPod and other devices. Apple’s video cables cost $19, but are high quality and open up a whole new world of entertainment. Job well done.

Related link: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=failure

Let’s do an experiment. Go out to Google, type “failure” into the search box, make a prediction about what the top hit should be, and then choose “I’m feeling lucky.”

Ok, maybe you’re outraged or maybe you’re happy based upon what you just saw. But did you notice that the site that came up was the official site and that the word “failure” didn’t appear anywhere in the source or metadata of the document? For historical purposes, here is what you get at the time of this post.

Now, believe me, I know that it can be (and is often) the case that accurately organized page rankings need not have the actual search text contained anywhere in them — consider an image search for example — but it really begs the question of how influential search engines can/could be/have been in shaping public opinion. Think about it. How many times do you use a search engine each day? How much of your research do you base on the first page or so of hits? Do you implicitly assume that information you get in the first page of hits is non-partisan or accurate? Does this shape your thinking in any way? Just some things to consider as you go about your searching.

A very powerful man once said, “It doesn’t matter who votes, what matters is who counts the votes.” In another context, he might have said, “It doesn’t matter what you search for, what matters is who ranks the results.” I’m not trying to assert that Google or any other search engine has any particular political agenda or that there’s any conspiracy at all behind page rankings, but sometimes you really do have to wonder how pages get racked and stacked and whether or not such organizations could/would use their highly influential power as a political arm — especially during tumultuous political times. Ever considered the effects of geo-targeting swing states during an election? How much money would it take to buy that “service?” Again, it’s just something to consider.

But let’s face it, everyone does have an agenda, and there’s really no such thing as being completely unbiased or non-partisan. Bias is inevitable. The questions then become if/when an agenda shapes policy, whether or not we’re savvy enough to recognize it, and what we could/should do about it.

Is it fair to consider search engines part of the mainstream media?

It’s rumored that there are organizations out there that are raking in the big bucks — allegedly through the use of ads — but I have a natural inclination to think that it’s all just a big lie. Personally, I’ve become almost completely desensitized to any and all ads and have been for as long as I can remember. It’s maybe only once a month or so that I might click on something, and even then, I never buy. Not once in my entire life have I made an immediate purchase that’s been the result of clicking on an ad.

But granted, I understand that if every person in the world only clicked on one ad once a month, then there would still be this great surge of clicks, and even if only a fraction on those people made a purchase, then there’d still be this great pot of pennies that accrues at the end of the rainbow…but in spite of that, my intuition leads me to believe that the whole money making scheme just can’t be true. Even the clever ways of targeting people based on previous interest and geographical location can only go so far. I can see how the search engines could accumulate some money given the amount of traffic they carry, but those would seem to be the exceptions to the rule, and it couldn’t be that much money, right? It almost doesn’t seem like it could even be worth their trouble.

Do you know of any success stories that are more than myths and that would indicate otherwise? Is there anyone out there who is able to feed their family solely via the use of ads? You don’t have to give away your secret or even divulge your identity — but at least acknowledge your existence.

Have you or anyone you know made a single dollar through the use of ads?

Related link: https://opensource.nokia.com/

Nokia launched a portal for its Open Source projects. Nokia’s press release mentions an open source browser for S60 (Series 60), Maemo, URIQA (URI Query Agent), and Python for S60 as projects currently underway.

The portal is found at:

https://opensource.nokia.com/

You can find the press release at:

Nokia fosters mobile innovation through open source development

Working with or on one of Nokia’s Open Source projects? Tell us about your experiene.

I have a confession to make. Remember how I was so excited about using the One Big Text File approach to organizing myself and my work? And how that sparked off quite a lot of debate at 43Folders and elsewhere? Well, I’ve abandoned it for something else.

This is because after a while I (a) started losing myself within it, and (b) found it didn’t quite suit my needs (more on that in a moment), and (c) I got bored.

My new approach to managing workflow looks like this:

Before I explain it, let me explain what I mean about finding something that suited my needs.

My job is all about writing articles. As a freelance, success depends upon me having plenty of ideas for new articles. I think up lists of ideas, then pitch them to editors of web and print publications. Typically, those editors will respond saying they like a few of those ideas - so those become work that has to be completed, usually to a deadline set by the commissioning editor.

That means there are some ideas that have been rejected; mostly because they’re just Bad, but sometimes because that publication has covered the same subject recently and doesn’t want to do it again, or because there’s not enough space to include it. Those ideas might still have life if they’re shown to another editor; perhaps with a little revision or background research beforehand.

After years of trying out notebook applications, a variety of wikis and outliners, and most recently the one-file-fits-all idea, it suddenly occurred to me that I was making my life more complicated that it needed to be.

I decided to simplify.

There was something of a lightbulb moment when I realized that the basic unit of my professional ‘workflow’ is the idea. (I say workflow in quotes because, let’s face it, the workflow here is pretty simple: have ideas, pitch ‘em, write ‘em. That’s it.)

Each idea can take one of three paths:

• idea -> pitch -> commissioned
• idea -> pitch -> rejected, revise and pitch again elsewhere
• idea -> pitch -> rejected & abandoned

My One Big File was fine when it came to writing articles and keeping track of my todo list; but it failed me in terms of tracking ideas. I kept losing new ideas, and forgetting which ones I had pitched to whom.

Since the unit of workflow is the idea, I decided to change my computer habits to reflect that. I spent a few hours looking at various mindmapping and idea-managing applications, but ultimately came to the conclusion that they didn’t offer the kind of simplicity I was after.

My solution was three rather ordinary Finder windows. One contains all my new ideas, one idea per file. Since I tend to write in BBEdit, they’re all BBEdit files, but I’m not restricted to that. My ideas can be created and stored using any software that suits.

Another directory stores ideas I’ve pitched, and am awaiting feedback on. A third is for work-in-progress.

Now some people might be reading this and slapping their foreheads, saying “Doh! That’s so obvious! It’s an In Tray and an Out Tray system.” And it’s true, I do feel kind of silly for not implementing something like this before.

But it was because I was dealing with the wrong problem. I was trying to save time by keeping things in One Big File - I thought that the lack of mousing around was the most important thing, that being able to keep my hands on the keyboard all the time was the priority.

This new approach requires a little more use of the mouse but it is much simpler, and more effective. Now, when I new idea strikes I can jot it down in an instant in a new text file. I can look at my list of ideas and decide quickly what needs to be developed, or written immediately. By implementing this, I’ve also separated my workflow from my todo list - in effect, creating a ‘workflow’ for myself for the first time. Seriously, I’ve never been as organized as this.

An in January, I’ll probably try something else

Related link: https://sc.tri-bit.com/dswfb

I was getting ready to post something mildly critical about StoneCypher’s Nintendo DS Wi-fi bounty when I hit the page just now and noticed that one Stephen Stair seems to have claimed the first chunk of the bounty by posting a reference to the DS’s Wi-fi hardware. (The remaining slices to go those who can use that information to implement things like a TCP stack.) I am no low-level network hacker and balk at these long tables of hex-addressed I/O maps done up in 10-point Courier, but it certainly looks clean and impressive, at least.

Bit of background: the Nintendo DS is one of the current generation of portable video game systems, and the one that, due to its relatively low price and high innovation, did in fact leap into my arms the last time I walked near an EB Games shop. It boasts built-in 802.11b support, but Nintendo doesn’t make documentation available for it (or any other aspect of the DS) to anyone except for dues-paying licensed developers, leaving the home-brew hacker community in the cold. And you know how they get, when denied access to such a tasty technological morsel like the DS. So earlier this year, that StoneCypher fellow organized that bounty project aimed at reverse-engineering the little system’s WiFi hardware enough so that hackers could start making their own networked and even Interner-capable DS games.

This is a noble cause, and I am well pleased to see that it’s apparently hit its first major milestone. However, I do not wish to spare this project from the wrath light drizzle of my mild criticism, which I believe remains valid despite this achievement. In particular, I wonder how much duplication of work happened with people working in blind parallel with Mr. Stair. From all that I can tell, Stair worked alone, but I doubt he was the only party vying for the first slice of the prize.

I am not really sure one way or the other, though, and that actually points to the problem I see: because this effort was framed as a competition rather than an open, cooperative project, every developer (or discrete group of developers) who participated had an incentive to not share their work, or even communicate or assist each other in any way. I wasn’t part of the bounty-hunt so I can only speculate how it went down, but I am guessing that the main page’s lack of links to anyone’s individual efforts before now (and continued lack of links to anyone building upon Stair’s map to claim the remaining bounty) are indicative of the general lights-out nature of the whole deal.

How much faster would this milestone have been reached if someone had organized the Wi-Fi hacking as an open (and open-source) project instead? It’s true that nobody would likely get an immediate cash payout from it, but I bet that this wouldn’t stop anyone. The money, after all, is not the reason to accept this sort of challenge. $1,400 seems like an impressive amount, but with the amount of work he must have put into reverse-engineering all those register locations, I bet the recipient could have made more money performing rote data-entry or even burger-flipping over the same amount of time.

I cannot be too wrathful because I know damn well that if this bounty-based effort reaches its ultimate goal I’ll celebrate alongside every other game-hacker hobbyist. But even then I’ll still wonder if it was an effort that was held back by months due to a failure to apply open-source programming principles to a very cool and edgy project that could, I’ll wager, really benefit from it.

Eh, nuts to this. I’m off to play more Meteos.

Sprint’s Halloween announcement says
For $2.50 a song, customers get two copies of the song: one high-quality version formatted to play and enjoy only on their phone and another high-quality version formatted to download on to their PC. Customers can also burn their music to a CD using Windows Media Player.

Sprint Launches the First Instant, Over the Air Music Download Service in the U.S.

Couple of thoughts from this ordinary wireless/media consumer…

• $2.50 per song? Ouch. That is 150% more than Apple’s iTunes price.
  
• Does it really take only 30 seconds to download the song at EVDO speeds? What is the audio bitrate used?
  
• Does it only work with Microsoft Windows Media Player on the desktop/notebook? Where does this leave Mac OS X, BSD, and Linux desktop/notebook users?
  

Have you purchased songs over Sprint’s wireless network? Let us know about your experience.

Not everyone is going to shell out $500 for Aperture when it arrives. So Apple needs to keep iPhoto in good working condition. They took a step in that direction with the latest system update, 10.4.3.

Prior to the update, I wasn’t able to load my .CR2 Raw files from Canon’s Rebel XT and 5D into iPhoto. This really busted up my Raw workflow and forced me to use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional for browsing my Raw thumbnails. Adobe Bridge is just a tad too slow at initial rendering for my tastes, although I really like Camera Raw for image editing.

Mac OS X 10.4.3 fixed all that. So, for the time being, I can go back to iPhoto 5 for organizing my Raw files.

As a side-note for you iPhoto users who are considering upgrading to Aperture, there’s an import function in Aperture that enables you to grab the images from iPhoto and put them in the new environment. This will make the transition much easier.