Going thru a backlog of RSS reading, I came across this post on installing the Bluetooth module in a Power Macintosh G5. One of my duties in the former job was performing this precise installation for part of a Genius Bar Apple Store client project. I did something on the order of 70 of these…well, a lot. It is not fun, and I have average-sized hands. I cannot imagine the pain a pair-of-meathooks-wielding tech must have to endure.
Tag: Mac
Jon Hicks has set up the definitive Safari extensibility site. I say that only because no one else has, so as the first, Jon gets the honor of “definitive.” I prefer my Safari to be as stable as possible, so the only extensibility I’ve engaged in is the use of Safari Enhancer and SafariSource. Your mileage may vary.
[Via TUAW.]
Mozilla offspring Camino has a new site. I like the new look, and downloaded the latest nightly build. Maybe it will be more stable on my system than 0.8.2. I really want to use Camino more, as I feel it’s faster than Safari on my systems, but it doesn’t seem as stable when it comes to running out of real RAM and having to subsist on virtual memory.
[Via DF via Daniel Bogan.]
UPDATE, 10:30 PM CST: After downloading and installing the latest nightly build, I happened across the site again, and was greeted with this banner near the top of the main page:
Fun, fun, fun!
UPDATE 2, 11:30 PM CST: You can find all of Camino’s keyboard shortcuts on one handy page. And its hidden preferences, too.
I understand that the code name for the next version of Windows is “Longhorn.” Note: this is not an improvement over “Whistler.” All I can say is that they must not have longhorns in Redmond. I went to high school and college in Texas where longhorns were a regular feature of the landscape.
Let’s start with the fact that a longhorn is a cow. Is that really the image you want people to connect with the newest version of Windows? What were you guys thinking!
But that’s not all. A longhorn has one distinctive feature that separates it from all other cattle—its long horns. On a Web page called Longhorn Country, the author, a longhorn expert, writes:
There was probably no meaner creature in Texas than a Longhorn bull. The slightest provocation would turn him into an aggressive and dangerous enemy. The bull’s horns usually measured six feet or less from tip-to-tip, but could measure over eight feet long. In addition, the sharpness of horns of any length, the speed and muscle power of the bull, and the ease with which he could be aroused and enraged, made him a dangerous and uncontrollable animal.
Sadly, some would say that this aptly describes what Windows has become. A bloated cow that, when provoked, can become “dangerous and uncontrollable.”
I have refrained thus far from commenting on the lawsuits by Apple against Think Secret, PowerPage, and Apple Insider, none of whom I will dignify with a link. There are others who are doing a far better job of shedding the real light on this issue, in that is has nothing to do with the First Amendment.
Notably, John Gruber and Jeff Harrell have gotten it right. Think Secret, PowerPage, and Apple Insider should have to reveal their “sources,” and they should suffer some form of punishment. I don’t think hefty fines or jail time is necessary, but something punitive enough to ensure they will discontinue this nonsense, because it is hurting Apple.
My disdain for Jason O’Grady’s rumor-mongering goes way back, and my thoughts then still hold true now. By combining real facts leaked by insiders and NDA-holders with utter speculation, these rumor-mongers set up false expectations for unannounced Apple products. This leads consumers, as well as Wall Street “analysts”, to be disappointed when the real product is announced, and downplay the significance of the product because it is not exactly what the rumor-mongers said it was going to be. These sites are hurting Apple by revealing sensitive and private corporate information, and it has to stop.
I’m sorry, but you just won’t see something so insanely, wicked cool as this on Windows.
I am not referring to an airline hijacking.
Michael informed me this morning that our host for ATPM told him we went over our bandwidth limit for the month of February by 17 GB.
After further investigation, we learned that most of this extra bandwidth is going toward serving up various JPEGS to other sites. In other words, rather than downloading the desktop pictures we offer to our readers each month, and hosting it on their own server, people are linking directly to the file on our server for display on their sites. They are hijacking these images, and our bandwidth. This is nothing new. It’s just never happened on such a large scale before with any site I’ve been involved in.
People, this is not cool. First off, those desktop pictures are the copyrighted property of a photographer or artist who graciously donated their use to ATPM, and subsequently to our readers, as desktop pictures. This means if you want to use said picture on your web site, or any other medium, you should be contacting that photographer or artist for permission. Second, if said photographer or artist grants you permission for usage, you then host the picture on your own site. To link to the picture directly on ATPM means you are stealing our bandwidth, and driving up our costs.
We are not a for-profit publication. Our staff is all-volunteer, from the top down. Any moneys generated from ads and sponsorships goes in to our hosting costs, and after ten consecutive years of publication, those costs can be considerable. Thus, bandwidth is not something we can afford to give away, and certainly not at the rate of an extra 17 GB every month.
If you are one of the many persons out there linking directly to one of our pictures, please stop. You are violating legitimate copyright and stealing bandwidth from a group of people who do something each month out of love and joy.
The March issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your viewing pleasure.
Ellyn opens with a look at a life in–or on, rather–Jeopardy, and Wes’s Bloggable delves in to the issue of Napster’s resurgence, as well as noting other happenings in the Macosphere.
Lee weighs in with the second edition of Pod People, and reader David Blumenstein shares his switching story. Ted wraps up his look at outlining task managers, a favorite mini-series of mine, though I’m not sure if I’m any closer to selecting any sort of app to help me in this arena than I was when he started writing it. Marcus J. Albers offers some hints and tips toward getting the most out of OS X.
Andrew reviews the addictive Apeiron, and Chris Lawson examines the Cobra.XM from BOOQ. Michael runs LaunchBar 4 through its paces. While LaunchBar has long been a staple in my computing toolbox, I do have my eye on Quicksilver. I actually learned something new from Michael’s review, and I’m pleased to see that like a fine wine, LaunchBar is getting better with age.
Conversely, Chris was rather disappointed with PolyRingtone Converter, in his words, “a good idea ruined by a horrible interface and poor features.” Finally, Eric puts WireTap Pro through the wringer to test its audio-capturing capabilities.
A new chapter begins in the Cortland saga, and Frisky Freeware notes my favorite IRC client, Conversation. Lee has generously donated some inspiring cloud photos for the desktop pictures section this month. (My favorite is “clouds-6.jpg”.)
Yours truly was supposed to have a book review in this issue, but writer’s block and a sick toddler this past week foiled my attempts at finishing it. (Hey, don’t laugh about the writer’s block; I don’t want my review to be a simple regurgitation of the table of contents.) Look for it, and other awesome stuff from the staff, next month.
Since Google Maps now works in Safari, and I had to get our property taxes paid today, I thought I would give the new service a whirl. I prefer it to the other map sites, since the interface is contained inside a single browser window. It’s also fast compared to the other sites; it’s snappiness reminded me of using Gmail, which is the fastest web-based e-mail system I’ve ever used.
Last night, my Movable Type installation decided it wanted to keep me from further posting on any of my blogs. This wasn’t simply an authentication error with my login and password. Something in MT’s lib directory wasn’t playing nice, and I kept getting this error:
MT/App/CMS.pm did not return a true value at /www/retrophisch/public/movabletype/mt.cgi line 21.
Now I had been considering upgrading to Transmit 3, since as a registered user of version 2.x, I could do so for $17.95. Or I could, as a registered user of version 4.x, upgrade to Interarchy 7 for $19.
This really wasn’t a fair contest, as I was using Interarchy 7.3.1 and the last 2.x version of Transmit, 2.6.2, not the new version 3. For whatever reason, whenever I SFTPed in to my domain with Transmit, the transfer mode always turned to Auto, with no way to turn this off so I could transfer in ASCII, or Text, mode. Interarchy saved the day. It reuploaded MT’s lib directory from the local installation copy I had, preserving permissions, etc. And while they’re so similiar, I’m not sure there’s much of a differece, but I like Interarchy’s “Edit in BBEdit” implementation better than Transmit 2’s.
Transmit’s a great app, don’t get me wrong, but this time around, my money went to Interarchy.