MHC-in-the-box

Well I'm off early tomorrow!

2005-09-04T17:53:00.000-04:00

So I'm posting for everyone a big TaTa and will be back in two weeks time. I probably won't have time to post anything else before I leave so I'll see you all when I get back. Don't forget to visit my new blog, I got a script to work that rotates the header images and I'm really proud of myself! *biggrin*

So see you in two weeks and I hope you don't mind mosquito bites 'cause I'll be covered with 'em... :^D

I love donating blood! ;^)

Something big is on the horizon...

2005-09-03T08:03:00.000-04:00

Well I'm leaving for a two week vacation on Monday morning. So in two days... We're leaving as early as we can drag our butts out of bed, on Monday morning, in fact. I'm pretty revved up about the whole thing.

And icing on the cake! With toasted almonds to boot! Hmm-mmm!

My friend Stretch has made me an offer that I found too hard to refuse. We will be sharing the same webhost and I will be slowly transferring my stuff over there. I will be using WordPress just like Stretch and the template is awesome! I am putting it to my hand right now, tweaking it but no way will it be finished before I leave!

Here is the link, MHC-in-the-box. Same name, same dame, same manic posting, different addie!

So... We still have stuff to shop for, some running around and then some housework so we can leave the apartment in good shape. We will have a catsitter come by to feed our little darlings.

And well lots to do, lots to think about before we're off. Might not have time to post my frantic number of daily posts before leaving either.

Ah! Before I forget! I will be contacting those of you who had the post comment permissions and I will create for you an account at my new blog so you can comment just like you used to here.

Logitech MX 1000 Mouse problem (old story)

2005-09-02T10:09:00.000-04:00

I wanted a two button mouse with a scroll wheel for my iMac so about two and a half years ago I bought a Logitech MX 300. After about a year and a half the scrolling wheel died. So ok, I tell myself, I'll get that amazing looking Logitech Laser MX 1000. It was an expensive purchase but I figured it was well worth the cost. It has been nothing but trouble from day one!

The cursor kept jumping around intermittently all over the screen, I simply could not even predict when the cursor would jump so picking things on my screen was quite an adventure and many a times this has caused me to screw up big time! I tried various troubleshooting procedures, even ditching Logitech's driver (yes, at the time Logitech made Mac drivers! w00t!!!) and installing Alessandro Levi Montalcini's USB Overdrive instead. The utility slowed down the mouse (Duh! I had bought that mouse because it was supposed to be fast...) but did not prevent the Skipping Cursor Blues.

So I went to the Logitech users forum and Whoah! Babyyyyyyy!!! I sure wasn't alone experiencing the jumping cursor! Mac and Windoze users alike! Some said it was the antenna, some said it was the driver, some said "To hell with this!... and exchanged the mouse for another brand entirely. And to make things worse, Logitech probably was swamped with returns at some point but they made it more difficult to return your unit: you had to have the original box in which the mouse shipped in otherwise no exchange...

Thankfully I called the Mac store I bought the mouse from and they didn't have any problems with exchanging the mouse: they would simply take the box of the new mouse and put my defective unit in its place to return it to Logitech. So I bring in the whole kit and kaboodle, antenna, mouse, adaptor (think it was PS2 to USB or whatever the hell it was... And the Logitech software CD which was a hybrid, Windoze and Mac). I go to exchange the whole thing and "Wait a minute Mister Postman", this new CD doesn't have a Mac logo on it! In fact it says Windoze-only! So I ask the salesman if I can keep the old CD so I can have a driver to install if ever I need to and it's fine with him.

So I go home and start using this mouse and while the cursor still jumps to the sides this time (by not much I admit, the skipping could be like one or two pixels on either side, depending) it is still annoying when you use Photoshop, for example, but I choose to live with it. Why? Because the ergonomics of that damn mouse are out of this world, that's why! I've never held such a comfortable mouse in my hand in my life! Of course, when you think I paid close to $110CAN (taxes included) ergonomics sure don't come cheap, do they?

So about this Logitech Windoze-only CD... After coming home, I go to check the Logitech website because I'm wondering at this point if the store has ordered a Windoze-only replacement for me and lo and behold, Logitech has issued an announcement that they had decided to stop all development of Mac drivers for their mouse models!!! Now I wouldn't find that too bad if a Mac user had a rebate since we can't get any drivers from Logitech now for their damn rodents but we pay the same price as a Windoze user who has software up the wazoo from Logitech...

Now yesterday the replacement has stopped working. It hasn't even been a year that I bought it, it's been about eight or nine months since I had it replaced and now it's on the blink again. This time it seems like it's the antenna that's dead. The mouse is fully charged, it identifies I am moving it around but the antenna, for some stoopid reason, is not sending the signal. I reinstalled the driver and it doesn't see there is a device plugged in. I pulled the cable out and inserted the MX 300 instead and the Logitech mouse driver picks it up instantaneously so the problem isn't the USB port either. Can't see it being the cable from the keyboard to the antenna, it hasn't moved, it's away from all things that could get hot, so really...

So now I should go back to the store and exchange it again. Hah! You know what? I'm fed up! ergonomics or not, I'm bloody fed up. Needless to say I will never ever buy a Logitech product again in my remaining life, not even their lame computer speakers. I do not want to encourage a company that thinks Mac users are second class citizens.

So now I have set my eyes on this one, the Razer Pro V1.6.

It's pretty sexy, hunh? Plus I simply love the fact that they don't mind developing Mac drivers and aren't ashamed of showing the Mac logo on their webpage. The website promises an online store in Canada but doesn't say when this will happen so I have emailed them to find out if they have an idea when they plan on launching it.

Here are the Razer Pro V1.6's Technical Details.

I was for a time interested in Apple's Mighty Mouse but reviews are so mixed, I really don't know what to think. Besides, the ergonomic design, the shell that makes the mouse's shape, hasn't changed much from what I can see from the Apple Pro Mouse. I'm looking for something a bit more comfortable...

Improving Mac OS X's Finder: Take two

2005-09-02T08:48:00.000-04:00

It seems to me that The Great "Improve The Finder" Debate has been going on for a while. Granted, some have been using the Mac much longer than I have (I started using one in late 1996, with system 7.5.3) but ever since my early days of using a Mac I've heard this debate, off and on. The introduction of Mac OS X had quieted down the musings for a while but now they're picking up momentum again and in certain cases, rightfully so. Like for instance I posted earlier on this opinion by afterglow from creativebits and improvements suggested made plenty of sense, Rethinking the Finder.

drunkenbatman adds his thoughts to the whole debate. It seems that the Tiger Finder gets weirder and weirder and the cause of this is Mac OS X's LaunchServices. Take a look at what he means... Oh, Stupid Finder. Since I'm still with Panther I can't exactly verify to which extent that can get as bad, but I have noticed since the later Panther updates that at least one of the problems he mentions is happening in my system as well...

Tiger System settings

2005-09-01T22:35:00.000-04:00

A whole bunch of them got together at Macworld to write this article, Tiger Secrets: System settings - 20 top-secret tweaks that can bend OS X 10.4 to your will. Like for instance did you know you could ask Tiger's Spelling to be bilingual? Man, lemme tell ya, it sure will come in handy for me, I'm constantly changing the Spelling Dictionary in Panther, I sometimes write emails in French, sometimes in English.

Check it out, there must be something in there you weren't aware of... ;^)

Mac OS X's Color Picker

2005-09-01T22:28:00.000-04:00

Macworld's Rob Griffith posted an interesting How To, Secrets of the Color Picker.

If you’ve used a Mac for any length of time at all, you’re probably familiar with the Color Picker. The Color Picker is a small floating window through which you can choose colors for text, objects, lines, and other objects (depending on which application you’re in when using it, of course). You can call up the color picker from any Cocoa application (TextEdit, Mail, Keynote, Pages, etc.) by hitting Shift-Command-C. Other programs, such as Word and Excel, don’t use Apple’s color picker at all, so the following tips won’t apply to those programs. Finally, some programs such as Photoshop offer the option to use either the Adobe color picker or Apple’s color picker. Obviously, you’ll have to be using Apple’s color picker in those programs in order to use these tips.

The first thing to realize about Apple’s color picker is that it’s a relatively complex interface element. You’re probably most familiar with the picker’s default look, which is the color wheel interface. But using the small toolbar at the top of the window, you can choose from four additional styles: Color Sliders, Color Palettes, Image Palettes, and (the most fun) Crayons.

The first tip is one that you may be familiar with—you can save often-used colors in the small white boxes at the bottom of the window. Simply choose the color you’d like to save, then drag and drop it from the color bar area into a white box at the bottom of the screen. But what if you want to save more than 16 colors? That’s also easy, if not quite so obvious: just drag the small dot at the bottom of the window downward, and you’ll reveal up to 10 rows of 16 boxes. You can see examples of both saving colors and the extra boxes in this short video clip...

State of Massachusetts goes Open format

2005-09-01T19:23:00.000-04:00

Groklaw's Pamela Jones has this amazing news. At least it is amazing to me because the State of Massachusetts has just taken a bold, gutsy step and has decided the State is going Open Format. Out Micro$oft Office, out Lotus Notes, out Word Perfect. Since this will be a humongous task to get all departments working in the new OpenOffice environment, the deadline for all to conform will be January 1, 2007. MA Chooses OASIS OpenDoc XML as Office Standard - Requesting Comments:

This is a bit of a miracle.

The State of Massachusetts is backing OpenDocument v. 1.0 as the standard for office applications, text documents, spreadsheets, charts and graphical documents like drawings and presentations, and all agencies are expected to migrate by January 1, 2007.

Here is the new version [PDF] of their Enterprise Technical Reference Model. As they themselves acknowledge, "Given the majority of Executive Department agencies currently use office applications such as MS Office, Lotus Notes and WordPerfect that produce documents in proprietary formats, the magnitude of the migration effort to this new open standard is considerable."

Considerable, yes, but if your goal is interoperability, both necessary and worth the effort, as anyone who has ever tried to interoperate in WordPerfect with someone working in MS Office can testify. They also say when formatting doesn't matter, documents created in proprietary formats can be saved as plain text -- think email, for example -- and for documents that will primarily be accessed by a web browser through the Internet or an intranet, HTML is preferred. By HTML, they mean standard HTML, as in HTML v. 4.01. PDF is also acceptable for documents that will not be further modified, and the standard there is PDF Reference v. 1.5 that supports XML functionality.

If you wish to review where this story began, back in January, Massachusetts announced its Open Format policy (announcement transcript here), and in March many at Groklaw responded to the request for input from the public on the Commonwealth's Enterprise Technical Reference Model. We had issues. A lot of other groups had issues too. Massachusetts listened. They met with industry and other groups' representatives. You can see a list of those asked to give input at one meeting. Then they went back to the drawing board and came up with this new version. They are asking for comments once again. ...

I can well imagine the top brass at M$ trying to pressure the government into not even thinking about this move. Just remember when Steve Blamer cut short his vacation and went to meet the officials of the city of Munich, if I'm not mistaken who wanted to go completely open source for the OS running the entire government website and governmental computing infrastructure: they wanted to ditch Windoze and go Linux. Balmer, I'm sure must have been carrying a special deal in his alligator carrying case... I can't remember if Balmer went there for nothing or not though. Gee I hate these partial memory mappings... Anyway.

Which makes me think that this, in the long run, should be what big companies, trying to go too much the way of proprietary format and the like, should get. You want to grab the bedsheets all to yourself? And pull 'em all on your side? You don't want to play nice with the rest? You think making your software stand on an island and shut out competitors is a great idea? Sorry, administration bureaucracy is too big and departmental software needs to talk to each other...

Creative gets creative with their MP3 player Zen Neeon

2005-09-01T18:53:00.000-04:00

So Creative is gettin' cocky because they were awarded a patent that could possibly place Apple and the iPod in a delicate situation. Instead of strutting around, maybe they should check out what they do and what they ship, maybe? Creative MP3 Players Shipped with Windows Virus:

Multimedia company Creative acknowledged that 3,700 of the company's Zen Neeon MP3 players that shipped from a company factory in late July contain a Windows worm.

The 5GB Neeon digital audio players contain a copy of W32.Wullik.B, according to a statement posted on Creative Technology Ltd.'s Japanese language Web site.

The worm file doesn't pose a serious threat of spreading, but could potentially infect Windows systems that are connected to the Neeon, according to anti-virus company F-Secure Corp. ...

Looks like the only money they'll be making, since they make such lame products, is collect royalties from Apple, I guess.

Driving too fast post

2005-09-01T13:51:00.000-04:00

My friend Stretch isn't too happy when he has a slowpoke in front of him on the road. But here are examples of the complete opposite, driving too fast.

Click to enlarge. From How you know if you're driving too fast...

From Driving Too Fast

And two little stories in the same short article, Driving too fast?

More on the iPod patent going to Creative

2005-09-01T09:22:00.000-04:00

Well I do have apoplectic fits about this but it seems that Creative is starting to go "Hmmmm" and scratching their collective chin at the possibilities... According to a Macworld article, After patent, Creative examines all options they just might demand from Apple a licensing fee or some kind of money on each iPod unit sold.

Craig McHugh, president of Creative Labs, says that his company is "evaluating all alternatives" now that it has received a patent for music player interfaces. The patent, issued by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, covers the hierarchical display of music information on digital music players that Creative claims can be found not only on its devices but also on Apple's iPod and iPod mini.

The interface that Creative has patented covers the display of music on a digital music player using hierarchical menus that sort content using metadata tags. In a series of slides shown to conference call attendees, McHugh demonstrated how it works on Creative’s Zen Micro player — the screen shows a music library comprising playlists, albums, artists, genres and tracks — navigating the Artists menu, for example, yields a list of artists whose music is on the player. Go to the next level and you’ll find the artist’s albums on the player; the next shows individual tracks. ...

The hierarchical interface has been used by nine generations of Creative music players, said McHugh. That includes the Nomad and black and white Zen line, the Zen MicroPhoto, Creative’s alternative to Apple’s color screen-equipped iPod, and the Zen Vision, which features a larger form factor, color screen and the ability to play back video in addition to music and photos. ...

The US Patent & Trademark Office awarded Creative its patent in the early August, but this is the first time the company has publicly acknowledged it. McHugh said that the recent press coverage regarding Apple and Microsoft’s patent dispute spurred Creative to take action.

Last month the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office rejected a patent application filed by Apple for some elements of the iPod interface, citing a patent submission made by Microsoft developer five months before.

McHugh explained that Microsoft developer John Platt’s patent covered a different aspect of the interface than the hierarchical display of music. Creative patent application, filed in January of 2001, predates both Apple and Platt’s filings, he added.

Why wasn’t Creative mentioned in the US Patent & Trademark Office’s rejection? As Creative understands it, “the patent office only has to cite one piece of prior art for rejection,” McHugh said. “Not all of them.” ...

Uh oh here we go... Apple Is Accused of Violating Software Patent.

So what will Apple do? This is a very tough spot they're in now... :^(

Apple unveils Developer Transition Resource Center website section

2005-08-31T23:31:00.000-04:00

Via TUAW, I notice that Apple has launched for you developer types a new resource centre aimed at easing the transition toward the Intel chip. Here is Apple's new developer section, Developer Transition Resource Center.

Apple has announced that it is transitioning the Macintosh to an Intel-based architecture, and the resources here provide everything you need to make sure your applications are ready. Join the many Mac developers who have already migrated their code and are ready for the future of the Mac platform. ...

Categories included:

Universal Binaries
Porting from CodeWarrior
Xcode 2
Optimization

Each category has numerous sub-categories and should well take care of any aspect of the developer's difficulties. Besides, Apple sure doesn't want to lose you guys, do they? ;^)

The World's Shortest Personality Test

2005-08-31T23:21:00.000-04:00

Here is The World's Shortest Personality Test. You simply choose the image you like best. The image I picked says this:

You are dignified, spiritual, and wise.
Always unsatisfied, you constantly try to better yourself.
You are also a seeker of knowledge and often buried in books.

You tend to be philosophical, looking for the big picture in life.
You dream of inner peace for yourself, your friends, and the world.
A good friend, you always give of yourself first.

Whoah! Even I'm surprised! LOL

N.Y.T. article: Americans scientifically ignorant

2005-08-31T22:09:00.000-04:00

Here's a New York Times article that says that Americans are scientifically ignorant, Scientific Savvy? In U.S., Not Much.

Wow! Just you wait till Intelligent Design is taught in schools...

liveplasma

2005-08-31T22:00:00.000-04:00

Via Futurosity I came across a cool website called liveplasma. It's kinda like a search engine that recreates spheres of influence/related artists and connections in music, cinema, directors, actors. It's beta and it takes a while to load. I had a hard time getting a second query going, had to get out of the site, get rid of the cookie and go back but it's still a spiffy site.

The Mac Support Store

2005-08-31T17:41:00.000-04:00

Need to replace a part in one of your Macs and trying to save money by doing the repair yourself instead of sending it to the repair shop? MacTech Magazine has an article on Brooklyn-based The Mac Support Store, Worlds Largest Selection of Genuine Apple Parts Goes Online:

The Mac Support Store, a Business Outsourcing Provider and online Reseller of Apple products, has added more than 5,000 Genuine Apple parts into its online store. Customers can order any part Apple manufactured between 1991 and 2005.

This is another important milestone in our online strategy to become the single online source for Apple goods and services, said Jeff Graber, CEO of The Mac Support Store. Apple has been selling packaged certification and customer installable parts for years but the choices for buying parts online haven’t been reliable. Our parts come direct from Apple, so we’re able to keep the costs low and the quality high. ...

Check out The Mac Support Store right here.

Photography Tip: more on the Canon 100-400MM lens and astrophotography

2005-08-31T15:02:00.000-04:00

I just can't let it go, can I? *Wink* All morning I've been going around the internet to see reviews of tripods, ballheads and various quick release devices. One thing lead to another and I came across some reviews on the lens that one day I hope to be able to afford, the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM and that I talk about here ¹. I know my friend Adrian wants the same lens as I do so this will surely grab his attention as well (and I also have a special treat for him at the end of this article).

From what I've read and I've seen a few samples of what the lens can do, I can say I can hardly wait! Some reviewers say it's a great lens but it is a bit soft at full open aperture/fully extended zoom settings and there is a bit of vignetting. But other reviewers, and they are the majority here, are amazed at the crispness, colour and contrast this lens gives to a photograph. I wouldn't know if the ones that saw a few Cons to the Pros in using this lens have bought one of the first or earlier versions of this lens or if they had a rather sub-standard specimen in their hands.

So let's have some links here so we can all read these reviews!

Arthur Morris / Birds as Art - Bird Photography FAQ 7 Which is a better lens, the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS zoom lens, or the 400mm f/5.6L lens?
fredmiranda.com Reviews Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Matthew K. Whitley's review Canon EF 100-400L IS
Arthur Morris / Birds as Art Bird Photography FAQ 7 What do you think of the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS zoom lens?
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM Lens Review
And last but not least, Arthur Morris / Birds as Art Bulletins and Notes Archive's Confessions & Important Miscellany:

...Confession #1: Though I still consider it the best lens in the world for photographing birds in flight (see FAQs on web site for details), I no longer carry my beloved "toy lens"--the Canon 400mm f/5.6 L--on my shoulder as my auxiliary intermediate telephoto. It has been replaced by the Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L Image Stabilizer zoom lens. I have been using the 1-4 more and more every day and--contrary to some reports from other users--have been making razor sharp images at all focal lengths with wide open to moderately stopped down apertures. In addition, I have it used it wide open, handheld with the 1.4X tele-converter with excellent results (with static subjects) at 560mm. For bird photography, the versatility of this lens is unmatched; I find myself making images that I would never even have thought of before--especially of groups of birds in their surroundings. And though it is heavier than the 400 f/5.6L, it is also a superb flight lens. At Bosque Del Apache NWR late this fall, I used the 1-4 on a tripod before sunrise for "bird-scapes" and then again almost exclusively for the spectacular blast-offs. I only wish that the zoom were a bit smoother. I am even considering selling one of my 400 f/5.6s; I never ever thought that I'd say that when the 1-4 first came out.....

Now for Adrian's treat. Adrian is pretty handy with his hands and can rustle up some homemade devices. I remember when he used his iSight webcam to take his first astrophotography pictures, so this shouldn't be too hard to do, if he can find all the pieces to this project.

Building an Eyepiece Holder for Canon EF Lenses Using a Rear Lens Cap:

For Finding and Centering Astronomical Objects for Astrophotography with Parfocal Eyepiece
Finding and centering astronomical objects in the view finder of consumer grade Digital Rebel or 20D cameras or older film cameras (e.g., EOS 650) can be challenging. A sturdy (flexure free) eyepiece holder that can hold a parfocal eyepiece is a useful aid to astrophotography and can be constructed from a Canon EF lens rear cap and threaded 1.25 inch eyepiece holder.

The example I photograph below uses a Televue 25mm Plossl eyepiece shown in position that is parfocal with the sensor/film plane of EOS cameras (A 19mm panoptic worked fine too). The eyepiece holder will not work with guiding eyepieces (e.g., 12.5mm Orion) or ST-4 as the working distance is too large. ...

Good luck Adrian! Hope you find this useful! :^)

I so, so, so hope to get this baby. And this is a test for a footnote too! *Wink* ⥣ back to text

Intelligent Design: Show Me the Science

2005-08-30T23:33:00.000-04:00

You remember His Noodliness, don't you? Well, via Kottke.org, here's an article that directly challenges the Intelligent Design concept and Idealogy, the New York Times' Show Me the Science:

...Is "intelligent design" a legitimate school of scientific thought? Is there something to it, or have these people been taken in by one of the most ingenious hoaxes in the history of science? Wouldn't such a hoax be impossible? No. Here's how it has been done.

First, imagine how easy it would be for a determined band of naysayers to shake the world's confidence in quantum physics - how weird it is! - or Einsteinian relativity. In spite of a century of instruction and popularization by physicists, few people ever really get their heads around the concepts involved. Most people eventually cobble together a justification for accepting the assurances of the experts: "Well, they pretty much agree with one another, and they claim that it is their understanding of these strange topics that allows them to harness atomic energy, and to make transistors and lasers, which certainly do work..."

Fortunately for physicists, there is no powerful motivation for such a band of mischief-makers to form. They don't have to spend much time persuading people that quantum physics and Einsteinian relativity really have been established beyond all reasonable doubt.

With evolution, however, it is different. The fundamental scientific idea of evolution by natural selection is not just mind-boggling; natural selection, by executing God's traditional task of designing and creating all creatures great and small, also seems to deny one of the best reasons we have for believing in God. So there is plenty of motivation for resisting the assurances of the biologists. Nobody is immune to wishful thinking. It takes scientific discipline to protect ourselves from our own credulity, but we've also found ingenious ways to fool ourselves and others. Some of the methods used to exploit these urges are easy to analyze; others take a little more unpacking. ...

This is a very good read. Hopefully for us, this Intelligent Design Idealogy doesn't make it this side of the border...

More on Google...

2005-08-30T22:57:00.000-04:00

Well Google is starting to get bad press. So I feel I'm not alone in starting to think Google is going creepy on us. A week ago, there was this article in the New York Times, Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain in which the author, Gary Rivlin, explains how Google rose from being media darlings to becoming a little bit too big, too soon for anyone's comfort.

...It was not that long ago that Google reigned here as the upstart computer company that could do no wrong. Now some working in the technology field are starting to draw comparisons between Google and Microsoft, the company in Redmond, Wash., that Silicon Valley loves most to hate.

Bill Gates certainly sees similarities between Google and his own company. This spring, in an interview with Fortune, Mr. Gates, Microsoft's chairman, said that Google was "more like us than anyone else we have ever competed with."

Google's success has already spurred Microsoft to develop its own Internet search engine (a project code-named Underdog), but Google has legions of engineers banging away on a range of projects of its own that, if successful, could dislodge Microsoft from the pre-eminent spot it has enjoyed since the early 1980's.

Of course, Silicon Valley has had past pretenders to the throne. Netscape, which went public 10 years ago this month, and its Web browser, Navigator, were supposed to fell Microsoft - but it is Netscape that is no longer in business. And while Google is riding high, those closely following the company caution that it is hardly invincible; an inflated stock price, a desire to compete in too many sectors simultaneously or simple hubris might cause it to stumble, they say. Even Microsoft, after all, has had legal troubles. ...

Just as Microsoft has been seen over the years as an aggressive, deep-pocketed competitor for talent, Internet start-ups in Silicon Valley complain that virtually every time they try to recruit a well-regarded computer programmer, that person is already contemplating an offer from Google. ...

Google is also making it more difficult for some start-ups to raise funds. In the second half of the 1990's, entrepreneurs frequently complained that the specter of Microsoft hung over their every conversation with venture capitalists. Today, they say the same about Google. ...

*Phew* Now ain't that heavy? And, via Kootke.org, here's more of the same, Google's Unnecessary Arrogance, Dan Gillmore writes:

...John Battelle is probably correct that this story marks a southward turn in Google coverage. The remarkable thing, from my perspective, is the degree to which Google's public-relations wounds are self-inflicted.

Google is a great company, but a layer of hubris threatens to encrust the excellence. It was exemplified most recently by the childish banning of contact with CNET journalists after the news site did a story highlighting what can be done to invade privacy using the company's own tools.

The attitude problem has been evident for a while now. While I support the company's refusal to offer "guidance" to Wall Street -- a game used by public corporations to game the stock market -- the utter opacity of the operation is disconcerting. It's one thing to stick to principle, but another to rub people's faces in it, such as when Google held an open house and had the CFO -- the chief food officer, not the chief financial officer -- give a presentatinon. Cute, but that stunt will be remembered by people whom Google will someday need. ...

And there is this post by Daring Fireball's John Gruber, Google Is an Advertising Company:

...“Follow the money” is as good a way as any to define a company: the point of business is to profit. This is why Apple is not, and has never been, a software company: their profits come from hardware sales — computers, and, now, iPods. Microsoft is a software company: their profits — billions of dollars every quarter — come almost solely from software.

Judged by their profits, Google is an advertising company. They don’t profit from search, they don’t profit from software. They profit by selling ads. This isn’t to belittle them — I think Google is a terrific company, and they are profiting handsomely from ad revenue ($369 million last quarter). They’re market leaders because their ads are better for everyone — they’re far less obnoxious than traditional web advertising (so they’re better for users), and yet they’re also more effective and cheaper (so they’re better for advertisers). And their software is, in many ways, ingenious.

If Google has a platform, it’s an advertising platform, not a developer platform. I’m not even saying Google should have a developer platform — I’m just saying they don’t. Any software that uses Google as a back-end for web search could be modified to use Yahoo or MSN by changing a few lines of code. Google Desktop might be popular, but it’s nowhere near as cool as Yahoo Widgets (a.k.a. Konfabulator) in terms of acting as a developer platform.

Plus, if Google is such a threat to Microsoft, why is it that all of their non-web software only runs on Windows? (Cf. Scott Rosenberg’s post from last week: “Google’s Windows-Only World”.)

Business-wise, Google’s software is just an excuse to show ads. Google’s search results and apps like Gmail serve the same purpose as the editorial content in magazines and newspaper. Google may or may not become a direct threat to Microsoft in the future, but in the here and now, the entrenched monopolies that ought to feel threatened by Google are newspapers. Newspapers, especially local small- and medium-market newspapers live off the revenue from classified ads. But because most towns have only one major newspaper, classified ad prices are artificially high. Google is primed to burst into this market, with targeted local ads that are cheaper for advertisers and easier for users to find what they’re looking for or interested in. ...

So these days, it sure isn't cool to be Google... HeHeHe

Largest Mail.app mailbox size

2005-08-30T21:14:00.000-04:00

Via Kottke.org, I came across the biggest, baddest Mail.app mailbox and it holds... 43,000+ emails...

Whooh!...

Apple Mail plug-ins and tools website

2005-08-30T19:07:00.000-04:00

Looking for Mac OS X' s Mail plug-ins? Wishing for more functionality in Mail? Via TUAW, I found a site that is just that, Apple Mail plug-ins and tools. From Import/Export added functionality to new Rules or AppleScripts for Mail 2.0 or later, that's the place to find what you are looking for.

So check it out! :^)

Oh Stonyyyyyy... Saft update!

2005-08-30T18:50:00.000-04:00

Via TUAW, I learned that the latest Safari update broke Saft again (this was to be expected, I guess). And of course, Hao Li is right on the ball once more with his update. Saft v8.1.3 for Safari 2.0.1 and Saft v7.7.3 for Panther and Safari 1.3.1.

LiveQuartz

2005-08-30T12:55:00.000-04:00

I have posted very briefly on BeLight's Image Tricks, Stone Design's iMaginator and Core Image Fun House and Quartz Composer but it seems there's something else to consider as an image editor and it's a freebie. Via Futurosity, I got to learn of Romain Piveteau's (RhapSoft) LiveQuartz 1.0.2.

Click here to see LiveQuartz at work. Looks like plenty of fun!

LiveQuartz is a simple image editor. It is based on layers and CoreImage filters.
You have the layers at the left and the filters at the right of the window.
To edit an image, just drag it into the window and it will be added as a new layer.
LiveQuartz is localized in English, Chinese, German and French. ...

System requirements: Mac OS X Tiger 10.4. So download it now, you lucky Tiger users, you!

Stone Design's iMaginator updated to version 2.0

2005-08-30T12:29:00.000-04:00

This is kinda old news, dating back to July 11th but it's good to be reminded it's out there. From the good folks at Stone Design Corp., makers of Stone Studio and Create, comes iMaginator which was updated to version 2.0. iMaginator has over 108 filters and effects for you to work with and you can "combine text, paint, images, filters and effects to turn photos into art and QuickTime movies." System requirements ask for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Once you buy your licence (only $49), upgrades are free for life as is the case with all Stone Studio software.

Click here to view the full list of features.

From the press release:

Stone Design, the original Mac OS X software house with over 19 years of experience, today announced immediate availability of iMaginator 2.0, a free upgrade of its powerful image processing application. iMaginator provides an intuitive and easy to use interface for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)’s Core Image technology, giving both home users and graphics professionals instant access to over 108 effects, transitions, and filters. With iMaginator, users can layer images, paint and text, and apply, modify, and re-order multiple effects to achieve subtle enhancements or astounding artistic results from any photo or image. Crop, scale, rotate, flip, skew, change exposure and brighten images in real time, and then save processed images as industry-standard TIFF or JPEG files, and even create QuickTime movies showing the effects changing over time. ...

iMaginator 2.0 is twice as fast as the original release by using OpenGL and CoreImage directly. Paint can be applied on any number of layers with any size square or round brush. It can erase the image or be blended in 20 different ways to achieve stunning results. Many new effects chains have been added to the Library, including the winners of the iMaginator Contest. The crop rectangle can be set exactly, and moved by holding down the option key. Additionally, several important bug fixes make the product extremely stable.

Developers working with Tiger for INTEL can also run iMaginator as it ships with a universal binary that runs on Power PC as well as INTEL hardware. ...

iPod patents also go to Creative

2005-08-30T10:59:00.000-04:00

Well, I'll be hornswaggled!...

Not only did Apple see its patent application for the iPod interface get awarded to Micro$oft instead, the decision causing all sorts of debates, but now Playlist reports that Creative claims music player patent covers iPod, too!

Creative Technology Ltd. on Tuesday announced that it has been awarded U.S. Patent 6,928,433, which it’s calling the “Zen Patent” for short. The Zen Patent describes how files on a digital music player are organized, and covers not only its own Zen and Nomad jukeboxes, but also Apple’s iPod and iPod mini, according to a statement release by the company.

The Zen Patent is summarized as “automatic hierarchical categorization of music by metadata.” Creative said the patent covers the ability for a digital music player to display music using artist, album and track menus — the way that not only Creative’s music players work, but also Apple’s.

Creative chairman and CEO Sim Wong Hoo, explained that Creative’s Nomad Jukebox was on store shelves in September 2000, 13 months before Apple’s ever saw the light of day, he said.

“Before this invention, there was no intuitive and efficient way to deal with the large number of tracks that could be stored on a high-capacity player,” Sim said.

Creative’s patent news is the latest salvo in Sim Wong Hoo’s self-described marketing “war” against the iPod, which he first described in November, 2004. ...

OMG. His Steveness is gonna have a fit... :-o

Photography Tip: The Harness

2005-08-30T09:49:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was fantasizing on a lens, the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM. It's a real monster of a lens:

The image hardly does it justice. It extends at least half of that actual length, as it is now at 100MM focal length and the casing is ultra-rugged and made out of metal so it weighs in around 3 pounds or 1.380 kilograms. Since I do a lot of trekking this could be a heavy weight and become quite uncomfortable for my neck. Not to mention that I have to somehow find a way to secure the camera and the lens so it doesn't move too much while I walk as the weight of the lens would surely break or weaken the threading that holds the lens on the camera body. And it has to have a quick release system so I can quickly get the camera ready to take a shot as I stumble upon nature's wonderful surprises! So I have looked far and wide for a harness. And lo and behold, people, I have found a gem, I think!

It's from Kinesis Photo Gear and it's the [H717] X Harness. It is padded so it will be most comfortable for hours of trekking, it has straps to secure the camera and prevent it from moving and bouncing around and the straps have quick releases. To have the most complete and versatile harness system, my needs would be the [H717] X Harness and [H435] Kinesis Camera Adapters and that's it, folks!

They do deliver outside of the US. That was, of course, important to me.

I posted this in case anyone is looking for a system like this. It wasn't too easy to find, there's a lot of flimsy and uncomfortable gear out there that is so much more readily available than this quality product and I had to invest a lot of research time to find it. Hope this helps another nature photographer out there.

drunkenbatman on Google Talk

2005-08-29T22:19:00.000-04:00

After my disgruntled posts on all things Google, including Windoze-only Google Talk, drunkenbatman adds his voice to the Google Talk debate with this post 1,2,3,4 -- I Declare IM War and a strong voice, at that too!

And it is another side of the coin that Jason Kottke and Pierre Igot have already brought up on the futuristic WebOS. There is a war that is brewing and there will be blocked IM clients and there will come a time when consumers will either have to choose sides or have many, many chat clients on their computers...

Check it out! Lots of info in that article...

FreeMacWare, a new website for Mac freeware

2005-08-29T21:09:00.000-04:00

Via TUAW I learned of FreeMacWare, a site that lets us know of all the freeware released for Mac OS X.

Through that nifty site I just found a terrific Contextual Menu plug-in I was dreaming about, Automatic's The Dimensionizer which lets you know through right-clicking (or Control-clicking for one button mouse) on an image the dimension in height and width and copies the info to the clipboard. System requirement: Mac OS X Panther 10.3.x or later.

And another one which I am going to give a try is Dejal Systems' BlogAssist which will place itself in the menubar and through a customizable drop down menu you can find some HTML already stored there and add some links so you can then copy/paste lines of text directly into your blog entry as you type it. This could be a great addition/companion to Peter Maurer's Texpander that my buddy Stretch told me about today. System requirement: Mac OS X Panther 10.3.x or later.

Apple posts Safari updates for 10.3 and 10.4

2005-08-29T18:10:00.000-04:00

Apple has just posted an update to Mac OS X 10.3.x Panther's Safari, making this Safari 1.3.1 and Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger's Safari updating it to Safari 2.0.1.

Both updates improve "website compatibility, application stability and support for 3rd party web applications." The Panther Safari update weighs in at 3.8MB while the Tiger Safari is 4.5MB.

Click on the correct link for your Mac OS X version for more info and a link to a download or run System Preferences' Software Update.

Edited to add:

Gah! A restart is necessary!...

Mac 101 at Apple

2005-08-29T17:39:00.000-04:00

For those who didn't know, Apple has posted this a couple of months ago it seems to me, never got a chance of posting about it but now is the time, as I was reminded about it today in a forum I go to (thanks TS' Texas Mac Man) : Mac 101: Troubleshooting Help:

Troubleshooting 101: Introduction
Cars, toasters, and your own flesh-and-blood body are just like your Mac—each requires a little preventative maintenance for optimum performance, but can sometimes perform unexpectedly for no apparent reason. When that time comes for your Mac, you can take care of many seemingly alarming issues yourself quite easily.

This section covers some of the common issues that can occur with your Mac, and provides all the troubleshooting steps you need to resolve an issue yourself. We also provide a lesson that tells you what you can do if your troubleshooting techniques aren't working. And last (but not least), make sure you read through our "Miracle Maintenance" guide to keep your Mac (and your mental state) happy. ...

This section of Apple's website is subdivided this way:

Lesson 1 deals with Computer Crises
Lesson 2 talks about Startup Setbacks
Lesson 3 looks at Device Dilemmas
Lesson 4, Software Snags
Lesson 5, Display Difficulties
Lesson 6, Printing Problems
Lesson 7, Internet Issues
Lesson 8, Call In the Cavalry
Lesson 9: Miracle Maintenance

So click on the link at the beginning of this post if any of these categories apply or if you want to learn more.

Mac 101 also has a Get started with the Mac section which has:

an introduction to Mac OS X's interface
how various Mac OS X applications work
how to configure your Mac
how to connect to the internet

So if you need help, tips, an intro to Mac OS X or a refresher course on Mac OS X, those links will be for you.

Cyberduck updated to version 2.5

2005-08-29T16:23:00.000-04:00

David V. Kocher has just updated his excellent Cyberduck, the FTP and SFTP Browser for Mac OS X, to version 2.5. Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later is required.

From the Changelog:

[Feature] Graphical interface refinements
[Bugfix] Caching issue with multiple connections to the same host
[Bugfix] When moving to the parent directory the previous working directory is always selected
[Bugfix] Selected files are always remembered when refreshing the browsing list
[Bugfix] Remove custom icon and resource fork after download

Click here for a full list of the Cyberduck Features.

A short and fun quiz on Japan

2005-08-29T16:09:00.000-04:00

From the life of an IT engineer blog, here is a neat little quiz on Japan, A Short Quiz. It's good to know about other countries. :^D

ClarusX2005 for Tiger

2005-08-29T15:50:00.000-04:00

A cute little haxie, Tiger users! From Interealm, meet donationware ClarusX2005, "a Mac OS X Tiger haxie to replace the page setup dialog icons (aka "boring guy") found in Mac OS X".

Just some of the styles available...

Rethinking the Finder

2005-08-29T10:29:00.000-04:00

Now I find the Finder is kinda ok. Some things I'd like to see tweaked, that's for sure: like for instance a bit of stability in my viewing choices in folders instead of reverting to the system's default, better navigation (Mac OS X's navigation is getting better I admit but there is still some improvement to be made) but there is place for some debate in the Mac community as to a better Mac OS X Finder. Via TUAW, I went to CreativeBits and caught this great entry, Desk - Rethinking the Finder. If it doesn't please everyone, at least it's out there for us to think about and see what can be imagined.

In the past few years , OS X has given Apple a second whirlwind romance with public opinion. It's software, UI effects and "just works" mojo have caused a great ripple of curiosity through previously skeptical PC users.
While the rest of the computing experience on the Mac has jumped forward the file manager used by nearly every single Mac user has puffed along by comparison.

Comparing the Finder of an old Performa chugging away on 0S 7 and Tiger's sleek GUI, the actual functions and implementation haven't changed hugely. So after using the Finder for a decade for media and graphic work, I've come to certain conclusions. ...

Here's a link to a QuickTime Movie (3.1MB) showing what the author of the article came up with.

Very good read as the author points out what, in his opinion, should be improved. I like all his ideas. :^)

Photography Tip: sRGB or Adobe RGB 1998?

2005-08-28T22:02:00.000-04:00

In a forum, someone wanting to print a picture done on a PeeCee but now imported to a Mac using Photoshop CS has asked which colour space should be used, sRGB or Adobe RGB 1998. Well I'm no expert by far but I gave this some thought and researched it a bit and came up with... it depends.

And this touches digital photography as well. On my Canon Digital Rebel XT (EOS 350D) I can choose which colour space I want to shoot in. At the beginning I really didn't know but I had heard that Adobe RGB 1998 was better so I picked that for colour space. Through a book given to me buy a friend that I am still reading (weird eyesight's fault that I'm not done yet with the book!) the author explains that Adobe RGB 1998 has a wider gamut than sRGB. sRGB was created by Windoze for computer display use.

But here's the trick, for printed material you will be better using the Adobe RGB colour space because of its wider colour gamut.

This article explains it quite well, sRGB vs. ADOBE RGB 1998:

Adobe RGB 1998 and sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (sRGB) are two of the most common working spaces used in digital photography. This section aims to clear up some of the confusion associated with sRGB and Adobe RGB 1998, and to provide guidance on when to use each working space.

BACKGROUND
sRGB is a RGB color space proposed by HP and Microsoft because it approximates the color gamut of the most common computer display devices. Since sRGB serves as a "best guess" for how another person's monitor produces color, it has become the standard color space for displaying images on the internet. sRGB's color gamut encompasses just 35% of the visible colors specified by CIE (see section on color spaces). Although sRGB results in one of the narrowest gamuts of any working space, sRGB's gamut is still considered broad enough for most color applications.

Adobe RGB 1998 was designed (by Adobe Systems, Inc.) to encompass most of the colors achievable on CMYK printers, but by using only RGB primary colors on a device such as your computer display. The Adobe RGB 1998 working space encompasses roughly 50% of the visible colors specified by CIE-- improving upon sRGB's gamut primarily in cyan-greens. ...

smugmug, which hosts my photos, had this to say on the subject, Getting great prints: sRGB versus Adobe RGB (1998) and in that article they refer the reader to this other article as reference, Color Spaces: Beyond Adobe RGB which talks about ProPhoto RGB.

Incidentally a fine article is posted at Luminous Landscape on ProPhoto RGB, Understanding ProPhoto RGB - A Preferred Working Space for Digital Photographers:

Most photographers work under the assumption that Adobe RGB 98 is the most suitable working space within Photoshop. Everyone also knows that the sRGB working space is smaller, and therefore less suitable for professional and fine-art printing applications. Sure, sRGB is fine for amateurs and the web, but real men use Adobe RGB – right?

Well, not really.

One of the most knowledgeable voices in the area of colour management over the last few years has been Bruce Fraser, the co-author of the current definitive work on colour management for photographers – Real World Color Management. In articles that he's written elsewhere Bruce suggests that digital photographers should consider working in the much large ProPhoto RGB colour space. (ProPhoto RGB was developed by Kodak).

Though I'm familiar with the book and many of Bruce's other writings, and I knew that ProPhoto RGB is a bigger space than Adobe RGB, somehow there wasn't a mental connect – until recently.

What happened was – I had an epiphany. I was preparing for a presentation that I was to deliver to a seminar on colour managed workflow and fine art printing. As part of preparing my Powerpoint slides I wanted to show the difference between the sRGB and Adobe RGB workspaces, so I went into the ColorSync Utility, which is part of the Mac OS. This allows one, among other things, to look at graphic representations of profiles and colour spaces, and compare them. ...

Here is what the Wikipedia has to say on RGB color space.

Hungry for more info? Here you go, Bruce Lindbloom's RGB Working Space Information.

So uhm... What was the question?... Oh yeah which colour space is best? Well I replied in that forum thread that if the member is importing from a Windoze machine and if she worked in a sRGB colour space, getting two conversions going (from PeeCee to Mac, then sRGB to Adobe RGB 1998), well that's a lot of conversions going on for one file! So I suggested that she print her image without converting... depending on if extreme colour accuracy is vital, that is.

This gets pretty mumbo jumbo I find, with the monitor calibrations, printer calibrations, etc. Praise the lord for ColorSync is all I have to say...

For my friend Paige

2005-08-28T20:07:00.000-04:00

And for my friend Paige living in Mississippi with hubby Michael and all their wonderful animals... I came upon this post via my buddy Stretch's blog and his link to the Cynical-C Blog, I came upon this post and I'm really worried for them... Hurricane Katrina. I know that New Orleans is pretty close to where they live.

Here's more here, Katrina: biggest hurricane since Camille in 1969?

Good Luck, girl!!! We'll be thinking and hoping real hard for you guys!

Miscellaneous tidbits post

2005-08-28T19:32:00.000-04:00

Ok lots of little scraps and pieces to post here. Not that these are minor things, no way!

So first off, I went looking to see if there was an update to NewsMac, ThinkMac Software's nice friendly RSS newsfeed reader and lo and behold I notice they have a blog section so I clicked and I saw a good piece on musings on Tiger's spotlight feature, Spotlight revisited - making it better:

I little while ago I talked about some of the user interface horrors packed into Spotlight. This time around I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and offer an alternative design. Here is a Spotlight 2 UI I knocked up in Photoshop in an hour or so...

I also learned by viewing previous posts that NewsMac Pro 1.1 is due any day now, at the beginning of this week most probably.

Via imamis.com I found these cool links for anyone into web design:

And I've done it again! This is what happens when you have 20 bijillion Safari windows open, you close some to regain some desktop real estate and then the path of how you ended up somewhere goes up in smoke kinda. So I can't remember how I got there but I did... Anyway I stumbled upon this website that has this cool Mac OS X dock-like thing at the bottom for the site's navigation purposes, John Pennypacker's unladen- swallow. Note that the javascript that was written to make this dock-like navigation link thingy is available for download and you can grab more info on this and conditions of use in his blog entry, Javascript Dock Complete.

Speaking of Javascript, here's an online tester to make sure your code validates, JRX: real-time JavaScript RegExp evaluator v1.1b3.

Photography Tip: How to tell if a photo is fake

2005-08-28T18:02:00.000-04:00

Via The Gippy Pages I got this interesting article on how to outsmart a fox, Photo Fakery.

Identifying falsified images can be straightforward if you know a few tricks.

Introduction
Like it or not, fake images are everywhere and have become a part of today's culture. Thanks to the popularity of digital cameras and the availability of desktop imaging software that allows users to easily manipulate images, fake images have become commonplace, especially on the Internet. We see many images that defy common sense and it is natural for us to question the authenticity of these images. Most of have seen images that are obvious fakes, such as the 80-foot grasshopper climbing the Empire State Building, but we naturally assume that these images are fake and know that they were created simply for our amusement. Unfortunately there are too many times when a fake image has been created but it is advertised as real, challenging us to decide for ourselves whether the image is real of fake.

A fake image can be defined as an image of an object or scene that wasn't captured as the image would imply. In general, fake images are created to generate a deception, but not all fake images are bad. The motivation may be simply for harmless entertainment, which accounts for most fake images generated today. Fake images can be generated for research and development purposes, e.g. to understand image quality issues with different camera designs. The fake images that concern us most are those that are created to perpetuate a lie. Some people will generate fake images for profit, such as a picture of an alien, a ghost, or an alien ghost of Elvis that they can then sell to a tabloid. Probably the most dangerous motive for generating fake images is to alter the public's perception of truth for political reasons. It would be nice a reliable method existed for determining if an image is real or fake, but unfortunately none exists. We can hope to catch most of the fake images, however, if we understand how fake image are made and what characteristics to look for. ...

Ok I admit it. I did delete a building or two in my photos when they were in the way...

The Google era?

2005-08-28T16:40:00.000-04:00

It's no secret I'm a bit wary and a bit angry* at all things Google but heck! I sure am not alone. Not by any means. None at all. These people see that Google could be the next Micro$oft (so maybe it's a good thing Google is ignoring the Mac with its software, system add-ons and plug-ins... Hmmm)

Some people have tried to imagine what if Google's next step was an OS? What will the future hold in terms of Operating Systems? Could they be web-based? Read Jason Kottke's excellent article on GoogleOS? YahooOS? MozillaOS? WebOS? and Betalogue's Pierre Igot who adds his grain of salt to the debate Web OS: ‘Good enough’ is not good enough.

_______________

* Another thing that never made it on the Mac: Google Desktop, Windoze-only.

fcXHTML widget

2005-08-28T15:07:00.000-04:00

For those of you using Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger and making stuff in XHTML, here's a cool widget for you guys, Fuzzy Coconut's donationware fcXHTML widget. This widget is cool because the reference is self-contained so no need to have an internet connection to get your info.

This is the fcXHTML Reference widget in its collapsed state. The widget resizes automatically depending the content.

From Fuzzy Coconut's webpage:

fcXHTML Reference Widget
Fuzzy Coconut is pleased to announce its first Dashboard Widget, an off-line reference to the XHTML 1 specification from the W3C. The fcXHTML Reference widget does not function by retrieving information from the internet; instead it's entirely self-contained, so it’ll work even when wi-fi doesn’t.

What it does
The fcXHTML widget provides a concise bit of information for each element in the xhtml specification. Each element can be accessed either via a pull-down menu or by directly editing the name of its tag and using the arrow keys to select a choice from suggested matches.

Upon selection of the element, the widget displays relevant, associated information about the element including:
The element tag and its description
Valid attributes for the element
The possible values of each attribute
The Minimum Content Model for the element expressed in a regular expression-style format
Miscellaneous information about the element
And an example of how the element is used

References to other elements in an element’s description function as links.

So I think this is could be quite useful for some of you and do not hesitate to encourage developers that do make great stuff for the Mac platform. Donationware could simply be $10US. Mac developers need to eat just like we do. ;^)

Spin: online movie from Double Edge

2005-08-28T13:28:00.000-04:00

Ok just came across this online movie trailer hosted at Double Edge Films Theater and you simply must check it out, it's awesome! It takes a while to load but it's well worth it! It's called Spin.

From the movie Spin.

From the Double Edge Films website:

Summary
A mysterious DJ is sent to a busy city block to mend a series of chain reactions that occur in our every day lives.

Check it out!

Thanks muchly, Ein!

More on Intelligent Design

2005-08-28T13:05:00.000-04:00

Well there was this new idea for Intelligent Design that I found irresistible. I mean let's get Creative (*wink*) here people! Now I see others are trying to cash in with the "concept" of Intelligent Design (geez! Just the name makes me cringe...) Moonbat anti-evolutionist: Deepak Chopra, a very well-written piece by PZ Myers at Pharyngula.

I remember at the beginning Deepak Chopra used to make the rounds on talk shows like Oprah and the like. Looks like he's big business now... Oh my! Look at those resorts, will ya?

OMG! Me and Daring Fireball had an exclusive!

2005-08-28T11:55:00.000-04:00

Daring Fireball's John Gruber had a little item up that made me post about Ambrosia releases EasyEnvelopes a week ago. Well the nifty cool little Tiger freebie widget made it big time on Macworld's Widgets of the Week. Since we posted first, we had an exclusive!!! LOL

Jokes aside, that Widgets of the Week talks about another cool looking widget that I'd try out for sure if I had Tiger on this machine, UtilityButton. From Macworld's article:

...Now here’s a Widget I never would have dreamed up, but I’m glad someone did. All those helpful utilities Apple includes with Mac OS X are buried several layers down into your hard drive at /Applications/Utilities. So unless you use one of the various launcher utilities out there (such as LaunchBar), or in some way use the Dock to launch them, it takes some effort to get to these utilities. UtilityButton puts a (thankfully, small—notice a pattern here?) button on your Dashboard for quick access. Click the button, and you get a pop-up menu of OS X’s built-in utilities; choose an item from the menu to launch it. That’s all it does, but I’m sure to many users, that’s enough to quality as “useful.” ...

Virus software and Mac OS X

2005-08-28T11:28:00.000-04:00

I know I posted about ClamXav, a virus checker for Mac OS X but there is another philosophy too: for now, Mac OS X has no virus going around.

I have found one of the most eloquent and intelligent posts about this subject in a forum and here is a link to member tacit's post (I would say article!), Macs, viruses, and anti-virus software. All you should think about is in that post. Great post, tacit! *thumbsup*

Great software bargains 3

2005-08-28T09:17:00.000-04:00

Macworld published its last instalment in the three part series Software Bargains, this time the category being all about Web stuff. Software Bargains: Web & communications.

The second and first part I posted about here.

Yes I know it's old stuff but I was out of it.

Out of it for three days

2005-08-28T08:58:00.000-04:00

I haven't been doing too great the last three or four days. I think it's either an inner ear infection (Labyrinthite in French, for those of you who can read French), my allergic reactions that are getting way out of hand or some type of weird virus, I don't know. I felt dizzy, nauseous and couldn't eat. Had to stay in bed. I'll try to get back in the saddle with the news but I don't have a truckload of energy yet. And then in eight days, I'm leaving for two weeks.

No computer. No internet. No phone. No buildings. No diesel truck fumes. No air conditioning fan noise. Just the sea. The forest. The air. And on a clear day you can see forever.

Skype IM an alternative to Google Talk?

2005-08-24T17:07:00.000-04:00

This might take some time for us to see it happen but... Just caught this from Digg, Skype made an announcement today, Skype opens IM and Presence to the world. Introducing SkypeWeb and SkypeNet:

As part of celebrating our second year anniversary, Skype has a present to give back to the internet for all of the amazing support we have received from the internet community. We are announcing two new initiatives that make Skype and the Web a little more interesting and open up new possibilities for the developer and partner community. After all … sharing is good

Introducing SkypeWeb
We’ve heard from you that Skype doesn’t just let you talk for free over the internet, but has become an integral part of managing communication with your family, friends, and colleagues. Letting people know when you are available to talk via Skype makes the tool smarter unlike the telephone which just rings even when you are busy. SkypeWeb will enable you to let others know when you are free and make it easy for them to reach you from any Web site, blog, email, or just about anything that can speak HTML. SkypeWeb extends Skype beyond your contact list and lets people connect with you via Skype even if they are not a Skype user. ...

Introducing SkypeNet API
Wouldn’t it be cool if your friends using other IM applications could contact you on Skype? We want Skype to be the worlds largest open IM system on the planet! What if you could use Skype to communicate with a product reviewer on a Web site, to chat with other players in an online game using Skype? All of these things and a few more that we haven’t dreamed up yet will become possiblities with SkypeNet API, a new set of tools and services that programmers can use to take Skype into new places that you may have never dreamed of before. ...

More on this in the skype journal, Party Crackers Flying at Skype and also Skype Announcement.

From the Download Squad, SkypeWeb and SkypeNet announced:

...SkypeWeb is a little bit of code you can put on your web pages that'll alert the world to your availability on Skype. That in itself is nice, but not a revolution. What's really cool about SkypeWeb is that once you've put this HTML code on your blog, web page, or email messages, anyone can connect with you, even if they've never used Skype. ...

But wait, there's more! Also announced today was the SkypeNet API. Again, trying to push beyond their own application, the API will allow developers to integrate the Skype IM and Presence components into, well, whatever...

Skype, I believe, has always treated Mac users decently, maybe that's the right way to go instead of Google Talk...

Photography Tip: all about lenses

2005-08-24T13:06:00.000-04:00

Petteri Sulonen has an excellent series of articles on photography, all about lenses.

The first segment in the series that I'll post right here in this entry concerns me directly as I was Musing Aloud one fine day about the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM. It's called How To Test A Lens.

As you click through the series you will see the article talking about chromatic aberration which I posted a link to just in the previous entry.

Photography Tip: Colour aberration, a follow up

2005-08-24T12:02:00.000-04:00

I had talked previously about noise in digital photos and chromatic aberration. I had heard that the problem could be greatly diminished or properly disposed of with some manipulations in an image editor like Photoshop but I didn't post on this alternative because I hadn't found any info to back this up.

Well I did just now! A wonderful How To by Petteri Sulonen, Chromatic aberration. Not only that but he also shows and explains the different types of chromatic aberration.

A wonderful article that is a must read. I personally will print it as I have a few images to correct. :^)

GoogleTalk: it's here... but not really

2005-08-24T11:21:00.000-04:00

After all the expectations and excitement, we have to announce that it's a real bummer. Google seems to be unable to grab Mac developers or what? Like no Google Earth for Mac, either? C'mon fellas, Mac developers aren't all in Cupertino!

So Google Talk is Windoze-only. Oh, but hey, Mac people and Linux users! You can use other chat clients guys, cantcha?...

Anyway, here's a mini-review from Ars Technica.

Pat Robertson Loses His Mind

2005-08-23T23:35:00.000-04:00

"Where is it? I can't find it! I can't see it!..."

I told you so, didn't I? By reading these quotes of his, I'm now certain.

Japp candy bar ad

2005-08-23T23:07:00.000-04:00

Here's a nice ad for the Japp candy bar.

TeeHee.

Ars Technica's Hannibal on Intel announcement

2005-08-23T20:51:00.000-04:00

Hannibal really knows his stuff. If you want to have a really complete picture to this news tidbit, you just have to take into consideration what Ars Technica's Hannibal has to say about it.

Fall IDF 2005: Intel's unified processor architecture:

Contrary to some rather bizarre speculation that made its way around the 'Net, the new processor architecture that Intel announced today is a fairly conventional evolutionary step from their current offerings. Unfortunately, Intel hasn't yet announced a codename for this new architecture, so I'll refer to it as "the Merom core" from here on out.

I reported previously that the following features will define the Intel roadmap from late 2006 onward:
Dual-core
64-bit support
65nm process technology
Security/virtualization (i.e., Lagrande, Active Management Technology, Vanderpool, etc.)
"Platformization" (i.e., development and marketing of CPU and feature-rich chipset combinations)
Performance per watt

The core that will make its debut in 2H06 with Merom will embody all of the above features.

In terms of its actual implementation, the new core's microarchitecture takes the lessons learned from Netburst and the Pentium M design and combines them into a new design that can issue up to four instructions per clock to a wide, out-of-order execution core with fairly deep buffers. The two symmetric integer pipelines (compare the PM and P4's asymmetric integer pipes) for the Merom core will be 14 stages deep. (This stage count almost certainly includes the fetch and decode portion of the pipeline.) So while the Merom core is designed for better clockspeed scalability than the Pentium M, it's not at all high-clockspeed design like Netburst.

The Merom core's deeper buffers and long pipeline suggest that it will hold a large number of in-flight instructions. This ability would normally come at the cost of increased die space, since the overhead associated with tracking so many in-flight instructions would eat up transistors. Because the Merom core is designed for low-power multicore systems, however, it can't afford to have a large on-die footprint. Like the PowerPC 970, the Merom core makes heavy use of the practice of fusing together uops before dispatching them to the execution core, so that multiple uops can be tracked as a single uop. This "microops fusion" technique, which Intel first used in the PM core in a much more limited fashion, allows more in-flight uops to be tracked with a smaller amount of bulky, power-hungry bookkeeping logic. Thus Merom's uops fusion technique makes each individual processor core smaller and more efficient. ...

Told you the guy knows what he's talking about. :^)

Google IM client: a follow-up

2005-08-23T19:31:00.000-04:00

Via Digg, I found some info to add to what I posted earlier today on Google's IM client.

eWeek has this article, Report: Google Plans Instant-Messaging System which proves that this is spreading rapidly over the internet:

...Google Talk goes beyond text-based instant messaging using a computer keyboard to let users hold voice conversations with other computer users, the newspaper quoted a source as saying.

A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on the company's product plans.

If confirmed, the combined computer text and voice-calling service would put Google in competition with a similar service pioneered by Skype, which has attracted tens of millions of users, especially in Europe, to its own service.

Separately, independent journalist Om Malik on his blog at http://gigaom.com/ pointed to technical clues that suggest Google is preparing to run an instant messaging service based on an open-source system known as Jabber.

Jabber technology would allow Google instant message users to connect with established IM systems that also work with Jabber, including America Online's ICQ and Apple Computer Inc.'s iChat, Malik said. ...

And here's a blog entry saying that "Wow! I'm on Google Talk right now." complete with a How To of sorts. But.... You need a GMail addie. I kinda figured. They have to push their own stuff, don't they?

URLwell 1.2.1

2005-08-23T18:17:00.000-04:00

In his DrunkenBlog, drunkenbatman talked about a nifty little utility called URLwell four days ago and oops! I missed it by that much...

So uhm let me make up for it! TeeHee. Of URLwell for Mac OS X:

A reader named Dan pointed me towards an app called URLwell*, which well, acts as a well in your menu bars for URLs.

Using it couldn't be simpler: Launch the app (or add it to your login items), and you get a little icon in the menu bar. Drag a URL from the address bar in your browser of choice to it, and it adds them to a list. Once they're added, you can click on the URLwell icon and see them, and selecting one loads it in your default browser. ...

I just downloaded it and will put it in my Startup Items. I keep webpages in my dock and sometimes it can get pretty monstrous down there. Plus on a few occasions I stoopidly quit Safari without saving some URLs. So this will help, me thinks.

_______________

* A strong warning before heading over to the URLwell webpage. Put on some sunglasses. You'll endlessly thank me for the warning after having seen the webpage...

Is Pat Robertson crazy?

2005-08-23T17:53:00.000-04:00

Kinda sounds like it. And I'm not surprised Dubya and Company say "Nah! He's a Christian, he can't be wrong... Besides he can say whatever he wants, we live in a free country here" kinda thing. Maybe the US administration has set its eyes on Venezuela's oil?

White House dismisses Chavez assassination call.

...Robertson told viewers of his longtime show, "The 700 Club," on Monday that Chavez was turning his oil-rich South American country into "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent."

"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it," said Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition.

"It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don't think any oil shipments will stop. This man is a terrific danger, and this is in our sphere of influence."

Beam me up, Scotty. Please...

Intel unveils plans for 2006

2005-08-23T16:29:00.000-04:00

I guess we Mac users will have to get used to seeing these news items on Intel, won't we? :^D

A couple of weeks ago, I had posted More thoughts on DRM in next Mac/Intels, a few links I had picked up here and there about the possibility of Apple using Intel's DRM. Today, Intel's CEO, Paul Otellini, unveiled at the Fall Intel Developer Forum the next three chips that will be produced in the second half of 2006. (Now, I have a feeling Apple will be using at least one of these chips simply because they will be made right along the same time Apple is making the Big CPU Switch). So the code names for these three chips are Merom, Conroe and Woodcrest. Okayyyyyyy...

Merom, Conroe and Woodcrest will be using the next architecture put forward by Intel, the Banias architecture which replaces the Netburst architecture and is what the Pentium M laptop CPU will be based on. These chips will support 64-bit computing but will also include the LaGrande security DRM. Damn!... We Mac users are definitely entering a new era...

From InfoWorld's article, Intel's architects fight the power for 2006:

Intel's new chip design will focus on power consumption, retiring the Netburst/Pentium 4 architecture.

Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini confirmed Tuesday that Intel will introduce a new chip design architecture next year focused on delivering the best performance per watt of power consumed.

As expected, Otellini told attendees at the Fall Intel Developer Forum that three new chips scheduled for the second half of 2006 will use a new architecture that will retire the Netburst architecture used by its Pentium 4 and Xeon chips.

Otellini also revealed plans to create a new class of chips for powerful handheld devices Intel dubbed "handtop" PCs. The company is working to develop powerful chips that consume only a half watt of power by the end of the decade, Otellini said. ...

Intel was expected to reveal further details about the architecture in briefings later on Tuesday. But Otellini confirmed that the chips will be 64-bit capable and come with Intel's virtualization technology, the LaGrande security technology and the company's Active Management Technology.

Great software bargains 2

2005-08-23T15:46:00.000-04:00

I posted about the first part right here. Today Macworld posted the second instalment of a series of three on their pick of 50 great Mac OS X software, System enhancements - New and updated reviews of awesome free and low-cost software.

A reminder that the whole article will appear in Macworld magazine, the September issue.

iTunes/Motorola phone, like soon?

2005-08-23T13:51:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you have to choose whether you'll post something or not in your blog. Like for instance, you get caught once or twice about a rumour but three times or more? Hmm. Well, since I posted about this in forums and not here, I'll make an entry on this right here. But if it's another dud, that's it iTunes/Moto!

According to AppleInsider, the iTunes mobile detailed in Motorola user manual. The article even has pictures of the device. I wonder why you aren't taken to the same image when you click on the phone for a bigger picture? Anyway...

From the AppleInsider article:

A verified authentic draft of a user manual for Motorola's forthcoming E790 GSM mobile handset contains several pages dedicated to an embedded version of Apple's iTunes jukebox software, AppleInsider has discovered.

The E790, dubbed the "Motorola ROKR Model E1" by some Russian language Motorola documents, appears to be one of the company's first music phones. However, it's based on the E398 handset, which doesn't exactly fit the rumored ROKR phone profile.

Motorola's ROKR line of iTunes music phones are expected to span several models and designs, a few of which could debut simultaneously. Earlier this year Motorola documents revealed another unannounced iTunes ROKR phone, adorned in black and sporting the company's PEBL design profile.

In a 5-page portion of the E790 manual, Motorola describes the basic functions of the iTunes mobile software, which can be controlled largely by the handset's navigational key. ...

CNET.com reports on this as well, Motorola gets FCC approval for iTunes phone and even though CNET's track record on rumours isn't that astonishing with accuracy, at least AppleInsider isn't alone in this. It seems according to this CNET article that Motorola was given the thumbsup by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission):

...The E790 manual was posted as one of the documents accompanying the regulatory approval on the FCC's Web site. Such approval is required before a wireless device can be sold to consumers in the United States. The device itself was approved in July, though the iTunes information was only posted to the site on Saturday.

The photo that accompanies the application shows the E398, which is already on the market and may be similar in design to the iTunes-capable phone.

FCC approval, in and of itself, though, does not mean that the arrival of the E790 is imminent, or that it will necessarily be the first iTunes-capable phone on the market. ...

So I guess we'll see, hunh?

ClamXav: a follow up

2005-08-23T12:53:00.000-04:00

I just got an email from my friend Dave Trescott who had this to add to this post of mine, ClamXav: Mac OS X virus checker:

Dear Diane:

Just wanted you to know that I added your blog to my NetNewsWire Lite a few weeks ago, and I've been keeping up with your posting from there.

Then yesterday I noticed your item about ClamX, and wanted to let you know that ClamXav does indeed have a Mac GUI for those of us who have no intention of learning about the Terminal.

http://www.clamxav.com/

I installed it yesterday, and it seems to work very nicely, including the ClamXav Sentry that works quietly in the background.

I was going to post a comment about it, but it seems to require a membership.

Perhaps you'd like to check it out and post a followup yourself.

Have a great day!

Dave T.

Thanks for the heads up Davy! About the commenting requiring team membership, you can blame the damn spamming.

Google to use Jabber for IM client

2005-08-23T11:41:00.000-04:00

This has been a rumour that has started making the rounds on the web way back in 2004 but it seems this is finally for real. According to the Los Angeles Times' Google to Deliver Instant Messages, silicon.com's Google IM and VoIP service to launch tomorrow? and ZDNet UK's Talk to debut on Wednesday?

From the Los Angeles Times article:

Watchers of Google Inc. soon will have something new to chat about — and with.

Continuing its rapid expansion into new product categories, the Internet search giant plans to launch an instant messaging program called Google Talk as early as Wednesday, according to people familiar with the service.

The new service follows by just a few days the introduction of Google Sidebar, which pulls news stories, photographs, weather updates, stock quotes and other features onto a user's computer without opening a Web browser.

With all the new services, Google now competes with Internet portals such as Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s America Online squarely on their turf, even as those companies encroach onto Google's with updated search engines.

Google has been playing catch-up with many products, such as e-mail, a personalized home page at Google.com and online maps. The goal is to get consumers to stay longer, rather than simply search for websites and then click away.

Compiling a list of buddies to chat with through instant messaging provides the kind of "stickiness" these companies covet. ...

According to a person who has seen the service, Google plans to let users chat using more than just their keyboards. Like similar programs from competitors, Google Talk also will let computer users with a headset have voice conversations with other computer users with headsets, this person said.

One source said Google intended to release the product Wednesday. Another source did not know when Google planned to release Google Talk, but said the company had been testing the service for at least a month. ...

Looks like Google Talk is going for a showdown against AOL, MSN, Yahoo and since all these services have made deals with the company, Skype also.

Now according to this post, Google has an active Jabber server, Google IM coming soon?, does this mean that Google Talk would be extremely compatible with Mac OS X Tiger's iChat AV?

It's going to be quite interesting to see what tomorrow brings news-wise...

"Made for iPod" seal of approval

2005-08-23T11:01:00.000-04:00

Macworld UK says that Apple has applied on August 10th for a trademark on the words Made for iPod at the US Patents and Trademarks Office:

...The application was filed August 10, and seems to cover every category of iPod peripheral, even those that seemingly lack the dock connectors currently covered by the scheme, such as "carrying cases, sacks, and bags".

The application also suggests further extensions for the product family. It describes: "A full line of electronic and mechanical accessories and computer software for portable and handheld digital electronic devices for recording, organizing, transmitting, manipulating, and reviewing text, data, audio, image, and video files."

The application also includes a scheme logo and effectively describes a branding scheme. ...

Hopefully Micro$oft won't be awarded this one too...

smugMaps revisited

2005-08-23T09:11:00.000-04:00

I went back to smugMaps just now and the search by smugmug user has been fixed. When you choose in the drop-down menu smugmug user, the field box to type in the member's name now appears on its own! Nice!

Another great touch on the smugMaps page would be to have a link to your photos so we could directly from there access our account if it is possible.

I wanted to make a screencapture of one of my markers so I could add a button in my links list. All my galleries haven't been amalgamated yet but I am very confident it will happen.

So this smugMaps is a first and it's a great feature. I made a great choice when I opted to join them as a photo sharing/hosting service.

Photography Tip: Depth of Field

2005-08-22T22:37:00.000-04:00

A photograph is made of an amount light hitting some kind of sensitive receiving material either film or, in the case of digital cameras, some kind of CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor chip or sensor) which then transmits the data on storage media. The amount of light is determined by:

the shutter speed
the sensitivity to light of the receiving material measured in ISO (International Organization for Standardization) numbers or referred to as speed
and the size of the lens's aperture expressed in numbers with an "ƒ".

The size of lens aperture is a bit tricky. Say you have a lens of 55 mm ƒ3.5-32. This means you will be using a lens of 55mm focal length that has, at the biggest opening possible an ƒ of 3.5, and its most closed setting will have an ƒ of 32. The depth of field is directly influenced by the aperture. If you have a subject that is at 15 feet from your camera, you focus on that subject and you use the ƒ3.5 setting (in other words, the widest opening of the lens), this means that only your subject will be in sharp focus and what is immediately in front and behind will be out of focus. If you were to shoot the same scene but instead used the ƒ32 aperture (in other words, the smallest opening of the lens) almost all of the scene would be in focus i.e. not only the primary subject of the photo. So you can imagine that with these effects, you can give to a photograph certain artistic expression.

I took the following photo last year on a camping trip. It was early morning and, by the looks of it I still hadn't had my first cup of coffee so I was feeling rather poetic. I looked around the camp site for a poetic thing crying to be captured somehow for posterity and lo and behold!... Dew drops on the tent fly! Oh! the poetry!... With sun shining in the drops of moisture. Oh! more poetry even... Ok wake up and take a look at the photo! LOL

As you can see, the image is quite out of focus but for one place. No it isn't the tears welling up in your eyes out of emotion, it is the depth of field at work here! Ah hah! Gotcha! I had taken the photo at the widest, biggest, baddest possible aperture on my lens and this gave me a very thin line of focus. What is outside of this line is blurry. Ah poetry at work. ;^)

But I have links to articles that will explain this much better than I could ever do with better vocabulary too!

Controlling Depth of Field in Outside Portraits C-4000 Zoom explains the controls on an Olympus C-4000 Zoom digital camera but it gives you an idea of how this works and has illustrated examples.

Depth of field never mind that this is for film photography, depth of field is depth of field. :^D

The last link is a very, very brainy explanation about the whole concept.

Great software bargains

2005-08-22T19:29:00.000-04:00

For those of you who are new to the Mac and are wondering what good applications there are for their new computing platform or simply to learn new alternatives to existing software, Macworld has posted an article today on 50 Mac Gems - New and updated reviews of awesome free and low-cost software. This is like a teaser for an article that will be included in the Macworld September issue. Worth a look.

Hmm. That SubEthaEdit icon looks very familiar... *scratches chin*

The creator of the Moog synthesizer dies at 71

2005-08-22T17:03:00.000-04:00

There are some of us who are old enough to know what prog (or progressive) rock means. So when I mention the name Robert A. Moog, the link to the Moog synthesizer is easy to make. I saw the late 60s early 70s prog rock emergence: these were exciting times, one of the branches of music breaking away from the Elvis era. I'm no music historian but The Beatles must have, in some way, brought this movement on. Besides they did experiment, before their breakup, with electronic instruments that were very crude compared to what the instruments became in the 70s and 80s. One of the first times I heard the Moog synthesizer was from an album that was called Switched-On Bach by Walter Carlos. It was a quality of sound that made you do a double-take, almost an orchestra but not really, with a ton of effects. I remember at the time I loved the music travelling from speaker A to speaker B back to speaker A again in the audio system I had. And then as time went by, there was not only a 2D perception of field in the music but a 3D spatial perception to sound... But anyway, I'm going all over the place with the memories here.

So Robert A. Moog has died of brain cancer (glioblastoma multiforme or GBM) at the age of 71. CNN has posted a bio, Synthesizer innovator Moog dies at 71.

The Moog synthesizer was a favourite because it was more compact and lighter in weight than other synthesizers that were used at that same period.

Here are some other links of interest:

Canon: extremely busy day

2005-08-22T13:52:00.001-04:00

Via The Digital Photography Weblog and the good folks of Engadget I notice that Canon has had an extremely busy day, announcement-wise: so far nine new camera models were announced including the next dSLR hotty from Canon, the rumoured 12.8 megapixel EOS 5D. It has a 35mm DIGIC-II CMOS (so the same size as a 35mm film camera which means no conversion to calculate when using a lens... i.e. what you see is what you get!), has an automatic noise detection mechanism and the LCD viewing screen is bigger (2.5”) than what the EOS 350D has. Read all about the EOS 5D right here, New Canon EOS 5D is a Premium Digital SLR at an Affordable Price Offering a Full-Frame Sensor with 12.8 Megapixels of Resolution. It should be released later this year.

Now look at this... Isn't that a cutie?

The Canon digital camera model EOS-1D has been tweaked and updated to EOS-1D Mark II N. Canon claims that the EOS-1D Mark II N is the fastest digital SLR camera, has a nifty cool feature RAW + JPEG recording on separate memory cards and much more.

The other models announced were:

PowerShot SD550, SD450 and SD30 Digital ELPH Cameras, the PowerShot SD550 is a 7.1 megapixel camera while the SD450 and SD30 are 5.0 megapixel models
PowerShot S80, an 8.0 megapixel camera
PowerShot A620, A610 and A410, the A620 is a 7.1 megapixel camera and the A610 and the A410 are 5.0 megapixel models.

So uhm I think I got all nine models in here.

And that's not even counting the introduction of seven new printers! :^D

coconutBattery v1.1

2005-08-22T12:50:00.000-04:00

Via TUAW, I learned of coconutBattery v1.1. Now I know my buddy Stretch has an iBook so this might be of great interest to him.

What is coconutBattery?
coconutBattery is a tool that reads out the data of your notebook-battery (iBook/Powerbook). It does give you live-feedback what's going on in your battery (not only a snapshot like other tools)

It shows the current charge of your battery as well as the current maximum capacity related to its original.
If coconutBattery detects that you have connected the wrong charger (i.e. an ibook-charger plugged in a powerbook) it will warn you! That's a cool feature!

Of course you are able to save the current maximum capacity of your battery - with just one click! coconutBattery uses Apple's new and really powerful technology names "CoreData" to realize that.

Finally coconutBattery calculates the age of your Mac very exactly! So you can derive the age of your battery.

And last but not least: coconutBattery is Universal Binary (you can run it on Intel-Macs! - cool!) and it is complete localizable! ...

So all you Apple laptop people check it out!

Photography Tip: Astrophotography and noise reduction

2005-08-22T09:29:00.000-04:00

Adrian is really into astrophotography. He has bought himself a fine telescope, a Canon Digital Rebel XT (EOS350D) and he will buy the thingy that attaches the camera to the telescope one day, I am sure. For now though, it looks like he is very busy having fun taking daylight pictures and keeping his lens to the ground, in a way.

Well just for fun, I googled this morning to see if there was anything interesting to post on astrophotography and quite surprisingly there is a lot of info out there on the internet.

I had found a few months earlier in a chat with Adrian a link that is hosted directly at Canon's Japanese website (the document is in English though, so no worries). This had happened because we had started wondering if there was any info on digital cameras, more specifically webcams, being used for astrophotography on the Mac OS X platform. What a surprise we had! There was quite a bit of information and if I recall that afternoon chat correctly, a lot of freeware and adaptable Unix stuff. So this was quite a revelation, to say the least!

I remember that day I had found in my google hits that Canon Astrophotography Guide like I told you earlier. It's a great document! EOS Digital Astrophotography Guide (please be patient, this comes all the way from Japan! So at times it can be quite painfully slow to load, even on DSL and Cable... So why not print it once you have it? HeHeHe). Even though this guide is written by Canon, it can be used for basically any digital cameras out there that have the same sets of adjustments.

M42: Great Nebula of Orion
ISO setting at 400, AWB
Diameter: 100 mm
Focal length: 400 mm astronomical telescope
Exposure: 8 cuts of 8 secs., 15 secs., 30 secs., 1 min., 2 mins., and 4 mins.
Center Trimming
(C) Copyright 2004-CANON INC

This morning like I said I found more good links. Sky and Telescope dedicated a whole article on the Astro Imaging with Digital Cameras, an article aimed more at the Point & Shoot digital camera owner that the dSLR but still informative just the same for all users. Related to this article and of particular interest are:

an explanation on the Afocal method, Afocal What?
Deep-Sky Imaging with Digital Cameras which is still aimed at Point & Shoot cameras but this covers the noise problem, encountered in long exposures and high ISO settings, as well

For reduction of noise in your images (not just in astrophotography, but for photography in general) I would look closely at noise reduction software. I had made a search for noise reduction software for Mac OS X, either as standalone applications or Photoshop plug-ins and this is what I came up with:

Visual Infinity's Grain Surgery (now I see that the company is advertising that soon to be released a new noise reduction software called NoisEraser which I obviously haven't tried
Eastman Kodak's DIGITAL GEM Professional Plug-In
Imagenomic's Noiseware
ABSoft's Neat Image
PictureCode's Noise Ninja

I tried all the demos, using the 16-bit version when available for download and I found that the best two were Noise Ninja and Noiseware. I tried the demos on RAW files and .jpgs as well to see if there would be any difference and just to make sure of what I'll buy. Another thing I tested with the demos were photos taken with my first Canon Digital Rebel (EOS 300D) and the newer Canon Digital Rebel XT (EOS 350D) I now have. I thought that Noise Ninja was slightly better than Noiseware but they were so close apart it was hard to tell at times which was better. I thought that the Noise Ninja treated photos were a wee bit sharper but it was really hard to tell so I think that if you are reading this to make up your mind on noise reduction software, go with either of these two, while keeping an eye out for the upcoming NoisEraser if you're not in a hurry to buy the software right away.

Back on topic with astrophotography! This article is aimed more at the lens' performance, Canon EOS EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L USM IS Astrophotography Tests and make sure you check out, by the same author, Jerry Lodriguss, the whole Astrophotography Articles series.

This article is specifically aimed at the Canon Digital Rebel (EOS 300D) users but I think it can be used with other cameras as well (the EOS 350D has a different image processor, the DIGIC II, has a bit more custom settings but my guess is that this How To can be applied): Canon EOS 300D (Digital Rebel) Astrophotography Procedures.

And finally, this is a bare bones type of site but it is quite instructional as well, Weasner's Astrophotography with the Canon Digital Cameras.

I hope you find these links useful.

Photography Tip: A sharper image

2005-08-21T17:20:00.000-04:00

Found at the Imaging Resource web site, A Sharper Image. The article explains sharpness, tips on making photos look sharper and, if the original shot lacks sharpness, how Photoshop's Unsharp Mask works.

In many of the articles on this site, we covered a number of ways to improve your photos digitally, including adjusting tonal balance, and "cloning out" distracting image elements. This time, we're going to drop down to a less obvious level, and deal with the much-maligned and misunderstood technique of image sharpening.

I say "maligned and misunderstood" because many people only use the "sharpening" tools in image editing programs to try to correct for blurry or mis-focused original images. Worse, some manufacturers of low-end editing programs (e.g., Microsoft, with PictureIt) felt that "sharpening" was too technical a term, and so changed it to the more (mis)understandable term "focus." Aarrgghh! (Sorry, I had to get that out of my system.)

Image sharpening can do a lot of things for your pictures, but it can't fix an out-of-focus original! IT.IS.NOT.FOCUS ! We'll look a bit deeper at what image sharpening can do, and how it works, so you'll be able to apply it properly. The results can be impressive if you have a good sharpening tool, good images, and know what you're doing! ...

Songfacts

2005-08-21T14:10:00.000-04:00

Curious about song meanings and trivia? Check out Songfacts. From the About Songfacts webpage:

Songfacts is a searchable database of song information compiled by radio professionals, music enthusiasts, and visitors to this web site. We hope using this site will help you better understand and enjoy the songs you listen to, and invite you to share your knowledge with us so that others may benefit. We provide the album, year the song was released, highest US and UK chart position, and "Songfacts" about each song. The "Songfacts" are interesting tidbits like what the song is about, who wrote it, and what makes it different. Songfacts is free. ...

If you're curious, want to add some trivia of your own at the site or are trying to impress friends with your musical knowledge at a party. ;^)

Mac OS X Tiger vs. Windows XP

2005-08-21T13:20:00.000-04:00

Here's a novel idea, have a faceoff between Mac OS X Tiger vs Windows XP without the hair pulling and name calling that usually goes with the exercise.

OS Shootout: Mac OS X Tiger vs. Windows XP

This site attempts to bring some objectivity to the OS wars by comparing over 100 topics relating to Mac OS X (10.4) and Windows XP (Home and Pro). ...

This is a very thorough test and everything (and I DO mean everything) has been taken into consideration. Check it out.

A Scanner Darkly

2005-08-21T13:05:00.000-04:00

New upcoming movie from Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Apple's got a trailer up, A Scanner Darkly. The movie based on a Philip K. Dick science fiction novel and the action takes place in the future. The movie's director is Richard Linklater. The filming technique is quite intriguing: real photography is overlaid by a new type of rotoscoping animation process.

The movie is slated for a 2006 release. You can catch more info on Warner's website.

ClamXav: Mac OS X virus checker

2005-08-21T12:39:00.000-04:00

Via TUAW, I saw that O'Reilly's MacDevCenter talks about ClamXav, a free virus checker for Mac OS X:

It uses the very popular ClamAV open source antivirus engine to scan mail and attachments. As a testament to its effectiveness, Apple now bundles ClamAV with Mac OS X Server 10.4. Unfortunately for those who are not system administrators, ClamAV is a command line tool, so it isn't user-friendly for the average Mac owner. That's why Mark Allan developed ClamXav. It uses the powerful ClamAV engine and definitions, but adds a more accessible user interface. This article explains how to use ClamXav, and it includes an interview with its developer, Mark Allan. ...

So no GUI and you need to be comfortable with the Terminal but I know some of you are. ;^)

Ambrosia releases EasyEnvelopes

2005-08-21T12:21:00.000-04:00

Via Daring Fireball I learned that Ambrosia Software has re-released EasyEnvelopes as a nifty Mac OS X Tiger Dashboard widget:

EasyEnvelopes is a MacOS X Tiger (10.4) widget for Dashboard, so it is instantly available no matter what application you are using. Just hit the Dashboard key (F12) or click on the Dashboard icon in your Dock, and EasyEnvelopes is immediately ready to address your envelopes.

Since EasyEnvelopes integrates with your Address Book, you can quickly and easily address an envelope to a friend or business contact. Just type a few letters in their name, select the proper address from the list of matches, and away you go. EasyEnvelopes also lets you paste in an address to print, and will even automatically detect when you have an address on the clipboard! ...

As John Gruber pointed out, the first version of Easy Envelopes (sic) was put to rest over a decade ago.

Incredible insect photos

2005-08-21T11:05:00.000-04:00

Via MilkandCookies, I found this amazing site, Photographing Flying Insects. There is a plan on how to build your own laser-based detector module with a microphone set-up in case you need sound input.

Simply amazing.

smugmugMaps...waiting till the kinks are ironed out

2005-08-21T09:40:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to get smugmugMaps to work... *sigh* I spent the whole day yesterday indexing with the GEO data each and every photo I have in my gallery.

Like for instance this gallery of my Bic photos from last year is registered on its own, as a standalone gallery, if you will, but if you search smumugMaps for my user name, MacHeadCase, you only get two flags, one for Mont St-Bruno the other for some Montreal photos: there should be at least 10... Weird that only one entry for Montreal shows up, there should be six.

Guess it's a work in progress kinda thing. That or the servers have a very hard time handling all the data sent to them and/or asked of them.

Also I find that on the smugmugMaps main page, if you want to search by user name it's not very well thought out, I find: you have to use the drop-down menu on the left which, by default is set at all smugmug photos, and choose smugmug user then hit the search button so the field to type in the smugmug member name appears. Then, once the window refreshes with the new added search field, you can type in the user name.

The service was launched Friday so I guess there will be plenty of tweaking to do.

This is chronologically what I went through:

There are some bugs no doubt about it. Like if you have a two page photo gallery, you cannot add the GEO data to the last photo on the first page: it automatically takes you to the first photo on the second page, instead. So if you have a gallery on four pages, you cannot add the GEO data on the last photo on the first, second and third page. So that's a booboo that has to be fixed.

I read that you didn't need to add the GEO data to every picture but I felt it was better to do so because if one picture is taken out of context, the viewer has no idea where this picture was taken from. That way the GEO data is embedded in each photo. Each photo except the last photo on a page that has a following page.

Like smugmug has warned its users, the service will be improved over time. I appreciate using smugmug, I think it's a terrific place to host images (the tweaking of the galleries is great!) and I'm sure this service will only get better with time.

_______________

Edited to add (August 22nd):

This might just be an indexing or a server overload issue, after all. Late last night (too late to report back here LOL) some of my Montreal markers were added/came back). The problem of linking my Quebec and Bic/Rimouski markers to my others in the region of Montreal still hasn't been made yet as of this morning. As I told Don MacAskill from smugmug, this is a big undertaking and till all the pieces of the puzzle settle down at their right place it could take some time. I'm willing to wait for it because I think it's a great and unique feature smugmug has... Don and Ben MacAskill are great guys too!

Technorati...

2005-08-20T22:08:00.000-04:00

I was thinking of joining Technorati like my friend pmconaway where he saw some great advantages. I put the registration on the back-burner since I was pretty busy but it was still there very much in my projects on how to tweak my blog. Then yesterday I came across this post by Jason Kottke, So long, Technorati in which the author explains why he is quitting the Technorati service.

That's it. I've had it. No more Technorati. I've used the site for, what, a couple of years now to keep track of what people were saying about posts on kottke.org and searching blogs for keywords or current events. During that time, it's been down at least a quarter of the time (although it's been better recently), results are often unavailable for queries with large result sets (i.e. this is only going to become a bigger problem as time goes on), and most of the rest of the time it's slow as molasses.

When it does return results in a timely fashion for links to kottke.org, the results often include old links that I've seen before in the results set, sometimes from months ago. And that's to say nothing of the links Technorati doesn't even display. The "kottke.org" smart list in my newsreader picks up stuff that Technorati never seems to get, and that's only pulling results from the ~200 blogs I read, most of which are not what you'd call obscure. What good is keeping track of 14 million blogs if you're missing 200 well-known ones? (And trackbacks perform even better...this post got 159 trackbacks but only 93 sites linking to it on Technorati.) ...

He also gives alternatives to Technorati such as PubSub and IceRocket's blog search.

smugmug maps thing: that wasn't really the epilogue

2005-08-20T20:01:00.000-04:00

Things were going pretty well and now I have a hard time associating all my different locations to my smugmug user name. Strange because at one time, as one of the screenshots below showed, different geographical regions were all associated with my account.

Now some of the regions have a broken link and they cannot be associated all at the same time to my smugmug account/user name. I want to say though that Don and Ben MacAskill from smugmug are very patient and are trying to help me sort this out.

Also one thing to take into account is that this is a very huge project and it is in its infancy so there will be some bugs to iron out till the service functions entirely flawlessly. But for sure, Don and Ben are first class people.

smugmug maps thing: Epilogue

2005-08-20T12:40:00.000-04:00

w00t again!!! This time it's for real!!!

Look ma, there I am!!!

Now, tell me... Isn't that totally cool?!...

Update on the smugmug maps thing

2005-08-20T11:52:00.000-04:00

w00t!!! Success! Maybe I'm was being dense or something but I just couldn't understand the explanations on how to get this to work. Chris MacAskill's blog entry Tagging photos with a GPS almost helped but not quite. One thing it did though was start to get my neurons to work though so I kinda poked here and there and got it to work! So my photos are slowly making it on the smugmug map!

What I did was signed up for Google's Google Maps API. I think this was a necessary step to ensure that your website was registered with the tracking. Then I went into my smugmug photos account and under each photo there is a drop-down menu labelled Photo Tools which is bunch of pretty nifty tools because it allows you to move, edit or add captions for each photo, either individually or in batches. With this tool you can even move photos from one gallery to the next in case you accidentally uploaded your photos into the wrong gallery. Now unless these are Pro/Paying-only features, I could never get this in my Flickr account. I just don't understand the logic behind Flickr too much and this is why I signed up with smugmug instead.

So as I was saying (sorry for going on a tangent there...), using the Photo Tools drop-down menu, I selected Edit Geography and the fields to enter the latitude and longitude are right there!

Now knowing about these latitudes and longitudes isn't as natural as making coffee in the morning so I used Google Maps to find the data for each region of my photos and I am now into entering the data for each batch of photos I have.

Hmm. I was going to add to this blog entry a screencapture of my marks on the smugmug map that I have entered so far (I ain't crazy, I know I saw them appear earlier!...) but my entries are now gone. :^(

So maybe just a semi-success?... Or none at all? I dunno...

_______________

Edited to add:

DOH!!! I had to click on the Map This button at the top of each Gallery I've done so far! *Hits head on computer desk*

Oh man! Gotta figure out this smugmug thing...

2005-08-19T20:34:00.000-04:00

Via O'Reilly Radar, I just found out that the site that hosts my photo gallery, smugmug has a new feature, SmugMug Maps goes live. And man, do I ever need to figure this out so I can show up on that map as well... ACK!!!

I saw a preview at OScon, and was pretty impressed. Smugmug has a great app for geolocating your photostream on Google maps. It's the first photo on map application that I thought was ready for widespread adoption.

Just heard from Don McAskill that the site is open to the public. ...

The maps site is viewable here: smugmug maps.

_______________

Edited to add: Damn!!! I shoulda known! They send me to Google where I have to download Google Earth. Problem? It's Windoze-only!!!!!!!!!! >_<

Now I paid the same price as a Windoze user, ya know? Gimme a discount, smugmug!!! Now!

_______________

Edited to add (2):

I got an email from the smugmug people and they told me I didn't need Google Earth at all and it seems I can make it work on my Mac. I'll take a look at this again in just a few minutes to see if I can't find more easily the info. If not I have already sent an email for assistance for setting this up correctly. We'll see how this goes. Pretty exciting stuff if this works!

Out with Evolution, In with Intelligent... or is it the other way around?

2005-08-19T18:18:00.000-04:00

We have heard on this side of the border how Dubya hates Evolution and Darwin (*gasp* does that include one of the Mac OS X kernels?) so he wants to see the American schools teach Intelligent Design... And there I went thinking this was some type of new fangled architectural movement or something.

So this is all about showing children how come man is man, woman is woman and that we know no monkey, speak no monkey, see no monkey and hear no monkey. This will include I'll bet the Apple, Adam and Eve.

Well Boing Boing posted at the end of June a novel idea submitted by one of its readers. Dear Kansas: Why stop at "Intelligent Design?" What about Spaghetti Monsters?.

Here's a link to the Open Letter that was sent to the Kansas School Board:

I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.

Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him. ...

Now I like that idea! Now all we need to do is find a piece of rock that has some spaghetti sauce smeared on it. Shouldn't be very hard to find, especially around camping sites.

By Niklas Jansson.

Today Boing Boing posted a follow-up, Pastafarianism: Flying Spaghetti Monster cult grows. These are most exciting times for all of us! The FSM (or Flying Spaghetti Monster) movement now has an entry in the Wikipedia!

Like I said, these are historical times, ladies and gentlemen! Please note that instead of saying Amen after the opening morning prayer student will be encouraged to say RAmen.

Get your gear at cafépress.com at the Do you believe? webpage.

Apple unsuccessful patent for iPod interface: take three

2005-08-19T13:45:00.000-04:00

I have posted on this ludicrous decision earlier this week. Now a friend (thanks limey!!!) directed my attention to this I, Cringely article, Patently Absurd - Patent Reform Legislation in Congress Amounts to Little More Than a "Get Out of Jail Free" Card for Microsoft. This article is a must read and explains very well the patent reform that is underway in the US and will have, of course, repercussions all around the world, not just in the US.

Late last month, shortly before the U.S. Congress shut down for its summer recess, the Senate Judiciary Committee's Intellectual Property subcommittee held an unusual hearing -- unusual because the only committee member attending the hearing was the chairman, Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah. Why would such a prestigious committee hold a hearing in Washington attended by only one member? To slam through some controversial legislation, of course. Senator Hatch was trying to pass a new law "reforming" the U.S. patent system and apparently felt it would all go much more smoothly without the presence of the other committee members. And it might have gone smoothly, except someone in the press noticed the unusual hearing and decided to attend, essentially scotching the intended markup of the bill a week later and passage just as an unwary Congress was heading home. ...

...Patent reform appears to be based primarily on the idea that big companies invent useful stuff that needs protection while smaller companies and individual inventors use the patent system to suck revenue out of big companies through frivolous patents and frivolous lawsuits. Of course, it isn't at all clear that this assumption is correct.

The primary principles of patent reform are switching the U.S. system from "first to invent" to "first to file" by replacing legal challenges to patents with a more administrative challenge process, and by practically eliminating injunctions through which a patent holder forces an infringer to stop using his intellectual property.

Much of the rest of the world already uses "first to file" patent systems. Of course, much of the rest of the world also ignores or gleefully violates patent law. "First to file" gives the advantage to any organization that has a good administrative system in place. Absent-minded inventors lose in this system, which also encourages patenting anything and everything just in case. We can see this in recent Microsoft patents, for example, like 20050108349 -- "Business inquiries and operations using messaging service" -- which seems to cover looking up a number in the telephone directory. Does this qualify as "innovation?"

"First to file" is supposed to be good for you and me because it reduces frivolous lawsuits by people who may think they actually invented looking up numbers in the phone book before Microsoft invented it. But, hey, isn't a patent supposed to be "non-obvious," which would make looking up numbers in the phone book unpatentable?

It's just my opinion, but "first to file" looks like a good way to screw small inventors, of which I know quite a few. ...

I don't want to be too petty about this, but what if I, as the inventor, simply don't like you, the infringer? What if I fear you'll be using my very peaceful invention to make weapons of mass destruction? Can't I stop you from using my property? Under the proposed law, I can only do so if your infringement will effectively put me out of business. ...

Microsoft loves it, of course. Under the proposed law it is almost impossible to get the treble damages that are at the core of the contingency lawyer-client relationship. That, alone, drops Microsoft's liability by a factor of three, from around $20 billion down to $7 billion or so from the dozens of patent infringement cases currently pending against the company.

Yes, Microsoft may well be a prime target for frivolous patent infringement suits, but Microsoft historically has also shown itself to be a consistent and willful patent infringer.

In short, the bill is bad. It reflects the worst kind of special interest law-making that hurts us all. And I mean REALLY hurts us because it will only act to discourage inventors. Record and movie companies beating-up on music and film pirates don't save or cost lives, but discouraging new medical inventions literally does cost lives. ...

I encourage you to read this article in its entirety, I have only subjectively "underlined" excerpts that strongly speak to me.

I have a question concerning this, though. If the reform legislation isn't passed yet, why has Apple's patent application for the iPod interface been turned down? It looks to me like this sort of decision would work well under the new reformed patent application ("Fist to File"), not under the as-of-yet still valid patent application scheme ("First to Invent").

At least here when not enough members of Parliament are present to vote, the law cannot be passed. I can't remember the quorum needed nor am I saying things are perfect here but there are some defence mechanisms in place against such conniving wheelings and dealings.

iMac G5 Repair Extension Program

2005-08-19T13:06:00.000-04:00

Well the iMac G5 is one mighty interesting computer. At first I wasn't too sure of its looks. I own a 17" Flat Panel iMac G4 which is to my eye one of the best model designs Apple ever came up with, right along side the Power Macintosh G4 Cube and the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh and at first I was a little taken by surprise with the iMac G5. It looked like there was too much plastic for the screen. But now it has grown on me and I don't mind the looks so much, in fact I find it looks good now.

Apple's iMac G5 20"

It turns out a friend of mine has an iMac G5 and he has experienced a problem: he posted in a forum I go to sometimes that his iMac had a bad burnt smell and then he heard an electrical discharge sound and he had to take the computer in for repairs. So far, he hasn't posted back on what the diagnostic is but upon research, it seems that some iMac G5 owners are having the same problem redshift9 has had while others have reported on noisy fans.

Well Apple has acknowledged the problem and has issued an iMac G5 Repair Extension Program for Video and Power Issues. So for anyone having these problems with their iMac G5, please refer to Apple's webpage and verify your serial numbers that are posted there.

Meet bizbot...

2005-08-18T23:14:00.000-04:00

Meet bizbot... Just don't hit your screen half-way into this, 'k?

19 things that it took me 50 years to learn

2005-08-18T22:51:00.000-04:00

Here's another one of those URLs I grabbed and I just can't, for the life of me, remember where I got it from... So uhm sorry for not giving credit again... *blush*

This is a list of 19 things that it took me 50 years to learn by Dave Barry.

Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings".
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."
People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
And when God, who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, He WILL NOT use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.
You should not confuse your career with your life.
No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.
When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.
Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
Never lick a steak knife.
Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.
The most powerful force in the universe is gossip.
You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age 11.
The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.
A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.
Your friends love you anyway.

Radiohead's blog and gas prices

2005-08-18T20:38:00.000-04:00

Via kottke.org I found out that the band Radiohead now has a blog.

Also Jason Kottke gives a link to prices of gas around the world. Well nothing new, Canada is overlooked in the list but I can tell you that the last time I looked the price was $1,019/liter in town so per gallon it's uhm... Yep! That's exactly it!!!

bitfall

2005-08-18T20:11:00.000-04:00

Now this is really and totally awesome folks! I caught this via information aesthetics. bitfall is:

a physical water sculpture with 128 synchronized magnetic valves, so that a wall of falling water drops can be perceived as a graphical bitmap matrix. a computer application selects currently popular keywords from news websites, & displays them on the transparent 'information curtain'. the 'information flow' metaphor literally demonstrates the dynamic & ever-changing character of continuous information streams from which users build their associated experiences. ...

Watch the device in action:

bitfall_webdings.mov or the same video in an .mpeg4 version
bitfall_klein.mov or the same video in an .mpeg4 version

The inventors of the device are spherical robots but the page is in German... Where's my buddy blauschwarz04?

Google looking for a good Mac dev

2005-08-18T19:45:00.000-04:00

Via Technovia. Google's Jason Shellen* posts in his blog (and now read up people 'cause this concerns us as Blogger users AND Mac users!....) that he tried finding a good Mac developer that could make a Word plug-in for Mac...

A lot of you folks love Blogger but would rather use, say Microsoft Word, to compose your blog posts. Awesome. As of today, you can download Blogger for Word. An add-in that puts a Blogger toolbar right in Word.

I have spent a lot of time on this over the past few months and I should let you know that we designed this for maximum compatibility with older versions of Word going back to Word 2000 on Windows 2000. That means that this is a very simple toolbar, but once you try round-tripping a document (publish, view on the web, make some changes, publish again) you will see that it is powerful as well. Of course the trade-off was that we couldn't support images, tables or some of the wackier formatting in Word - perhaps in another version. See the FAQ for more on system requirements and such.

As Ev mentioned in his post, the biggest tradeoff is that this is Windows-only. As a Mac-fan I tried to find a good developer to do a Mac version and came up short. If you have any recommendations, I'm all ears. ...

...Now I'll point your attention to one of the comments after Jason's post... 'Cause you know, me? Use M$ Word? Excuse me? But an add-on to the Mac OS X Services menu? WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

Or like my friend Paul says, maybe get ecto or something...

_______________

* Who is Jason Shellen you say?

DTV: watch Internet TV on your Mac

2005-08-18T19:03:00.000-04:00

Via Futurosity and a nifty column/category Robert Ellis writes once in a while called Handpicked Software, here's something pretty rad, DTV: Internet TV on Your Mac:

Who needs TV? DTV, a free, open source platform for Internet television and video, lets you build, manage, and view your library of independent video as easily as you manage your tunes with iTunes. In fact, DTV looks a lot like iTunes. But that’s not all.

DTV has a simple, familiar interface. A Channel Guide offers information about new channels (over 100 free channels are already available). You can subscribe as easily as you would add an RSS feed to a newsreader. Browse your channels and select video to download and it’s added to your collection. Video files are large, so downloading can take some time even with a broadband connection, and a video library will hog a lot more hard drive space than your iTunes library. But you can view videos while downloading in the background and DTV will automatically purge new downloads after a number of days, unless you opt to keep them. You can also set DTV to automatically download new videos as they’re added to your channels. ...

System requirements: OSX 10.3+ and QuickTime 7. More info available here, Participatory Culture Foundation's DTV Beta: Internet TV on Your Mac.

The software is beta but is said to be quite usable. So I say we check this out!

Safari web browser team needs your help

2005-08-18T18:53:00.000-04:00

Dave Hyatt, Darin Adler and the Safari developer team have posted on Surfin' Safari, the dev team's weblog, that they'd greatly appreciate anyone wanting to help out on trying to corner some of Safari's memory leaks. Some info is given in this post, We’re Hunting Memory Leaks:

We’ve heard a number of reports of Safari memory leaks, and we’d like to fix a bunch of these. This is a very important factor for usability of Safari and other WebKit apps. You can help! Here’s how...

The future versions and users of Safari need you so sign up! I can't 'cause I'm on Panther so I'm thinking they'll be mostly interested in Tiger users?...

John Gruber interview

2005-08-18T18:31:00.000-04:00

It's no secret that I like reading John Gruber's Daring Fireball weblog. I admire the man's perfectionism: he is a typeface freak, he is obsessed, in a great way, by the details, a layout's consistency and how it will look to the reader. For example, view this recent post of his, Star Star. His weblog has a very noble and sober layout.

So Marcin Wichary of the GUIdebook Graphical User Interface Gallery has decided to interview John Gruber to see what he thinks of the Mac OS X interface. Here is the link to the interview, Interview with John Gruber.

Do you still remember your reaction after Steve Jobs first demoed Aqua?
No, I don’t think so. Meaning I don’t remember seeing Jobs do the demo. But I do remember my initial impressions of Aqua.

I thought it looked childish, garish, and trendy. I thought the overall look – the bright green/yellow/red primary colors, the prominent horizontal striping, the gratuitous transparency – was all tied way too closely with the look of Apple’s then-current hardware. The UI looked like it was designed to match the look of the G3 iMacs, iBooks, and PowerMacs.

I think my impressions have been proved right, too – the use of bright, primary colors is still there, but the striping has gotten subtler with each major Mac OS X revision, and most pixel-pushers now consider the original Aqua UI to be out of fashion. I’m guessing brushed metal will fall out of fashion next. I think it’s ridiculous that the UI look-and-feel from just four years ago is now considered passé.

My complaints were not, however, based on the idea that Apple should have considered using the Platinum theme from Mac OS 9. I never really cared for that look, either, and the switch to Mac OS X was, obviously, a natural opportunity to update the entire look and feel of the Mac OS.

The other thing I remember from the initial Aqua demo was the crazy purple button in the top-right corner of each window. Clicking it would put you in a new “single-window mode,” where you could only see one window at a time. The fact that that feature never saw the light of day is proof that it’s possible to talk Steve Jobs out of a bad idea – that purple button had “Jobs” written all over it. ...

Myst V: End of Ages demo available for download

2005-08-18T18:00:00.000-04:00

But you don't want to do that on dial-up!!! The demo file weighs in at 457 MB! Damn! That's a whole store shelfload of games right there! Anyway, I'll wait when the official release has arrived. No use trying to play that demo on this aging baby right here. I'll buy the game and then hope for the best with the purchase of the iMac G5 I want to make soon next fall, early winter.

Via Inside Mac Games' article, Myst V: End of Ages Demo Released, you get all the pertinent links for downloading the file.

UbiSoft has released a Mac demo of Myst V: End of Ages. Weighing in at a whopping 457 MB, the demo is available for download from our sister site, Macgamefiles.com, and offers a glimpse of at the final game in the popular Myst series of games. It is interesting to note that at this point only the Mac demo is available. There's no word yet on the PC demo.

The demo is currently linked to UbiSoft's ftp site and will slow down considerably as more people try to download the demo. We are currently in the process of adding the demo to our MGF mirrors, and will make it available for IMG Pro users for exclusive download from IMG's server shortly. ...

Jeepers! Did I see that right? The Mac demo is ready before the PeeCee version?....

*Rubbing vigourously and frantically eyes*

Well I'll be... Must be a nostalgia thing since Myst started on the Mac first, way back when. Or maybe Cyan Worlds is still feeling guilty for not having had a Mac version of the mega flop Uru: Ages Beyond Myst.

This is the link to the official website, Myst V: End of Ages, so you can take a look at all those groovy screenshots and get some info on the game itself.

So for all Myst fans this is a must have as this instalment is the last that we'll ever see of the Myst series.

Waaaaaaaaaah...

Apple said to go "aggressively" after PC hack

2005-08-18T11:28:00.000-04:00

Apple is said to go aggressively (read cease-and-desist emails) after a video that is making the rounds on the internet showing how to hack Mac OS X into running on any PC/Intel hardware which Apple certainly does not want to see happening. It's out there... That was just ONE example of what you can find by googling.

It's easy to understand why Apple doesn't want this to happen: the company would lose on hardware sales and then we'd be facing the clone era all over again till Apple wouldn't be able to sell any computers anymore. The company would either die or become just a simple OS and software maker. Now I'm not sure I really want to see this happen.

Obviously the consumer gains when there is a price war of some kind that is going on. When the Mac clone era was underway, I was going back to school to learn 3D and had to buy a computer to use at home to create textures and stuff. I had to make my dollar go as far as it could stretch on a student loan since I didn't have any savings to speak of at the time. I bought a PowerComputing PowerCenter 150 which helped me save around $1,000CAN if I would have chosen to go Macintosh instead for roughly the same specs. But Apple nearly went under because many Mac users chose that path as well. This was going on at the same moment there was a certain movement in the Mac users community switching to PeeCees so the computer they had at home could be compatible with the platform they had at work.

What was then is not what is now, though: let's not forget that computer prices have been going down consistently and, yes, that includes Mac models as well. Who would have believed eight years ago you'd be able to buy a Mac for $500? So now this can't be pegged down to only about consumers saving money, I think.

French Mac website Macbidouille received such a cease-and-desist warning. While I might partially agree with TUAW's opinion and reaction to Macbidouille's complaint, I think that Mac users do to some extent worship Apple and have been playing nice for the most part. I would be very much interested in seeing statistics that show the percentage of hackers in the PeeCee world as opposed to the percentage of Mac users interested of playing around with the Mac's innards because I have a feeling that the PeeCee crowd won't show the same veneration some Mac users hold for their beloved computer maker. For sure Apple has a rough time ahead in trying to stay in front of these hacks. Hopefully all the strategies for protection are already in place and that Cupertino isn't taken too much by surprise.

Time will tell but I do hope Apple has thought long and hard about this one otherwise it might cost them a whole lot.

Tiger 10.4.2 64-bit computing now fixed

2005-08-18T10:36:00.000-04:00

There was a slight uproar in the Mac community from those using Mac OS X Tiger (10.4.2) and 64-bit applications such as Wolfram Research, Inc.'s Mathematica. The latest security update posted by Apple two days ago broke the 64-bit computing capability in some kind of mysterious (to me) way.

Prompt as usual for fixes (well pretty much anyway... TeeHee) Apple came up with a fix yesterday. This fix is for Tiger (10.4.2) users only and it comes in two flavours:

Hand me some pop corn...

2005-08-17T22:13:00.000-04:00

w00t!!!

Let's take ringside seats here! Hot on the heels of this story here, it appears that we may witness a worm war! Whooh! Hooh! How about that for some action! It's all right here in an article at InfoWorld, Windows worms now attacking each other:

The most recent crop of Windows worms continue to circulate and, what's more, security firm F-Secure said that Zotob, Bozori and IRCbot are engaged in botwarfare.

"We seem to have a botwar on our hands. There appears to be three different virus writing gangs turning out new worms at an alarming rate -- as if they would be competing who would build the biggest network of infected machines," said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, in a statement. "The latest variants of Bozori even remove competing viruses like Zotob from the machines."

F-Secure also said that as of this morning it had found nine malware instances in addition to the previously reported Zotob and exploit code from a Russian who operates under the name Houseofdabus. ...

Orphaned socks, unite!

2005-08-17T20:35:00.000-04:00

You do your laundry (fun fun fun times...) and the first thing you know when you empty that dried clothes bag you had on the floor in a corner in the bedroom for a week is you're out one red sock, the one left from the pair is sad and lonely and cannot stop crying. You look for the lost runaway red sock everywhere but it seems it went and left town and left his partner for good.

From Gallery: arwen.org v7 snapshots, Album: Crafty Things, Album: Socks

Well, rejoice. Your lonely-left-behind red sock just might be in luck! A dating service for orphaned socks? lonelysocks.co.uk

Squeaky Mouse challenges Apple's Mighty Mouse

2005-08-17T17:43:00.000-04:00

See Squeaky Mouse in action right here, in this video (direct download). You will need either:

MplayerOSXB8r4 for Panther
MplayerOSXB8r5 for Tiger
And I think that VLC media player for Mac OS X should also be capable of handling this .wmv video file.

Another contender for Mac office suite?

2005-08-17T17:07:00.000-04:00

We're really trying hard to find a replacement for M$ Office for Mac.

I mean really, really hard.

In case those aren't satisfactory, here's another! After more than one and a half years of development and two public betas, here comes DEVONtechnologies' DEVONthink Professional 1.0. DEVONthink lets you edit, analyze, organize, find and archive your work and documents.

From the press release (.pdf file):

...The final release of DEVONthink Professional 1.0 brings, again, many improvements over the previous public beta. The new Automator support offers 14 actions and ten sample workflows that demonstrate their possibilities and using Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger’s comfortable automation tool for creating workflows and integrate DEVONthink Professional with other applications, the Internet or the iPod.

An AppleScript droplet converts AppleWorks 6 documents for DEVONthink Professional, three new scripts import complete mailboxes from Apple Mail and Microsoft Entourage and copy e-mails from PowerMail to the database. The Microsoft Entourage scripts also import only short headers now, and all scripts have been overhauled for compatibility and performance. Compiled scripts and Automator workflows can be added to the script menu making it even easier to extend DEVONthink Professional’s functionality.

Also, printing of lists, outlines and sheets has been revised, the Dashboard widgets have been updated and the AppleScript support and performance has been improved. The web site export now comes with four different templates, allows to select the text encoding and converts umlauts and accents to HTML entities, if desired. With QuickTime 7 installed, DEVONthink Professional 1.0 supports lots of additional multimedia file types. A new preference automatically inserts smart quotes, localized for English-, French- and German-style curly quotes.

Finally, the documentation for DEVONthink Professional 1.0 is now complete and available as both integrated online help (HTML) or downloadable PDFs optimized for screen reading and printing. ...

Contrary to the home-user-centric DEVONthink Personal, DEVONthink Professional easily handles multiple databases and so allows users to split up their information collection into several smaller databases for specific projects. Databases are simply packages and can be copied, e-mailed and backed up like any other file or folder. ...

The free trial version allows 150 hours of non-continuous use and must be licensed after the end of the trial period for US$ 75 (introductory price). ...

Supported file formats are:

Plain Text
Rich text (RTF, RTFD)
Microsoft Word (converted to RTF)
HTML, XML
URLs
Images
PDF and PostScript
Multimedia files (QuickTime, MP3)
AppleScripts
iChat / Yahoo Messenger logs.

System requirements: Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later (some features are only available on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger). Available immediately for download. Offered as well, an educational discount for students and educators.

Click here for a guided tour. For further details on what this application can do for you, click here.

DEVONthink Professional sells for $99 but for those who purchase or have purchased DEVONthink Personal until end of September are entitled to upgrade for just the price difference of US$ 35.

Something to be on the lookout for...

2005-08-17T13:18:00.000-04:00

Here's something to be on the lookout for. Caught this via kottke.org and if it lives up to its promises, it will be something exceptionnal. It's a new web browser based on the Firefox code, it will be called Flock and what will set this web browser apart from the rest is that it wants to be the "world's most innovative social browsing experience". For now, copies have been distributed only to friends.

In the next few weeks the developing team will be allowing a select few to further test it (you can sign up for the testing if you want by clicking on the link just above...) but for now you can read this review and await impatiently for further developments. Hopefully the Mac won't be overlooked... and that pr0n parasites won't turn this into a product to run away from.