Hackerdude

After my nightmare with Quicken I decided to try many different financial packages. I ended up deciding on iBank 2.3.2. I have been using it for a little while now and here are my impressions.

technorati tags:
finances
osx
mac

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Sometimes there's no reason to keep a giant directory, so you can use hdiutil to compress it and then a folder action to automatically mount it. OSXTips shows you how.

Note that it made my finder take a really long time opening the folder the first time (when it mounts). So your mileage may vary.

technorati tags:
osx
cbbtr

I seemed to always have a problem with the unread bit getting "forgotten" on Mail.app. I thought it was a bug on Apple's product but apparently the bug is actually on the GPGMail bundle. Here is how to fix it.

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Last time I didn't write this down and this time I'm blogging about it so I don't forget it. OSX Hints has a good guide on how to set Terminal.app to work the way God Intended (great command line user that He is).

I am handy around the Terminal.app, but for me the main thing that I kept forgetting (and hurts me a lot since my muscle memory depends on it) is moving forward and backwards full word:

"\e[5C": forward-word
"\e[5D": backward-word


By the way, have I mentioned I no longer have to use PCs? Woot!

Update: Here is another guide you may want to take a look at.

technorati tags:osx, terminal.app, bash

If you've followed this for a while you probably know I love emulation and retrocomputing. I'm a big time history geek. Which is why I found this history of the OSX Screen of death entry I found on OSNews pretty cool. And of course I also love when I can tweak things:

Mac OS X allows a custom panic image to be loaded into the kernel from user space. This can be useful in certain circumstances—for example, if it is desired that the user of a managed system notify the administrator in the case of a panic, a custom image can be used to instruct the user.

A New Screen of Death for Mac OS X

It's almost too bad I have only seen the screen once ever on the Mac OS (knock on wood). How would you test this? Parallels for mac, when are you going to run OS X?

technorati tags:osx

I recently got Parallels Workstation for my Intel iMac. This weekend I went on a cleaning spree of my office and I found some very old CDs with Operating systems, software, etcetera.

I decided to take a trip down memory lane and install some of them..

So now I have OS 2 Warp V3, Windows 3.1/MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 98, in addition to Windows 2000 and XP which I actually use to test.

Fun fun fun!

Man, I love VMs!

technorati tags:vms, retro, virtual-machines, parallels

If you have a Mac and use Firefox, you owe it to yourself to upgrade. I did yesterday and it feels oh so much faster. They also fixed an annoying bug where a repositioned combobox wouldn't expand, which made many web 2.0 sites very hard to use.

Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 Release Notes

This is just awesome. Thanks to tack at the mac10 mailing list for pointing this out.

GLTerminal emulates a 1970’s terminal monitor, complete with flaws in brightness, warped display curvature, and flicker. It even simulates baud rate lag. And! for extra verisimilitude, the character colors can be green or amber.

ldopa.net » archive » glterminal

technorati tags: mac, geek, terminal, retro

So yes, I'm slowly switching to using Macs, but I won't be a zealot (and neither should you). Although I didn't write it, this is an insightful comment that reaffirms my reasons for avoiding zealotry and kool-aid drinking.

Steve Jobs is getting an awful lot of praise and recognition as of late for being a multi faceted, immensely talented CEO ... and no doubt; he is. Most of all; he is visionary. I don't dispute the deistic award bestowed upon him; "Possibly the greatest CEO in the history of the corporate world" by Businessweek magazine....

... That said there are a few things that have bothered me about Apple Computer and in particular, Apple; under Steve Jobs

Fix Your Thinking: 5 Things Steve Jobs Has Misled Us About In The Last 30 Years

I  think I'm lucky that my last bit of heavy zealotry was back in the Amiga days. Ever since I've tried to be pragmatic on products and technologies, and it's served me well.

technorati tags: mac, zealotry

I gave iPhoto an honest try, and I'm going back to Picasa on the PC for managing my photos.. iPhoto is just a ridiculously bloated, silly excuse for a photo management program, especially when you have a very large library. It has been acting up ever since I got it and things have not gotten better.

Is there alternative photo organizer software for OS X? iPhoto is driving me nuts. I'm not interested in anything that costs money -- just a reliable free download that will organize and display photos. Thanks.

iPhoto Alternatives?? | Ask MetaFilter

I may give some of these programs mentioned in the link a try - I installed Lightbox. It's plenty fast, but it struck me more as a RAW camera conversion software that "grew" into a photo management program. The problem is that it can't do simple things like rotating the pictures with the keyboard.

I'll probably try iView when I get a chance. But Picasa is free, so shelling out $40 for something that is better on the PC side for free makes me feel like a fool. What I wish for is Picasa for the Mac Maybe when I upgrade my OS I will try iPhoto again, because I really don't want to stay on the PC.

technorati tags: macos, iphoto, mac, digitalpics, picasa