Archive for the ‘Mac’ Category

Mac Zealotry and Steve’s Reality Distortion

Thursday, February 2nd, 2006

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.

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The sad state of Mac OS X Photo Management Software

Saturday, December 10th, 2005

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.

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Mac Tip: Avoiding .ds_store creation on your network drives

Wednesday, December 7th, 2005

From this item at macosxhints - Prevent .ds_store creation across multiple user accounts

it turns out its fairly easy to configure an OS X client to apply the setting for any user who logs in.You just need to run this command...

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true

...under a single account, then copy the created plist to /Library/Prefrences.


The article also has other ways of going about this, including vetoing files on the samba share directly (clever!)

iPod, Podcasts and your Car

Monday, November 28th, 2005

Like many, I use iTunes to sync my podcasts onto my iPod so I can listen to in the car. Mostly technology related podcasts. Unfortunately circumstances brought upon by both iTunes itself and the poor metadata management conspire to make this very difficult.

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First Mac Mini Scare

Sunday, November 27th, 2005

I was running software update, and the whole computer locked up tight right in the middle of installing (even the mouse wouldn't move). Hard rebooted after a long wait. The machine rebooted fine except - no Finder. I did end up fixing it. Here's what I tried.

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Mac Mini.. This should prove interesting.

Sunday, November 20th, 2005

Today we were driving around and found a closing sale at a "Good Guys" store. All of their stores are closing in California and folding into CompUSA.

The discounts were very deep - they were even getting rid of the furniture and fixtures. So as I was walking around I saw a floor model of a Mac Mini (1.25G4/256Mb/40Gb/CDRW+DVDROM) priced at $329. As Apple never discounts and eBayers have a way of getting things priced way higher than fair market, I couldn't resist.

So now I'm typing this on a Mac.

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MacOSX user? Try fink

Wednesday, March 9th, 2005

Lately I've been fooling around with more platforms at home. I think now I have all the important ones represented (MacOSX, Windows, Linux and Solaris Sparc), and I'm probably about to blow a fuse unless I start distributing these things around the house (I think I already blew a NIC in one of the boxes).

Anyway, I was told by a Machead friend recently about Fink and I have to say I am really impressed with it.

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