RSSiBank Review
Jul 31
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.
Compressing Disk Images and Auto-Opening them
May 16
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.
Mail.App, GPGMail bundle and unread bit
Mar 27
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.
Getting OS X Terminal to behave
Feb 07
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. And another
technorati tags:osx, terminal.app, bash
Coders: Living on the Edge
Sep 15
Fun and entertaining early Linux History, from Lars Wirzenius:
At one point, Linus had implemented device files in /dev, and wanted to dial up the university computer and debug his terminal emulation code again. So he starts his terminal emulator program and tells it to use /dev/hda. That should have been /dev/ttyS1. Oops. Now his master boot record started with "ATDT" and the university modem pool phone number. I think he implemented permission checking the following day.
History of the OSX Screen of Death – and make your own
Sep 14
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
A trip down memory lane
Aug 01
Mac, OS-Dependent, Windows No Comments
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
Adobe: Implement ETDs on Linux, please!
May 15
I just left this on the Adobe forums:
I just bought an e-book from amazon because it said it was Adobe Reader.. I didn't choose Microsoft Reader because I have a Linux machine (the book was also available on Microsoft's eReader format). Now only after spending the money do I realize that your application can open these files on every platform BUT Linux. Well if I can't print it, and I can only read it on the desktop at home (where I have a Mac), it completely defeats the purpose of buying an e-book for me.
If this is the level of support you offer your customers, I will not be buying DRM protected books again. I'm an avid buyer of freely available PDFs - The pragmatic programmers provide an excellent selection of programming books on PDFs, as do many other fine technical book publishers.
Even without agreeing with the methods of DRM, I can understand them. But if you are going to go through the trouble of implementing DRM, you would think your company would WANT people to use it, and hence implement it in the same platforms you implement your product. As it stands right now, it's PDF 1, DRM ETD -10000 (since I can't even begin to download it).
What is bad enough to be laughable is the text on the FAQ mentioning that there is not enough market. Somehow I don't believe this for a very simple reason. If Adobe was really interested in knowing whether there is market or not, they would implement the ETD download as a stub that would notify your servers of the attempt (and provide the user with a message about the feature not being implemented in the Linux version). That would be more straightforward and allow your company to determine the actualy market for the product.
But your failure to implement or even mention the feature in the Linux version of the reader is telling enough for me.
Modal Dialogs and Outlook 2003
Feb 22
So I open an e-mail in outlook by double clicking on it (which opens it in a new window), from 10 new emails that are to a distribution list.
I want to create a rule from them so I go back o the main Inbox window. Then I say "Tools", "Rules and Alerts", "New Rule"...
Then I want to add a rule for messages sent to the distribution list, however now the address (which I promptly forgot because human brains tend to forget unimportant things) is obscured. Since both "Rules and Alerts", and "New Rule Wizard" dialogs are modal, I have to cancel not once, but twice, in order to move the window so I can see it.
Yes, I "could have" right-clicked on the mesage and say "Create Rule", but since the Inbox view doesn't have a "To" column by default (and I agree, it is stupid to add one), I don't actually know which of these messages are sent to the Distribution list and which are specifically to me, right?
Yes, I can also add "Create Rule" when the message is open, however this is on the "Actions" menu, when the rules engine on the Inbox is on the "Tools" menu. So for a while I don't find it. I guess I need training - after all, I've only been using windows applications since Windows 2.0 came out.
Too many choices getting in the way, and not one matching the way a user thinks.