Archive for the 'Tech' Category

More Mac Software

Thursday, February 16th, 2006

In the news (/., MacRumors): yet another attempt at malware for your mac. This one’s being touted as a virus but seems to be just a trojan.

Nevertheless, I briefly considered some advice in the MacRumors comments to stop running as an admin user. (See also the explanation of admin user powers in this informative thread.) But I consider myself geeky enough not to double-click something dangerous, so I’ll wait until a real virus starts circulating before I do anything that inconvenient in the name of security.

On the positive side, today I stumbled across HyperJeff’s catalog of OS X Apps while surfing. It’s a huge, unwieldy list, but handy if you want to look up all the mac sudoku apps.

Camino 1.0 Released

Wednesday, February 15th, 2006

I didn’t get to use that beta long: Camino 1.0 has been released. It’s even a Universal Binary, for that one guy whose new MacBook has been delivered.

Camino is Back!

Tuesday, February 7th, 2006

Camino (the OS X web browser formerly known as Chimera) is back with a beta of the long-awaited version 1.0.

I tend to use Safari for my day-to-day browsing, but for the weird stuff like XML (raw or with xlinking) and sites that need BugMeNot, I use a Mozilla browser. Lately, since Camino seemed mired in version 0.8, I’ve been using Firefox, but no more! It’s back to the good old days for me.

Psychotic iPod Recovers Nicely

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

I suppose I need an iPod category. My iPod had a psychotic break last week, in which the 5 dots permanently replaced my track times and volume. I thought the dots were the chapters of audiobooks because I use my iPod to listen to audiobooks a lot and I’d only happened to see them during the audiobooks when I was clicking the middle wheel to get to the bookmarky thing–so I thought everything on my iPod had turned into an audiobook. (Note that I still haven’t read the manual to figure out what the bookmarky thing is called.)

In my defense, I’d like to say I had just done a bunch of stuff like updating iTunes and synching some wacky stuff through iCal onto my iPod, so I thought I’d caused the psychotic break somewhere in there. Plus, none of the buttons work right when you’re in 5-dot mode, except for the volume. They turn into jumpy, audiobookmarky things. Try it, you’ll see.

Veronica told me the five dots were the ratings system, which was reassuring, but I still couldn’t turn them off because I thought you had to hold down the middle button, which didn’t do squat. But I was reassured that I wasn’t the only totally clueless iPod user out there:
this guy had the same problem.

Maybe it’s time to read the manual.

Desktop Managers Redux

Monday, January 30th, 2006

My desktop manager demo at work (i.e., on Evil!Windows) finally expired, after several betas, new versions, a record 18 days of Windows uptime, and other tricks to keep it going. I considered paying the shareware fee, but I didn’t like the looks of the e-store, and it didn’t like the looks of my PayPal information. So I uninstalled and went looking for more.

I found zillions of them listed at TimelyWeb. I had to cut-and-paste to get to the product websites, to check whether they looked legit or like spyware. I decided on enable Virtual Desktop, which has the same functionality as my last desktop manager, more or less, a nice, if busy, preference pane interface, and a 30-day free trial. If I get addicted to it, I may even brave another e-store.

Super-Macs

Tuesday, January 10th, 2006

As of this morning in California, Intel is officially inside the new macs. I don’t care for the name “MacBook Pro,” but I’m a New Englander so I was doomed to go on calling it a Powerbook for at least another five years–no harm done.

Bookmarks for mp3s

Tuesday, November 29th, 2005

My free audiobooks were all mp3s, so they didn’t do the cool audiobook bookmarking thing. But I found the solution at iPod Hacks:

In the info for a track (command-i), under the Options tab, there’s a checkbox for Remember playback position. Check it.

That’s it. I haven’t field-tested it on the iPod yet, but it works in iTunes. I’ll try to report back later today.

Free Stuff Free

Monday, November 28th, 2005

I have a little iPod that needs filling, so I’ve been downloading free filks and free audiobooks. Why pay more?

Writing by Mac

Sunday, November 6th, 2005

From the NaNoWriMo forums: Writing aids for Mac OS X. Personally, I don’t use any of them, but I did download SideNote and GraphViz to give them a try. Most of my “notes” are actually links, so sidenote may clean up my desktop a bit.

More Sudoku Madness

Friday, November 4th, 2005

I had no idea there were Sudoku Dashboard Widgets out there. It’s the perfect NaNo break…