OSX

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Feedster Adds Sherlock Support and it Rocks !!! Wow!  I'm totally seeing the benefit of working with a real apple developer -- my partner Francois.  He just implemented Feedster sherlock searching and it just plain rocks.  As a mostly PC guy, I doubt I'd have even thought about supporting this but Francois is a tried and true Apple guy and just took it on himself to do this.  Wow.  Sherlock is an extensible user interface structure where different apps can have different "search channels" so if you use a Mac and you like Feedster then just go here: sherlock://http://www.feedster.com/soap/Feedster/SherlockChannel.xml?action=add (Note that this link might get mangled by Radio / IE and you might have to copy and paste it).  Cool stuff. 10:04:20 AM  Google It!  comment []

Monday, July 14, 2003

Preliminary Thoughts on the iSight Here is an unorganized jumble of thoughts about the iSight: Its the 1st webcam worth owning.  Period the end.  The device is just plain wonderful. If you have any errors making it work then you should just re-install OSX.  I couldn't have made this work without Francois' patience and support.  Thx man. iChatAV is quite good.  Apple did a nice job. www.evological.com makes it a real uploading webcam.  Thanks to the person who recommended this to me (and I can't remember your blog; sorry). Performance on iChat AV can pull down the entire machine.  I actually recommend dumping video often and just using the audio portion.  That works well. iChat AV needs a peer to peer option so it doesn't go over the AIM network iChat AV needs a secure option for encrypted communications (remember -- iChat AV isn't free; you have to buy Panther when its available to get it) There needs to be a simple command & keystroke for "Save a Jpeg Right Now So I can email it to a friend".  If there is I can't find it.  And don't even mention to me the abortion that is grab. Full screen mode is cool. Limit your bandwidth to 500K. iSight makes a classic webcam app like Yahoo IM look like a Model T I need to work out better lighting to use the camera well.  So will you I bet. Sleep mode on a laptop is just plain lame when you use iChat and you're not giving the system regular keyboard input Working shirtless in the summer is inappropriate with iChat.  Keep a light shirt handy for those off the cuff conferences. Overall?  Highly recommended.  Francois and I are using this more and more instead of the phone.  10:33:10 AM  Google It!  comment []

Saturday, July 12, 2003

iSight Not Working? Just Reinstall OSX Yep that's what it took but it works!  Whoo Freaking Hoo!  I'm available via my feedster2003 account using iChat AV.  iSight: The first webcam worth owning. 3:54:33 PM  Google It!  comment []

Sigh.  iSight Problems => iBook Problems I'm in the middle of an OSX full reinstall -- I went to the Apple store, the camera was fine but my iBook (which HAD been fine) refused to boot.  So its back to the CDs and off to the races.  Sigh. Oh and while others may be able to make their iSights work on a PC, I find that mine reboots the PC when I plug it into my fireware daisy chain.  Cool ! 1:57:26 PM  Google It!  comment []

Wednesday, July 02, 2003

So You Want to Support Safari But You Don't Have a Mac....  Use Linux! I redid the user interface for the Feedster Preferences page yesterday (no its not live yet) and all of a sudden Francois said something like "Dude.  What are you thinking ????".  Now I was testing it on Firebird and IE and all was happy DIV Goodness.  But on Safari it was DIV Hell.  So I tried it in Konquerer under Linux and got EXACTLY the same error. How'd I solve it?  I cheated.  I put a Smarty if statement around the DIV tags that made it work i.e. {if $browser eq "safari"} HTML JUNK TO MAKE IT LOOK RIGHT (it breaks my blog template) {/if} For some reason that makes the DIV stuff work on Safari.  No clue why.  And the thought of manually counting DIV tags to make sure they are all balanced makes my skin crawl.  So I'm back to browser specific hard coding.  This looked perfect on IE PC / IE Mac / Mozilla Mac / Firebird Linux / Firebird PC but not on Safari and Konquerer (Safari uses the Konquerer rendering engine).  So all  I can say is: THANK YOU SO MUCH APPLE FOR NOT USING THE GECKO RENDERING ENGINE But it does say a lot though about how Apple has come back that I took the time to make it work on Safari, doesn't it? 4:23:06 PM  Google It!  comment []

Monday, June 30, 2003

NetNewsWire Sale Brent is selling NetNewsWire (expires today) for only $29.95. 4:18:32 PM  Google It!  comment []

Monday, June 23, 2003

Apple, Panther and Paying Again for an OS Upgrade Given my propensity for that style of writing commonly known as "The Rant", you might be expecting me to trash Apple for charging all of us again for an OS upgrade. Actually I had my keyboard poised to write just that rant but I stopped.  I thought "Before making an ass out of yourself, make sure.  Do your research."  So I jaunted off to the official Panther web site and took a look. And I actually read pretty much all of it. You know what?  I'm still honked at paying again for this so quickly but I actually think its a fair deal.  Apple has done a good job on Panther and if they want to charge, so be it.  I'm not sure if I'll actually upgrade since my Mac usage is more on the order of "Does X website work correctly under OSX?" than day to day desktop usage.  My guess is just the improved Mail client alone is almost worth the full cost.  I honestly think they've done a damn good job.  Thanks Apple.  10:15:09 PM  Google It!  comment []

Wednesday, May 07, 2003

Mac OSX Help Requested ! I've moved to an iBook as a my primary laptop now and I've entered "the land where batteries don't work".  I have an iBook 12.1" model # A1005 and my original battery now gives me less than 30 minutes of service.  So I trot my little self off to the apple store and buy another right before php-con.  The result?  Maybe 45 minutes of service.  I return it and get another.  The same.  I run the Apple system software update and the same.  Now from sixapart I find that there are real issues but I just don't know what to do.  Get a new battery from the apple store?  Pray for the energizer bunny's spirit to infect my iBook.  Break it in two and go back to a ThinkPad running Windows XP (yeah right). Help !  I'm going to Gnomedex in July as well as SuperNova and I don't want to be the only person with an extension cord dragging behind them. 8:38:30 AM  Google It!  comment []