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Thursday, May 23, 2002 |
New chip promises faster digital photos
Bringing rapid-fire photos to digicams. While most digital cameras' processors leave you waiting between shots, start-up NuCore's chips let you fire off five frames a second. Pixel freaks, take notice. [CNET News.com]
1:57:42 PM 
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Beware the environmental cost of computer upgrades
Tech Toxics' Tarnished Legacy. A new report throws a spotlight on the extent to which high-tech manufacturing -- often considered clean and green -- degrades the environment. By Environment News Service's Jim Crabtree. [Wired News]
1:21:35 PM
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Low End Mac asks for reader support
Dan Knight posted The Future of Low End Mac yesterday, letting readers know that the revenue streams for his useful site are just not allowing him to make ends meet. Like this site, he accepts donations and subscriptions from readers, but Low End Mac also has advertising on each page - which is something that I have considered for this site, but few companies are interested in online advertising right now.
Low End Mac is like many sites that started and did pretty well during the Internet boom of a few years ago. And like many of these formerly successful sites, they are on the edge of fading away. If you value these online news sources for the tips they offer, do something to support them. Read Knight's article and see what he suggests. And also think of doing something as simple as donating to the sites you read regularly. The days of the Internet translating into everything for free are behind us...
And please, feel free to support this site as well. I have seen a huge increase in traffic on Mac Net Journal over the last few months, but so far all of those readers have found it in their hearts (or wallets) to donate a grand total of $100 through my PayPal donation link.
10:47:20 AM
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Moving OS X from one hard drive to another
Long ago I wrote about how I moved my OS X installation from a 10 gig hard drive to my current 20 gig drive, but O'Grady's PowerPage has a more modern example of how to make the move in Transferring your HDD between PowerBooks
10:09:27 AM
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How to uninstall iPhoto
A reader asked a good question regarding my recent story about Why I stopped using iPhoto: How do you uninstall iPhoto? And how can you stop iPhoto from being launched every time you plug in your digital camera?
Here are some answers:
To uninstall iPhoto the first thing to do is back up any images that are stored in the iPhoto folders (these will likely be in the Pictures folder under your user directory). Then simply go to the Applications folder and drag iPhoto to the trash. There will still be other iPhoto files in the Preferences folder under your user Library, but these are not critical to remove. They take up some disk space, but they won't hurt your Mac if they remain there.
To stop iPhoto from launching every time you plug in your camera, go to the Applications folder and double click on the Image Capture application. This simple application is what dictates how the computer will behave when you plug in a supported digital camera. Just change the settings to do something other than launch iPhoto when a camera is plugged in and you are good to go!
9:34:05 AM
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Apple offers details about bandwidth limits
Macintouch has a report today in its reader reports about the previously unannounced bandwidth limits that are being enforced now with iTools accounts. Some iTools users with busy sites where finding their sites suddenly unavailable due to these complicated limitations, and there still hasn't been an official announcement from Apple to explain the policy.
Hopefully Apple will announce the official policy soon and maybe lessons will be learned on both sides. On the user's side, it isn't always wise to rely on free services for critical Web sites. In this case like most others, you get what you pay for. But on Apple's side, it is a pretty big miss to start enforcing a policy without any effort to let consumers and customers know about the change.
9:16:57 AM
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Say it ain't so, Ozzy
MacWorld UK confirms today that the two new Ozzy Osbourne CD releases will not be playable on Macs. The albums, a re-release of an older album, "Live at the Budokan" and the new "The Osbourne's Family Album" are being produced by Sony with its Key2Audio copy protection technology - the same kind of system that has earned Celine Dion so much ridicule for crashing and in some cases causing serious damage to the new G4 iMacs.
It is not clear from the MacWorld UK article if the copy-protected CDs will be used for the release in the U.S.
These copy-protected CDs cause problems with Macs and other computers because the first track on the disc is blank, which is not fitting with the official CD format that can be read by computers. If you insert a copy protected CD in your Mac, it doesn't recognize the disc as a valid CD, and the computer won't even let you eject the CD unless you take specific steps outlined by Apple support (Check this KBase document).
The simple solution to this problem? Refuse to buy any CDs encoded with copy protection or even better, stop buying CDs all together. You can also contact Sony to let them know what you think about their anti-consumer strategy.
Some people have also found that this copy protection scheme can be defeated with a black felt-tip pen. Color over the first data track on the CD and it will function like a normal CD. But this is ridiculous and there is no reason for this kind of unfriendly attitude toward consumers. The music industry continues to act like each of their customers are criminals and as a result, I will join the growing list of former music buyers who are boycotting the industry...
9:05:58 AM
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Privacy? What privacy?
Act Would OK Snail Mail Searches. The House overwhelmingly approves the Customs Border Security Act, which says mail can be searched at the border 'without a search warrant.' Declan McCullagh reports from Washington. [Wired News]
8:47:44 AM
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OmniWeb 4.1 sneaky peek 88 released today
OmniWeb 4.1sp88 (Updated 5/23/02) - The Omni Group offers another update today, bumping up to OmniWeb 4.1 sneaky peek 88. This update is supposed to address a table rendering bug that is one of the last hurdles remaining before OmniWeb hits a final 4.1 release...
8:37:14 AM
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Drop Drawers updated to 1.5.9b
Drop Drawers v1.5.9b. - Drop Drawers is a user-interface enhancement for the Mac OS or Mac OS X which provides floating pull-out, snap-shut drawers on the sides of your screen to store text, URLs, aliases, scripts, pictures, sounds, movies and anything else. Drop Drawers 1.5.9b for OS X solves the long-standing issue of restoring keyboard focus after expanding or clicking in floating drawers. [AppleScript Info]
8:29:59 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Rob McNair-Huff.
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