| |
 |
Thursday, August 1, 2002 |
A Puget Sound sunset
I snapped the photo here on Monday evening, while watching Purple Martins gliding overhead along with Caspian Terns and Glaucous-winged Gulls at nearby Titlow Park. The offshore piers here are one of the few remaining places that Purple Martins can be seen regularly. The species is being pushed out of the Pacific Northwest and other areas of the country by the European Starling, which competes for the limited number of cavity nesting locations that are needed by both species.
As we cross over into August I spent a few minutes this morning checking how many miles of book research that Natalie and I did in July. Our total dropped in half from June, slipping to just 1,433 miles. We were out doing book research, with digital camera and PowerBook in hand, on every weekend last month. And I came up with a new use for a PowerBook loaded with iTunes. I ripped a bird song CD to my MP3 collection so that I can use the songs in the field as a bird call system to help bring in selected species for sighting. It worked pretty well on the one trip where I used it a couple of weeks ago...
1:10:20 PM 
|
|
MacMinute offers official word on Amazon rebate
MacMinute posted the following a few minutes ago:
"Overwhelming demand caused Amazon.com to retract its US$50 rebate for Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar, MacMinute has learned. Amazon.com caught the attention of the Mac community earlier this week when it rolled out the exclusive rebate, but pulled it yesterday afternoon without notice. "Customer response exceeded our wildest expectations so we're not continuing the rebate at this time," Ling Hong, an Amazon.com spokesperson told MacMinute. "But obviously all the pre-orders that we received during the time that the rebate offer was posted on our site will be honored." Hong said all orders place up until 19:00 PT yesterday will be eligible."
And so it goes...
12:29:00 PM
|
|
An update on Mac Net Journal finances
Just a quick note to update the financial situation of MNJ. During the month of July the balance sheet looks like this:
Income:
Reader donations = $55
Advertising commissions = $4.68
Total: $59.68
Expenses:
Web hosting = $20
Bandwidth charges = $8
Total: $28
So July was a positive month! Modest, but positive...
For the year-to-date, MNJ readers have donated $156. This just covers the hosting charges so far this year of $141.
What is not included here is the amount of time spent updating the site, which is just about impossible to quantify. It is fair to guess I spend at least a couple of hours each day updating MNJ, and more on days when I write in-depth articles (which is not often enough lately). These are some of the personal realities of running a Web site. The financial reality is that MNJ is barely making it right now.
Big thanks to those who offered their support in July! Meanwhile, if your company would like to sponsor a growing Mac Web site, contact me at rob@whiterabbits.com.
11:33:47 AM
|
|
The deal that never was?
MacNN updates its readers today on the OS X 10.2 rebate offer from Amazon: Amazon pulls $50 rebate on Jaguar.
There has been a lot of talk on mailing lists and other Web sites about this move, which now includes the fact that the School of Rebates coupon at Amazon doesn't list OS X 10.2 as a rebate item any longer. Many are pointing to archived pages on Google that still hold the old rebate coupon, but I would advise a word of caution. If you didn't order OS X 10.2 before Amazon pulled the deal, it is highly unlikely that Amazon will honor the rebate.
I still haven't seen any backstory on the rebate removal, and we may never know what happened. Meanwhile, remember that other Mac software retailers are offering more conservative discounts on the purchase of OS X 10.2. MacMall offers OS X 10.2 for $119 with a guaranteed delivery on Aug. 24, while MacWarehouse has the same $119 price tag for Jaguar. It isn't $50, but at least you know that his discount will be honored...
11:21:07 AM
|
|
Macro alternatives for Mac OS X
theXclickers. - theXclickers is a web site devoted to finding alternatives for OS X users who relied heavily on utilities such as OneClick and other macro/shortcut programs which will not be available for OS X.
"The goal of this site is to offer a place for all the alternatives to be assessed. The mailing list will be the prime source of discussion but with any luck there'll be a code library here which will help people of all levels to get their work done better." [AppleScript Info]
11:06:51 AM
|
|
DragThing updated to 4.3.1
DragThing v4.3.1. - DragThing is an application dock designed to tidy up the icons littering your desktop. It provides a launcher palette for files, folders, disks, servers and URLs. Version changes include: Various fixes for Mac OS X "Jaguar". It also fixes some scripting problems with the "Disk Dock" visible. [AppleScript Info]
10:47:08 AM
|
|
© Copyright 2002 Rob McNair-Huff.
|
|
|
|
|
