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Friday, October 11, 2002 |
Oh man...more video problems with my PowerBook
Anyone want a Pismo? While browsing some of my recent digital photos tonight I am seeing a problem with this new LCD that was just replaced...a problem that I had with my Pismo in February of 2001. When displaying photos with dark colors I can see lines of shifting blue and red pixels lighting up. It results in blurred text when I write on a white background as well. So, this machine is due for yet more repairs...
I won't send my PowerBook back anytime real soon though. The rest of this month is too busy for me to afford to be without my laptop for a week or more.
6:17:10 PM 
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AppleScript Sourcebook
AppleScript Sourcebook updated. - Bill Cheeseman, caretaker of The AppleScript Sourcebook, has been hard at work updating this valuable resource for AppleScripters. Referring to the latest changes, he says:The AppleScript Sourcebook's traditional report on new versions of AppleScript has just been posted for "AppleScript 1.9 in Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar)." At the same time, the AppleScript 1.8.3 report has been posted, and the AppleScript 1.8.1 and 1.7 reports have been slightly updated. In addition, the News and Links sections of the site have been updated with many new entries. [AppleScript Info]
4:36:35 PM
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Kudos to the Apple Repair Center
I am back to working with my Pismo PowerBook now, and it looks like despite what I was told on the phone Tuesday, the repair center appears to have replaced both the LCD and the inverter board in the machine before shipping it back to me! No problems found so far!
As a nice added touch, they replaced the long-ago lost rubber feet from the bottom of the laptop. Great service!
12:24:55 PM
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A new alpha version of Proteus chat program
Alien Technology has new alpha versions of the popular Proteus multi-protocol chat client available, as noted with the link to Proteus 2.2a10 on MacUpdate.
11:20:15 AM
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Jimmy Carter wins Nobel Peace Prize
Jimmy Carter Wins Nobel Peace Prize. The Associated Press: Former President Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize today for finding peaceful solutions to international conflicts, and for advancing democracy and human rights. [in New York Times: International]
How ironic: a great American is publicly rewarded at last for his never ending efforts to promote peaceful coexistence between people and nations, while at the same time, another American is leading the country on the war path. [s l a m]
I echo this sentiment. One man striving for peace, another striving for war at all costs...
10:11:19 AM
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PGP 8.0 public beta for Mac OS X
Macintouch notes the availability of PGP 8.0 public beta this morning, including a version to run under Mac OS X.
8:08:58 AM
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The MS-Apple relationship today
The Mercury News offers an audio Q&A interview with Lisa Brummel, vice president of Microsoft's Home and Retail Division today. [intro story, audio (Real format)]
7:25:40 AM
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Apple's lagging laptops
Mac-Upgrade makes some good points in Apple's lagging laptops. The article argues that switchers are not enticed by the abilities of the current batch of PowerBook and iBook machines that have not seen substantial updates in many months.
"Apple has got to take its laptop line up a notch or three. When the sub-US$1,100 eMac is a better all around machine than the iBook, and comparable to the US$2,500-US$3,200 PowerBook, Apple's got a problem."
My thoughts? I write this as the first post in the Comments to this story:
Although I found myself looking at new PowerBooks and the G4 iMac this week while waiting for my Pismo to return from Apple, I have to admit that even for me I see no compelling reason to move up to the current professional PowerBook line offered in the TiBook. That machine has serious limitations with Wi-Fi range, it runs much hotter than my G3 Pismo, it still has the annoying problem where the keyboard keys rub against the LCD when the lid is closed, and the speed bump from my current PowerBook just doesn't seem worth the premium price to upgrade. If I was to upgrade today it would be to the high-end iBook running at 700 MHz, but even here there are serious shortcomings - no PC Card slot, no way to use multiple monitors, a limitation of 640MB of RAM. The iBook is the only line of laptops from Apple right now that I feel could live up to the way I use my PowerBook - moving from one place to another frequently and carrying the machine in a pannier when I bike across town from one place to another. The TiBook looks great, but it just seems too flimsy to live up to this kind of use....
7:18:13 AM
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Wired News redesigns with standards in mind
Wired News looks different today, and the move to a more standards compliant site are explained in Wired News: A site for your eyes. The move to a site based on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is daring, since not many high-traffic sites have considered moving to the new standard, but it looks ok on Internet Explorer under Mac OS X 10.2.1. Unfortunately, the designers have chosen to use the tiny fonts in some design elements (the author's byline and navigation elements, among others) that look ok under Windows but that are nearly unreadable on a Mac unless I bump up the font size for the entire site. Standard behavior in a Windows-centric world, but still not a good move...
6:54:09 AM
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Contemplating a change of Weblog software
I have been using Radio 8 to run Mac Net Journal since January of this year, but a combination of being limited to run Radio on an older, slower machine for the last 10 days and daily problems with upstreaming both HTML and RSS files to my server have me looking at other solutions for running MNJ. Radio is a great tool, especially when it works, but dealing with problems in the data structure and other limitations like the fact that I have to rename my hard disk in order to install it on a new machine just make it too inflexible at times.
What am I leaning toward trying to replace Radio? If I do make a move, it will likely be to TinderBox...
6:40:21 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Rob McNair-Huff.
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