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Driving through the driving rain Today I am away from the home office and on the road, driving through some of the worst rain this winter on our way south through Oregon to the small town of Gold Beach on the coast. Updates to MNJ will be limited over the next few days as Natalie and I are away from home to visit her grandmother who lives in Gold Beach, near the mouth of the Rogue River. If the rain ever lets up we could see some cool birds on this trip. Excellent!
iPhoto 2 and iMovie 3 coming tomorrow "On Jan. 31, iPhoto 2 and iMovie 3 will join iTunes 3 as free downloads available at www.apple.com." That is the announcement sent to all .Mac members in an email today, so be ready to play with new iApps tomorrow if the inclination strikes you!
GraphicConverter 4.5.3 update released The latest update to the must-have graphics toolbox application GraphicConverter brings the program to version 4.5.3 and adds MRW import, improved display quality in slideshows, better Photoshop plug-in compatibility, and a host of bug fixes to the $30 program. Complete release notes about this update are here, and if you use GC and you have never checked out the AppleScript collection offered on the Web site, do yourself a favor and check it out.
A useful file conversion tool using QuickTime AppleScript Studio App: QuickTime Quick Batch
A Toast patch for iView MediaPro users Toast patch for MediaPro users I really love that the makers of iView MediaPro have created a Weblog to disseminate this information. Every company should do this to offer critical updates to their users, and the URL of the blog should be included on the packaging for their products. It takes customer support beyond the current realm of forcing users to come find what they need in a crisis to offering tips ahead of time that oncoming crisis. Excellent!
A couple of useful Apple Kbase articles Apple posted a couple of very useful Knowledge Base articles today:
Apple's incredible iLife deal for educators MNJ reader Andy Smith offers a great perspective on Apple's new deal for educators that lets them buy iLife and Keynote for a tiny price of $14.95.
Great point, Andy! Of course, I should have mentioned this great deal earlier, but I have been swamped with paying work (that I hate, but that is another story...) over the last couple of weeks, so MNJ has not had the kind of attention it deserves. On another iLife note, a number of sites are confirming that iLife is shipping now...
Frustrated by Chimera For the last few days I have not been able to use Chimera at all, because for whatever reason, even after running Disk Warrior on my disk and a number of restarts and downloads of the newest daily builds of Chimera, the program crashes on startup for me every time I try to run it. Have others run into this? Solutions? While Chimera hasn't been working, Mozilla is rock solid and I have been using Safari as my main browser. Safari still has shortcomings and it hasn't been updated in a couple of weeks now, but it works pretty well with a daily restart of the app, in my experience. Hopefully some of the rendering problems will be addressed soon. I am also using OmniWeb for some critical work as well. Most notably, OW handles sites that use certain private security certificates that cause every other Mac OS X browser to choke and die...
Notable recent software releases Here are a few highlights from recent software releases as found on Macupdate:
.Mac Address Book syncing goes live Apple Activates .Mac Address Book Syncing
O'Reilly on adding voice overs to slide shows Another installment of The DigiCam Chronicles on the O'Reilly Network delves into ways to add sound to you photo slide shows under Mac OS X...
A glimpse at my new Pismo workstation
A few people expressed an interest in how my desk looks now that I have integrated the new 17-inch Princeton LCD display with the built-in display on my aging Pismo PowerBook. The shot above shows how I currently have the machine set up on a desk in the kitchen, where I can look out the windows to the south and west with present views of a church spire through the branches of the ash tree in the back yard and billowing clouds building up against the Cascade Mountains to the east. Sure, I can't see the mountains from here, but they are there...
New Spring beta version integrates RSS User Creations has rolled out a new beta version of its Spring application that adds RSS headlines with support for all flavors of RSS except 1.0. Spring 1.1b2 also offers drag-and-drop of feeds from NetNewsWire and for most feeds dragged directly from a Web browser. For complete info about the new release, check the weblog of User Creations president Robb Beal or click here to download the new version.
New Power Macs unveiled at 1.42 GHz, and new LCD pricing New Power Macs faster, cheaper Apple also dramatically cut the cost of the 23-inch Cinema Display from $3,499 to $1,999 and introduced a new 20-inch Cinema Display at $1,299. The 17-inch digital flat panel display dropped from $999 to $699.
Opera about to abandon the Mac because of Safari? Want evidence that Apple's effort to develop its own Web browser could backfire? Ever heard of Opera? It looks like the fat lady is singing, in the words of Dick Motta:
More Macworld Expo highlights from TidBITS TidBITS also follows up with the second part of its Macworld Expo superlatives article tonight...
TidBITS goes on Safari TidBITS' Adam Engst takes a measured look at the pros and cons of the Safari Web browser in its second incarnation. His conclusion:
A new beta of NetNewsWire Pro NetNewsWire 1.0b14
Wow...this is one bright LCD I broke down and bought one of the 17-inch Princeton LCDs on sale for $350 at Costco this week, making a run to the mecca of consumerism early this afternoon. Setting the large silver-colored beast up on our kitchen table was a snap, and it works great with my Pismo PowerBook, especially when I set up the PowerBook on a laptop stand so that the height of the built-in LCD and the external LCD are about the same. It will take some time to get used to the fact that the Princeton LCD is so much brighter than my Pismo's aging LCD though. I turned the brightness on the 17-inch LCD down to about 50% and it still is much brighter than my Pismo. I am definitely being spoiled with the new screen real estate though. I have often hooked my PowerBook to a 15-inch Sony Trinitron CRT monitor while working in the office, but the difference between a 15-inch CRT and a 17-inch LCD is huge. One final note about the built-in speakers in this Princeton LCD monitor: They are not all that great, but they seem to have a little better range than the built-in speakers in the Pismo...
eWeek comments on Apple's latest moves Apple Moves Boldly Forward
More heat reports on the 12-inch PowerBook My friend John called this morning to say he had just been playing with one of the new 12-inch PowerBook G4 machines, and he offered some good and some bad news about the machine from his perspective. The good: The keyboard felt more solid to him than the keyboard on the Pismo PowerBook. The bad: The heat generated by the little machine was very noticeable. As John said, that may not be a huge issue unless you do a lot of typing on your PowerBook. One interesting note was that as we talked about the 12-inch PowerBook I reminded John that it doesn't have a PC Card slot. He didn't even notice that fact when he had his hands on the machine. Like many people, he assumed that a full-fledged PowerBook would have the full collection of ports for connectivity. Not having a PC Card slot is a deal killer for John to consider buying a 12-inch PowerBook. Sure, he could buy a FireWire media reader to get big image files from his digital camera into the machine, but why bother when he is already set up to work with PC Card slots? This is just another example of the compromises built into any of the PowerBook products. Maybe Apple will hit the sweet spot for more high-end users with a new 15-inch PowerBook G4...
Why would you want Steve Jobs as President? There must be a kernel of humor in all of the stories on Mac sites and on Wired today about the idea of having Steve Jobs run for president of the United States. What is it with the cult of personality around Jobs? I just don't get it...
The rise of the Uber-browser The maker of NetNewsWire offers his perspective on Safari developer David Hyatt's comments about integrating RSS reading into the browser:
My thoughts: Rolling RSS reading into Safari would be the first step down the road to building yet another bloated browser. I think it makes more sense to have Safari work with other apps that can add capabilities when tied in with the browser...
Recent notable software releases Here are highlights from recent software releases, as noted by Macupdate:
Nisus reminds everyone that Writer is still coming Nisus reminds Mac users that the native Mac OS X version of its Writer word processor is still in the works, though there is no release date nor any pricing information available in the short article on MacCentral. A couple of interesting notes from the article: A public beta version could be available in late February or early March, there will be an upgrade price from the Classic version of Nisus Writer, and Nisus is working on a translator to enable moving documents from Word's .doc format to Nisus Writer and then back again. The translator may not be part of the first OS X version of Nisus Writer. It will be great to see Nisus join the rest of the world on Mac OS X. The sooner, the better...
Just how bad was yesterday's bug? CNET takes a look at the combination of laziness and the lack of serious attention paid by Microsoft to fixing critical bugs in a day-after story about the Sapphire worm today. Meanwhile, the portion of the Lycos site that I work on is finally back online after paying a big price for building parts of its site on faulty Microsoft code. Now the question is whether things will be even worse tomorrow morning...
A question for those using LCD monitors Before I plunk down $350 on a LCD monitor from Costco, is this Princeton 17-inch LCD Slim Monitor worth the money? Does anyone have experience with using Princeton LCDs with a PowerBook? Since I am not going to rush into buying a new PowerBook anytime real soon, my next major purchase will be an LCD to hook to my Pismo PowerBook as a second monitor. The aforementioned Princeton LCD is on sale next week at the local Costco. I just want to get something worthwhile rather than plunking down money on something that won't be good to use with not only this PowerBook but with a new PowerBook later this year...
Comic relief of sorts, at Microsoft's expense After reading the self-righteous comments from Microsoft officials in many reports this morning that attempted to absolve the company of the worm that was slowing down the Internet and spreading around the world today by infecting Microsoft SQL servers - after all, the bug that allowed this attack was discovered months ago and MS released a patch to close the hole - it was hilarious that Microsoft's own Windows XP verification servers were offline today due to problems caused by the SQL worm. For many hours, if you wanted to use your newly updated Windows XP system after doing something like adding a new hard drive then you had to sit back and wait for MS to get its act together and its servers back online in order to use your machine. I reiterate my old standby: If you want to avoid computing problems, the first and biggest step you can take is to remove any Microsoft code from your computer. Of course, as I write this in a non-Microsoft program, I am writing chapters for our Birding Washington book using Word 98 under Classic in another window. Where is Nisus Writer for OS X?
NetNewsWire Pro 1.0b13 adds posting to categories NetNewsWire Pro 1.0b13
Are you feeling the Web slowdown? The SQL virus that is causing a big slowdown in Web surfing today hasn't been felt much here in my home office, but I did suffer from an email outage from about 10:30 p.m. last night until 6 a.m. this morning. This is the fourth major email outage in the last couple of months with my current provider... If you sent me critical email between those hours last night, Pacific Time, then please resend. Otherwise, Scripting News has a nice compilation of info about the SQL worm:
O'Reilly: Tips for emerging software developers Software Strategies for Emerging Developers
Mariner Software's DocDrop: Just what the .doc ordered If you have Microsoft Word format .doc files and need to convert them to a more accessible format, Mariner Software's free DocDrop utility is what you need. DocDrop converts .doc files to .rtf files that can be opened with many other word processors such as Mariner Write, AppleWorks, and others. Better yet, you can drop a whole folder of .doc files onto DocDrop and it will work its magic. DocDrop is an open source product under the GPL license. It works with Mac OS X and Mac OS 8.6 and higher...
Comictastic 1.1.3: Freeware comic-strip viewer Spiny Software has released a new version of its comic strip viewing app Comictastic. The app makes finding and viewing comic strips as easy as using an RSS news reader - choose your favorites from the 50 supported strips or add support for others and you can read them each day in Comictastic.
ImageCaster 1.0.4: A Webcam app for OS X ImageCaster is a scriptable webcam broadcasting solution for OS X. It can take virtually any image, from video camera or other sources, and broadcast it on the WWW. It can add overlay text and graphics and upload schedules can be customized. Among the many changes in this release: Improved error reporting to the activity log when script execution fails. Data-fork only AppleScripts will now be correctly executed. Eliminated an exception that was being raised when a blank path was specified for a pre- or post- delivery script. The "Anonymous login" and "Maintain connection between uploads" FTP options can now be accessed/altered via AppleScript. [AppleScript Info]
Senate to Pentagon: Enough with the database idea Citing a story in tomorrow's New York Times, Dave Winer is one of the many people tonight pointing out that the U.S. Senate has sent a message to the Pentagon and the Bush Administration about its idea of building a national database to spy on the American people:
On a political note: Blogging for voters There is some interesting and deep content on Britt's Escapabe Logic blog tonight, including a volley about what it means to be a hero and how to apply that to today's political scene in Blogging for Voters.
Scheduler 3.4: Control your Mac with AppleScript Scheduler 3.4
Apple confirms Keynote bug Apple Confirms Keynote Glitch
User upgradable parts for the 12-inch PowerBook G4 If you have dreamed of doing work on your own diminutive 12-inch PowerBook G4 then you should read the AppleCare Knowledge Base article with instructions for working with the user-serviceable parts in the machine: the AirPort Extreme card and memory only...
My Audion findings I spent time across two different days this week to play with the capabilities of alternate MP3 player and recorder Audion 3. The program has quite a few pluses over the free iTunes:
In the end though I found it ripped files from my CDs much slower than iTunes and I was frustrated by the MP3 organizer features enough that I have ended my testing. Maybe I will revisit Audion when I get a G4-based PowerBook rather than this aging G3-based Pismo PowerBook. One definite positive for Audion is the support advice I received from Panic's Steven Frank. I wrote to Steven about the kinds of ripping speeds I was seeing and he offered some good advice - speed depends a lot on which ripper you are using and the quality settings. I was trying to rip files at high quality using each of the different MP3 rippers for testing purposes...
In response to the RSS feed discussion I am now experimenting with new options for the MNJ RSS feed. If you see something odd my next few posts, know that I am tweaking things...
Apple iDelays iLife iDon't know what to do with my iLife now that I read on MacMinute that iLife has been iDelayed... (iCouldn't iResist...)
Discussion: Should RSS feeds be headline-only or full text? When I moved Mac Net Journal to Tinderbox as my authoring program last November I also made a switch in the type of RSS feed that those who read MNJ see in newsreaders like NetNewsWire. Where once the full text of each MNJ story could be seen in my RSS feed, now just the headline is offered. Why do this? For one, it helps cut the costs of the RSS feed bandwidth involved with running a site like MNJ. It also encourages more people to actually visit the Web page that I work hard to maintain. But not everyone is thrilled with headline-only feeds. The folks on the Unsanity weblog have a discussion underway (Half-assed RSS feeds) about RSS feed issues and I wonder what MNJ readers think of the current MNJ feed?
OmniOutliner 2.2b1 Late yesterday The Omni Group released a new beta version of its excellent OmniOutliner application. OO 2.2b1 adds XML exporting, which enables export to Word's outliner among other things, as well as new support for importing and exporting with Apple's new Keynote app. In addition, more column types can be formatted and styled in this beta release and there are a few AppleScript changes rolled into the mix as well. Check the release notes for complete details. In addition there will be a disk image available soon with tips for how to use the XML export option with Word.
Signs that life is too hectic As someone who has been under some serious deadline pressure, money-making pressure, and just general pressure from too many things on my plate at the moment, I can offer a couple of clear signs that help show when I need to step back and set a schedule and re-prioritize:
Thankfully, this has been a slow week for Mac news, but things have been crazy enough around here to point out that I am burning too many candles at both ends... It is great to see that some Apple Store locations and other computer shops are receiving initial shipments of the new 12-inch PowerBook G4 machines, but it sounds like Apple is pushing back the ship dates on many people's orders for the 17-inch PowerBook G4. There is also word that Apple's claims that the DVD-R SuperDrive in the 17-inch machine would burn at 2x are nowhere to be found on the new spec sheets...
Notable software releases Here are some highlights from the software releases over the last day, from Macupdate:
Making RSS news aggregators easy Should Apple integrate a new category of Internet preferences to account for the growing trend of people using RSS news aggregators into Mac OS X? That is the proposal of Michael Aldrete on his weblog last week. Interesting idea...
TidBITS offers its superlatives from Macworld Expo TidBITS continues its tradition of wrapping up the most notable highlights from Macworld Expo in its look at this year's superlatives from San Francisco. If you are interested in new products as well as the best-of-the-best from the show floor, this should be required reading...
Notable software releases Here are highlights from recent software updates and releases as found on Macupdate:
Looking at Audion Audion 3 from Panic looks like an excellent MP3 player and encoder, but I am running into problems in testing my trial version today. Most notably, the encoding speed is about one-third to one-half the speed of encoding files in iTunes. If you use Audion 3 for MP3 encoding, can you offer any tricks? Or is this pretty much the state of working with Audion in this current version?
Safari downloads top 1 million mark According to Apple, since its announcement and release on Jan. 7, the public beta version of the free Safari Web browser has been downloaded by more than 1 million users...
Burning multi-session CDs with DiskCopy An AppleCare Knowledge Base article offers great tips for how to burn multi-session CDs with a CD-R under Jaguar. If you use a CD drive and do backups to CD, or you just want to be able to shoe-horn more data onto a CD-R, this is required reading.
Panic's Steven Frank writes about 'free' software Writing on his weblog, Panic developer and co-founder Steven Frank offers his perspective on 'free' software:
Is Chimera dead? Signs of the end of the Chimera development efforts in the wake of the arrival of Safari and the departure of major programmers is the topic of MacSlash's latest discussion: Is Chimera Dead?.
AirPort blog is offering great coverage As you would expect given that it is run by two veteran writers, the new Apple AirPort Weblog is offering excellent coverage of AirPort Extreme and the general state of wireless on the Mac. To really understand what AirPort Extreme is and isn't, check out the 802.11g and AirPort Extreme Update posted yesterday...
TinyBooks: A simple single-entry bookkeeping app Ken Winograd offered up his TinyBooks accounting application for Mac OS X and Mac OS 9.x yesterday. It is billed as a flexible, non-bloated, single-entry bookkeeping program designed for home users and small businesses. I haven't used the $49 TinyBooks application just yet, but it looks like a great bare-bones program for its target audience. And I love looking at shareware programs like this. It was created to be Ken's own bookkeeping solution and it worked well enough that he wants to share it with the rest of the Mac community. Excellent!
Writer stacks up XP and Linux, comes away appreciating Mac Seattle Times columnist Paul Andrews writes about his experiment of trying to compare the installation and setup process for Windows XP with the same process on Linux in How does Linux stack up against Windows XP. The article reinforces my previous experiences with running Linux, but the conclusion of the piece is why I mention it here.
That is a nice endorsement for the Mac, even though it alludes to the higher costs of Apple products.
WebCore not ready for business, other than with Safari While there has been talk about how Safari and the WebCore services in OS X will help independent developers add better HTML rendering to their applications, Safari team member Dave Hyatt asked developers to stop it for now. Here is how Brent Simmons of NetNewsWire fame responds to the command:
To be clear, this is not a criticism of Apple or Safari, but it does show how far the browser has to go before it is ready for prime time...
Safari hits #2 in MNJ user agent list Although the large majority of Mac Net Journal readers hit the site with an RSS newsreader, or NetNewsWire to be exact, the second most popular browser for looking at MNJ is Safari...
Register Keynote, get a year of Macworld MNJ reader and supporter Andy Smith offered the following a couple of days ago:
Mr. Barrett: It's not just Quark's fault Damien Barrett offers a great round of the reasons that many people are still not ready to make the switch to Mac OS X. Number one: The cost of switching is exhorbitant when OS X doesn't run well or at all on older Apple hardware, when Office costs a ton of money, when Quark is still not available in a native OS X version, etc. It is no one thing that is holding people back but rather a host of smaller problems led by the fact that upgrading costs a lot of money, and money is scarce in today's slipping economy...
OmniGraffle as an RSS reader Jesse Shanks: Using OmniGraffle as an RSS News Reader with Applescript. [Scripting News]
Time to fess up: I'm using Safari a lot While Safari still can't handle all of my Web browser and Web work duties, it is showing itself to be quite decent at dealing with most everyday tasks. Problems remain though:
In other words, Safari in its current state is a good start, but it isn't ready to completely replace any of my other Web browsers. However, it has allowed me to remove Internet Explorer from my Dock...
Notable software releases Here are some highlights from recent software releases noted on Macupdate:
Engst and Fleishman launch an Apple AirPort Weblog The Wireless Networking Starter Kit authors Adam Engst and Glenn Fleishman have launched a new companion blog, the Apple Airport Weblog:
To add the RSS version of the blog to NetNewsWire Pro or your newsreader of choice, paste in the URL: http://wireless-starter-kit.com/airportblog/index.rdf.
Make Mine MPEG-4 version 4.0.1 Make Mine MPEG-4 v4.0.1 This program is an excellent example of putting the cutting edge Apple software built into AppleScript, AppleScript Studio, and QuickTime Pro to use to create some of the highest quality compressed sound files available...
Mail now allows attaching AppleScripts to rules Attach AppleScripts to Mail.app rules How much do you use AppleScript to add features and capabilities to OS X programs? I just wonder because there is a lot of customization possible, but I get the feeling most people avoid AppleScript.
iCommune may be iGone MacMegasite notes iCommune threatened by Apple: "The author of iCommune, a file sharing plugin for iTunes, has received a "Notice of Breach and Termination of License" letter from Apple, stating that he violated my license to the Device Plug-in API which iCommune uses. For the time being, he's making the download unavailable, while he try to sort things out with Apple. Any good lawyers in the house?" [MacMegasite]
Apple posts $8 million loss for last quarter MacMinute offers details of Apple's 1Q03 earnings report. The numbers: An $8 million dollar loss or $0.02 per share. Apple also announced it expects flat revenues looking into the rest of 2003...
Eudora updated to 5.2.1b2 A new update to Eudora today adds a number of bug fixes, including making the program use less CPU cycles when running in the background, re-enabling the battery check under OS X, fixes for crashes caused by malformed HTML messages, and more. Check the release notes for complete details. Eudora 5.2.1b2 is a 3 MB download...
Disk Warrior 3 coming in early February According to a post on O'Grady's PowerPage at the end of a story about Alsoft's Disk Warrior utility, Rusty Little from Alsoft offers what he says is the scoop about the upcoming DW 3.0 that will boot from OS X and work like a charm with the new PowerBook G4 models:
This will remove one red flag about buying one of the new PowerBooks, and it is great news for all OS X users since it will mean that the ability to boot into OS 9.x will no longer be required!
Comment catch up A few people sent email comments about yesterday's stories about Apple and how it should commit to making Safari the best browser on OS X, bar none: Al Willis writes:
Meanwhile, Andy Smith writes:
Doc Searls on Safari Writing on his Weblog, Doc Searls offers his comments on Safari:
The rumor mill already talking about a TiBook replacement Insanely Great Mac and other sites are already talking about rumors of a replacement for the current line of TiBooks. For once, these rumors make sense. I doubt that Apple will do anything to shoe-horn Bluetooth and Airport Extreme into the current TiBook design, but that it will rather unveil a new design with better Airport antenna wiring and other enhancements to bring the mid-level PowerBook G4 in line with the new 12-inch and 17-inch PowerBook G4. The only question is when Apple will unveil a new mid-level PowerBook? I imagine it will be a few months. Meanwhile, if you want to get a high-powered PowerBook that can still boot into OS 9.x as well as OS X, get a current TiBook now. Supplies are bound to grow thin...
A useful timed AppleScript Mac OS X Hints: An AppleScript to create timed screen captures
Some great digital photography tips Derrick Story does a great job offering digital photography tips in the first article in his series of digital photo how-tos on the O'Reilly Networks site called The DigiCam Chronicles. Today's installment looks at how he took the shots he took at last week's Macworld Expo. I am sure to learn some useful new tips for using my now three-year-old Nikon CoolPix 950 and its 2 megapixels of digital goodness.
Notable software releases Here are some recent notable software updates and releases, as found on Macupdate:
NetNewsWire Pro 1.0b10 Brent Simmons keeps refining his excellent RSS news reader and Weblog editor NetNewsWire Pro with a new release:
A technical note about the Comments feature It appears that the site I use to provide comments on MNJ is having technical difficulties today. If this continues I will switch to another commenting system. Meanwhile, if you would like to send a comment and the link is not working, you can always email me with your comments at whiterabbit@whiterabbits.com.
A MNJ reader's Macworld Expo impressions Mac Net Journal reader Brian Caldwell made a trip to Macworld Expo late last week and sends the following comments about what he saw on the show floor:
Thanks for the comments, Brian! I especially appreciate the comments about the keyboard and heat emanating from the 12-inch PowerBook G4. Both of those comments are troubling and they lend more credence to the idea that I will wait until I can get my hands on one of the new PowerBooks before making any buying decisions...
Cool Safari features MNJ reader Andy Smith offers notes about one of the feature in Safari that he finds quite useful:
What is your favorite new feature included with Safari?
Now that Apple has started, it had better finish the Safari I have posted a number of skeptical and questioning items about Apple's decision to launch its new Web browser Safari. But now that the Jaguar has been sent out into the browser jungle, I want to offer a few words. First, Apple needs to make Safari a serious browser. The resouces being spent on developing this browser will be wasted if Safari is approached like other Apple applications, which are fraught with compromise. Yes, Apple should maintain its push for simplicity, but it also needs to make Safari a killer app that runs circles around all other OS X browsers. Forget about simply matching IE feature for feature. How about making Java run as well on Safari as it does on Windows machines? At this point, no OS X Web browser can handle Java as well as Windows browsers. I know because Java limitations force me to choose to use IE under Windows or IE under Classic every day on my Mac. Second, Apple needs to position Safari to innovate the stagnant browser market. In the last year the only major new feature to come to browsers is tabbed browsing. Safari needs to integrate tabbed browsing, but don't stop there. Third, Apple needs to cater to the creative community of writers and content creators who flock to Macs and make Safari the best WYSIWYG weblog editing browser on the planet. Offering spell checking in input fields in this first public beta version is great, but this isn't enough. After all, OmniWeb has offered this since the arrival of the OS X Public Beta. Try to come up with new features that will make Safari and OS X the logical choice for serious webloggers. What worries me about Safari and about Apple's efforts to create applications in general is that Apple will make an initial product and then not take the effort far enough to make the product appeal to more than the most basic of Mac users. This is the shortcoming of Apple's iApp strategy. Sacrificing power for simplicity makes sense if all you want to create is a proof-of-concept kind of program. But if Apple's goal is to make Mac OS X the ultimate destination for both beginning as well as high end users who want to use the Mac as a digital hub then they need to think beyond the obvious first steps. Otherwise, Safari will be yet another toy in the stable of useful but underpowered iApps. Do I think Apple will make the serious effort to make Safari stand head and shoulders above the rest of the Mac OS X browsers? Not really. To do so will take money and time, and it will take a commitment to risk it all by charging OS X users to use a killer browser when the project is done. My biased opinion is that Apple should have worked with third-party browser developers to create the killer Web browser. It would have done more to build a solid base for OS X outside the halls of Apple's offices in Cupertino. But once again Apple has decided to do everything in house, third-party developers and partners be damned. Time will tell if this is just another half-hearted volley, or a geniune effort to create something great.
Low End Mac: Avoid the OS X only PowerBooks for now Dan Knight makes a good point in urging PowerBook fans to think twice before leaping to the new PowerBooks, which will only boot into Mac OS X. The reason: Many OS X disk utilities such as the excellent Disk Warrior app I use to keep my Pismo in good shape will not work on the new Macs. Why? Disk Warrior has to boot from a CD or an external drive running OS 9.x to work its magic on my OS X hard drive...
NetNewsWire Pro 1.0b8 NetNewsWire Pro 1.0b8
Apple objects to court settlement CNET notes that Apple objects to Microsoft settlement: "The Microsoft competitor says an antitrust settlement between California and the software giant is more beneficial than punitive." Amen to that. Since when did court penalties involve giving away vouchers for discounts on more Microsoft software? Let's all feel sorry for MS, as many news anchors were trying to make us do when this ridiculous settlement was announced on Seattle area news the other night...
Jaguar Bluetooth problems Michael McCracken writes on his site:
If you are using Bluetooth, have you seen this behavior? Is there a solution?
CopyPaste X 1.5 adds features CopyPaste X 1.5 adds a new contexual menu that lets users manipulate CopyPaste as well as other enhancements for the program that adds multiple clipboards to Mac OS X and offers other text utilities. The program remains $20 shareware.
Microsoft Office v.X 10.1.3 updater out MacCentral notes that Microsoft is offering an update to Microsoft Office v. X today. It looks like most of the enhancements deal with bugs related to Italian and French languages in Office. Check the story for more...
iCab X 2.9 arrives In what may be the first response to Apple unveiling its own OS X Web browser last week, the makers of iCab have released iCab X 2.9 today. Among the changes are new cache management to deal with the increased speed of this release, new search features that let you use any search engine from the URL input field, and fixes to add better performance under Jaguar.
iCommune: Share iTunes across a network iCommune 1.0b2 is the latest version of a freeware app that lets you share iTunes libraries across a network, bringing the capability that Steve Jobs previewed many months ago as a possible use of the Rendezvous networking frameworks. Apple hasn't offered the iTunes library sharing as advertised, so James G. Speth came out with this free public beta of iCommune.
The Web site also explains Speth's current thinking on new features for iCommune...
Is Safari your default browser? Do you have Safari set as your default Web browser now? If not, why? What browser are you using instead of Safari?
Launch multiple apps with one click SoftBundler 2.0
CPU speed shortage leads to PCs kicking Mac ass Professional photography guro Rob Galbraith shows just how much the lack of processor speed in top-of-the-line Macs make Apple's offerings much slower than their Windows counterparts in In pro digital photography, megahertz matters. In his tests, Galbraith shows that PCs running Windows XP Professional surpase dual processor Macs running OS X when it comes to dealing with RAW format photos used by many photo pros. There are interesting comments in the discussion thread related to the site though, including at least one mention that all RAW image processing programs for OS X are extremely slow... Update: Macintouch has a reader report started on this topic, including one reader post and an extensive response from Rob Galbraith...
Walking the Open Source walk A Novelist Who Walks the Walk: Science fiction writer Cory Doctorow, an outspoken advocate of the free publication and copying of digital works, is putting his money where his mouth is. He's giving away his first novel to anyone who wants it. By Paul Boutin. [Wired News]
Binocular follow up Anyone reading MNJ who also happens to be interested in birding may appreciate hearing what kind of binoculars I picked up during the trip Natalie and I took yesterday. I ended up buying a pair of Pentax 8 x 32 DCF WP bins for about $250 after a $75 rebate. These are not the kind of ultimate, high-end bins that wealthy birders like to brag about, but they are a huge move up from the cheap Bushnell 7 x 15-35 bins that I have used for the last couple of years. The new bins are also lighter weight, and best of all, I was able to put them to use right from the start yesterday by seeing my first-ever Short-eared Owl hunting in the distance around 3:30 p.m. as nightfall approached! Besides the Pentax binoculars, Natalie and I also each picked up an inexpensive pair of Celestron 10 x 25 bins that are tiny and perfect for carrying everywhere. Now there will be no excuse for not being able to ID birds any old time...
Is Safari overusing caching to achieve speed? As I continue to play around with Apple's Web browser, Safari, and I deal with its quirks and limitations along with its speedy rendering, I am wondering how many others are just taking the leap and using Safari as their new full-time browsers, no questions asked? Why would I care? Because Safari struggles to keep up with Mac Net Journal, for one. Often after making a new post to the page I click through to the Web site to make sure everything is fine with the post, and with Safari I often click the bookmark for MNJ and then have to reload the page yet again to even see the new post. My bet: Safari is sacrificing doing proper checks of the Web page each time it is visited in an effort to attain more speed. Instead of loading the page it is loading the page from the Safari cache, which is much faster than actually grabbing new content from the Web. This same behavior would explain why Safari doesn't update the numbers of Comments at the end of each post on MNJ. Improper use of the cache would explain each of these apparent bugs with Safari on the MNJ page. I also wonder about the caching issue and if it is at the heart of the apparent speed of Safari because when I look at pages like the message board page where I work on Lycos.com, if I have a discussion list on my browser and I make a post and Safari has to reload the page it is 2-3 seconds slower doing so than Chimera. And, in another caching related bug, Safari never updates the number of New or unread posts that is in red lettering next to each discussion title in discussion listings. This lack of completely updating a page upon reload has me using Chimera as my default browser until the bugs are cleaned up a bit in Safari... Update: Michael McCracken offered a suggestion to add some code to my template for Mac Net Journal that seems to solve one of the problems - the updating of the number of Comments after each story is now updating to reflect the real content of each thread. However, I remain wary of what Safari is doing with the cache that causes it to run slower than other browsers on more dynamic Web sites, such as the discussion listings on Lycos...
Birds a plenty, and photos to boot
We are back home after a day of great birding and a side trip to buy new binoculars. What a day! We drove 250 miles, saw 4,000-plus Snow Geese, and most amazing of all, watched as a two-year-old Bald Eagle flew over and sent the entire flock of Snow Geese up into the air in one great wave of black-tipped white wings. To top off the day, around 3:30 p.m. we watched a Short-eared Owl hunting near Samish Island in the northwest corner of the state. It was a great day for birding, and luckily the rain held off until the dark, drenching drive home...
Dave Winer notes how Safari can hurt Ooops. Reading Jim Roepcke's weblog ,... The good news is that the people at The Omni Group sound like they already have a new strategy, and at least in my case, they still have a loyal user who, although I don't spend a lot of time using OmniWeb 4.1, just paid a shareware fee to support further development of the browser. I already own OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle...
Safari updated for the weekend Safari Update 1.0 Beta (v51) 1-10-03 is a 3 MB upgrade to the beta Web browser that Apple says is recommended for all Safari users. Get it while it's hot...
Another bird watching weekend While Natalie and I should be getting a bunch more chapters written for Birding Washington, instead this weekend we will be venturing out into the warm winter weather here in Puget Sound country to take photos of Snow Geese in the Skagit River flats and watch hawks and falcons hunt. With a little luck, maybe we can see some Short-eared owls hunting over the marshy fields near Samish Island! As a bonus addition for tomorrow's trip up north, we plan to stop by a great binocular and telescope shot in Anacortes - originally enough, called Anacortes Telescope - to shop for some new birding binoculars. I'm not sure where we will head Sunday.... Maybe the Olympic Peninsula, or even stay closer to home and write...
ChimeraKnight updated to 1.9.3 ChimeraKnight 1.9.3 automatically updates Chimera to the latest nightly version. New in this version: Added gopher image installation to html resources. Changed method to test for BSD subsystem. Fixed bug that would repeatedly ask for Navigator path in OS X 10.1.5. Fixed bug when accessing log tab manually. Made with AppleScript Studio, it requires OS X 10.1.5 or later, AppleScript 1.8.3 or later, and the BSD subsystem. [d/l]
Need a laugh? Thanks to Mr. Barrett for pointing out the funniest link I have seen on the Web this week: Fans outraged over new character in 'The Return of the King'. On a not-so-funny note, the email server that I use at Digital Forest has been down for more than an hour and I know that email being sent my way is bouncing. If you have an email that needs to get through pronto, send it to pugetsnd@mac.com... Update: My regular email address is working again...thankfully...
Five reasons Macworld Expo was worth it Derrick Story offers his Five Favorite Things from Macworld SF- "Here are five cool products, that alone, were worth the trip to San Francisco." [O'Reilly MacDevCenter.com] It looks like I am not the only person enamored with the 12-inch PowerBook. I think it will be a favorite of many writers on the go...
New ways to support MNJ Mac Net Journal's Web page looks a little different today as I add new options for ways to donate to support the site. Now in addition to the PayPal donation option I have added a link that lets you donate using Amazon's honor system. Some people are not comfortable with PayPal, so this offers another way to donate with your credit card. If you would like to support MNJ without using a credit card at all then you will want to check the page I am creating here in a couple of minutes, which will let you know how to send a check to support the site. Many thanks to those who submitted donations for MNJ so far in 2002!
MacNN digs into 12-inch PowerBook details MacNN writer Sean Yapez offers some more fine details about the feel of the new 12-inch PowerBook in In-depth: 12-inch PowerBook. Here are a few of the details:
There is a lot more in the article, including photos at the end of the piece. The reason I point to this, yet another article about the 12-inch PowerBook, is partly selfish, since I still lean toward this svelte and rugged yet pretty full powered machine as my next PowerBook. It will be dangerous when I get to actually try the keyboard of this machine for myself in the coming weeks. Why would I even consider a machine with such a small screen? Especially when I am doing so much digital photography? Simple: Over the last year I have lugged my Pismo PowerBook all over Washington state while taking photos and doing research for the Birding Washington book, and weighing in at about 6 pounds, the Pismo is about as heavy a machine as I would consider using on the road. The Pismo is also rugged, much like the 12-inch G4 PowerBook. The liability of a small screen is not a huge issue since I can do my actual photo editing back at home, hooking up to a second larger screen for editing. It will be a little while before I actually make the move to buy a new machine, but at this point the drawbacks of the 15-inch TiBook remain the same - poor wireless reception and a notable lack of ruggedness - and it will likely be at least six months before the 15-inch machines get new features like AirPort Extreme with a new wireless antenna configuration, if these features ever come to the current TiBook. In short, I didn't like the compromises involved in buying a 15-inch TiBook before Macworld Expo, and nothing has changed on this front. Meanwhile, a smaller option has arrived with a G4 processor to beat the old iBook options, much better battery life than my Pismo, and weighing in at about 1.5 pounds less than my current machine...
Safari should work with Blogger, but it is being blocked Blogger Pro Blocks Safari: Blogger, if you're listening, you can treat us just like Mozilla. We will work. What do you think I used to post blogs on the Mac before you started blocking it?[I wonder why? (Source: Surfin' Safari)][Archipelago]
A sneak peak at iPhoto 2 Derrick Story says that iPhoto 2.0 Steps, Not Dashes, Forward with "Lots of other little improvements, such as easier access to your iTunes library, make iPhoto 2.0 a worthy download." (O'Reilly Network via MyAppleMenu) [myapplemenu] Among the things not improved: Performance. iPhoto apparently still chokes on big file libraries...
HomePod looks like an interesting music device HomePod is a wireless music playing device that lets you play music stored on your Mac in one room through your stereo in another room. Quoting from the CNET story:
At $200 and available in late March, this looks like an interesting device... |
