Making the most of OS X on your Mac |
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Ask MNJ? - You ask, I answer, you donate... - Mac OS X apps ranked by category - Using Graphic Converter for image management - Maximizing battery life under OS X - TidBITS - Apple Internet Explorer System Preferences Terminal Backup
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Column explores PowerBook goodies Charles Moore's The 'Book Review report today on Low End Mac offers a glimpse of some useful PowerBook tools, storage units, and news about good deals on compatible hard drives.
MacUser: If you use FTP in OS X, check Transmit 2.1 MacUser writes a glowing review of the Transmit 2.1 FTP client for OS X. I am considering using Transmit to work with Mac Net Journal, to help upload the files generated by Tinderbox. Right now I am using the freeware RBrowser FTP client, which doesn't offer folder synchronization and mirroring like Transmit...
Gifts for the Mac fan Gifts for the Mac fan (or those you hope to convert) is an article by Glenn Fleishman in today's Seattle Times.
Birding on Buy Nothing Day
Natalie and I didn't venture out to any shopping today. Instead, we headed west of where we are staying in Longview, Wash., out to the Julia Butler Hansen Refuge for the Columbian White-tailed Deer - about midway to the Pacific Ocean along the Columbia River. We spent a great three hours birding in the refuge where we saw 42 species of birds and we were really surprised to see two Orange Sulphur butterflies flying in the sunshine at the end of November. This proves it, the weather is crazy in the Pacific Northwest this winter... I really like how the photo above turned out from today's trip. The shot taken with my Nikon CoolPix 950 and shot through our Swift spotting scope shows a Red-tailed Hawk that looks like it is dancing on top of a snag. In truth, the hawk was dancing on top of its prey - a rodent of some kind. Moments before this shot the hawk ripped the entrails out of the unfortunate dinner. Once again, raw nature.
Recent software releases As found on Macupdate.com: - OmniGraffle 2.1.1b1 - Bugs fixes are the highlights of this update to the $59.95 graphing and diagramming tool. - DragThing 4.5.2 - The $25 file, application, and script launching tool offers bug fixes and more in this new release.
Mail Scripts 1.3.3 Mail Scripts 1.3.3
Readers talk back on must-have travel gear A few more MNJ readers have written back with their must-have Mac travel gear. Neil writes:
Meanwhile, Carsten writes:
And Jeff adds:
Gabriel writes:
Meanwhile, Duane comments from London:
Have something to add to the conversation? Send me an email with your Mac travel essentials!
New code will make it easy to move to and from Radio Later today, probably around 4PM Pacific, we'll... This is good news for everyone, including people like me who have moved away from Radio for the time being. I still have a ton of data in Radio and it would be nice to be able to easily move it out of Radio and into Tinderbox.
What Mac gear are you packing to travel this Thanksgiving? If you are traveling over the next few days, what variety of Mac gear are you packing for the trip? What are your Mac or PowerBook travel essentials? Email me with your tips and comments...
Updates to MNJ and Ask MNJ? over the weekend I will be updating MNJ sporadically over the next three or four days as we in the U.S. move into the Thanksgiving holiday, and I will still be available to help with people's Mac OS X and hardware questions through the Ask MNJ? service. There may be more delays than normal in my response to email, and I won't be on AIM/iChat a whole lot until Sunday, but ask your questions and keep on reading MNJ!
Part 4 in series about creating a Cocoa HTML editor Stepwise offers the fourth installment in its series of how-to articles about building HTML EditorX.
Photo Mechanic 3.2 Camera Bits has rolled out a new version of its Photo Mechanic image browser that is popular among professional photographers. There are currently no release notes available for this incarnation of the $150 program.
Are you still waiting for Quark to come to OS X? There has been a lot written over the last two years that OS X has been with us (remember, the Mac OS X Public Beta arrived in September 2000) about the trudging pace that Quark XPress has taken in its move to OS X. This morning I read a couple of accounts of comments by the Quark CEO at a recent event where he essentially told those who are not happy with the speed which the company is taking in moving to OS X should simply move to another program. These comments are hard to understand from a business standpoint. They come from either arrogance or simply from frustration, and they are a clear indication that if you are a Mac user who wants to make the move to OS X with all of its benefits, you should plan to make that move without Quark XPress. Adobe InDesign is sure to win more customers... Are you still waiting for Quark?
Recent software releases As found on Macupdate.com: - Apple G4 Firmware Updater 4.4.8 - Firmware update for Power Mac G4 computers with mirrored drive doors, available through the Software Update panel. - Communigate Pro 4.0.2 - Update to the popular, $449 commercial email server. - Logitech Control Center 1.0.4 - Updated software to control Logitech keyboards, mice, and trackballs. - Keyboard Maestro 1.2.3 - Another update to the shareware keyboard launcher app. - Jotz 1.1.035 - Another day, another update to this shareware notepad application. - EXIF-O-Matic 1.0.3 - View EXIF info from digital photo files. - Event Proofs X 1.2.2 - Specialized software that enables event photographers to have customers order their pictures while at the event or later over the Internet. $450 shareware. - FileUtilsCM X 1.3.1 - Freeware contextual menu plug-in that offers ways to change file and folder attributes. - SplashWallet 3.09 - Four virtual wallet applications for Palm OS PDAs, this includes SplashID, SplashMoney, SplashPhoto, and SplashShopper. $39.95 shareware.
Useful info if you use Frontier under OS X 10.2.2 Seth Dillingham posted some information of interest to those who run Userland Frontier under Mac OS X 10.2.2: Patching Frontier's support for external editors.
Puget Sound sunset
After shooting a shot of the sunrise alongside Mt. Rainier yesterday, I couldn't resist heading up to the roof to snap a few shots of an amazing sunset tonight!
Recommendations for a decent accounting app? An MNJ reader writes with an interesting question that, particularly for small and medium sized business owners, fits as a productivity application:
So, let's hear your recommendations for book keeping and accounting apps for OS X. Culling from the list of business finance applications at Macupdate, I get the following (many of which are not big, full featured business accounting apps): - Small Business Tracker X 1.5 - $49 commercial expense and invoice tracker, and more. - WhereDidAllMyMoneyGo X 3.0 - $25 shareware budgeting and double entry accounting package. - M.Y.O.B AccountEdge X 3.0 - $249 accounting app.
Do you have application speed problems with OmniOutliner? The folks at The Omni Group have announced on the OmniOutliner mailing list that those experiencing problems with OmniOutliner 2.1.1 may want to downgrade to OO 2.1 until a new release is offered. The slowdown problem only seems to affect those who work with a lot of outlines open at one time or those using large outlines. The older version of OO is available here.
Problems installing OS 9.x This time it is my turn to have problems working with OS X. Today I am getting ready for the Thanksgiving weekend, and as part of that preparation I need to break down and install Mac OS 9.x and so I can run the old version of Internet Explorer under Classic, enabling me to have better Java support for the work I do on Lycos. I initially forgot that the installer CD I have for OS 9.2.1 is really an update CD, so it apparently won't let me start Classic from the CD and do the install under OS X, and so I tried starting from the CD itself and into OS 9.x and then installing. Nope. For some odd reason, my 40 GB IBM hard drive isn't mounting when I start from this CD, so I cannot install the Classic OS that way. How am I doing the installation then? Well, Natalie also has a Pismo and she has Classic installed on her machine, so I am just copying her installation to my machine and then tweaking things to get everything working. What a hassle. And the only reason I even have to consider this is because the Java implementation under Mac OS X is not as robust as Java in Mac OS 9.x - that is if you define robust as being able to access the Java chat applets in the Lycos communities pages where I work. Update: Copying Natalie's OS 9.x installation to my machine worked fine, so now I have less disk space and access to Classic apps once again... Chris Chapman wrote to offer his take on why I was having problems installing OS 9.x:
The lesson here is that if you have any inkling that you will need to install Mac OS 9.x and to have Classic capabilities on your OS X machine, be sure to either install OS 9.x from the start or to at least install the disk drivers to make the hard disk ready for OS 9.x installation later... Surely someone out there will or already has written a driver updater that can be run on an OS X system to add the drivers later?
Notable software releases As found on Macupdate.com: - BBEdit 7.0.1 - An update to the popular text and HTML editor. - Keyboard Maestro 1.2.2 - The $20 shareware keyboard launching utlity adds support for launching OSA scripts and improves the speed of hot key responsiveness in this update. - Grammarian Pro 1.0.1 - Add spell checking, grammar checking, and dictionary support to every OS X application with this $39.95 program. - Gimp-Print 4.2.4 - Freeware drivers for Canon, Epson, Lexmark, and PCl printers for use with Ghostscript, CUPS, Foomatic, and the Gimp. - Jotz 1.1.032 - Shareware notepad utility that follows the model of the Classic Note Pad. $17.50. - Mail.app Conduit 0.4.2 - Transfer mail from Mail.app to your Palm. - Project Timer 1.3.2b1 - $20 shareware for recording time spent on projects.
TidBITS: Getting started with the Unix command line A Mac User's Guide to the Unix Command Line, Part 1 [TidBITS]
Scripting QuickTime Pro and working with scriptable apps Studio Log offers a pair of links that will interest those who dig AppleScript and scripting in general:
Original Senate record book found If you care about history at all, check out the story tonight on CNN about the aides who stumbled upon a ledger book that records the payments of Senators in the first 90 years of the U.S. That is a pretty amazing find!
Vertical lines developing on your TiBook LCD? If you have started to notice vertical lines developing on the LCD of your Titanium PowerBook, you may want to read the note from a reader on the Macintouch site today...
Why is it? Why is it that when I see a new Mac application with the title of Sheet Helper that I have an overwhelming desire to create an application called Holy Sheet Helper? Or was that Sheep Helper??? Silliness abounds...
Mozilla X 1.2 final version arrives The final version of Mozilla X 1.2 arrived late last night and it brings a few refined features to Mozilla for those who haven't been grabbing the nightly updates of the free Web browser. Among the enhancements, Java works properly under Mac OS X 10.2.x, you can set the browser to open a set of sites with one in each tab at startup, and there are more fixes in the email module and elsewhere. Mozilla X 1.2 is a 17.2 MB download.
Productivity applications: What app do you live in? Tim O'Reilly writes about a different view of OS X applications in A new kind of productivity application, lumping some of the more useful tools in the category of productivity applications. What is a productivity application? It's a program where the user's data is more important than the data offered by the program. So, of the programs you use on your Mac, from the iApps like iPhoto to other applications like email apps and personal information managers, what is the productivity application that rules your Mac world? Send me an email and I will publish some of the most useful suggestions in MNJ. In my case, since moving MNJ to Tinderbox as my Weblog tool, I find myself living more and more in the writing and publishing environment of this useful and highly customizable program. I keep news clippings from the Web organized in outlines set up by topic. I keep snippets of text I need to use over and over in outlines related to each project. And of course I keep all of the material related to MNJ in an outline that grows bigger each day. Tinderbox provides the tool set, I provide the data and decide what I want to do with it. That is the way computing is supposed to work! Readers talk back: Neil Lee writes:
Adam Smith adds:
I also find myself using AppleWorks a lot these days. I am writing Birding Washington chapters every day in AW...
An update on donations to support MNJ As we wind toward the Thanksgiving holiday weekend here in the U.S. I want to offer a quick update on the fund raising efforts to help keep MNJ alive. So far this month the donations total just $25, which is not really enough to keep the site running. If you find MNJ a useful resource, please consider a $10 donation to help me offset the costs of running the site. In other site news, my move to a title-only RSS feed has drastically cut the bandwidth used by MNJ. This is great! But despite the payoff of this small adjustment to the way people can read MNJ through newsreaders, I am still contemplating moving MNJ to its own domain on another hosting service, perhaps Pair.com. I will consider making that move between Thanksgiving and Christmas...
Mt. Rainier sunrise
I couldn't resist the urge to take a break from the computer and walk the half mile or so to get a glimpse of the frosty sunrise. I snapped half a dozen shots of the pre-sunrise sky around Mt. Rainier, and this shot of the sun breaking over the Cascade Mountain range alongside the sleeping volcano.
A frosty Puget Sound morning We woke this morning to temperatures in the upper 20s and frost so thick outside that it looks like the landscape has been transformed into a winter wonderland. These cool, crisp mornings are a real winter treat!
Location X 1.2 Location X 1.2
The reality of book royalties If you have ever contemplated writing a book with hopes of seeing big royalty payments rolling in at a regular schedule, hopefully someone will offer a glimpse of the reality of royalties before you start writing. Natalie and I knew we were not going to see much money from the 5% royalties on our Insiders' Guide to the Olympic Peninsula book, and with the current economy and sluggish book sales we are actually seeing sales figures that are about half of what we expected for the title. It was nice yesterday to get a small royalty check from our publisher, right before the holidays, but I still wouldn't call $250 a sizable return.
Director MX coming next month Director MX is Here!
A book writing weekend After spending nearly every weekend this year on the road to visit sites and do research for our Birding Washington book, this weekend we are once again home and watching birds in the yard while we write one chapter after another of the book. What does this mean for MNJ? Well, I am able to update the site on weekends when I am home!
Notable software updates As found on Macupdate.com: - Kensington MouseWorks X 2.2b1 - Better optimization to work with Jaguar and new configurable pop-up menus are the highlights of this updated driver software for Kensington input devices. - Wacom Tablet Driver X 4.75-6 - Updated driver for all Wacom tablets. - Synchronize! Pro X 1.2.6 - Shareware to help make a bootable backup of your OS X system. - iPod It 1.7.1 - Copy Entourage and other info to your iPod with this shareware. - Alps MD Printer Drivers X 1.0 - Drivers for the MD-2010/4000/2300 printers.
Have a problem with OS X? Ask MNJ! Just a reminder that if you have a problem with your Mac OS X installation, click the Ask MNJ? link at the top of each page on this site to send me an email about your problem. I will try to find the answer for you, and if you like the answer, send a donation my way to help support the service and this Web site. You ask, I answer, you donate!
How to control iTunes with Perl Controlling iTunes with Perl
System stable after resetting some preferences After a couple of hours using Mac OS X 10.2.2 after installing the latest Security Update from Apple, my system is working fine. Beware of the minor settings issues I mentioned in my previous post, but otherwise this update feels stable on my aging PowerBook!
Oddities after installing the latest Security Update I am just starting to get back to work after installing the latest OS X Security Update from Apple, and already I can confirm that on my Pismo PowerBook that installing this update changed my Mouse settings so that tapping was disabled on the trackpad. I have restored the settings, but this is not normal behavior for a simple security update. I would advise holding off a bit to see if others report more significant problems with this update... More settings changed by this update: - My time settings were shown in 24-hour format. To change this to the more standard 12-hour format, go to the Date & Time panel and click on the tab for the Menu Bar Clock. 24-hour format should not be checked. Click to turn the 24-hour format on, then click to turn it off and you will be back to 12-hour format for your menu bar clock.
Apple Security Update 2002-11-21 Apple has released another security update for Mac OS X, available through the Software Update panel in System Preferences. From the release notes: "This Security Update fixes potential vulnerabilities introduced in BIND, the domain server and client library software package from Internet Software Consortium (ISC), that is shipped with Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server. BIND version 8.3.4 addresses the recently-discovered potential vulnerabilities where an unauthorized person may disrupt the normal operation of the DNS name service. BIND is not activated by default on Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server.
A long list of improvements in Proteus 2.2a12 If you are a fan of chat clients that work with multiple chat protocols, check out the latest version of Proteus. The $10 shareware chat client has a host of changes listed on Macupdate this morning.
How far does your food travel for Thanksgiving? OK, this is definitely off topic, but it may be an interesting seasonal read nonetheless: Our Far Flung Thanksgiving Meals: Making the case for local food in a globalized world.
URL Manager Pro fully works with Chimera now Doing a little quick checking of changes in the new daily build of Chimera I grabbed from the FTP server this morning shows that I can now add bookmarks to my file in URL Manager Pro from the Shared Menus in Chimera, as well as being able to use the Shared Menus to visit a site listed in my drop-down menu. Good news for users of URL Manager Pro 3.0.3...
More on building your own HTML editor Stepwise offers a third installment in its series on building your own HTMLEditorX under OS X, this time adding Find and Replace functionality.
Ellen Feiss's status as a 'real person' questioned Insanely Great Mac takes some shots at Apple's Switch ads in Ellen Feiss: Not a 'real person' after all: The most serious thing to come out of this affair is that Apple's 'Switch' ads are about as genuine as Microsoft's. Is Feiss a 'real person'? No, she was a friend of the ad director's kid. She doesn't even say she uses a Mac. "Hey," said the director, according to Feiss, "we need a couple more people."
Another way to control iTunes from your keyboard MNJ reader Jonathan Hendry offered a comment about yesterday's story of controlling iTunes from the keyboard: "I have a Microsoft something keyboard, with the media control buttons above the function keys. With the Microsoft keyboard driver software, they "just work" with iTunes. The other keys work too, and are configureable if you want to change the defaults. I imagine they could be set up to kick off AppleScripts or other things." I have a Microsoft Natural Keyboard and it does indeed offer interaction with iTunes from the special media control buttons, and many of the functions of these buttons can be customized with tweaks to the IntelliType Pro software used to control the keyboard...
Ellen Feiss interviews with college newspaper Apple 'It' Girl Breaks Silence
Comictastic 1.0 Comictastic, v1.0, is the NetNewsWire for comic strips, grabbbing the latest antics of Doonesbury, Red Meat, the ever-popular Rugrats, and 150 more for your offline reading pleasure. [Forwarding Address: OS X]
Control iTunes from the keyboard Mac OS X Hints: Control iTunes from the keyboard
A great FAQ site for Jaguar Randy Singer has put together a great resource for anyone having problems with Mac OS X 10.2.x in his OS X 10.2 Jaguar Tutorial, including tips for how to deal with problems like those with HP printer drivers under the most recent update to the OS.
Distracted by yet another bird I was just rushing around the house, grabbing the Canon EOS A2 and snapping shots of a Merlin that was hunting for breakfast in our yard. I didn't see it take anything, but it sat still long enough to take what I hope will be some good photos!
A quick review of the 1GHz G4 PowerBook Juha Haataja offers his impressions of the newest TiBook in his Quick review of 1GHz PowerBook G4. His conclusion: "The 1 GHz PowerBook G4 is a good choice if you want speed and portability."
All things iCal iCal World is a Web site devoted to all things related to the lightweight calendaring application from Apple. I tried using iCal over the last week and I still cannot get over the lightweight feel of the program to use it over the much more powerful Personal Organizer application that I normally use. I may come back to iCal as it matures though, and I do see some interesting iCal add-ons coming from small developers to do everything from running AppleScripts at scheduled times or integrating iCal and iTunes to make your Mac an alarm clock...
A professional photographer's look at the TiBook First Exposure: Apple Powerbook G4 by John Rettie in Rangefinder offers the subtitle: Why the Mac is Popular with Photographers, A Hectic One-month Whirlwind Review of the Apple PowerBook G4. This is a good read if you are interested in professional photography and working a PowerBook into the work flow...
Help me test a new feature of MNJ Do you have iChat set up to run on your Mac? If so, visit MNJ and scroll down the page and click the link to iChat Rob, just below my email address on the left column on the page, and let's see if this AIM link will also work with iChat... Update: Well, it doesn't work as smoothly as with the OS X version of AIM, but if you click on the iChat Rob link now it will open iChat and should make it easier to send me a chat note. Why is this a big deal? How does live OS X help through iChat sound? It's all part of Ask MNJ?
Taking a look at ThinkFree Office I just downloaded and started taking a look at one office suite alternative to the 800-pound gorilla from Microsoft. ThinkFree Office 2.1 for Mac OS X seems to run pretty well in my first look at the 30-day demo. Of course, it is missing the one major option that will likely keep me using Word - revision marks. Natalie and I are writing the first batch of chapters for our upcoming book Birding Washington, and right now I am doing my writing in AppleWorks and then saving the files to .doc format before they will be sent off to our editor. But when those chapters come back with edit marks, there is no good solution to work with the revision system than to fire up the old Classic version of Word 98 and work with the files. By contrast, Natalie is composing her chapters in Word 98 from the start, which is what both of us did when we wrote our last book, Insiders' Guide to the Olympic Peninsula. What do I think of ThinkFree Office 2.1 so far? It is a little slower to respond to user interaction than AppleWorks, but this is because it is a Java application. The interface for the program looks fairly Windows-like as well, but I can see how this is a smart move for the makers of the program since they stand to win by making this look familiar to Windows users. Will I actually try to work with ThinkFree Office? For a little while, to give it a fair chance, you bet! Speaking of ThinkFree Office, there is a new Family Edition available starting today that offers a license for up to five users to use the application for a discounted price of $99.
Great news! Donation matching funds! Great News! One of our regular readers has made an anonymous challenge to other Mac Net Journal readers. The terms of the challenge: If, by December 1st our donations equal 50% of the cost of operating Mac Net Journal for November, then the donor will match that amount as soon as we reach that goal. The goal = $300. These matching funds are great news, since we're playing catch up this month. So far I have received just $10 in donations for MNJ in November. Our donor may be willing to repeat his challenge after December 1, if it's effective, so please help push the donor-meter up to 50% in the next two weeks. Click the donate button to offer what you think MNJ is worth to you. It will be just another thing to be thankful for. This donation business is personally hard for me, but I hope we can all figure out how to make it work so that other sites can use the methods we develop here: great reporting, no advertising, personal attention and a real connection with the author. I will offer updates about how the fund raising is going, and expect a graphic on the MNJ front page soon that will show how close we are to the final goal.
What does it cost to run a site like MNJ? An MNJ reader asked a great question related to my new fundraising drive: What are the costs of running MNJ? The costs are split between hosting fees, excess bandwidth charges, and tons and tons of personal time that I spend working on MNJ rather than on other projects. Hosting fees through my current provider Digital Forest are $20 a month. Bandwidth fees vary with the popularity of the site. Last month I forked out $87 in fees for MNJ hosting, including the $20 monthly fee for hosting the site. So, it roughly costs me $100 a month out-of-pocket to cover the costs of running the site. The third element of the costs of running MNJ is the hardest to nail down. As everyone knows, time is the only real asset each of us has, and even though MNJ is really a labor of love for me now, just as it has been over all of the years I have run the site dating back to 1994, there is definitely a major investment of time put into the site each day to keep it useful for MNJ readers. I estimate I spend anywhere between two and three hours each day doing work related to MNJ. Spread over a month, this is an investment of at least 60-90 hours in MNJ. I want to be clear that MNJ is not and likely will never be my main source of income. I know that, and I have no desire to turn MNJ into a major business. The site remains something I am passionate about, and that passion is to help other Mac users by posting news and writing original stories from my experience that will help others get the most out of their Macs. My philosophy with Mac Net Journal is the same philosophy I have toward the rest of my independent freelance work writing books, articles, etc. I would rather work for myself and work on things that I care about than take one of these ideas like MNJ and create a commercial enterprise to try and make a ton of money. Is the goal to see MNJ bring in at least $600 a month extravagant? I don't think so. What do you think?
Wi-Fi: WEP is a no trespassing sign WEP is a no trespassing sign: I had the pleasure of talking to Robert Moskowitz at length last night about security, encryption, and authentication for an upcoming article I'm working on, and he pointed me to his latest Network Computing column. This column offers the sensible advice that WEP, while easily breakable, is a no trespassing sign, and thus has an effect of (and threat of) deterrence beyond its weaknesses. Robert noted in passing to me that only 10,000 packets are required to break a WEP key! [802.11b Networking News]
Birds galore As I sit once again working in the breakfast nook here at home I see hundreds of European Starling attacking the bright orange berries on the ash tree outside in our yard. Unfortunately, these pest birds are also hitting our bird feeders, but they will likely move on as soon as the berries are off the ash tree. What I need is another large Cooper's Hawk to show up and sit in the tree across the street where I saw a large female bird yesterday afternoon. That seriously sends the starling packing... Back to Mac news...
Xpowerhosting hosts sites on Xserve Company Announces an all Xserve Hosting Solution.
A Better Finder Rename enhanced in new release The $14.95 shareware program A Better Finder Rename has been updated to version 5.0, bringing a number of enhancements including the ability to create stand-alone droplet applications to automate frequent renaming tasks.
SnipSnap weblog program updated The weblog and wiki authoring program SnipSnap has been updated to support CSS themes and added a macro plug-in architecture for writing custom macros in SnipSnap 0.3a.
Macworld picks IE in its Battle of the Browsers Jeff Carlson picks IE as the browser to beat in Macworld's new article Battle of the Browsers. The article is an interesting read, and it offers some data about rendering speed of the comparative browsers that could be helpful, as well as an example AppleScript that you can use to interact with your browser to open multiple Web sites at the click of a button. But the article does suffer from dealing with dated versions of the browsers - which is the weakness of print publications and their deadline schedules. It doesn't look at the latest versions of Chimera, for instance, which has officially been at version 0.6 since the beginning of this month. Still, taking into account the way that IE handles the widest range of Web sites with its leeway offered for badly coded Web sites, if you want one browser to do everything, IE is probably the choice. My current browser of choice is Chimera, and I grab the latest nightly builds as often as I can. I still love the way that OmniWeb beautifully renders pages - no one does makes text look better on the Web than the folks at The Omni Group - but I only use it occasionally since it doesn't offer full CSS support. And so my secondary browser is still IE.
.Mac saves the day Like so many other people, I sat on the fence about whether to pay the one-year subscription fee for .Mac services from Apple, but one of the things that convinced me it would be worth the expenditure was Apple's lightweight Backup program offered to .Mac subscribers. I figured it would be a great fail safe to work in conjunction with backups I do to an external FireWire hard drive every few days. And so in addition to my on-site backups, every night I have Backup automatically save certain files from my machine to my iDisk. This morning I managed to screw up the Tinderbox outline that I use to publish Mac Net Journal, and after some brief panic of trying to figure out what the hell happened, I just closed my faulty document and grabbed the backup from my iDisk and I was back in business. One or two more instances like that and .Mac has paid for itself!
An Apple Store in Microsoft's front yard Apple Computer Signs To Open First Store In Puget Sound Area
Trying to interact with iChat It should be an easy thing, since iChat is built on the same code as AOL Instant Messenger for OS X, but so far I cannot get my iChat link from MNJ to work as I want. Here is what I have done: I took the following code that can be used to create a clickable link that will open an AIM chat window, address it to the user and have everything ready for you to send the IM. This would normally be preceded by the common a href= and ending with an end link code: "aim:goim?screenname=username">username I took this simple line of code and substituted "ichat" where "aim" is in the code, then put in my iChat username hoping to get it to work like it does with AIM. It does launch iChat, but it doesn't open a chat window with a new message to my username, and in my digging around for a solution I find nothing on the Net so far. Has anyone successfully done this? If so, I am sure I am not the only one interested in the magic needed to make it work...
From the "It's a small world" file I received an interesting email this morning from Juan Carlos Esparza, who back in 1995 in an earlier incarnation of Mac Net Journal helped to translate MNJ to Spanish. It looks like Juan Carlos retained his love of the Mac from back in those early days of the Internet. Now he works for Apple Computer in Mexico. Mac roots run deep!
TidBITS: The evil that is the DMCA TidBITS' Adam Engst writes today about The Evil That is the DMCA.
A change in infrared support under OS X 10.2.2? An MNJ reader asked a question last night about IrDA support under Mac OS X 10.2.2 with his Lombard PowerBook, and initially I was confused by the question because as recently as OS X 10.2.1 I was able to use the infrared port on my Pismo PowerBook to sync my Palm Vx without hooking up any wires. But now I have done some investigating and found that while IrDA still appears to work under OS X 10.2.2, it looks like Apple changed the IrDA support to only offer the port as a way to connect with cell phones that can be used as modems to connect to the Net while on the road. I cannot get my Palm Vx to sync over IrDA any longer...no connection to the HotSync software at all. Has anyone else run into this on the older model PowerBooks that have infrared ports? Update: The reason I cannot sync my Palm Vx is due to a shared library problem that I had to remedy by re-installing Palm Desktop. But it appears that under OS X 10.2.2 you have to set up and turn on IrDA in order to get it to work, at least on my machine. I went into the Network panel under System Preferences and in the IrDA Modem Port area I enabled "Show IrDA status in menu bar." Then from the menu bar item I selected to Turn IrDA on, and sure enough there was a connection between my Palm Vx and the PowerBook....
Recent notable software releases As noted on Macupdate.com:
iBook InfoZone iBook InfoZone is a section of the MacSpeedZone site devoted to everything about the iBook: News, buyers guides, user tips.
Apple enhances AppleCare program MacCentral: Apple on Monday unveiled a new version of the company's service and support agreement that can be purchased with a new Macintosh. The plan features several enhancements for the mobile and desktop user alike.
OmniOutliner 2.1.1 update released The Omni Group has updated its excellent OmniOutliner program to version 2.1.1. The new version sports enhancements in working with OPML documents, bug fixes, and faster typing in the Note fields. Detailed release notes are available. This is a free update for owners or recent OO licenses.
SpamSieve 1.2.1: Spam killing for real email clients There is no longer any reason to go without sophisticated Spam filtering if your email client is Emailer, Entourage, Eudora 5.2, Mailsmith or PowerMail. SpamSieve 1.2.1, the latest version of the $20 shareware add-on for those email clients, has been released today. This looks like an interesting program that adds the ability to use the kind of Spam killing software built into OS X's Mail.app without having to live with the limitations of Apple's light weight email application.
Companies with no integrity I almost had to laugh this afternoon when I received the latest email from the client company I had been working for in September and October. In the mail the company owner swore he is trying to find funding to pay all of the writers, but in the same breath he withdrew his offer to pay each of us in whole or in part. Essentially, he email was meant to slow the 70-plus writers who are owed thousands of dollars from filing suit against the company. His view of the options: Wait for him to find funding to somehow pay us or watch him file for bankruptcy to stop the writers from receiving any part of their due compensation at all. There is a lesson in all of this. Avoid doing work for companies with no integrity. Even though the money may seem good when things are going smoothly, companies with no integrity, just like people with no integrity, will abandon you when things get rough. Needless to say, this means that my need to make MNJ part of the income mix for my company even more critical.
Interesting discussion about Movielink and lack of Mac support Slashdot has a lively discussion underway about the new Net-based movie service Movielink and its lack of support for the Mac. I suppose some will see this as another bad thing for Mac users, but my opinion is that the Apple's foresight of not buying into the corrupt Digital Rights Management wagon being run by the big movie and recording studios and pushed to no end by Microsoft is really a feature for Mac users. What was the old saying....think different?
A new commitment to MNJ It's time to get serious. Following the news a little more than a week ago that I was being screwed out of more than $2,100 of income from a client that didn't have enough brains to plan for the future, I have been forced to re-evaluate what I am doing with my life and where I want to take Mac Net Journal. I offered some inkling of the direction I want to take MNJ last week when I announced the new Ask MNJ? feature, where I offer help to MNJ readers and ask that those who find the help useful offer donations both as a thank you for the help and as a way to sustain MNJ. MNJ has been a labor of love for years and most recently it has grown to the point where it is no longer just a hobbyist site but something that can be a real resource for the Mac community. I want to make MNJ even more of a resource, and to do so I am about to take a leap of faith. I see Mac Net Journal as a shareware in the form of a Web site. If you value the information on the site then enough of you will support it that I can give the site more attention. If not, I should do something else. To donate and support MNJ, click on the Donate icon to be directed to a PayPal donation page. Soon I will also offer donations through Kagi, as well as information about how to send a check to support the site if you don't want to deal with credit cards. The bottom line: MNJ needs to support itself and also provide income to me to help justify my investment in the site.
Unsanity unveils Application Enhancer 1.2 Unsanity LLC Releases Application Enhancer 1.2
iView Media Pro 1.5.6 iView Multimedia has updated its flagship digital media management program iView Media Pro to version 1.5.6. The update improves batch renaming and annotation dialogs to support Mac OS X 10.2, improved downloading of digital images to disks that are running short of disk space, and better Kodak DCR support to work with new Kodak importers. This is a free update for users of the $90 digital media organization and manipulation tool.
A Palm on your wrist? Watchmaker Fossil has unveiled a watch that offers Palm capabilities on your wrist. Forbes takes a look in A Palm that fits on your wrist.
Stepwise series helps you build an HTML editor The Stepwise Web site offers step-by-step instructions of how to build an HTML editor using the free Apple Developer Tools for OS X. If you have an interest in programming in Cocoa, this looks like a great way to start getting your feet wet!
Recent notable software releases As found on Macupdate.com:
Pluses and minuses in new Chimera builds The latest nightly builds of Chimera offer some great pluses but also hold one annoying minus. First, recent builds not only add support for Shared Menus but they also enable the History functions of the browser. To see how it is implemented, download the newest version and then click the Sidebar icon in the upper right-hand corner of the browser window. Click the clock icon to see your browser history. The welcome addition of the history function is balanced by the loss of a feature I find very useful: Chimera no longer opens links invoked from other programs like an email app or NetNewsWire Lite in a new tab. Instead, it overwrites the front-most tab. Hopefully this is going to be fixed soon, because this puts a serious throttle on using Chimera to check out other Web sites through NNW Lite...
iPulse Do you wonder why your Mac OS...
Pop-Up Zapper 1.90 A new version of the pop-up ad blocking shareware Pop-Up Zapper 1.90 is available today. The program works with Internet Explorer.
CopyPaste updated to 1.5b5 The excellent clipboard extending shareware program CopyPaste X 1.5b5 is updated with a new beta today that adds options to support Dvorak keyboard users, a fix for the Clipboard Recorder Palette that will help it maintain its position through restarts, along with a host of other fixes and enhancements. CopyPaste is $20 shareware.
Fleishman profiles Move2Mac creator company Detto Seattle Times columnist Glenn Fleishman profiles the company that created the Move2Mac program in Bellevue firm eases the move to a Mac.
How to fix problems with blank CDs Damien Barrett offers this nugget of wisdom for those who are having problems when they insert blank CDs under Mac OS X 10.2.x: 1) Delete the Finder preferences. Located: Users/your_username/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
Dan Bricklin: Impressions of a TabletPC Dan Bricklin writes an interesting piece about his first day using a new Tablet PC in First Impressions. It is worth reading to see what is happening in this computing category under Windows XP, though I am skeptical about the real utility of a Tablet PC at this point in my computing world. It will be interesting however to see how Apple responds to this and whether there will be a Tablet Mac in the near future...
Chimera daily builds now support Shared Menus MNJ reader Duane Pandorf notes the following: Downloaded the latest Chimera build and surprise, URL Manager launches and there's the Shared Menus in my Navigator. I hadn't noticed this, but my build of Chimera from yesterday had the Shared Menus working as well. Cool! Update: Another MNJ reader has pointed out that although the URL Manager Pro's shared menus show up in Chimera, and although you can launch a URL Manager Pro bookmark from the drop-down menu, at this time you cannot add a bookmark to URL Manager Pro through the drop-down menu. I am not sure which program's code is causing this problem, but I can certainly confirm that I see the same behavior here on my PowerBook.
.Mac users: Backup 1.2.1 posted .Mac users should check their Software Update panel for the latest update to the Apple application, Backup 1.2.1. From the release notes: "This update replaces any version of Backup between 1.0 and 1.2 with Backup 1.2.1. Backup 1.2.1 provides a quick, easy way to back up important information to your iDisk or to recordable CD or DVD discs. Backup 1.2.1 provides these improvements over Backup 1.0:
NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.2fc1 NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.2fc1
Recent notable software updates As found on Macupdate.com:
A reader question about Eudora and browser interaction An MNJ reader taking part in the new Ask MNJ? service has asked a question that I cannot find an easy solution for: Ever since upgrading to OS 10.2 (and now to 10.2.2), the hyperlink feature in Eudora doesn't seem to work with Internet Explorer any more. I'm using a Power Mac G4 (version = 2.1)/933MHz with 768MB of RAM. I'm using Eudora 5.1, and I'm trying to link to Internet Explorer 5.2.2. My suggestions so far have been to run the Apple disk utility to check for problems on his disk, and I suggested he may want to do the Archive and Install option of reinstalling Jaguar on his machine. Does someone have an easier solution?
Bereskin notes big Sherlock 3 news Apple's Ken Bereskin notes: "Big news on the Sherlock 3 front. We've released an SDK that allows you to build your own Sherlock channels. The user interface of your channel is built using Interface Builder and the logic of the channel can be written in JavaScript and/or XQuery. You need to have the Mac OS X Developer Tools installed along with the 10.2.2 update and the SDK adds a technical reference on building a channel, a Project Builder template, the Interface Builder palette and a sample channel to help give you a jump start. [Ken Bereskin]
Using QuickTime 6 to create MP4 audio Daniel East writes on O'Grady's PowerPage yesterday about how to reap the benefits of MPEG4 audio using QuickTime 6 Pro in an article that notes the advantages of MP4 audio over the popular MP3s: QuickTime 6 and MPEG 4: Great Sound, Small Files.
Thanks for the comments about MNJ's new look I want to take a moment to thank those of you who have commented on the new look of Mac Net Journal running under Tinderbox. I am still bringing in selected content from the old site and tweaking the layout and adding features that seem useful for MNJ readers, but I too like this slimmed down look for MNJ. The most common comment so far is that people like the cleaner, simpler layout and the quick download speed that results from using such a svelte approach to the site. Cool!
iDo Script Scheduler 1.5b10 iDo Script Scheduler 1.5b10
Singlestep releases freeware LDAPBrowser Seattle-based Singlestep Technologies has released a freeware LDAP browsing application for OS X called LDAPBrowser. LDAP, or Light Directory Access Protocol, is a software protocol for enabling anyone to locate organizations, individuals, and other resources such as files and devices in a network.
BBEdit 7.0 is a major upgrade of the text editor BBEdit 7.0 from Bare Bones Software brings support for CVS under Mac OS X as well as XHTML 1.1 support in the syntax checker and HTML Tools and many more enhancements. The $179 text, HTML and programming editor is available now for OS X 10.1.5 and greater, as well as for OS 9.2.2 and greater. Until Dec. 31 upgrades are $49 for owners of BBEdit 2.5 or greater.
Ask MNJ? A new interactive feature from Mac Net Journal Have a question about how to get something to work under Mac OS X? Trying to find just the right software or combination of tools to complete a task with your Mac? You have come to the right place! Today I launch Ask MNJ?. Ask MNJ is a simple resource for the Mac community - you ask your question and I do my darndest to provide a timely and accurate answer. Sounds simple enough. All I ask in return is that if you find the answer or tip I provide useful, that you click my PayPal icon at the side of each page on MNJ and offer a donation to support the service. Pay me what you think the service is worth. It's a novel concept! As I answer these questions, I plan to compile a document with answers to some of the most common and most pesky problems and I will offer this on the pages of Mac Net Journal. So let's get the ball rolling! Ask and ye shall receive... Disclaimer: I will answer all Mac OS X and hardware questions to the best of my knowledge, but I can offer no guarantee that my answer will solve all of your problems.
NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.2b7 NetNewsWire Lite 1.0.2b7
WebObjects 5.2 released Apple released its Web development program WebObjects 5.2 today. A free trial version of the $699 software is available. WebObjects 5.2 requires Mac OS X 10.2.
PowerMail enhancements coming soon The makers of PowerMail 4, the speedy and full-featured email client I use, sent a little tease to the PowerMail mailing list today. In response to recent posts lamenting the program's lack of an integrated spell checking feature, the post noted that users patience in that arena should be rewarded sometime between now and Christmas. This combined with the news that a future version will tie in with the OS X Address Book are keys in my choice to remain a PowerMail user.
More housekeeping with MNJ I am working throughout the day to bring more of the old content from my Radio-based MNJ site into the new and improved Tinderbox-based MNJ, and the first step in that transition is setting up my living outline Mac OS X apps ranked by category up in Tinderbox. Mission accomplished! I will move the rest of the substantive stories from the old MNJ into the new format throughout the day and the rest of this week. Still digging... If you have any comments about the new MNJ, I would be thrilled to hear them.
Feedback on the upgrade to OS X 10.2.2 Those MNJ readers who have written back with their experiences with the upgrade to Mac OS X 10.2.2 so far have been very positive: Devnull writes: "10.2.2 has seemed to fix the long standing issue, since 10.2, where certain RAM combinations would cause freezing and lock ups. I'm now up to my 10.2 level of 512 MB of RAM from my previous stable total of 288 MB." And Charles Brownstein writes: "downloaded, installed , running w no apparent problems after 1 hour.
Watson 1.6 adds features Watson 1.6 adds TV listings to integrate with the EyeTV digital video recorder, movie and TV listings that can integrate with iCal and much more. If you are a fan of this excellent informational program, give this update a look. Watson is $29 shareware.
Enabling the journaling file system in OS X 10.2.2 Mac OS X Hints offers instructions for how to Enable a journaling file system on OS X 10.2.2 Client. But the instructions come with warnings that you could mess up your file system making this change...
What are your experiences with OS X 10.2.2? Is the upgrade to OS X 10.2.2 going well for you? Or have you run into problems with the update? I have OS X 10.2.2 running fine on my PowerBook, and so far none of the applications I use show any signs of problems or improvement for that matter... Send me an email if you have a comment about how the upgrade is going for you.
Email problems in MNJ land If you are trying to submit a question to the Ask MNJ? service tonight, please be patient for the answer. Digital Forest is doing emergency maintenance on its mail servers tonight and as a result I haven't seen any email since 4:50 p.m. PST - four hours and counting...
Yo-Yo Ma a Switcher? OK...I am sitting here and watching The West Wing and I just saw the latest Apple Switch ad. Maybe it is silly, but it is definitely cool to see Yo-Yo Ma, musician extraordinaire...Mac user.
Low End Mac: Let My Email Go Apple, Let My Email Go, Dan Knight, Mac Musings
Resend any email to MNJ from last night It appears that my ISP has lost up to five hours of email due to the mail server emergency maintenance done last night. So, if you sent me email between 4:50 p.m. PST and 10 p.m. PST, please resend it...
MySQL on Mac OS X This note may be a bit technical in nature, but if you have any interest in digging into the free database tools available for OS X, this is a good place to start: MySQL on Mac OS X
Should you turn on journaling in OS X 10.2.2? John Welch digs into the details of turning on the new journaling features in Mac OS X 10.2.2 in an article on Working Mac: Journaling: What is it, who needs it
Nature note: Close up of a Sharp-shinned Hawk As I settled in to work in the breakfast nook just off the kitchen in our small craftsman-style house I glanced out the window to see a Sharp-shinned Hawk sitting on the cyclone fence just outside the window, no more than 10 feet away. What am awesome sight! The hawk watched me watching it for a few moments, then flew off over the roof of the neighbor's house, just in time to avoid a rain squall moving through the neighborhood. Update: A sighting of a much larger raptor in the yard around 3 p.m. today jogged my memory and brought a realization. The bird I had seen this morning was smaller with a strong white eyebrow over its eyes (actually called a supercillium), while this bird this afternoon had a buffy spotted breast and a dark cap on its head. The conclusion: the bird this morning was actually a Merlin. The bird this afternoon was a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Quite a day of bird watching while I sit and work...
Recent notable software updates As found on Macupdate.com:
Upgrade oddities: Problems with blank CDs An MNJ reader writes about a problem he has had since upgrading his Mac to Mac OS X 10.2.2: After upgrading to 10.2.2 my machine will not recognize blank cds. It reads data and audio cds, but not blank. Has anyone else seen this behavior? This seems to work fine on my Pismo PowerBook since I upgraded. Send me email if you see a similar problem.
Using metadata for photos Use Metadata to Improve Your Pictures
Apple Keychain First Aid 1.0 Tonight MacSlash notes that Apple offers a new tool for fixing problems with your keychain under OS X: Apple Keychain First Aid 1.0. The application will help users who have some rare problems with keychains on their Jaguar systems. Check this Apple Knowledge Base document for more information.
One week in the Tinderbox Today marks the first full week of my running Mac Net Journal as a Tinderbox Weblog site. I am still moving content slowly and adding features to the site, but all in all, once this site was set up it has been a breeze to update and much easier on the CPU cycles than with Radio Userland, and you know what...no upstreaming problems whatsoever! Ah the joys of rolling my own solution with the help of tools like TB, BBEdit, and an FTP program. There are some things I miss from my Radio days though. My site is no longer ranked in the Weblogs.com community since I am not using the Radio tools. I enjoyed seeing some of those referrer logs and seeing MNJ climb into the top 10 in the all-time rankings for Radio sites. But thanks to Brent Simmons' excellent NetNewsWire Lite RSS reader I have an even more powerful aggregator to use now and with the click of a Web link I can look at my site stats to see how many people are visiting. It is just a little more hands on and a lot less magic to rely on to get a complete picture of how the site is fairing.
URL Manager Pro 3.0.3 URL Manager Pro 3.0.3 is the newest version of the bookmark and email address organizer that works with all major OS X Web browsers. This version adds better support for Apple's Mail.app email program
Reader note: XFree86 updated for OS X 10.2.2 MMJ reader John Shonder offers a note about a new version of XFree86 for user under Mac OS X 10.2.2: "I haven't seen this mentioned on your site or any of the other Mac sites I look at, but there is a new version of xfree86 available: version 4.2.1.1. According to http://fink.sourceforge.net/ , "Users should update their XFree86 installations to version 4.2.1.1 for use with OS X 10.2.2." I didn't see this one listed on MacUpdate.com either. In case you are unfamiliar with it, XFree86 is an open-source version of the X Windows system. It lets you run X Windows applications under OS X.
Recent notable software updates As found on Macupdate.com:
Chimera: The pop-up ad killer There are quite a few posts today on Macintouch about how to deal with the annoyances of pop-up and pop-under ads on the Web. Solutions range from downloading shareware ad killers to disabling Javascript, but there is a much easier way to handle these ads. Download Chimera, the Web browser built around the code used in Mozilla. I have been using Chimera as my main browser for weeks and to tell the truth, the only reason I even remember what a pop-up ad is is that I occassionally have to use Internet Explorer for my work. In short, besides being the fastest browser for Mac OS X, Chimera puts a complete end to pop-up ads. And possibly the best news of the day...Chimera is free.
Weekly PowerBook news Charles Moore offers news from the PowerBook world this week in his installment of The 'Book Review on Low End Mac. Among the tidbits today is news about the IBM 80GB hard drive for laptops.
Have you enabled journaling in OS X 10.2.2? I am curious how many MNJ readers have taken the leap and enabled the new journaling capabilities of OS X 10.2.2? If you have turned it on, why? And do you see a performance hit from using it? Obviously I am still weighing whether I will bother with journaling. I haven't been convinced that it will be a real asset on a single-user PowerBook. Send me your comments...
iDisk Utility updated Apple Updates iDisk Utility
Mac OS X 10.2.2 update available The 10.2.2 Update delivers enhanced functionality and improved reliability for the following applications and technologies: Address Book, iChat, IP Firewall, Mail, Print Center, Rendezvous, Sherlock and Windows file service discovery. The update also includes the updated services previously delivered in Security Update 2002-09-20. For detailed information on this Update, please visit http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n107140. The update weighs in at 24.4MB, and installing once again requires you to restart you machine...
Macromedia's Contribute Macromedia announces Contribute I want to add that although this software is being announced now, it isn't planned to actually be available for OS X until 2003...
Recent notable software updates As found on Macupdate.com:
Another bird shot from this weekend
I can't resist posting at least one more photo from yesterday's bird watching near Vancouver, Washington. There was great light and I had the time to set up the spotting scope and to shoot with our digital camera through the scope for some nice close ups, like this Great Blue Heron sitting in the upper branches of a tree.
Voice browsing Speakable Web Services Also note that the OmniWeb browser offers some support for using speakable commands to browse the Web.
Another birding weekend Natalie and I are heading back on the road today to do some research for our upcoming book, Birding Washington. On the agenda are stops along the Columbia River in Southwest Washington, and since we are deep into the fall in the Pacific Northwest, this means we should see a good variety of raptors. Fall and winter are raptor heaven here as those hawks that spend their summers in the far north are forced south to over winter in more friendly climates. I watched an interesting raptor yesterday - a Sharp-shinned Hawk that dashed into the lower branches of the snowball bush in our south |
