Mac Net Journal

For the last couple of weeks I have spent every moment of daylight at home scraping and prepping our 1928 vintage craftsman home for a fresh paint job. And so, that will be the extent of my three-day weekend coming up. Because of the flaky Pacific Northwest weather this year, we are concentrating on prepping and painting the south and west sides of the house first, and this weekend we hope to get fresh primer down on the prepped areas with the goal to start actually painting next weekend - weather willing.

One good thing is this is the second time we have painted our house. Twelve years ago, after I first started doing freelance work from home, I hand-painted the house during a September and early October. The paint held up well, except for the south and west sides of the house, where the weather really beats on everything. This time we are being more deliberate in our prepping work. One good site with tips for painting old homes that we keep referring back to is Fixing Our Historic House.

Windows validation server goes down, Windows users to suffer
Saturday, August 25, 2007, 9:32 AM

To show just how crazy Microsoft's software validation system is, Boing Boing notes this morning that Microsoft's validation server has gone offline and that it will likely remain down for a few days. Why does this matter? Because XP and Vista rely on checking in with this validation server to allow full functionality in the operating system. Without being able to check in, your machine thinks that the installed OS is a fake and it disables some features. Read more on Boing Boing, and once again be glad that you use a Mac...

UPDATE: It looks like Microsoft fixed the problem around 3 p.m. PST, nearly 24-hours after it started. Mary Jo Foley has the story...

A good review of iWork as a creative tool
Monday, August 20, 2007, 10:17 PM

Macworld offers a good overview of using iWork '08 as a tool for creative workers. As the author summarizes at the end: "For a freelance designer of even a small design firm, it's a sweet deal."

Lots of Canon news today - 40D, 1Ds Mark III
Monday, August 20, 2007, 9:57 PM

A number of sites have the scoop on the new Canon photo hardware today, including the upcoming 40D - which will make my 20D two generations old now - and now the 20-plus megapixel 1Ds Mark III. On the lower end, the PowerShot G9 doesn't look bad at 12.1 megapixels...

A good reminder not to be a workaholic
Friday, August 10, 2007, 8:32 AM

Work can kill you by Steve Tobak is a good reminder of why its good to unplug and take breaks from work. The irony that I am reading and posting this while on vacation is not lost on me...

A drizzling day in Boston
Friday, August 10, 2007, 8:30 AM

It is a damp Friday morning in Boston on the first day of this vacation trip where we don't have much of Natalie's work-related activities going on. Here in a few minutes we will make our way to the Museum of Fine Arts for a quick lunch meeting and then to explore the gallery. Tomorrow we head back to the airport to pick up a rental car, then we will likely head north - thanks to a tip from Mark Bernstein - to do some morning birding at Plum Island and the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. Our destination driving around tomorrow will be Providence, Rhode Island. This is a chance to do some more birding - maybe at the Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge, as well as other spots that we happen to find along the coast.

Hopefully I will have some photos to post as the weekend goes on, although I am not sure how great the wifi connections will be.

Thoughts about yesterday's announcements from Apple
Wednesday, August 8, 2007, 11:43 AM

Like many others, I spent some time yesterday viewing the trickles of news about Apple's announcements from a variety of Web sites. My impressions of the announced new versions and enhancements are that most of what was announced was incremental improvements, not WOW moments. .Mac is about to get marginally more useful, iPhoto and the rest of the iLife suite sees some updates, and the new iMacs look stunning and get speed bumps. But there is little that is truly revolutionary here.

To be fair, revolutionary isn't something that we should expect every time Steve Jobs makes announcements. But I know everyone was looking for a "One more thing..." announcement at the end of the press event.

Related posts:

Rob Griffiths hits on some of the same reflections that I have about yesterday's announcements. Among them: The all-glossy screens on the iMacs and the smaller keyboard layouts on the new wireless keyboards.
Meanwhile, Jason Snell has his own thoughts about the announcements, including a counterpoint argument regarding the new keyboard designs.

Derrick Story on the new pro editing tools in iPhoto 2008
Wednesday, August 8, 2007, 8:29 AM

Derrick Story lauds the improved professional editing tools in iPhoto 2008. These aren't tools that Steve Jobs highlighted during yesterday's presentation, but it does sound like they will make iPhoto more robust, nonetheless.

Please pardon my RSS issues today
Monday, August 6, 2007, 6:57 AM

I am trying to get to the root of some RSS issues I am experiencing his morning. I appreciate your patience while I work this out...

UPDATE: It looks like I fixed the issue by deleting the RSS file on the server and then uploading the file again. Odd...

Big news from Apple tomorrow?
Monday, August 6, 2007, 6:40 AM

It should be interesting to see which prognosticator is right about what Apple will announce tomorrow. The concensus seems to be a new iMac, but some also say there could be refreshed MacBooks and news about new iPods. Who knows...maybe there will be news about advances in the iPhone, or even a refresh of some Apple software. We'll see in a little more than 24 hours...

Exploring in Boston
Monday, August 6, 2007, 6:32 AM

I'm sitting in some sessions today at the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) in Boston, despite the fact that this is a vacation week for me. Why? I don't get the chance to go to conferences very often in my work, so, since my wife is here for work and there are some sessions that could have an application for my work, I am sitting in a few sessions. One good piece of news is that the conference at the big new convention center in Boston has great wifi, so I can do some reading, blogging and playing online while I sit in the sessions.

When I am not at the conference, Natalie and I have been spending time exploring Boston by foot. Yesterday I did a 4-mile run along the Charles River to get a better feel for the city, and we ate two meals at restaurants along Newbury Street, including a nice Italian meal and wine last night. If only I were a real shopper, Boston would truly be a mecca. But there is more than shopping here. It is a great city for walking - maybe not as great at this time in my mind as Washington, D.C.

I will offer some more impressions, however innacurate, of this great East Coast city over the next week...

Tinderbox 4.0 arrives with lots of new goodies!
Wednesday, August 1, 2007, 9:32 AM

Mark Bernstein passes along some exciting news about the newest release of Tinderbox:

Tinderbox 4.0
Tinderbox 4.0 is now available.

Tinderbox 4 is a major update with more than 100 new features and improvements. Everything is better: maps, outlines, charts, agents, rules. Everything.

I'll have a lot to say about Tinderbox 4 in the coming days, along with a number of examples and practical tips.

For starters, you might enjoy:

What's New

Using Tinderbox (with lots of new case studies, from forensics to job hunting)

Application note: A Task Assistant

Application note: Email and Twitter from Tinderbox

The Tinderbox manual has been extensively revised and improved, and there's a new Tinderbox Forum to supplement the wiki.
[Mark Bernstein]

I have downloaded and just started working with the new version. It looks like there will be some new things to learn how to use in this version!