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- Politics 2004
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2003
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2002
- December - November - TidBITS - Apple - Macintouch laptop battery report - Apple - Tinderbox Community Forum (not official) - WhatIsMyIP - Wherever you are, there you are... - TinyURL - Turn big ugly URLs into cute little ones... - rob at whiterabbits.com - rmchuff - Eudora - Fire - BBEdit - Mozilla - Internet Explorer - Transmit - iTunes - VNCthing - Terminal
MNJ RSS
MNJ Politics RSS Here is a collection of link to sites maintained by people who have mentioned that they read MNJ:
- Dan Hon - An imaginary place in a reactionary time - dws
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Egg on my face, but it proves my point Yesterday I wrote about one of the major reasons it is good to be a Mac user - the ability to avoid the malware that infects so many Windows users. Well, in addition to my house-load of Macs, I also have a Windows XP box in my home office. It hasn't been showing any signs of problems, but out of curiousity I decided to install Ad-Aware and run it on the machine last night to see what lurked in the innards of the seldom-used machine. The result: 33 problem files. Most were in the browser cache for Internet Explorer - a program I seldom use on the machine but that my wife uses when connecting to her work. They are gone now. I was a little surprised to find this many adware files on this Windows machine. I never read e-mail on the machine, have never started up Outlook on the thing. It has largely just been a browsing machine. On a slightly related note Paul Boutin and Glenn Fleishman are among the guests speaking on a radio show on the local NPR station, KUOW.org right now, discussing the rejuvenated browser wars. In short, friends don't let friends use Internet Explorer...
Thankful I am not a Windows user Over the holiday weekend I heard two more stories about family members who are plagued with adware and spyware on their Windows machines. My parents, who use an older Windows 98 machine, were able to clean their machine using one of the free adware removal tools - Ad Aware, I believe. But my younger brother apparently had his PC so riddled with adware and spyware that he simply gave up and bought a new machine a while ago. I hear these stories all the time from co-workers, and every time I tell them that I never face any of those problems with my Macs then all I get for a reaction is shaking heads and an aside comment along the lines of, "Maybe I should just buy a Mac." I try not to be smug in these situations, but I am still shocked that the 95% plus of computer users who opt to use Windows are just willing to accept that their insecure computing experience is just the way things have to be. It isn't true. You get what you pay for, and if you opt to use Windows you are paying for a kludged together operating system that will only run acceptably if you keep a very close eye on it and remain constantly vigilant to keep plugging the security holes and inadequacies in the system on a weekly or even daily basis. Meanwhile, Mac users are getting work done. I should note that the above is not true if you have an IT department working 24/7 to keep the Windows machines on your network updated and running trouble free. That is the case with the Windows XP machine I use at work. But the truth of the matter is that Windows users at home are simply overwhelmed by the attacks on their computers, and very few can afford to have an on-call IT guy ready to fix the latest shortcoming of Windows.
iView MediaPro and workflow iView MediaPro Workflow Solutions - A new series of free whitepapers from iView help you create a seamless digital asset management worfklow with iView MediaPro. The first paper in the series focuses on optimizing workflow for digital photographers. [iView MediaPro Weblog]
Apple releases Bluetooth firmware update Apple releases Bluetooth firmware update - Apple today posted Bluetooth Firmware Updater 1.2 for D-Link USB Adapters (revision B2 or later) and Apple internal Bluetooth modules on PowerBooks and Power Macs... [MacMinute.com]
Mac OS X gift ideas MacDevCenter offers its tips for Mac OS X gift ideas...
More Firefox Here is a follow up to last night's post about oddities I was seeing with Firefox on my Mac. First, I haven't heard any explanation for the odd behavior I was seeing. Maybe it was just something wierd with my Mac. Regardless, I am back to testing the latest nightly build, thanks to the following note from MNJ reader, Greg:
So, I am back in business, running two Web browsers on my Mac. For now Firefox is my default browser, but due to the ability to wave sessions and workspaces, I am still using OmniWeb as my browser of choice for research. In short, when I load a page in OW, if the browser crashes or I accidentally close the program, I can rest assured that my work will be preserved. OW will open up the same windows I was last using before the problem. This is invaluable. |
I got Firefoxed I ran into my first major problems with Firefox tonight while taking a look at Mac Net Journal. For some reason, a couple of links on MNJ that looked and worked fine under OmniWeb weren't displaying correctly under Firefox 1.0. I tried to fix the link twice in Tinderbox before I tried copying and pasting the URLs in question into the URL field in Firefox to see what was going on. Oddly enough, links that were supposed to point to the weblog for iView MediaPro redirected to a political site about George Bush and some other site - different sites each time I pasted the same URL into the URL field and hit return. Odd, to say the least. I'm back to using OmniWeb. Speaking of Firefox, the community that supports the new browser has dummed down its Web site to such a great extent that I cannot even find where to download current nightly builds, which I suspect would deal with the issue I note above. Again, odd... |
A new Macintouch report on mobile computer security If you use your PowerBook when you travel, or you access e-mail from Internet cafes, you should check the new mobile computer security reader report on Macintouch...
The Ulysses text editor A reviewer on 43 Folders writes: "Ulysses is a text editor for writers. That's it." It sounds like an interesting addition to the Mac OS X mix...
Apple releases iCal 1.5.4 Apple has released an update to iCal that deals with security issues with the lightweight organizer application. According to Apple's release notes for the 7.7MB update:
Let us know what you think of the update. |
iView MediaPro and DNG image support I noticed this post today from earlier in the week on the iView MediaPro blog: iView MediaPro adds support for Adobe's new DNG format. I finally purchased the upgrade to the latest version of iView MediaPro this week. I'll have more comments about the upgrade soon...
A new 'presentation assistant' for Tinderbox Mark Bernstein mentions an interesting new "presentation assistant" template for Tinderbox that makes it easy to create lightweight Web-enabled presentations. The template is based on Eric Meyer's s5. Cool!
Omni Group releases OmniWeb 5.1 beta 4 The Omni Group has released a new beta update of its excellent OmniWeb browser. OmniWeb 5.1 beta 4 features bug fixes, improvements in navigating browser history and Java improvements.
A pair of shortcomings for iChat, Mail users A couple of Web sites this morning point out shortcomings with Apple applications iChat and Mail that could make your Mac more vulnerable to phishers. MacDevCenter notes an iChat privacy problem and Forwarding Address: OS X talks about how Mail.app helps phishers to fool you into believing an e-mail is legitimate.
AirPort update fixes bothersome encryption problem AirPort 4.1 Fixes Encryption Irritation - Apple has released AirPort 4.1 software for Mac OS X 10.3, and this update includes a feature that's been in great need: the ability to use more modern and secure WPA encryption when you're also linking base stations wirelessly through WDS. By Glenn Fleishman, TidBITS [myapplemenu]
Extend your AirPort network with AirPort Express Extend your AirPort Network with AirPort Express - Sometimes one access point just isn't enough for our wireless networks, even at home. Wei Meng Lee shows you how to extend your network with AirPort Express, and explains what's going on under the hood. [O'Reilly MacDevCenter.com]
Apple releases AirPort Software 4.1 Now that I have settled down at home for the night I see that Apple has rolled out another software update, this time bumping its AirPort Software to version 4.1 in a 13.6 MB update. Apple provides the following in the release notes:
So, have you installed it and rebooted? Did you remember to repair permissions after the install? And how is your Mac working after the update? I am about to join the rest of the testers of this newest update. Fingers crossed... |
Mac OS X power tools Mac OS X Power Tools - Dan Frakes provides a comprehensive list of all the software mentioned in his excellent
Acrobat 7 Pro now part of Adobe Creative Suite Premium Confirmed: Acrobat 7 Professional part of Adobe Creative Suite Premium - Adobe today announced that Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional software will be integrated in Adobe Creative Suite Premium. Acrobat 7.0 Professional lets designers, publishers, ad agencies and print service providers dependably share files for commenting and proofing, fixing print output errors and optimizing Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files for production requirements. [MacMerc]
PowerMail 5.1 released Serious improvements in HTML rendering - thanks to including the same Webkit tools used in the Safari Web browser - highlight this release of the fastest email application for Mac OS X. PowerMail 5.1 is a free upgrade for current license holders, $35 for upgrades or $59 for a new license.
Happy birthday, Mac Net Journal! OK, so I am a few days late. On Nov. 6 the current version of Mac Net Journal marked two years as a Tinderbox site. MNJ existed for years before I switched to Tinderbox as my blogging tool of choice, but the last two years and roughly 3,000 posts have all been slathered with Tinderbox goodness. Yum! For those curious about the longer history of this site, be sure to read the brief history page. MNJ started as an e-mailed standalone application back in 1995, and after a three-year break from publication from 1997 to 2000, MNJ returned first as a Blogger site, then as a Radio Userland site before it grew into the Tinderbox-based site it is today. I can almost count the Macs I have used to write MNJ over the years - a Quadra 660AV, a Power Computing desktop, a pair of PowerBook 3400c, a PowerBook 2400c, a pair of Pismo PowerBooks and the 12-inch PowerBook G4 I use today. From the days of Mac OS 8.x to today's latest and greatest version of Mac OS X. |
The true story of Audion Everyone is pointing to the True Story of Audion, by Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser. Maybe it is time to take a break from building the slide show for tomorrow's talk about Birding Washington and from my ongoing week-long vacation and read about a Mac program that has come and gone.
Time to buy a new PowerBook It looks like it is time for a new PowerBook in our household. My 12-inch PowerBook G4 still works fine 18 months after purchase, but my old Pismo PowerBook G3 that Natalie has been using as her main Mac has developed a hardware problem that causes it to spontaneously shut down when the machine is moved around. And so, while I keep an eye on whether I will still be working my job for the City of Tacoma and running the new online newsroom that I created after the end of this year - something that is in doubt due to serious budget problems at the city - I am also weighing the options for a new machine for Natalie. The leading candidate right now - a 14-inch iBook... |
StickyBrain 3 released MacCentral writes about a major overhaul of StickyBrain, the note manager from Chronos LC. If my whole life wasn't wrapped up in Tinderbox then I would give it a try.
Optimized Firefox builds MacMegasite notes that there are special geek-friendly optimized builds of Firefox available:
I have tried the 1.0 release of Firefox, and it seems pretty speedy and solid. There just isn't anything about it that would convince me to abandon OmniWeb at this point though. Of course, OmniWeb carries a price tag, but some of its features such as workspaces and persistence are life savers.
Firefox 1.0 arrives Firefox, an Internet Explorer killer, has gone 1.0 Firefox, the finest, most secure Web browser ever created for average-user applications, went 1.0 today. You can download it below, toss out Internet Explorer, and be relatively assured that you computer won't be compromised due to Microsoft's bad design decisions and lax security maintenance. Link, Direct link to FTP server [Boing Boing Blog]
Quick layer switching in Photoshop PS: Quick layer switching - This may seem like a very basic technique, but still I see very few PhotoShopers are actually using it. If you want to quickly change layers. Press "V" to select the Move tool. Than Apple click (Cmd-Click) the object you want to work on. That's it. The correct layer becomes active and you don't need to navigate to your layers palette and scroll through the list to activate the layer you want... [CreativeBits]
Macintouch on Mac OS X 10.3.6 Report: Mac OS X 10.3.6 - Apple's latest Mac OS X update created some problems with FireWire drives, the Calculator, Safari and sound. It's supposed to fix other problems, but you might want to read this report before installing. [MacInTouch] I should note that I am not having problems with 10.3.6 on my PowerBook, but I haven't connected the machine to a FireWire drive since updating. Once again, it looks like Apple jumped the gun on issuing an update without more thorough testing...
Using NetNewsWire to keep Opener closed Cult of Mac has an interesting post regarding a NetNewsWire user who is using a simple AppleScript in combination with NNW to monitor for the Opener worm. Maybe that will finally help close the door on the Opener hype...
Mac OS X 10.3.6 problems reported Apple: Mac OS X 10.3.6 Update - Apple put a pile of patches into its latest update for Mac OS X "Panther" (regular and server versions), but a number of readers report problems with it, including FireWire disk troubles, so don't install it without a complete backup, and we recommend keeping FireWire drives disconnected initially. [MacInTouch] Are you having trouble too? I am seeing nothing unusual here... |
DVD Studio Pro 3.0.2 Apple posts DVD Studio Pro 3.0.2 - Apple also on Friday released DVD Studio Pro 3.0.2, an update to its pro-level DVD authoring application that offers compatibility for double-layer media on computers that support it as well as general stability improvements. Registered users can download it free from the DVD Studio Pro 3 update page by entering their serial number. [MacCentral]
Mac OS X 10.3.6 Apple released Mac OS X 10.3.6 today - a 14 MB update for my 12-inch PowerBook G4. Here are the highlights, according to Apple:
Welcome Econ Technologies as an MNJ sponsor As the ad at the top of the page shows, Econ Technologies has joined MNJ as a sponsor this month. I have used a number of their software programs, including ChronoSync and Portraits & Prints, and I am very happy to have them pitching their wares here. Welcome!
GraphicConverter 5.3 A new release of the excellent GraphicConverter program rolled out today. Version 5.3 includes better AppleScript support, QuickTime effects, better export options for slideshows and more. The update also offers faster rendering of images in RAW formats.
The day after - back to the Mac It's the day after the big American election. Essentially the same result as four years ago, although a little more lopsided. There isn't much to say about it this time though. Turning lemons into lemonade.
Vote No matter what your political persuasion, if you are an American then your duty today is to vote.
Dave Winer on Apple's iTunes moves Dave Winer on Apple's recent moves to control your music content:
Technical difficulties MNJ is experiencing some technical difficulties today. I hope to have the problems resolved shortly... |
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