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the MTAA-RR

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MTAA-RR » news » twhid » geek:

Nov 17, 2011

Use Node.js with BBEdit text filters feature

posted at 05:12 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

I was poking around the jQuery git repo the other day and noticed that they’ve started using Node for all their build scripts (I’m assuming, or maybe remembering faultily, that they were using Ant or Ruby for the build stuff previously). Makes sense: jQuery — make it 100% JavaScript, even down to the build scripts.

Then a little bulb went off in my head. “Oh yeah,” I thought to myself, “with Node one can now use JavaScript to write shell scripts.” (Duh!? I know.)

Later that day I found myself needing to de/unencode URIs to be used as URI components. “Simple,” I thought, “I’ll just use JavaScript’s decodeURIComponent and encodeURIComponent methods via Node and a BBEdit text filter.” But. Um. Turned out it wasn’t that simple (or maybe I’m just dumb).

Anyway, after a bit of head-scratching and digging around Node’s and BBEdit’s documentation, I got it working. The two scripts linked below are very simple, single-serving tools. You can run JavaScript’s encodeURIComponent with one and decodeURIComponent with the other. That’s it. One can imagine that it will now be very easy to port many useful JavaScript programs to be used as BBEdit text filters. JSLint or JSONLint come to mind.

To use the scripts you need to:
  1. have Node installed (there are instructions here (scroll down for OS X)),
  2. update the shebang line at the top of the script to point to your Node installation (if you’re not sure, type ‘which node’ at the command prompt in OS X’s terminal application),
  3. put the files in BBEdit’s text filters folder (prior to BBEdit 10 ‘text filters’ were called ‘unix filters’)
Have fun!

http://mteww.com/misc/en-decodeURIComponent.zip permanent link to this post

Mar 21, 2009

Google’s design problem

posted at 13:40 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Recently leaving Google, Doug Bowman writes:
Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that.


To the geeks that think numbers can somehow bring one to aesthetics: ponder this.

Perhaps one blue will bring more clicks than another; perhaps not. Perhaps the test is flawed. How was the test defined? We need to test the testing methodology! And then test the testing methodology of testing methodology of the test… ak! It’s a rabbit hole. That’s Bowman’s point. permanent link to this post

Mar 12, 2009

Allow directory browsing with .htaccess

posted at 13:24 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Options +Indexes

Just so I remember… permanent link to this post

Sep 05, 2008

BBEdit syntax coloring

posted at 19:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Meta: haven’t done a good old geek post on the MTAA-RR in a while…

I really want to go back to using BBEdit. Overall, it’s better than TextMate (especially the search). But it’s got this syntax coloring problem when editing JS in the head of an HTML page that DRIVES. ME. NUTS. Is pictured below:

bbedit_syntax_bah.gif

BBEdit 9 is a better than the previous version, but it gets tripped up on parans in the string if you put a forward slash in it as well (if you take the parans out it works correctly). As you can see, if you’re putting HTML tags in the string (which is probably a pretty common thing to do) it breaks the syntax coloring for the rest of the JS in the doc. This happens if the doc is set to ‘html.’ If you set it to ‘JavaScript’ then the JS is OK but the HTML doesn’t get proper syntax coloring.

Does anyone know how to fix this? It’s driving me nuts and back to TextMate. permanent link to this post

Feb 01, 2008

The MS/Yahoo! thing

posted at 21:57 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Gruber of Daring Fireball talks about exactly what I was scratching my head about when I heard this news.

I was hoping that some Yahoo! OSS goodness might rub off on MS, but it just ain’t gonna happen. I use both OSS stuff (PHP, JS libraries etc) and MS stuff (ASP.net, Visual Studio, etc) in my day-to-day and they are just completely different beasts. To try to cram the two together in the MicroHoo deal would result in a thing that no one wants to see. MS will kill what it can’t ignore and treat the rest like red-headed stepchildren.

Update - Helen A.S. Popkin of MSNBC (as well as MTAA’s pop culture guru)on MS+YAHOO permanent link to this post

Jan 22, 2008

Big changes afoot in web dev

posted at 15:05 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

First, the IEBlog describes how they ‘broke the web’ when they released IE7, then go on to explain how they plan NOT to do that with IE8.

Crazily enough, Zeldman and the WASP seem to be on board with a blog post and 2 (count ‘em 2) articles on A List Apart (1, 2).

I haven’t read about the new ‘version targeting’ scheme yet, but Microsoft’s ‘web standards guru targeting’ scheme seems to have worked wonderfully. permanent link to this post

Dec 07, 2007

open animated GIF frames in Photoshop CS3

posted at 20:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Adobe, the jerks, removed functionality from Photoshop CS3. Specifically, you could, once upon a time, open an animated GIF in Imageready (free with Photoshop). You can no longer do this with CS3 since Imageready (and it’s tight integration with PS) no longer exists. Adobe’s own KB article on it tells you to buy Fireworks to get this functionality! WTF?!

Fuck that. I have a workaround. Note: this is for OSX only. This workaround works for Windows (my workaround is very similar). Here it is:

1. Open the animated GIF in QuickTime.
2. Choose ‘Save As…’
3. Select ‘Save as self-contained movie’ and save it.
4. In Photoshop, select File->Import->Video Frames To Layers…
5. Select your new animated GIF/QuickTime movie and configure how you want to import it in the Import Video To Layers dialog box.
6. That’s it. You should now have all the frames on separate layers and as frames in the animation palette. permanent link to this post

Nov 30, 2007

Google Reader stats, or, I’m a total dork

posted at 15:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Every other art blog is talking about the New Museum but I’m a dork so this art blog will talk about how to get feed stats from Google Reader!

googReaderStats.gif

You can see subscriber info and average number of posts per week. To see stats in Google Reader, do this: click on the ‘discover’ link next to the ‘add subscriptions’ link in the sidebar. Then click the ‘Browse’ tab, then do a search in the ‘Search and browse’ section. And that’s it! You’ll see a list of feeds that match your search criteria.

Interestingly you can snoop on other’s stats as well. For example, bloggy has 62 subs, Cory Arcangel has 141 and We Make Money Not Art has a whopping 2,466! Note that these are only Google Reader subscribers.

+++

In other news, M.River has gone missing in Rome. He seems to be maintaining radio silence (voluntarily or otherwise). Guess that’s what I get for giving him a laptop with a fresh install of linux (which he’s never used) and kicking him out the door. permanent link to this post

Oct 20, 2007

Sponsored links — now in hebrew!

posted at 15:09 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

sponsored_links_hebrew.png
I’m a bit of a Google freak. I use Gmail and Google Calendar as my main mail and calendar apps. I’m desperately trying to get my wife to use Gmail as her main mail app and I’m always trying to get my collaborator M.River to use Google Docs instead of Word. I use the Gapps.

The other day I received an email from Doron (who’s living in Israel) that had a subject line in hebrew. There was really no text in the message — a quoted line also in hebrew — and one english line. This little bit of hebrew in the message triggered the ‘sponsored links’ section of the Gmail interface to display in hebrew.

I just thought it was kinda funny and it made me wonder how Google decides what language a message is written in. permanent link to this post

Aug 21, 2007

Big news from Adobe

posted at 13:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Adobe’s new flash player will support streaming or progressive playback of H264 encoded video files (.mp4, .m4v, .mov and more…).

There’s lots of very important info in the above link and anyone using video on the web should read it. This caught my eye:

Will it be possible to place H.264 streams into the traditional FLV file structure? It will, but we strongly encourage everyone to embrace the new standard file format. There are functional limits with the FLV structure when streaming H.264 which we could not overcome without a redesign of the file format. This is one reason we are moving away from the traditional FLV file structure. Specifically dealing with sequence headers and enders is tricky with FLV streams.


It’s not exactly clear what he means by the “new standard file format” but I guess he means h.264 in whatever container you like (.mp4, .mov etc). Does this mean Adobe is killing the FLV (Flash Video) format?

Adobe has basically made MP4 (h.264) the MP3 of video on the web. In other words, it’s the default format. XBox supports it now (how long until Windows Media Player supports it?), Flash Player supports it now and of course QuickTime Player. permanent link to this post

May 02, 2007

Digg revolt

posted at 13:37 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

This is pretty interesting. Digg users have staged a rebellion of sorts over the deletion of stories and comments that contained the 16-digit hexadecimal number that is used to lock HD-DVD movies. For the record, here’s the illegal number: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0.

Digg.com is a social news site founded by Kevin Rose. He finally capitulated to his users demands proving that web 2.0 can bite small smart companies in the ass just as easy as big lumbering companies. permanent link to this post

Apr 28, 2007

KDM100 @ del.icio.us

posted at 02:07 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

by bohaganjr to art karaoke video

by somebaudy to karaoke deathmatch art audio image movie quicktime video

by rimapra to vlog_art

by lafundicio to art karaoke drinking drunk

by harloholmes to admirable hotttt audio image internets art?

by cory_arcangel to art karaoke movie quicktime video

by mccoyspace to art video netart karaoke mtaa

by mjh to karaoke quicktime video movie

by 53os to netart art

by barryhoggard to art netart

by m.river to mtaa netart07

by twhid to mtaa karaoke netart net_art_07 art
permanent link to this post

Apr 23, 2007

Timex Sinclair 1000

posted at 13:56 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

280px-Zx81-timex.jpg
Slashdot reminds us that it’s the 25th anniversary of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

Ah. Good days. My first computer was the Timex Sinclair 1000, the US version of the UK Sinclair.

From Wikipedia:
The TS1000 sold for $99.95 in the US when it debuted, making it the cheapest home computer to date at the time of its launch. The black and white display showed 32 columns and 24 lines (22 of which were normally accessible for display and 2 reserved for data entry and error messages). The limited graphics were based on geometric shapes contained within the operating system’s non-ASCII character set. The only form of long-term storage was to plug into an often unreliable home tape cassette recorder.


Good times! permanent link to this post

Apr 02, 2007

DRM dam has burst

posted at 14:12 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

EMI and Apple to sell non-crippled MP3s audio tracks (according to the official press release the tracks will be in the AAC format) via iTunes.

(No, it’s not a late April Fools Day joke.)

This is it folks. The beginning of the end of DRM. permanent link to this post

Mar 31, 2007

GTA4 in NYC

posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

It looks awesome!

Predictably, NYC politicians don’t like it. What a bunch of n00bs. I give some props to Vallone for knowing what Halo is…

Setting Grand Theft Auto in the safest big city in America would be like setting Halo in Disneyland.
permanent link to this post

Mar 21, 2007

OS X: capture DVD stills — no 3rd party software

posted at 17:27 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

CLI to the screen cap yo!

Works like a charm on Mac OS 10.4.9. Nice.

Don’t tell M.River about it, he likes to exploit the analog hole.

update
I had no idea that M.River had just posted about his project when I posted this. Synchronicity…

m.river adds - yes, strange synchronicity. i was just getting ready to add this note - the goal is not to document the dvd’s nor is it about “cool” or even “good” films. the goal is to make interesting images with what’s at hand. it’s a document of some time spent. the tools for this document are distortion and editing. but thanks for the teck tip. it may come in hand with some other projects I’ve been thinking about. permanent link to this post

Jan 09, 2007

iPhone

posted at 21:37 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Apple has released the iPhone. I sorta called it a few months back in this Digg comment.

Sure, I was wrong about the name and the way it would be hyped. But I got the gist right IMHO. The important part was my follow up pointing out the patent on ‘dynamic and configurable touchscreen interfaces.’ Or maybe I’m just delusional; everyone and their dog was predicting this damn thing.

PS, I needed to post something again today to push M.River’s cat post down. I hate cat blogging. permanent link to this post

Dec 17, 2006

Automate QuickTime video on OS X

posted at 20:21 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

This post may be helpful for artists and other creatives that need to automate the launching of digital video files using QuickTime on the Mac OS.

MTAA is in a group show in January and we’re showing a simple digital video loop. The goal was to automate the launching of the video full screen and looping when the computer starts up. The strategy was to use an AppleScript as a login item to achieve this.

The straightforward way to do this is to create a script that tells QuickTime to open the file, play it full screen and loop by pointing to the explicit path of the file on disk, e.g bootdisk:path:to:foo.mov. The problem with this is that if the file is moved QuickTime can’t open it. To make it more error-proof I wanted to make one application package with the video inside it. This allows there to be one file that can be moved to any Mac and double-clicked to start the video playing with all the properties I need.

After a bit of research and trial-and-error I think I came up with a decent solution.

I should note here that you can set QuickTime movies to play full screen on launch in the Movie Properties/Presentation panel of QuickTime Pro, but I couldn’t find a way to tell it to always loop so I took the approach below. If there is a way to tell a QuickTime movie to loop on launch then I wasted a bunch of time ;-) On the other hand, for a video that QuickTime can play but isn’t wrapped in the QuickTime container (like a straight-up MPEG4) this is probably the only way to do it.

Regardless, this is what I did:

First, in Script Editor (/Applications/AppleScript/Script Editor), I created a new script and saved it as an ‘application bundle’ (making sure to uncheck ‘Startup Screen’). This created an application package — basically, a special folder — almost every OS X application is this format. By control-clicking this application in the Finder, I selected ‘Show Package Contents’ in the contextual menu. This opened a new Finder window with a folder called ‘Contents.’ Inside Contents was a folder called ‘Resources’ (and some other files). I copied my video file into the Resources folder.

Back to Script Editor, I typed a script very similar to this:

--set path to video file
set _f to ((path to me) as string) ¬
	& "Contents:Resources:foo.mov"

-- open and play it
tell application "QuickTime Player"
	launch
	activate
	stop every movie
	close every movie saving no
	try
		my play_movie(_f)
	on error
		(* in case the file has been 
		moved or deleted for some reason *)
		choose file with prompt ¬
			"File not found! Please locate it:"
		set _f to result
		my play_movie(_f)
	end try
end tell

on play_movie(_file)
	tell application "QuickTime Player"
		open _file
		tell movie 1
			(*
			you can put any properties you
			need in here
			*)
			set looping to true
			present scale screen
		end tell
	end tell
end play_movie
Note: this script doesn’t work when run from Script Editor. It needs to be saved and launched by double-clicking the application bundle.

In the end, I have a little app that contains my video, is easily copied from computer to computer and can be set as a login item so it launches automatically when the computer starts. For a bonus, it’s easy to replace the icon by replacing the file applet.icns in the Resources folder in the application bundle. I used CocoThumbX to create a new icns file.

Another tip: if you need to edit the script a bit, you should go into the bundle and open the main.scpt file in the [app bundle]:Contents:Resources:Scripts folder instead of editing the actual app bundle file. If your video file is large, it takes a long time to save the script when you’re editing the bundle as opposed to the script on it’s own. permanent link to this post

Nov 28, 2006

CC v Zune

posted at 14:52 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Wired.com’s Listening Post blog touches on the back-asswards Zune player and its non-compatibility with Creative Commons licenses. The crux of the issue is that the Zune will apply DRM to any song that is shared (or, um, ‘squirted’) between Zunes via the wifi feature regardless of what license is applied to the song. Creative Commons is adding language to their licenses that will explicitly make it a violation of the license to do this.

Read the story (with comments) here.

It will be interesting to see if any lawsuits result because of this. Have there been any CC-related lawsuits yet? permanent link to this post

Nov 04, 2006

Pickle passion

posted at 15:09 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

si.jpg
If you love, or even like, pickles. Then run, don’t walk, ah… somewhere to pick up some of Rick’s Picks. Be warned though, they ain’t cheap (11 bucks a jar on the web site).

The newly (re-)opened Cobblestone Foods in my neighborhood in Brooklyn started carrying them and I picked up a jar of the Spears of Influence last night. It was a really fucking good pickle. It was, perhaps, even better than Guss’ Pickles. But I think I should treat my wife and myself to a taste test to decide.

Mmmmmmmm, test taste… I mean mmmmmmm taste test… permanent link to this post

Oct 07, 2006

The MAMP is phat

posted at 20:30 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

If you need a quick and not-so-dirty way to set-up a MySQL, Apache and PHP system on your Mac, then MAMP (Macintosh, Apache, MySQL and PHP) can’t be beat for speed of set-up and ease-of-use.

There’s universal, powerpc and intel disk images available. The current (1.3.1) version installs MySQL 5.0.19 (with phpMyAdmin 2.7.0-pl2), PHP 4.4.2 and 5.1.4 (you can choose which to use in a simple preference panel) and Apache 2.0.55. It installs itself on non-standard ports so you can use OSX’s default web config alongside it if you like or, you can set Apache and MySQL to use their default ports (80 & 3306 respectively) and leave the OS X version of Apache off.

The developers recommend their product for local development only. You don’t want to use it as a production web server (especially with the out-of-the-box settings).

It looks like this nice piece of software has been around for about 2 years (Oct 2004 was their initial release). Not sure why I hadn’t caught wind of it until now. Rock on MAMP! permanent link to this post

Jun 18, 2006

Back to Ubuntu

posted at 13:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Long, long ago (unsure when; the dates got messed up on this blog) I tried to get into Linux with the Ubuntu flavor. It seemed to work OK for a while, but it eventually failed to boot and I got sick of re-installing it, so I finally gave up on it.

Yesterday, I installed Parallels on my Macbook Pro. Parallels allows you to run different OSs simultaneously. I didn’t have a copy of Windows, so I downloaded Ubuntu and installed it as a ‘guest os.’

Ubuntu has come a long way (I installed 6.06). The installer is easy and user-friendly. It’s basically a liveCD that, once booted, has a one-click installer on the desktop.

According to Parallels, Ubuntu isn’t officially supported, but it works wonderfully. There are some complaints on the forum that folks can’t get it to use the airport card, but it automatically bridged my airport connection and I was on-line with no configuration. There’s also issues with running it at a higher resolution than 1024x768. That’s the default resolution I’m getting, but I haven’t looked into that issue yet.

What am I going to do with it? I’m not sure. I’m also not sure I want to shell out the 50USD for Parallels. Installing Windows on Parallels would be more practical for me (obviously) and may make it worth the 50 bones. Plus, how cool would it be to be a triple-threat: OS X, Linux and Windows all on the same hardware, at the same time! I think I’ll attempt a Vista install, stay tuned. permanent link to this post

May 17, 2006

Free screen capture utility

posted at 00:20 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

A good and FREE (while it lasts) alternative to Snapz Pro:

iShowU by shinywhitebox

check it out… (1.2MB DMG; software is Mac OS X 10.4 only) permanent link to this post

May 05, 2006

Is LOST a repeat?

posted at 02:24 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

http://www.islostarepeat.com

One of the reasons the web was invented… permanent link to this post

Apr 22, 2006

Godamnit Apple! stop being a dick

posted at 14:24 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

This from a company that’s says “Think Different”:
A California court in San Jose on Thursday is scheduled to hear a case brought by Apple Computer that eventually could answer an unsettled legal question: Should online journalists receive the same rights as traditional reporters?

Apple claims they should not. Its lawyers say in court documents that Web scribes are not “legitimate members of the press” when they reveal details about forthcoming products that the company would prefer to keep confidential.

via c|net…

So let me get this straight. For their own purely selfish motives, they are willing to get a court to decide that press freedoms don’t apply to the internet.

That’s fucked. And they’re fuckers for doing it.

If there was a reasonable alternative to my beloved iPod and OS X… (grumbling in an impotent sort of way) permanent link to this post

Apr 05, 2006

Boot Camp — holy shit!

posted at 13:23 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

On Apple’s site: Boot Camp Public Beta, boot Windows XP on your Intel-based Mac! Holy Shit again!

More and more people are buying and loving Macs. To make this choice simply irresistible, Apple will include technology in the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard, that lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system on your Mac. Called Boot Camp (for now), you can download a public beta today.
permanent link to this post

Feb 12, 2006

wURLdBook Research

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

wURLdBook’s mission is to help people stay connected to information on the Web. wURLdBook is a free web based information aggregator. wURLdBook offers you a new way to unobtrusively navigate, collect, categorize, annotate, clip, archive, find, publish RSS (including enclosures) and share information with others that is important to you on the web.
wURLdBook Research

This sounds pretty cool and very Mac-friendly too. permanent link to this post

Cleaning out my closet

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Actually, I was cleaning up my bookmarks and I found lots of very cool bits of info that most web/graphic/visual designers would find useful so I list them below, have fun.

logotypes - company logos in vector formats

NS4 compatible 3 column CSS layout

PNG behavior - get your alpha on in MSIE

Javascript & Iframes - a good breakdown

Zeldman’s good CSS links

Mezzoblue’s css crib sheet

Lipsum generator - all the gibberish that’s fit to print

CSS2 reference - I use this on a weekly basis

Perhaps I’ll keep adding to this list… let me know if you find it helpful. permanent link to this post

Webmonkey closes

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Is it the end of an era? Or just an error? Webmonkey closes.

I learned much from Webmonkey back in the day. But Webmonkey, along with their non-standards supporting interface, has simply been left behind. permanent link to this post

Speaking of enhancing the MTAA-RR

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

On my way to the deli I wondered if there is a plist parser written in PHP. Why would one want such a thing and what the hell is a plist you ask?

To answer the second question first, a plist (property list) is an XML format (created by Apple I believe) that is used “to store, organize and access standard data types” (definition from Apple’s site). Generally, it’s used in Mac OS X to store user preferences and other info that an application might need. If you use Mac OS X, look in ~/Library/Preferences to see examples.

But why would we want a PHP parser for this stuff? So you can parse plists anywhere that’s why. Why would you want to parse plists anywhere? I have one very specific application in mind. I want to parse my NetNewsWire sync data and display it somewhere on this blog.

When you sync NetNewsWire 2.0 via FTP it stores the state of your feed reading in plist format on your server. If I had a PHP parser I could share my real feeds in a sort-of blogroll deal. I’m suspicious that some people who have HUGE blogrolls don’t really read them all. If I used NetNewsWire’s sync data I could share my REAL daily feed reading habits.

I found one written in Python, but no PHP. permanent link to this post

RSS: Really Stupid Syndication?

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Or, does RSS = DoS?

Is RSS too stupid to behave properly on the Internet? CmdrTaco over on Slashdot seems to think so:
We’ve seen similiar problems over the years. RSS (or as it should be called, “Speedfeed”) is such a useful thing, it’s unfortunate that it’s ultimately just very stupid.
I’m not sure what he means by stupid. Is the tech stupid? There is a tag for ‘last updated’ in RSS but not all readers and aggregators pay attention to it I guess.

More here, and here. permanent link to this post

Quicktime 7 released

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

The new Quicktime 7 is pretty cool. Only for Mac OS (both panther and tiger) for now. Haha PC users!

I’ve already upgraded to Pro. The scaling to fullscreen is definitely very eye-candiful. Worked great on my G4 1.25 with a 64MB ATI video card (running two monitors).

They’re boasting an awful lot about the this new H.264 (there’s a catchy name) format, but I can’t find any damn content on Apple’s site to watch. Anybody know where any is? Somebody point me to some of the HD quality stuff, please!

There are a bunch of new features in QTPro. You can capture audio and video right in QT (don’t have to fire up FCP or iMovie anymore, yeah!); more editing controls (easier to create in- and out-points); export concurrently; the interface is redone and cooler; and this new H.264 (damn marketing must have gotten to that name) codec of course (where is any? where? where? I’ll do some tests; maybe post them later).

Definitely a solid upgrade and it’s nice to get some Tiger tech without upgrading the OS.

Update: I should have added this, from Apple:
Installation of QuickTime 7 will disable the QuickTime Pro functionality in prior versions of QuickTime. If you proceed with this installation, you must purchase a new QuickTime 7 Pro key to regain QuickTime Pro functionality.
update the 2nd: Finally found some of the HD .movs using h.264, here ‘tis.

update the 3rd: The system recommendations for the HD content are fairly high. My system doesn’t meet the requirements for the true HD content (1920x1080 (1080p)). Running the 1080p stuff I could only get about 12-13 FPS. And my monitor isn’t big enough to fit it at it’s native resolution anyway :-( (maybe it’s time to upgrade…? yeah… upgrade…) permanent link to this post

PodART makes Digg’s front page (sorta)

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

OK, OK — I know it was a dupe; I know it was totally self-serving since it led to a blog post that also mentioned PodART and a link to MTAA, but on my second post ever submitted to Digg, I made the front page (sitting pretty at 524 diggs currently — oops, make that 526. They just roll in so fast!). permanent link to this post

powered by Blosxom

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

After reading all about the new Movable Type 3 licensing scheme, I can’t think of a recent situation that better illustrates the huge chasm between open-source software (OSS) and the proprietary kind.

Hundreds of people who have poured their imagination and time into creating websites based on MT will now have to deal with the developer’s new license plan which, IMO, restricts the creative use of the software. (See this post on the Eyebeam reBlog for more.) To be clear, I wish the developers of Movable Type the best of luck; this whole situation seems to simply be growing pains. But to put it simply, these licenses underline this simple fact: with proprietary software, it’s not OUR software, it’s THEIR software.

Luckily for Blosxom users, our blogging software is released under the MIT license which is almost absurdly non-restrictive. We’ll never need to post in outrage because our toy is about to be taken away, or rail at Rael. We’re all as much owners and developers of Blosxom as is our main developer and that is the beauty of OSS. permanent link to this post

OS X 10.4 Tiger upgrade

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

I upgraded to Tiger last night. The installation went extremely smoothly. I’m using a single 1.8GHz G5 with 2GB of RAM.

Digression 1: I still think it’s funny that the entire contents of my 1st Mac’s hard disk could fit into memory on my current Mac. Digression 2: Yes, I am a loser for being home on a Friday night upgrading my operating system.

INSTALLATION This is all I did: backed-up all my data to an external firewire drive, after I was sure it was safely backed-up, I stuck in the Tiger DVD, chose upgrade and an hour later I was done. Simple. Don’t believe the geek-hype: you don’t need to erase the disk and install clean. Of course, it’s good idea to keep things running smoothly. I just didn’t have time to deal with re-installing all my apps, preferences, etc, etc.

DASHBOARD Dashboard is phat. P.H.A.T. Look for an MTAA widget of some sort soon. Not sure what, but it’s gotta be art. Since I use a 3 button mouse, I set the 3rd button to launch the Dashboard.

SPOTLIGHT I’m kinda torn about Spotlight. I’ve used Quicksilver for a while and like it very much. Spotlight is similar. I guess they can live together happily, but I would like to use one or the other for simplicity. One thing that bums me big time about Spotlight is that it doesn’t seem to index iTunes playlists. It indexes song files, but not playlists. Which sucks. What doesn’t suck is that it indexes text inside email, PDFs and other documents — which I don’t think Quicksilver can do. Maybe I will need to use both…

SAFARI Safari RSS hasn’t done much for me, I use NetNewsWire and will continue :-) One nice thing is that you can set the default app for RSS feeds within Safari, so one click can subscribe you within NetNewsWire.

MAIL I wish you could configure which side the sidebar appears on. I hated the drawer (hopefully the whole drawer idea will die, it’s always been extremely dumb) as much as anybody, but I got used to it being on the right. Now the sidebar is on the left. Also, I don’t think it’s as clear as the old drawer design. It’s not as easy to see which mailboxes have new mail since they aren’t bold. Overall it’s a plus IMO, the design is cleaner and clearer.

FONTS My fonts have been funky for a while. Weird stuff where the wrong font gets activated and renders all crazy in Safari. This doesn’t seem to be a problem anymore.

MISC So far the only problem I’ve had is that I needed to configure Apache to use PHP (the Apache config file got overwritten by the default install). That took all of 1 minute. I did have to install the latest version of my mouse driver. Also, I’ve upgraded other apps like BBEdit and Transmit to the newest versions too. Most of my apps are working flawlessly.

Overall a great update! permanent link to this post

NYTimes does RSS

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

The New York Times finally has its own RSS Feeds, get ‘em while they’re hot.

Sure, for a long time you could get NYTimes RSS feeds via UserLand but now the Times has its very own feeds.

Maybe Rhizome can get some feeds now? I mean — damn — the old grey lady’s got feeds, you would think a progressive contemporary art site focused on new media could embrace some (not so) new tech. Wouldn’t you? permanent link to this post

NetNewsWire Pro demo expiration

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

NetNewsWire Lite (NNW) introduced me to the wonderful world of RSS (XML) feeds some time ago. RSS-enabled websites and an excellent aggregator like NNW make an info-junky’s wet dreams come true. RSS is crack to HTML’s cocaine.

After using NNW Lite for a long, long time I’m thinking of upgrading to the Pro version and using it’s Weblog Editor to post to this site. To make the editor useful for me I wrote a little applescript that uploads a post to my website when I save it (via NNW’s ‘post’ command) to a specific folder on my hard drive.

But when I downloaded the Pro version I couldn’t use it. The demo had expired. Darn. I must have demo’d the Pro version long ago and forgotten about it. What is an aspiring geek to do? Attempt a hack of course.

But listen up first! Ranchero, the makers of NetNewsWire Pro, seem to be extremely cool Mac OS X developers so don’t use this tip to rip them off! Use this tip only if you’re seriously considering an upgrade and find yourself with an expired demo. It would be extremely UNCOOL to steal from small Mac developers putting out great software like NNW.

And now to the little hack:

It’s ridiculously easy to get the demo working again. This tip is for Panther users and you need to have Xcode installed too. Go to your ~/Library/Preferences folder and find this file: com.ranchero.NetNewsWire.plist (ah yes, the .plist, where all good mac hacks start ;-)

Xcode comes with a little app called the Property List Editor. If you double-click NNW’s .plist file it will open in that app. Next, click the arrow next to “Root”, scoll down to the entry “FirstRun” and double-click on it’s value so it’s editable and change it to something that isn’t more than 30 days ago, like today. And that’s it, NNW Pro should work fine for the next 30 days.

Of course .plist files are simply XML files that can be edited in any text editor so you don’t NEED the Property List Editor, its just a tad easier. permanent link to this post

Microsoft to introduce PDF competitor

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Computerworld reports that Microsoft will be including a new document format called ‘Metro’ with Longhorn. Apparently, Metro is intended to be a competitor to Adobe’s PDF and Postscript formats. The format will be open and available for royalty-free licensing, and will be based on XML.

via: Microsoft to Introduce PDF competitor ‘Metro’ (The /. commentary is actually not that bad on this one. )
This sorta puts the whole Adobe aquiring Macromedia deal into a new light.

Original article permanent link to this post

iTunes playlists and Spotlight

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

I was a Quicksilver user before I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.4.

Spotlight steals the command-spacebar key combo that launches Quicksilver and the functionality is similar so I decided to see if Spotlight could be used as a replacement.

One thing I really liked about Quicksilver was that it could find an iTunes playlist and let you navigate to items inside it. I use this for one and one thing only — launching my WNYC MP3 streams.

For some reason, Spotlight wasn’t indexing the playlist that I keep the streams in. So I created a little Automator action to launch the stream for WNYC AM 820. It was super-easy (much easier than AppleScript) and only took two actions: “Find Songs in iTunes” and “Start iTunes Playing.” Saved as wnyc.app, I can now type command-spacebar, then type wnyc and launch my stream. Easy-peasy :-) permanent link to this post

Is a Mac OS X RSS aggregator *SMACKDOWN* brewing?

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

It certainly looks that way:

The reigning champ, NetNewsWire, is heading for a BIG upgrade.

But a feisty contender, PulpFiction, is on the horizon.

Looks like it could get interesting…. permanent link to this post

Super-drool

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Dual 2.5GHz G5 features liquid cooling

As briefly noted earlier today, Apple’s top-of-the-line dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 features a new liquid cooling system that is supposed to be more efficient than a traditional heat sink… [MacMinute.com] permanent link to this post

Handy reference

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek


This is an extremely handy reference for graphic/web designers:

300 images from 1800 sites, from the site:
I visited only Fortune 1000 company sites, major online retailers, well known blogs, top advertising, publishing, and design agencies, technology and software industy leaders, and the very largest online news publishers.
permanent link to this post

Illustrator CS2 woes

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

The new Adobe Illustrator CS2 has some great features, most notably to us here at MTAA, the new auto-trace capabilities. It’s a vast improvement over the old auto-tracing in Illustrator.

But I’ve been having a nasty font issue that won’t even allow me to launch it. Reading a thread on the support forum and a technical article, I narrowed it down to the font issue — and man — it’s an issue. My /Library/Font folder is so fucked up it’s choking the Mac Finder! No wonder AI couldn’t deal. I guess I’ll have to go in there via the Terminal and delete some stuff… don’t know what to delete though.

Wish me luck :-o

update
WooHoo! Fixed it. It was indeed bad fonts or font-like files. Transmit’s ability to browse local files graphically came in very handy in identifying the bad files that needed to be removed from the /Library/Fonts folder. Since the Finder would choke when I tried to open the folder, I used Transmit to browse the folder and see which files didn’t seem to be recognized by OS X as a good font. permanent link to this post

Ho. Lee. Shit.

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it’s scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel’s microprocessors, CNET News.com has learned. Apple has used IBM’s PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a phased transition to Intel’s chips, sources familiar with the situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said. The announcement is expected Monday at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, at which Chief Executive Steve

via: Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips | Tech News on ZDNet
update:
There’s some decent chatter on Slashdot and MacSlash (and elsewhere) that puts this whole thing into perspective. Basically, people are speculating that Intel could manufacture PowerPC chips since the original C|Net article didn’t say that Apple would be using x86 (Pentium) chips.

We shall see on Monday. permanent link to this post

I love the Paparazzi!

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

You Mac OS X web developer geeks out there will be excited by this little app called Paparazzi (I know I am). You just feed it a URL and the little app takes a screenshot of the web page in PNG format. The cool thing is it takes a screenshot of the entire page, not just the part that would show up in your browser. No more editing screenshots to get the whole damn page.

It looks to be a GUI wrapper for this command line tool: webkit2png. permanent link to this post

GIF: pronounced “gif” or “jif” ?

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

I pronounce GIF like it’s spelled, with a hard “G.”

This page makes a good argument that the creators of the format wanted folks to pronounce it “jif” (soft “G”).

It does seem like the creators wanted people to say “jif.” My question is: who cares? If the majority of english speakers see the acronym GIF and say “gif,” then that’s how it’s pronounced. It doesn’t matter what the geek who created the format thinks, he’s been outvoted! permanent link to this post

Googlex

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Googlex: mad props to OS X!

Google is really doing some amazing interface stuff these days. The cool thing is, much of what they do is very simple, but just works great… like googlex.

Google Suggest and Google Maps also rock.

update
Sadly, it seems Googlex is no more :(

update 2:
Happily, some nice geek mirrored it :) permanent link to this post

Firefox now builds with SVG

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Firefox nightly builds now have SVG support. (Look for builds with the string -svg- in them.) Currently Linux is not build with SVG; both the Mac and Win32 are.

If you are using an older version of Windows it might be that you get a warning message. Also note that native SVG support is disabled by default. To enable it you need to follow some steps.

Have fun! You can try your build with some nice SVG samples or you can run it through the W3C SVG test suite.

Although in the current nightlies SVG is disabled it might be that native SVG support in Firefox 1.1 will be enabled by default. Another update: it appears the patch attached to this bug has been checked in; Firefox now builds with SVG and has support for it enabled by default. This seems like a good thing with the only downside that authors might think to ‘know’ how SVG works, while it actually is a bug. (For example, try width:200 in Internet Explorer
from: Firefox nightlies now build with SVG - Anne’s Weblog about Markup & Style

ooooooooooOOOOOO

Hopefully this will light a fire under Microsoft’s ass. They’ve been adding improved standards and native alpha support for PNG to MSIE lately — seemingly because of Firefox’s competition. Will they follow this lead as well? Let’s hope. permanent link to this post

Free Apache software odyssey

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

This weekend I’ve been on a little geek odyssey.

It all started with a possible job redesigning a site that currently uses coldfusion. So, I thought to myself, I need to learn some coldfusion.

To install coldfusion on a Mac OS X, you need to have Tomcat installed. So I installed it.

Then, I saw a posting on Zeldman’s site about a CMS from Apache called Lenya. It can be installed under Tomcat too (tho I never got it to work that way). But I did get it to work as a standalone servlet. Of course Lenya led me to Cocoon which I had to install and give a whirl.

Finally, after all of that, I remembered that I was supposed to be installing coldfusion. I followed the directions on Macromedia’s site, but for some reason it’s not deploying on my Tomcat set-up at home. I did get it to work on my machine at work though. permanent link to this post

Dreamhost servers run Debian Linux

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

It took me a while to track this info down, so I thought I’d share it here with what I think are the keywords that someone might use in Google when trying to track down the same.

Dreamhost servers run the Debian Linux operating system. As of Sept 7, 2005 the are currently using the “Woody” version. All according to their wiki.

Keywords:
Dreamhost, Linux, operating system, version, distro, distribution permanent link to this post

Microsoft awarded patent on double-clicking

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

And I’m not making it up. It’s true!

Here’s a nice understatement from the article:
“These are symptoms of the fact that the patent system is not well-adapted to being applied to software,” says Jonas Maebe, of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure
permanent link to this post

Create 2 feeds for different media formats in Wordpress 1.5 (quick and dirty)

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

When linking to media files in WP 1.5.2 the default behavior is to create 2 enclosures for that particular item in the RSS 2.0 feed. My quick and dirty little hack allows me to generate 2 separate feeds for two different media formats. It’s not a plugin for Wordpress and isn’t easily extended without some knowledge of PHP.

What I did is fairly simple and specific to my needs. First, in wp-rss2.php I check for a query string with the media format I want in the feed:
if ( isset($_GET['format']) ) {
	$enc_format = 1;
} else {
	$enc_format = 0;
}

Note: This needs to go after the if (empty($feed)) { etc } bit.

Then later in the same file I decide whether I should pass the format to the rss_enclosure() function. If there is a format specified we pass it to the function, if there isn’t, we just pass false:
if ( $enc_format ) { 
	rss_enclosure($_GET['format']);
} else { 
	rss_enclosure(false);
}

The official WP version of rss_enclosure() doesn’t take an argument, I edited that a bit so that it would take an argument. It is in the file wp-includes/feed-functions.php:
function rss_enclosure($input)
{
global $id, $post;
if (!empty($post->post_password) &&¬
($_COOKIE['wp-postpass_'.COOKIEHASH] ¬
!= $post->post_password)) return;

if( is_array( $custom_fields ) ) 
{
while( list( $key, $val ) = each( $custom_fields ) ) { 
if( $key == 'enclosure' ) {
if (is_array($val)) {
foreach($val as $enc) {
$enclosure = split( "\n", $enc );
if ( $input ) 
{
if ( $input == "wmv" && trim( $enclosure[ 2 ] ) ¬
== "video/x-ms-wmv" ) {
print "<enclosure url='".trim¬
( htmlspecialchars($enclosure[ 0 ])¬
 )."' length='".trim( $enclosure[ 1 ] )."' ¬
type='".trim( $enclosure[ 2 ] )."'/>\n";
}
if ( $input == "m4v" && trim( $enclosure[ 2 ] ) ¬
== "video/quicktime" ) {
print "<enclosure url='".trim¬
( htmlspecialchars($enclosure[ 0 ])¬
)."' length='".trim( $enclosure[ 1 ] )."' ¬
type='".trim( $enclosure[ 2 ] )."'/>\n";
}
}
else
{
print "<enclosure url='".trim¬
( htmlspecialchars($enclosure[ 0 ])¬
)."' length='".trim( $enclosure[ 1 ] )."' ¬
type='".trim( $enclosure[ 2 ] )."'/>\n";
}}}}}}}

You can see that I only check for WMV or M4V, eg, if ( $input == "m4v" etc. Those are the two formats I will be using in my project. It works like this: if I’m asking for a WMV file and the enclosure is of that type, it writes the enclosure line. The same for M4V. If there is no format specified both enclosure tags are written. If the format isn’t recognized, no enclosure tag is written.

Now I can construct a URL like this and get a feed for the specified file format:

http://www.domain.com/wp_dir/index.php?feed=rss2&format=m4v

That’s all fine and good but I wanted nicer URLs. A little bit of work in my .htaccess file:

RewriteRule ^wp/feed/?(.*$) /wp/index.php?feed=rss2&format=$1 [QSA,L]

And now a URL like this works:

http://www.domain.com/wp_dir/feed/m4v

+++

This was a quick and dirty hack for my specific purposes. There’s definitely smarter and more extensible ways to do this. I wish I had time to make a plugin or something to help out more people, but this is what I have presently.

Sorry for the funky formatting of some of the code above. You’ll probably need to cut and paste into your text editor to make any sense out of it. permanent link to this post

CSS podGuide

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

I would be completely remiss in my Mac/web-dev geekitude if I didn’t post a link to Westciv’s CSS podGuide, from their site:
The Style Master CSS podGuide is an iPod ready edition of our renowned Complete CSS Guide. Featuring a handy overview of CSS concepts, and in-depth information for every selector, property and @rule of CSS 2.1, the CSS podGuide is a must have for any web developer with an iPod
I downloaded it to my iPod and I must say it’s pretty cool. It takes a minute to load up the first time but after that you’ll have a handy CSS reference handy at all times. Cool. permanent link to this post

Apocalypse (maybe) now

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Apple Developing Two Button Mouse

&

Microsoft support of PNG alpha-transparency

My world is being turned upside-down! permanent link to this post

Ajax, Shmajax. Read about the future of HTML

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

HTML isn’t a very good language for making Web pages. However, it has been a very good language for making the Web.


via IBM The future of HTML, Part 1: WHATWG permanent link to this post

Adobe to acquire Macromedia

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Holy shit!
Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion.
via: About Adobe - Adobe to acquire Macromedia

My thoughts and hopes for what’s going to happen because of this:

1. GoLive will GoAway. (will anyone care?)

2. Hopefully they’ll take Illustrator’s tools and interface and slap Flash’s timeline and actionscript onto it. At the very least, we’ll get beefed-up interoperability between Illustrator and Flash and PDF (which would be extremely helpful).

3. Since Adobe was pushing SVG as an alternative to Flash, I wonder if they’ll keep promoting it? Not that they were doing a particularly good job.

4. Fireworks will go away. (will anyone care?) This application has always suffered because of Photoshop’s dominance.

5. Wonder if they’ll build any bridges between After Effects and Director? Imagine including an After Effects project as a ‘live object’ within Director, that could be cool.

6. Nothing will happen to InDesign.

7. Hopefully they’ll build better font support into Flash. Flash’s font handling sucks hard.

8. Import Flash animations into After Effects? Holy shit! That would be great. permanent link to this post

new iPod info leaked

posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

Newsweek inadvertently leaked an article about the new 4G iPod to be officially announced this week. The article has been taken down (you can check if it’s back at this link) but you can read the text below.

July 26 issue - Veteran Podsters understand that at least once a year Apple performs a feat that at once infuses them with dread and delight: an iPod upgrade. The delight comes from a new look and new capabilities. The dread comes from the realization that you’re a step behind the cutting edge and must consider whether to buy your way back on it.

And here it goes again. The considerably tweaked fourth-generation iPod will roll out this week, and NEWSWEEK got an advance peek. It looks a bit different, operates more efficiently, has a few more features and costs less. Here are the highlights.

The click wheel. The iPod keeps getting slimmer and more streamlined. While the initial version had a relatively boxy feel, subsequent versions have been curvier and smaller. This one is about a millimeter thinner and, more significantly, eliminates the control buttons that sat under the display screen. Instead, it uses a “click wheel,” where the controls are placed on the compass points of the circular touchpad that lets you scroll through menus. This is an innovation carried over from the diminutive iPod Mini. “It was developed out of necessity for the Mini, because there wasn’t enough room [for the buttons],” says Steve Jobs. “But the minute we experienced it we just thought, ‘My God, why didn’t we think of this sooner?’ ”

New features. You can create multiple on-the-go playlists and delete songs from those ad hoc mixes. And audiobooks are not only easier to find, you can listen to them at normal speed, slower or 25 percent faster, without its sounding like a Munchkin.

Longer play. Coast-to-coasters rejoice: the new iPods are rated for 12 hours of rockin’ between chargesÑa 50 percent boost in battery life. This is accomplished, Apple says, not by a heavier battery but diligent conservation of power.

Lower price. The top-of-the-line iPod, holding 10,000 songs (40 gigs, as geeks will tell you), now costs $399. The lower-capacity model, with room for 5,000 songs (20 gigs), costs $299. That’s a $100 price reduction for each. (There’s no more 15-gig model.)

Color. Fuggedaboutit. Despite rumors to the contrary, the wide-bodies are still as pure as the driven snow.

Bottom line: If you have yet to jump on the iPod bandwagon, it’s cheaper and more attractive to do so. If you’re already plugged in, the question is whether you should engage in the “iPod Bump,” where you snap up the spiffy new version and pass Old Reliable to a grateful friend or family member (or the highest eBay bidder). If your music collection has exceeded your iPod’s storage space, or your listening binges exceed your current iPod’s battery lifeÑor if you want to hear Bill Clinton’s abridged book in 4-1/2 hours rather than sixÑconsider the Bump this time around. Of course, if your heart went aflutter at the very sight of this year’s model, you’re probably in line at the Apple Store already. permanent link to this post

Oct 29, 2003

Panther Rocks!

posted at 13:14 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

I’ve updated my work machine (1.25GHz G4 sp) to Panther and it was almost pain-free.

Problems:
Needed to re-install Palm software and Logitech mouse software (no big deal). Still having problems browsing the Windows network (but can connect if I know the IP number via Samba) and a problem I’m having where a Lacie external firewire drive refuses to mount persists (must be a hardware issue).

Good things:
Much more polished and fast UI! Everything is much zippier! The updated BBEdit (7.0.4) works like a charm, Photoshop flies, Safari marches on, Eudora? No problems. NetNewsWire works too.

Overall, very, very pleased and the update and it was (almost) totally painless to upgrade (I did an archive and install while saving user settings after I backed up my important files to a network server).

I reccomend to all Mac users. permanent link to this post

Sep 29, 2003

Are version numbers dying or dead?

posted at 15:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

It’s an industry trend, version numbers for the consumer products are disappearing. We have Macromedia’s MX group (including Flash, Dreamweaver and etc), Cleaner XL (the version after 5), and now, Adobe announces Creative Suite which includes Photoshop CS (no version number) and the other usual suspects.

I’m sure the developers aren’t canning versions in their production processes. That would be nuts. I wonder why the marketers have decided to cut them from the names for the boxed versions? Were the numbers simply getting to high? I mean, Photoshop 8 or Illustrator 11 ain’t so bad. Is it?

Also, does this signal that Macromedia has finally surpassed Adobe as the premier graphic and design arts software company now that Adobe is being forced to follow the lead of Macromedia in tieing their flagship products together in a more recognizable bundle? (Allowing of course that Macromedia followed MS and it’s Office line.)

I’m just wondering. permanent link to this post

May 02, 2003

window.opener

posted at 18:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek

That’s what I learned today.

If you want to reference the main browser window from a pop-up window via javascript you use window.opener. I know, I know, all you code monkeys out there are like, "of course you doofus!" but I’m no javascript master so bite me.

I needed to do it at work and couldn’t remember how to do it. Interestingly enough, if you use target="main" in an anchor tag (after naming the main window via javascript window.name="main") then MSIE Windows and Mac will load the HREF in that main window. But Gecko browsers don’t seem to get it (at least not Mozilla 1.0/Windows). What works is onclick="window.opener.¬
location.href='yerhref';"
. That seems to work in everything I tested: Safari, Mac IE 5.2, WinIE 6, Moz 1.0. I don’t test in NS 4 as much as I should. I think in this case I will however.

Now you too can reference the main browser window from a pop-up window via javascript. If you feel like leaving comments on why you might want to do this, feel free. permanent link to this post

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