tech
TMTOTH
Today's "Too Much Time On Their Hands" episode is brought to by TUAW: Stick the guts of a modern optical mouse in to a classic Apple ADB mouse.
Today's miscellany
And thus Apple's plans at world domination were dashed.
Regarding HTML in e-mail: what Tom said. I'm not even an admin like Tom that has to deal with this crap on a day-to-day basis. E-mail is for text. The Web is for graphics. No co-mingling of the two. I realize I'm in a rapidly dwindling minority on this issue, Jeff, but that's my area of Ludditism, I guess.
The Tetran doesn't look too terribly comfortable to be sliding in to one's front pants pocket. [Via Lee.]
I've noticed the severe lack of updates to Apple's iCal Library section, too. Now I just get whatever I want from iCalShare.
Google continues to intrigue me. Really.
I pronounce it like the peanut butter, with a hard J. [Via John.]
Today's miscellany
Yeah, it's been up a few days, but I'm just getting to it, okay? John Gruber has come around, much as I have recently, to the notion of PowerBook-as-main/only-system, a concept Lee has been a proponent of for some time. John also has an in-depth review of the latest 15-inch PowerBook, outfitted just as I would like, with his usual attention to detail. It's Monday evening, and I'm still sore from the neighborhood tree planting from Saturday morning. Eleven ten-gallon trees to go in the neighborhood's greenbelt area. Seventy homes, with an average of two adults per home. Seven people showed up, including myself. Yeah. An interesting tip I picked up from No Plot? No Problem! shows an innovative use for all that spam that gets collected for me. This one writer keeps a list of names that show up in the From field of spam e-mails, so she always has a pool of character names to pull from. I really like this, since usually when I'm working on fiction, I can come up with two or three good character names, then I start really pulling stuff out of bodily orifices. A simple text document in BBEdit now has 305 names, one per line, and the built-in Kill Duplicates filter ensures I don't have the same name twice.
Our school district is leveraging current tech
It's nice to know the school district my son will enter in about three years is fairly hip to current technology. The district's superintendent, Dr. Jerry Roy, has a blog, and in another attempt to get information out to parents, the district has a podcast. In The Messenger, a small local rag, Roy says:
I've had a few folks talk to me and tell me they are happy that we are utilizing the technology. I wouldn't say we are cutting-edge, but we are trying to find the best ways to communicate with the public. We are used to hard copy, but that is expensive. We are always looking for inexpensive ways to communicate our message, especially in these times when we are hard-pressed for funding. This gives us access to a lot of folks. Dr. Roy and his staff need to be commended for their fiscal responsibility in leveraging these Internet technologies. Dr. Roy is using the free Blogspot service from Blogger for his weblog, and it is incredibly cheap to produce a podcast, which is one reason why the medium's popularity is exploding. Property taxes in Texas are much higher than they are in Louisiana, where we moved from seven years ago. One reason for that is, with no state income tax, school districts need to get their funding from somewhere. I'm not sure what the actual percentage is, but a very high percentage of the segment of property taxes earmarked for education goes in to your local school district, rather than disappearing in to some budgetary black hole at the state level. I see these efforts on the part of LISD to be a responsible use of my tax dollars when it comes to communicating with parents. While my child is still years away from entering the school system, Dr. Roy and LISD have made it easier for parents like us to keep track of what is going on, and for that, I thank them.
Today's miscellany
I've been trying to send some e-mails with attachments via Gmail, from within Safari. Frustrated, I launched the 1.0b1 version of Camino, and it worked the first time I tried. If Camino could mimic the easy subscribability of Safari when it comes to RSS and Atom feeds, there would be no looking back. Based on my own usage, Camino is consistently faster than Safari at rendering, uses less RAM over time, and remains more stable. Then Tom has to go and remind me why Safari kicks butt when it comes to designing for standards. An article in the latest Macworld has prompted me to look seriously at del.icio.us. My personal work habits have evolved to the point where I'm no longer worried about keeping bookmarks synced between two systems, but the prospect of an online backup of my bookmarks, that I could access from any where, is appealing. I'm coming closer all the time to my own personal death knell for .Mac. Anthro's eNook is so cool it almost makes me wish I didn't have enough space to get one. Almost. A happy belated to Tiffany. Finally, my thanks to Tom. He knows why.
Speed Test!
Erik links to the Speakeasy Speed Test, so I figured I would give the Verizon fiber connection a go.
Using the Dallas server:
Download Speed: 7400 kbps (925 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1634 kbps (204.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
Los Angeles:
Download Speed: 6301 kbps (787.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1599 kbps (199.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
New York City:
Download Speed: 7928 kbps (991 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1637 kbps (204.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Seattle:
Download Speed: 4436 kbps (554.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1540 kbps (192.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
(What is it about sucky connections from the Dallas area to the Seattle metroplex?)
Chicago:
Download Speed: 8227 kbps (1028.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1633 kbps (204.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
(Faster to Chicago than across town!)
Washington, D.C.
Download Speed: 8870 kbps (1108.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1650 kbps (206.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
San Francisco
Download Speed: 5354 kbps (669.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1577 kbps (197.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
(Silicon Valley sucking off the bandwidth?)
Atlanta
Download Speed: 7676 kbps (959.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1619 kbps (202.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Windows: neurotic
Jack Good, mathematician:
"My Windows 98 computer tells lies and often forces me to shut down improperly. Such behaviour in a human would be called neurotic."
"I have overactive sweat glands."
AOL is still a crappy way to Internet, in my not-so-humble opinion, but their latest commercial ("Too much information") had me in stitches.
New meaning to the term "flipping off"?
Need to send an e-mail to a loved one's or friend's mobile phone, but can't remember the confusing phonenumber@anameotherthanthecompany.something e-mail address wireless services set up? Use Teleflip, a free service. You can use it from any e-mail client or web-based e-mail. Just send a message to phonenumber@teleflip.com, and that's it. Be sure to use all ten of the phone's numbers. (Note that any fees your wireless provider charges for receiving e-mail/text messages to your phone will still apply.)
Markdown for Backpack & Writeboard
Backpack and Writeboard, two excellent services by 37signals, both use Textile for text formatting. I have nothing against Textile; I used to use the plug-in for Movable Type on my blogs. When John Gruber released Markdown in to the wild, I was intrigued, and soon after, made the switch from Textile to Markdown, and I've used it for online formatting ever since. Like Merlin, I've found myself using Markdown syntax in other areas, but unlike Merlin, only while typing. Now I want to have my cake and eat it, too: Markdown for Backpack & Writeboard. After using the latter for a couple of days, I e-mailed 37signals with my request. I figured it would be something not-too-hard (I hesitate to use the phrase "fairly easy," because I am, for the most part, totally clueless about backend web server type stuff) for them to implement Markdown formatting for Writeboard. My suggestion was to make it a preference a user could select, leaving Textile as the default. The reply I received from 37signals honcho Jason Fried was encouraging. While he made no promise as to future implementation (not surprising, standard fare), it does sound like something they'll toss around the conference table. A whiff of hope is better than none at all.
More on the NetNewsWire acquisition
Tom's not happy with Brent and Sheila's sale of NetNewsWire to NewsGator. I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that he's literally on drugs. If you've spent any time on the Ranchero beta lists, exchanged e-mail with Brent, or read his blog posts on development, you know Mr. Simmons does not go off half-cocked with major business and development decisions. Despite Tom's dislike of NewsGator, I'm sure Brent and Sheila were quite careful with whom they chose to sell NetNewsWire. After all, this company is Brent's new employer. He would have to be convinced the company would foster the sort of development environment in which he would have the freedom to make NetNewsWire all it could be. As he notes, there are things he's wanted to do with NNW that he has been able to not get to, having to deal with the business and support aspects of being an independent software developer. By going in-house with NewsGator, Brent is now free from those other constraints, absent anything he may wish to do on the side with Ranchero's other products that NewsGator did not purchase. With regard to NetNewsWire, all Brent has to worry about right now is programming. One would reasonably believe this is a Very Good Thing™. I have no opinion about NewsGator, as a company or with regard to any of its products. They have never been on my radar before. Perhaps Tom knows something I do not, but again, I believe Brent would have done his research regarding the company before making such a commitment. With regard to selling out to Apple, I don't see that ever happening. Apple's nod to RSS is the feature built in to Safari. I don't see a standalone news reader in Apple's future, nor do I see Apple devoting the depth of features you can find in NetNewsWire in to the RSS cabinet of Safari. In the end, it appears this is a good thing for the Simmons, and a good thing for Mac users. NetNewsWire simply rules the news reader market, on any platform. No doubt this is the number-one reason NewsGator was interested in it, and I don't see any other product, much less an open-source initiative, knocking it from that perch any time soon.
Brent and Sheila sell out
Gruber points out that Ranchero Software has sold NetNewsWire to NewsGator. Big, big news in the Macintosh community it is. It appears this is a good move for Brent and Sheila Simmons, and will not affect NetNewsWire aficionados, yours truly included. I am a little concerned about MarsEdit, which Brent says, in the above-linked interview, they are searching for a new home for. I'm sure Brent will take some heat from certain zealots in the Mac blogosphere and beyond, but he will get none from me. He and Sheila have to do what's best for them, and by throwing in with NewsGator, it would appear the sky is suddenly the limit. Our best wishes to the Simmons, and we eagerly await the next version of NetNewsWire! Update, 9:35 PM CST: Gruber notes the post in Brent's blog regarding the acquisition.
I'm thinking <i>Cluetrain</i> should be required reading for the Authors Guild
Note to self: do not join the clueless Authors Guild. I echo Gruber's sentiments regarding the decision of the Authors Guild to sue Google over Google Print. For one, an author can choose to exclude his work in a fairly simple process. Second, as an aspiring author, were I to publish a book, I would love to see it read by as many people as possible. If Google Print helped me accomplish that, so much the better.
Yes, please stop
Many of my friends, acquaintances, and former co-workers may be shocked by this, but I agree with Lee: let's stop talking about Windows.* If for no other reason than that it's the same old thing every time Microsoft releases a new version. It's one thing if persons who have a thing or two invested in the whole usability thing rattle off the pros and cons of the latest Windows interface, but it's a waste of time and energy to wade through the myriad blatherings by countless Macintosh enthusiasts who feel it is their duty to yet again remind everyone that Windows isn't as good as the Mac OS. My wife's PC has Windows XP installed on it. (With Service Pack 2 and the numerous other patches installed, of course.) It sucks, okay? I don't like having to dither around on it. But XP is better than Windows 2000, which has to have been the best version of Windows up to that point. No doubt after a bumpy start, Vista will be way better than XP, despite whatever usability fallacies it may suffer. Microsoft has stolen from Apple. Apple has stolen from Microsoft. (Cool switching, anyone?) The Mac OS is still ahead of Windows in terms of design and usability. We get it. Can we stop talking endlessly about it now? At least wait until the final product is released... * (Please note, they'll be shocked by the Windows part, not the agreeing with Lee part. Well, maybe some of them will be shocked by the Lee part, but likely most of them will just wonder "Who is Lee?")
How do you reply in e-mail?
Erik and I are of like mind when it comes to e-mail replies. Unless my reply is one sentence or less, I never top-post. After all, it is common sense to reply within the relevant portions of an e-mail, especially if the e-mail is long and/or covering multiple topics. So if it's common sense, it only stands to reason that millions of Internet users have been trained by Microsoft and other software vendors in to top-posting. Grrrrr....
The thrill is gone
So it looks like a week is all it took. Looking at my Contacts list in Adium, only three people are still bothering with Google Talk. Everyone's back to AIM or .Mac on iChat.
Gtalk
Jon reports that Google Talk has gone live. The IM product builds on Gmail accounts and the open-source Jabber IM service. I'm already up and running on it with AdiumX, so I guess iChat will be taking a hike, and my fun balloons won't be used in the future. (Can anyone point me to a reasonable substitute for Adium?) If you want to jaw via Jabber courtesy of Google, use my site name at gmail dot com, but you have to have a Gmail account to play along. Let me know if you'd like an invitation via the e-mail address noted in the previous sentence.