More minor site work
I don't know what it is, but sometimes I get this minimalist bug. So yesterday I decided to kill the parchment background (thanks again, Lee!) and just go with white. Helps save on the bandwidth for dial-up users as well. Also, I added in a dotted separation line for the banner title and description at the top. I really like the way the site looks in IE 5/Mac. I just wish it looked as good in Camino and Safari. I'm soliciting feedback on this new addition, so leave a comment!
Embedded PowerBook
Thanks to Mark for the pointer to this photo gallery of USA Today photography Jack Gruber, who is using his PowerBook G4 12" to send pictures to the main office. I still want one!
Saddam has left the capital...
Now that U.S. forces own the Iraqi capital, the Hindustan Times believes the dictator has already fled Baghdad.
Smoking gun, any one?
Reuters notes that NPR is reporting U.S. Marines have discovered 20 BM-21 missiles loaded with sarin and mustard gas. The Marines were working, alongside members of the 101st Airborne, a mop-up operation behind Army units that had taken the Baghdad International Airport. Let's see: Operation Iraqi Freedom began a little over two weeks ago. Coalition forces have discovered numerous weapons caches wherein NBC suits and antitoxin vaccines were stored, over the weekend coalition forces discovered canisters which may contain chemical WMDs (still being tested), and now the Marines have come across the BM-21s. United Nations weapons inspectors, on the other hand, were in Iraq for eight years, and discovered nothing? "This regime change brought to you by the new United Nations: Ineffective. Inadequate. Irrelevant." (Thanks, Ricky!) UPDATE: WorldNetDaily is reporting that the presence of sarin has been detected and soldiers and civilians are being decontaminated. (11:53 A.M.)
iBox
Wired reports on John Fraser's attempt to build a new pizza-box, or "headless" Mac, using replacement parts for older systems. Good luck getting past Apple Legal, John.
Soapbox
If I wasn't so happy with Movable Type, I would definitely be looking at Hiveware's Soapbox. You can learn more here.
Mobile mobile numbers
All I can say is, it's about freaking time. I wonder if I could push this issue in June, should I change mobile providers after plan/phone shopping. (Thanks, Jon!)
ATPM 9.04
The April issue of About This Particular Macintosh has been released. Check out Eric's review of NetNewsWire, Lee & Darryl's review of Studio MX, and Bob's continuing saga on using your Mac to record your vinyl albums to CD.
A-ha!
Now I know why I like "I Drove All Night" by Celine Dion so much--it's a Roy Orbison song. It was driving me batty; I knew this wasn't an original song by Celine, that I had heard it before. I remembered liking it from those past listening sessions. I knew it was a male voice kicking around in my head. Then it just suddenly clicked. I'm digging out my Orbison cassettes and CDs when I get home...
Very minor site work
So this morning I took care of two minor items I'd been meaning to get to.
First, I used Hiveware's awesome Enkoder to encode my email address (bottom of right left-hand column on main page). Last month, I began receiving my first spam to this address, after having this site on line since October. While I will remain on some spam lists for the forseeable future, let's see the gutless scum try and spider me now! (Enkoder is also available as a standalone OS X application.)
Second, I removed the Lucida Grande font from the stylesheet. Yes, it was a nod to OS X users, but Verdana is much more readable, and thus remains the primary font called.
Shameful confession
Damn you, Daimler-Chrysler. Thanks to your commercials, I cannot get Celine Dion's "I Drove All Night" out of my head. Now the MP3 is in rotation in iTunes. She has a set of pipes on her, I'll say that much. (from her latest album)
New BBEdit pricing option
Bare Bones continues to push the envelope of customer service with this new pricing option for their flagship product, BBEdit. (via Gruber)
Dallas Auto Show 2003
This past Sunday I met up with my friend Michael at the Dallas Convention Center for the annual Dallas Auto Show. Not really in the market for a vehicle (at least this year), I concentrated mainly on the new stuff and concept vehicles when snapping photos. I've posted everything in this online photo album. Enjoy!
SmartyPants 1.2.2
I know I'm half a month late in noting this, but Gruber confesses to why such a quick update to the 1.2.1 release of SmartyPants was necessary:
See, back in 1998 I became the owner of a South American woolly monkey, whom I named Paco, with the intention of training him to assist in my freelance graphic design work. Everyone told me this was a terrible idea, that it would not work, that at the very least I would need a chimpanzee or orangutan, that a mere monkey would never be able to do graphic design. I was unswayed. Do you know how much food chimpanzees and orangutans eat? And for chrissakes, an orangutan can beat you up--I've seen those Clint Eastwood movies, those [BLEEP]ers can pack a punch. I do not need to be coldcocked by my lower-primate assistant. What I wanted was a monkey, a loyal friend who, when otherwise unoccupied, could sit on my shoulder and pick crumbs out of my hair.
Gruber interviews Simmons
John Gruber recently interviewed Brent Simmons, creator of NetNewsWire. "Interview" might be stretching it a tad; it comes off more like the two of them are yakking over a cup of coffee. Great stuff here.
I worked on the Windows version also. I wrote a fair amount of Windows-specific code, even. And I learned that I don't really like developing for Windows very much. I suspect that many Mac users are like me, that they're driven in part by aesthetics. And they want to use software written by people who are driven by aesthetics. Windows is not aesthetic.
Switch of a different sort
So today I completed a switch of my calendar and contact information from Palm Desktop to OS X's Address Book and iCal. After getting everything kosher in iSync, my Palm m505 is now syncing happily with Address Book and iCal. The only thing I'm still using Palm Desktop for is the Memo Pad feature for my various lists and notes. If anyone knows of a sync-able alternative, I'm all ears. Why the switch? Well, I just acquired a Newton 2100 (thanks again, Damien!), and there are methods for getting it to sync with that info. I also plan to get a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone in June, when our current contract is up, and would like to be able to sync all of my info with that as well.