Skip to main content

Posts

2010

Let's try not to be too glib

·227 words·2 mins
From How Wired.com Tracked the iPhone Finder: In response to Wired.com’s scoop identifying the finder of the lost iPhone prototype, many have asked me how we did it. The process of uncovering digital footprints to identify Brian Hogan was indeed challenging and enlightening, so I thought I’d tell the story here. Heck, it might even teach police officers a thing or two so they don’t have to kick down doors. Wired certainly deserves some credit for breaking the story. Initiative in this day and age of blogs usually get you the good kind of attention. However, it doesn’t give you free license to be a jackass and make smarmy comments that make no sense.

Saying it without really saying it

·45 words·1 min
If you were confused about whether Apple was still committed to the Mac, their lack of Apple Design Awards for anything Mac pretty much says it all. The Apple Design Awards 2010 recognize iPhone OS applications that demonstrate technical excellence, innovation, technology adoption, and quality.

Use a garden hose instead of a fire hose

·724 words·4 mins
I’ve been spending some time revisiting GTD and Inbox Zero. Several of the themes are important and in particular, the idea that your time is finite is probably most important. As I get older, my time becomes even more limited. I’m not sure how to explain this, but there it is. As this is the case, the content you consume needs to match your limits. Trying to consume more than you have time for simply frustrates you and leaves you less time to consume the content you actually enjoy.

Fighting Stupidity with Stupidity

·349 words·2 mins
Cory Doctorow wrote a piece on why he won’t be buying an iPad (which extends to why you shouldn’t either. I don’t agree with his article, but the vehement arguments against some of his have been equally asinine. Joel Johnson wrote an otherwise brilliant piece that says: So what if you can’t make iPad programs on an iPad. I don’t complain I can’t make new dishwashers with my dishwasher. Doctorow doesn’t outright call this out as an issue, but it fits with the theme of what he wrote. The problem is this is analogy is flawed. Let’s see if you can tell the problem with it if I put it in mathematical format.

My horribly incomplete backup plan

·948 words·5 mins
It’s been a long time since I took a hard look at my backup situation, but a series of blog posts in my reader has caused some naval gazing. A long time ago in a computer far far away # My backup plan was once dead simple. I used CCC or Super Duper to create a clone of my boot drive whenever I thought of it. Sometimes I was good and did it weekly, sometimes I went months without.

Behold the wonder of IMAP caching

·475 words·3 mins
I’m a fan of Low End Mac‘s Mac catalog. It’s a quick and easy way to go look up vital stats about old computers, such as when they were released, the original specifications, and the original price. I’ve settled many quibble’s using its information. However, their other columns present sometimes out of date, and sometimes even wrong information. For example, Charles Moore often writes about the failure of IMAP. This goes back years, but let’s check out the latest installment.

Google Gears maintenance isn't a priority for Google

·241 words·2 mins
The recent Firefox 3.6 update made me re-examine my add-ons as always. What struck me as odd was that Google Gears wasn’t compatible. Clearly that was a mistake. Google couldn’t possibly ignore the chosen browser of most of the tech elite. It’s not totally ignored no. Indeed there’s a ticket for the problem. It has a Medium priority. Medium? Not working with Firefox isn’t that important? That got me thinking. The last time I checked, the latest Safari in Snow Leopard wasn’t supported. Still true. Also has a Medium priority.

2009

Perspective

·736 words·4 mins
The three or four of you that have forgotten that you have me saved to your RSS reader of choice will likely suddenly realize that I’ve not written in a long time. I didn’t fall off the face of the earth or even end up in a ditch. The fact is I saturated myself in what I loved. I love Macs and technology in general. Combine that with my work ethic-like approach to new things, and you can see how I could burn out. It became a job. An endless job of trying to turn a few grains of actual information into an expansive network of information. At one point, the site was effective enough to give you a way to track what I did minute to minute.

2007

It's Macworld Damnit

·252 words·2 mins
Something has been building steadily for a couple weeks now and I just can’t contain it anymore. After countless hours of reading though, the rage within me has reached the spilling level. I read nearly every Mac website I can find (via RSS). I can give non-Mac news sources a pass on this, but the rest of you should hang your heads in shame. Macworld, as in Macworld Magazine and Macworld Expo, is spelled as I have it. Macworld Expo is like Mecca, but for Mac users. It’s the ultimate event in the Mac universe. Given that fact, why is it so god damned hard to spell it right?