Posts

There has been an update, so please read to the bottom of the post. I leave the original entry above for posterity. Frassle is a neat service. What is not neat is that they seem to resell email addresses. My domain allows me to use any address at it (they all get redirected to a central address). This allows me to tailor a name to each service. The old tact was to use a Yahoo or Hotmail account (which didn’t have any accountability). My convention right now is either service1 or service.login1. ...

Found via Slashdot, Apple is using DRM to keep parts of the OS from working on unauthorized computers. The Slashdot story includes links to a wiki on x86 Mac OS X, which in turn pulls its information about the TCPA/TPM DRM from this FAQ. The problem is that the site is titled Against TCPA (which is also their domain name). It’s not exactly an unbiased source, to say the least. I want to find a slightly less paranoid breakdown of the technology. ...

Address Book has some neat built-in features. Some are more hidden than others. Most people find that by clicking on addresses, a menu will pop up offering to bring up a map for that address. Very cool. What is not cool is that it uses MapQuest. Let me revise that. I don’t like MapQuest. It’s a pain to work with. I like Google Maps. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could use it instead? You can with the Google Maps Plugin (donationware). ...

Back when the Supreme Court handed down their decision on Grokster, I made a few quick conclusions based upon some cursory reading I did. I didn’t really expect to get quoted on Computerworld. Derik DeLong says Grokster assisted in the act of piracy and that it, “Wasn’t just turning a blind eye.” I need to find a better way to figure when I get linked. It happened over a month ago.

My coworkers haven’t seen me without my Morf stress ball since I got it at Staples. I constantly have to do something with my hands and it occupied them. squish squish I was sitting at my desk, listening to a podcast, and looking at my computer screen. All of a sudden, I heard a squirting sound and something touching my shoulder. I froze. What was that? I looked over at my shoulder and all over my shirt was a bunch of yellow goo. A tiny hole opened itself as I squeezed and the contents were now decorating my shirt. ...

Apple released new iBooks and Mac minis. All in all, the updates were really minor. The good news is that all Mac models now sport at least 512 MB of RAM. That’s pretty much the whole of the update for the minis. The iBooks on the other hand, have been bumped to 1.33 GHz and 1.42 GHz. They’ve also moved up to Radeon 9550s in lieu of Radeon 9200s. Oddly enough, the 14″ also gained 9 MHz for its bus apparently. This is the only Mac I’ve read of ever to have a 142 MHz bus. That might be the only thing to make this round of revisions memorable.

Along the lines of their other recent moves, like buying Flickr, Yahoo! has acquired Konfabulator. Longtime Mac fans should recognize the product and its author, Arlo Rose, for his role in creating Kaleidoscope. Recent Mac fans should recognize the debacle surrounding Apple’s creation of Dashboard. This brings the immediate benefit of making Konfabulator free. Previously, the framework itself cost $20 to register. When comparing Konfabulator to Dashboard, the price difference (Dashboard being free with Tiger) gave Dashboard the edge. Yahoo! effecting this price change will have a dramatic effect upon its market share. Mac users will feel free to compare it directly to Dashboard without feeling obligation. As for Windows users, the new Yahoo! association should bring lots of attention. Those two effects should stimulate Widget developers into developing for Konfabulator again. That’s a good thing because as I write this, there is still no working package tracker. Very lame. ...

Our lawmakers are hard at work. This time the pressing issue is extension of daylight savings time. The current plan is to extend it by a month total, three weeks in Spring and a week in the Fall. The goal of this legislation is to reduce oil consumption. I’m no fan of daylight savings. It just means more work for me to change all my clocks. I’d be more in favor of dropping it entirely and picking one damn time scheme. After all, if extending it will save on oil consumption, shouldn’t moving to that time scheme permanently save us even more? ...

Some time ago, I used Feedburner to make a new feed for the site. I called it the Superfeed and used their service to add in Flickr photos and del.icio.us bookmarks. However, I found it way too limiting. There were other sources I wanted to add, such as my Netflix notifications and my Ta-da List. While I used it though, I became addicted to their statistics. I could instantly gauge how many people were reading. ...

I realized today that between a real lack of Apple/Mac news and having lots to do (relating to the mysterious piece of news I referred to in our last exciting episode) that I likely wouldn’t be posting much, though the supplemental is going to get regular updates. The good news is that once I get back into the groove, I’ll be adding a lot of content that is in a vein that this site hasn’t explored before. Stay tuned.