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The love/hate relationship with Apple
You probably wouldn't be reading this if you did't enjoy working on your Apple computer. Now ask yourself, "why?" The answers are as varied as the users. Now ask yourself what really irks you about working on your Mac, or Apple as a company... Again, we've all got something that grinds our gears,for insntace, AppleMatters just put up a list of best and worst Macs. Think you'll see that for Gateway, Dell, or even Sony, with their computers named after robotic serial numbers? As Apple's market share and brand name expand we're seeing an increase in Apple haters, and they are becoming more vocal. Mac zealots, while becoming slightly less shrill, are also in the mix helping put nothing in perspective. So what's to make of all this? As a user of Apple products for almost 30 years I wanted to take a look at the love/hate relationship between Apple, its fans, and detractors.In the iPod space people love to hate Apple for the reasons Microsoft tells them to: your choice is limited. You can only use the iPod with iTunes. This is seen as the Mac OS "problem" all over again by people like Dvorak. Personally, part of the reason the iPod sells so well, in my opinion, is that for the average consumer there may be too much choice. The average person doesn't want to search all over creation for the latest brain-dead beats. They want to plug in their doohickey and have it automagically do things (like think) for them. This isn't Think Differently, it's just brilliant execution of the idea that consumers want stuff, and they want to get it easily. Plays for Sure? Whatever. People know if they can't put diesel in their car, and they know the iPod works with iTunes. So far, that's been a winning combo.The Mac platform become a hot topic again way back in the go-go 90's (remember that decade?) after Master and Commander of the Far Side of the Computer World, Mr. Steve Jobs, introduced the iMac . We're beyond all the translucent plastic knockoff items you used to find in Target, and we're down to this: it's easier to make things on a Mac and it's safer to use a Mac. At least one of these is easily arguable. Granted, if I want to make Machinima, the PC is a better platform. In fact, there is way more software for PC's than Mac's, but how much of it is easy to use? It might sound like a Yogi Bearism, but everything's easy when you know how. Obviously someone who can sit at home in grandma's basement and figure out every little button in WinAmp is going to have an advantage over an iTunes noob. But again, the average consumer can't be bothered with registry hacks and driver issues. At the end of every day a person likes to put their machine to sleep, secure in the knowledge that all their hard work will be there another day. And that they'll be able to do something about it. Which brings me to the safety issue...
QuickTime Components 101
Ever wondered what happens when you can't view a QuickTime movie, and Apple's QT player prompts you to "download the missing component?" Essentially a QuickTime component is QT's version of a plug-in. Similar to how Flash plug-in allows you to view Flash content, or Windows Media Player used to do play WMV's in your browsers on the Mac. Apple long-ago started using an API of sorts for 3rd party developers who wished to extend the functionality of QuickTime. Extend it? Isn't it pretty fully-featured, what with the support for QTVR (yeah, what happened to their authoring tool anyway?), and 3DMF (haha, that's an unfunny joke there)? Even with all the toys packed inside, QT needs room for growth. Send in the clowns of multimedia: your 3rd party component developers. For example: I live a stone's throw from where venerable Web 1.0 company iPIX used to exist. iPIX, for those who remember, pioneered a way to record and play back immersive video just like QTVR. Initially their tech was only available via RealPlayer, which, at the time, had the most open architecture. Eventually they made a QuickTime version, as did about a dozen others. Recently I tried to play a training video, and I needed the TechSmith codec. I had to download the component, and everything was viewable. Perhaps the best known and widely used component is the MPEG-2 codec, which is needed for DVD authoring.Components can be codecs, but they don't have to be. The categories of QT components can be found here, although it's a bit technical. The hard part, honestly, is figuring out which components to install. But since there are only 11 on Apple's QT components page, I suggest installing them all and enjoy yourself. And shame on you lazy devs out there who have yet to implement a Mac version! In some cases, the open source community has taken up the gauntlet. Witness XiphQT, an effort to bring Ogg support to QuickTime. A lot of the furor over components has been laid to rest, however, as we see more specialization. For instance, video via Flash is now a popular method of putting videos on the web. This obviates the need for 3 different format buttons (remember those, along with hi and lo bandwidth versions?). Also, specialized content is being embedded in everything from Adobe's PDF format to specialized readers anyway, making the discussion less relevant every day. One special note of caution: the Apple page lists PowerPC components. Unfortunately, you have to check each component on their home site to find Universal Binary editions. The PPC versions will NOT work on an Intel Mac.
Turn that Mac mini into a media center - finally
When the mini was announced, about the only person NOT thinking "media center Mac" was Bill Gates. I immediately bought one, and I bought the then-new El Gato EyeTV with that ATI logo on it (the full name escapes me). That El Gato box is ugly, gets hot, and didn't really do what I wanted... So now El Gato has a new version of their baseline TV input device out, and this time it has a remote! So, between a big hard drive, the El Gato EyeTV EZ, and a Mac mini Core Duo, you finally have a nearly-perfect Mac-based media center. And to help you set it all up, there's Chris Hamady's excellent page on his Media Center Macintosh Project. Great. So what the heck am I going to do with my old rig?Chris sets up his EZ with the mini, and it works great, in no small part because of that nifty remote (curse you El Gato!). He adds a big honkin' hard drive for all that sweet, sweet pep. Then he rips his DVD's using Handbrake, so his collection is accessible using Front Row. To top it all off, he puts XP on there (complete with some security measures). I guess he can use his Windows boot for watching those nifty CNN videos...
Microsoft to Apple: Happy Birthday!
What a grand gesture. Five more years of Office wasn't enough, so Microsoft went the extra mile and released a fully-functional, virtualization app called VirtualPC XP for Intel Macs... Nah! I'm just kidding. They popped a JPEG up on their site saying how happy they have been to ride on the coattails of an innovator for the past 22 years. Or something like that. You can see the birthday card from the Microsoft MacBU to Apple here. It could have been worse. They could have said: "After 22 years, and a decade-long headstart on the GUI, you are still #2." I'm thankful for small favors. Truth is, Apple should be thanking Microsoft for sticking through the lean times. Oh, and that infusion of cash a few years back didn't hurt (awkward to witness though). So thanks Microsoft, now where's that new version of Virtual PC, hm?[thanks to Derrick G. for sending this in]
Now that you've turned your Mac into a PC, turn it into a Mac again
So you've done the formerly impossible and unnecessary: installed Winders on a Mac. Cool, best of both worlds. But there you are, staring at that awful primary color, jumbo crayon, sickly plasticky XP theme. Yeah, you could use one of the many mods featured on Download Squad (please, feel free). Or you could turn your XP rig back into a Mac. At least, you can make XP look a lot more like a Mac. Engadget did this nearly 2 years ago, although Aqua-Soft is still updating their content. Or why not go old school with an OS 9 flavor? Ah, that's better.
iSync 2.2
Reader Johnny W. sent this in yesterday, but it took me a while to verify: iSync 2.2 is rolled into the 10.4.6 update, and it's quite nice. A while back I had my Motorola V60 working with iSync. See, last year when I got my "new" phone, I bought a $60 cable on ebay for $20 (along with a car and wall charger). This bundle included Moto's phone tools, so I could sync with my PC. About 8 reboots later, it worked! I somehow managed to get it to work with iSync, even if iSync really didn't know what phone it was... but only a few months later, an update killed the connection. The V60 was never listed on the compatible phones chart, and I figured, given the life of phones, it was all over. Yet Apple's official list of iSync-compatible devices has really expanded with 2.2. And there's my lowly V60, along with the PEBL. One big downside appears to be Palm support. Anything with the PalmOne brand is still fine. Anything older now needs the Mark/Space app for Palm to sync. That's so lame I can't even talk about it. What am I supposed to do with my WristPDA now?
MenuCalendarClock goes Universal
MenuCalendarClock is a clever little customizable pulldown calendar for the menubar that can also display events from iCal or Entourage to help keep you on top of things. As an unregistered version, MenuCalendarClock can display a small 'pocket calendar' (pictured), and clicking on a day of the week will open that corresponding day in iCal. Registered users will get to see iCal events right in the calendar without iCal even running, email support, a configurable hotkey and much more.This handy little utility sells for $18.95 and, with the most recent version of 2.5, is now a Universal Binary.[via MacMinute]
Batch process your images with SmallImage
SmallImage is a nice piece of freeware for anyone who works with a lot of photos all day long. Just drop a folder full of images into SmallImage's main window, and you can remove your photos' embedded profiles, resize them, create thumbnails and then re-compress them with one click. As you can see from the screen shot to the right, SmallImage also provides a great deal of information on each image, like size, camera information, compression and metadata information. You can even remove or create your own preview icon for any image.SmallImage requires Mac OS 10.3.9 and is free.[Via FreeMacWare]
Maintenance 3.4
Maintenance, the beloved Automator action that can run a whole slew of maintenance tasks that command line geeks can only dream of (just kidding guys), has been updated to version 3.4. This time around, it has a shiny new icon, an expanded readme file (that explains every action it can perform) and yet another task to its tool belt: Rebuild LaunchServices Database.As always, Maintenance is donationware, as the author, Jesse Hogie, has a link on his blog.
Dragthing updated to version 5.6.4
Dragthing, the popular utility by TLA systems, has been updated to version 5.6.4. Dragthing can be used as an alternative to Mac OS X's dock, with more features. In fact, it allows you create several docks that you can organize and arrange as you wish, and access via the tabbed interface or user-defined hotkeys. It's very useful, and I loved it in the Mac OS 9 days.Version 5.6.4 fixes several bugs, including: An issue with Intel Macs incorrectly displaying the number of unread messages on application icons A problem on Intel Macs with the highlighting of running applications Issues with moving dock files containing text clippings between Intel and PowerPC Macs Version 5.6.4 requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, is universal and a free upgrade for registered users. A single license of Dragthing will cost you $29US.
macZOT! giving away AppZapper
What will those kooky kids at macZOT! do next? Well, at the moment they seem determined to give away 2000 copies of AppZapper, kind of. As they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch in this life. macZOT! will lower the price of AppZapper by 5 cents for every blog that links to them, until the application is free.This is a clever way to get some free marketing, and give away some great software. Everyone wins!Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
iWeb Enhancer 1.0
Awesome: Chad Brantly has created a small add-on app for iWeb that can insert all sorts of blogging goodness into your sites such as Flickr pics, AdSense, YouTube videos, blogrolls and more.I haven't tried this out yet, but one word of caution: due to what I would assume could be iWeb's unfriendly plugin architecture, the process for inserting any of these little addons is a little wonky. Don't fear it though, as Chad walks you through the short operation on his site.All things considered, iWeb Enhancer still seems like the easiest and most feature-enabling iWeb addon I've seen to date. Go check it out if you've been looking for a few of those blogging extras to complete your iWeb-powered sites.
Universal OS X, NetBoot OS X, courtesy of MacOSXHints
Of all the people who could create a Universal OS X boot disk (*cough* Apple *cough*), is anyone surprised that MacOSXHints (as far as I know) got there first? Top it off with the fact that they also created a NetBoot image and, well... now they're just making everyone else look bad (*cough!*).This article at MacOSXHints describes the first half of the process - creating a Universal, bootable image of OS X - and it sounds pretty darn easy. The second step - enabling the Universal image with NetBoot superpowers - is right here. I haven't used either of these (since I don't have a shiny Intel Mac anyway), but they both sound like pretty simple little tricks. Enjoy.
Script to bookmark all of Safari's tabs
I know there are various plugins, addons, widgets and thingamabobs that will allow Safari to bookmark a group of tabs you have open. If you haven't installed any of these extras or you're just an applescript fan at heart, I found a one-trick script over at ScriptBuilders that should pull this trick off just fine. However, I haven't tested this yet, and the script's page doesn't state whether its compatible with Tiger and/or Panther, so if you try it out, please post your thoughts.
Fix for .Mac sync errors with Mail and random signatures
I recently set Mail on both of my Macs to chose a random signature. From time to time during a .Mac sync, I'll receive an obnoxious sync error claiming that a 'default' signature on one Mac is conflicting with the other. No matter which signature I choose to resolve the conflict, the sync process will lock into a loop, repeatedly offering me a sync error with new choices on either end for resolving the conflict. Obviously, this has lead to an increase of Advil in my regular diet.If you're nodding your head right now, you'll be happy to know we all can cut back on the pain killers. For the first time in a while, I actually received a helpful message from Apple's email support that said something more than "try rebooting." Turns out that, unfortunately, if you enable Mail's random signature feature on one Mac, Mail can't be running on other registered Macs for the first sync after this new feature. I replied to the support rep's email to find out what is up with such an odd quirk, but I didn't receive a very useful answer.Nevertheless, after getting back to square one by resetting my signature data on both Macs, I can verify that this fix works. Hopefully, this issue is on the list of updates coming in 10.4.4.
Please welcome Download Squad
Please welcome Download Squad to the Weblogs Inc. family. It's our newest blog. It covers every kind of software, from Windows to Mac to Linux.And while the emphasis is on freeware and shareware programs, it also covers commercial software. Todd Carter, a blogger here on HD Beat, also is doing some reviews for Download Squad.In other news, Engadget, our family's largest blog, is now available in Japanese and Spanish versions.
