LaunchCodes
Latest
US military will no longer use floppy disks to coordinate nuke launches
As we alarmingly learned in 2014, the US military has been using 8-inch floppy disks in an antiquated '70s computer to receive nuclear launch orders from the President. Now, the US strategic command has announced that it has replaced the drives with a "highly-secure solid state digital storage solution," Lt. Col. Jason Rossi told c4isrnet.com.
Creator codes make a comeback in Snow Leopard with LaunchCodes
In Mac OS X (and back into OS 9 history), a creator code is a hidden value attached to a document and bound to a preferred application, allowing the OS to know which application to use for opening that file. This is particularly helpful for filetypes that have multiple valid 'target' apps (JPEG, PDF, etc.); the creator code lets Preview 'own' its PDF or image files, TextEdit automatically open its text files, and so on. Those who are familiar with the process are already (painfully) aware that Snow Leopard ditched this system a while back (some great details at Ars Technica). For many users -- especially Windows switchers -- the new method is an improvement, allowing a more standardized response to double-clicking a document file that's driven by the file name extension (.doc, .html, and the like). If you're in the former group, though, and missing your creator codes, the developer behind PageHand has a treat for you: LaunchCodes. LaunchCodes is an extremely simple utility which restores the creator code functionality to Snow Leopard. The creator codes never went anywhere; they're still in the metadata. LaunchCodes just tells the system what to do with a filetype. Setup is fast and easy, just enter the extension for the file and assign an application to it (similar to "Always open with"). It runs quietly in your menubar and directs OS X to open the application you prefer for any given type of file. LaunchCodes is $4.95US and is available as a free trial at the PageHand website.
