I gave Opera her chance, I even made it my main browser for several weeks. I loved everything about it... except for a few bugs that inevitably brought it to its demise on my machine.
It's true, I'm a fan of the Opera, but certain things such as not conforming to certain web standards has made me decide to go back to my gold standard: the reliably slow... Firefox. When I went to digg often times Opera wouldn't let me digg an article, the script would "fail to initiate" so it told me. I will miss the very speedy browsing, and built in scripting, rss feeds, and torrent client, but not enough to keep me an Opera user until they make it more compliant with today's web 2.0 standards. I must say as a final note though, the pc version of Opera runs like a dream, and I'd highly recommend it to any Windows user out there!
Google is going to come out with a way for people with multiple Google services can express who they are, kind of a like Google business card for the net.
For more info check out the unofficial Google news and tips site.
The ever famous Lala from TikiBar tv decided to please her fans by making a 12 month pin up calendar. You can check it out at thelalastore.com where apparently more Lala stuff is soon to come.
Leopard users know about how useful QuickLook is when you want to quickly get a glimpse at a photo or a video, well until now looking at folders just showed you a big image of your folder icon. With this pretty cool plugin you get an added functionality where you can see the contents and information about them. Click the picture (or here) to download the file to install this neat addon.
To install: open your hard drive/Library/QuickLook and put the component file from inside the zipped file in this folder and log out. When you log back in QuickLook into a folder and check out the goodies!
When bit torrent clients are active they can absolutely EAT internet speeds. If not set up properly these programs devour the speed of your network because they are constantly checking for a better tracker to connect to, and they don't limit upload speeds.
If you use a client such as Azureus, Transmission, Xtorrent, or even the torrent downloader built right into Opera(my current favorite 'cause it works well and it's wicked easy) you most likely won't even notice a difference on your network because they are set up to work optimally right out of the box. These modern clients don't aggravate your network with constant tracker updates and they have the options to limit upload speeds. Check out the difference in ping times from when I had Bit Torrent running downloading a file without an upload limit and when I quit the application, which is necessary to making sure the client isn't still running. When you hit "pause" it doesn't stop the client from slowing the network at all, you need to actually quit to be sure.
Network Ping times (the time it takes for information to get from your computer to a site, in this case Google, and back, in milliseconds: 64 bytes from 68.87.60.144: icmp_seq=855 ttl=115 time=4053.799 ms 64 bytes from 68.87.60.144: icmp_seq=856 ttl=115 time=4099.037 ms 64 bytes from 68.87.60.144: icmp_seq=857 ttl=115 time=4055.384 ms 64 bytes from 68.87.60.144: icmp_seq=858 ttl=115 time=4033.114 ms 64 bytes from 68.87.60.144: icmp_seq=859 ttl=115 time=4195.999 ms 64 bytes from 68.87.60.144: icmp_seq=860 ttl=115 time=4137.639 ms 64 bytes from 68.87.60.144: icmp_seq=861 ttl=115 time=4139.862 ms
Here is what happened when Bit Torrent is quit... we magically get normal ping times again: 64 bytes from 68.87.60.144: icmp_seq=862 ttl=115 time=19.645 ms 64 bytes from 68.87.60.144: icmp_seq=863 ttl=115 time=13.137 ms 64 bytes from 68.87.60.144: icmp_seq=864 ttl=115 time=15.742 ms 64 bytes from 68.87.60.144: icmp_seq=865 ttl=115 time=14.918 ms 64 bytes from 68.87.60.144: icmp_seq=866 ttl=115 time=17.739 ms 64 bytes from 68.87.60.144: icmp_seq=867 ttl=115 time=16.239 ms Moral of the story, make sure your bit torrent client (and your room mates!) is set up to work optimally to keep your internet running like normal, not to mention so as not to piss off your friends on the network.
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Google has a new beta tool that lets anyone help label random images by use of a fun little game where you are matched up with a random buddy and you as a team pick out terms for the image, when you both match terms the image goes away and a new one is presented. You are assigned points for using terms that are more descriptive, and say the image was a of someone on a sailboat in the water, you would have certain restricted words such as: boat, sailboat, water. You would have to say maybe vessel, yacht, and sailor. Check it out here, or by doing any image search.
Try to beat your friends with a game that helps everybody at the same time by helping Google label their images.
Pretty much everybody knows that I'm a big proponent of Firefox, the extensions just make it the best browser out there. Having that said, I decided to give Opera a second try. I tried it once a year or two ago and it wasn't very feature packed and didn't support add ons. This time around was (is) a much better experience! Pretty much any extension you love from Firefox (or you wish Firefox could have) is actually built right into Opera.
• RSS support. An awesome reader in fact. • Ad blocking with selective blocking capabilities. • Advanced pop-up blocker that only blocks unwanted pop-ups. • Widgets like on iGoogle. This is an AMAZING feature! I have my Pandora player, weather, Google Maps!!!, etc... these can be accessed anytime, not just from a webpage. • Mouse gestures • Notes for marking up webpages for future review • Smart auto-fill • Skin flexibility • Downloader that works like DownThemAll! • Mail and chat built in. Which is awesome because you can sync your Opera browsers on multiple computers so your mail and chat goes with you wherever you go!
The more I use Opera the more I like it, it's getting dangerously close to making me switch it over as my default browser, which is a big deal.
Amazon, of all companies, released a portable eBook called Kindle reader today. From first glance I'm not really a fan of its design, mainly because of screen size. The feature set though, is far beyond impressive. You'll have to check it out at its Amazon product page (linked above), where else right?
Although the product is a little odd shaped and designed, the feature set of the Kindle is impressive enough to more than overcome the downfalls of the hardware. Built in WiFi for access to all of your favorite blogs, that update all day long! Also you can purchase subscriptions to most major newspapers and journals and have them delivered each morning before they even hit the newsstands. Access to wikipedia via WiFi and a built in dictionary for any concept or word you might be misunderstanding. Check out the Amazon page linked above for a full feature set.
If you're like me, you enjoy listening to music when you go to sleep from time to time. The only problem is iTunes doesn't have a sleep timer function, which is weird given that its predominantly a stereo for most college students. Anyways, here's how you can add sleep timer functionality right into iTunes without downloading any extra applications:
For this you'll need an application called Script editor, you will have it in your applications folder inside a folder called Applescript, unless you were trying to save space one day and threw it out, any script editor will do for this very small task though if you did trash it.
1. Create a folder called “Scripts” in the “Users/you/Library/iTunes/” directory. 2. Open the Script Editor located in “Applications/AppleScript/” folder. 3. Type the following code: Tell application “iTunes” Delay 3600 Quit End tell
*note that you can change the delay time to any other time in seconds. **also note that you can change the "Quit" to "Pause" if you like. 4. In the File> Save As… menu save the script as a application, deselecting the Startup Screen and Stay Open options. Save it to your newly created “Scripts” folder with whatever name you want. 5. Open up iTunes. You’ll see a new menu that will give you access to all your iTunes AppleScripts. The only issue with this little trick is that once you tell iTunes to start a script it won't let you do anything within the program until the script is done. So if you change your mind, you'll have to force quit iTunes.
So if you have an old machine like me (1.0GHz PPC PowerBook G4), then you've probably noticed that your computer can run pretty sluggish at times. If you look at your active processes you'll most likely see a process called “mds” taking up around 100MB of ram about once every hour for 10 minutes or so. That's time machine looking at your system to see what's changed. Well it just so happens that this interval can quite easily be changed from 3600 seconds (every hour) to anything you want. I switched mine to 14,400 seconds (4 hours for those of you non-math people). This simple act of making my system backup less often is great on my processor and ram!
Here's how you do it: Navigate to: /System/Library/LaunchDaemons. There you'll find a file named com.apple.backupd-auto.plist. Copy this file to your desktop and then open it with any text editor (or Apple plist editor if you have it!) and look for this section:
Change the 3600 number to some other time interval in seconds, Save and quit, then replace this file back into the LaunchDaemons folder, you'll need to be an admin. Restart your machine you'll have a new Time Machine's backup interval!
There's actually a pretty large collection of awesome Leopard dock themes out there that are wicked easy to install and enjoy. Check out LeopardDocks and see what fits you best! Also, download the app at the top of the page called “Change Dock,” it'll be a big help and just makes the process much less stressful. here's a quick look at the first few themes at LeopardDocks.com:
I have always wanted for Apple to implement a feature to the menubar that almost every Linux distribution has had for years, a calendar when you click on the time, not just the date. Well this awesome little app does one better, it lets you view and add new events to your iCal calendars! Plus, do you use the to do's in Mail or iCal? They are now integrated right into this clock replacement app. Give it a look, it's awesome, doesn't use hardly any system resources, after all it is just a clock most of the time.
As you can see the clock at the top right with the iCal logo is MenuCalendarClock. You can set a key to automatically make the calendar come out and in if you like, or just click on it. If you click on the list icon at the bottom your to do's will come up and you can check them off as you complete them. When you hover over a date scheduled in your calendar (colored blue) a small text tip bubble comes up to tell you what's scheduled, if you double click on a date it will open iCal to that date!
I did post a while ago on how to keep your dock clean and in categories using little dock separators. Well now that Leopard has a new dock those old separators don't really look good anymore... I've made a new version based on the “Railroad” divider between the apps and stacks. Check it out on my Goodies page!
The hard drive in my PowerBook died a few days ago and the first thought in my head was, “Oh man... now I'm gonna have to shell out 350 bucks to apple to replace my drive and be without my computer for a week.” Then I thought to myself, I wonder how hard it could really be?
Well, I decided to check with my good friends over at iFixit and they had a great step-by-step guide with pictures on how to get to the hard drive. The short of it... a new 160GB Seagate drive and 24+ screws in little Sobe caps later and I'm inside my laptop, scared I might break something.
Well, that looks daunting huh? Well, it wasn't too bad... just a lot of steadyness and being static-free. After I replaced the hard drive (bottom left in the picture), I restarted onto the Leopard disc and chose the restore from backup option. This lets you restore a system from a backup, such as time machine.
It actually lets you choose any saved state to restore from. I chose the most recent backup version. Nevertheless it took around 4 hours to transfer the 70 GB from my backup drive. Now everything is EXACTLY the way it was before my drive stopped working!
How awesome would it be to be able to stop at a gas station when you're lost and immediately know where you are and with a few taps, you'd know how to get where you're going? Sounds too good to be true huh? Well Google and pump maker Gilbarco Veeder-Root have announced a partnership that will bring driving directions, local search, and coupons to over 3,500 internet enabled gas pumps by next month!
Now you can just stop at the station and print out directions to yoru next location, how convenient? You'll never be embarrassed asking for directions again!
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So I've had Leopard since the night it came out, and I've had some time to really get to know it. Most of it I like, the only parts I currently dislike are parts that are slow because my laptop is old and the resourses are taxed. Quicklook for example, it's a really great feature, but on my machine it's a little sluggish. Anyways, back on point, today I have a nice customided little haxie you can do so your new Leopard dock will be a smooth dark grey that excentuates the mirror effect instead of the standard light grey with arcs in the background.
Get your dock looking like this by going to the Goodies page!
Ever had a friend over and they want to use your computer and you reluctantly say yes knowing they'll probably mess with your settings? Well Leopard comes with a new feature that is JUST for these moments!
Guests can login and are allowed to do only the things you predefine. But instead of restricting your friends, you can pretty much let them do whatever they want because when they log out the account is expunged, and the next time it's logged into it's as if it's a brand new account again. Apple reinstalls the user each time you log into this special guest account, that way no matter what your guests mess with, they'll never do anything to your computer!
Just as a note to those of you who live under a rock Apple will be releasing their new operating system OS X 10.5, or Leopard, in just 8 days now. Apple just updated their website with a list of 300 new features they've added since the most recent operating system version, 10.4 Tiger.
Check out some of the recent screenshots taken right from the most recent developer build that showcase some awesome new features and a great new look.
Quicksilver is a great little app that gives you control over a LOT of features in your computer just by typing anything you want. For instance you can use Quicksilver as a launcher, where you would just type "iTunes" and hit enter and iTunes opens. But say iTunes is already open, then you're given a new set of options if you hit tab instead of enter. You can look through playlists, change the volume, or add the current song to a new playlist. The other great use for Quicksilver is using it as a spotlight that can also control your media and search through bookmarks and web history. Look below, I started typing clutter because I wanted a file inside that folder and this is what came up:
Next we have a screen shot of an add-on to Quicksilver called Constellation Menu, it lets you see things much more graphically for certain applications, such as iTunes, seen below.
Quicksilver has a plug-in for just about any application you use, and the repository works much like a Linux distribution system. You just go into the preferences and check off which plugins you want to be installed and they automatically download and install, no hassles. Hopefully Apple will take notice and add some of this functionality right into spotlight when Leopard arrives... or maybe later on. They do need to have things to upgrade too, they can't start with everything.
Now That i just got done praising Firefox for its awesome features, lets talk about another awesome thing... customizability built in! Ever enter in about:config into your address bar? Try it! This is a great big long list of the features that Mozilla will let you edit to your preference. Here's one way you could change your Firefox to work to your liking (Mike Lipson), lets get rid of those annoying dotted line box around links and pictures after you click on them.
Go to about:configand filter down the results and look for browser.display.focus_ring_width, then click on the on the parameter on the right and set the value to 0 (zero). This will get rid of that annoying dotted line and make your browser much nicer on the eye when clicking links!
Firefox extensions are what keep me from using Safari. I love the look and feel, not to mention the speed, that Safari has over Firefox on a Mac, but the extensions just get me. Here's what I mean...
Although Safari has wonderful RSS support that Firefox couldn't hold a match to, I just can't have my Facebook bar with buttons for sharing links or getting notifications when someone messages me. I can't have a built in downloader that works like a dream (DownThemAll!). I can't have the weather forecast(ForecastFox Enhanced) in my status bar for me to check at any time. I sure as hell can't use StumbleUpon features, or even my latest addition... Grab and Drag. This extension lets you physically drag the screen up and down just like how the iPhone uses multi-touch. You can even turn on momentum features so when you drag and let go the screen will keep going and slow down to a stop with a friction that you set. You can alter how and where Grab and Drag works, for instance you can set it up so that whenever you click and drag only where there are no links or text the screen will move with the curser, this way when you highlight text the screen won't move around on you. So if you fancy Firefox, check this out and you'll find yourself trying to scroll with ease in tons of other applications wishing the feature was available there too!
Check out this new Apple iMa... wait a second this is a Gateway... woah...
So I guess Gateway is really stepping up and trying to grab away the market that cares about what their system looks like. The Gateway One priced from $1,299 for the base model and $1,799 for the high end model. It boasts Intel's Core 2 duo processor and a 19" widescreen display. It also has 8 channel (7.1 Dolby Digital) audio, 8x DVD±R/RW, built in 5 in 1 card reader, 802.11n draft wifi, GET THIS... 7 usb ports!!!, 1 firewire port, 1.3Mp camera built into the screen, media remote control, up to a 500GB hard drive and up to 3GB of ram (2GB is standard!).
If you're in the market for a computer and you hate Macs (how could you though?), this would be my #1 choice.
This is an awesome video that shows some amazing imagery from the Hubble telescope while showing the Fibonacci Sequence in modern music...
Further more, check this out... (It's crazy to see how genius some people are.) "I had doodled a few spirals in the corners of my graph paper, and in doing so made the first important connection to Lateralus. I knew that if the tracks were in fact intended to be heard in a different order, "Parabol" and "Parabola" would have to go together. In drawing my spirals, I had begun with a vertex and 'spiraled' outwards. After writing the numbers 1 through 13 linearly, I could immediately see that Parabol and Parabola would have to be the middle of my spiral (in that 13 / 2 = 6.5). I drew a simple arrow between 6 and 7 and then pondered the next pair. At first, I actually drew a spiral connecting pairs of numbers whose sum equaled 13 (the number of songs on the album). This, however, left the last track in the same position and without anything to connect to. At this time, I had used my copy of Lateralus and Cool Edit Pro to take out the silences between tracks and put the songs in the following order: 6,7,5,8,4,9,3,10,2,11,1,12,13. The transition from Parabola into Schism blew my mind, as the plucks, probably dismissed by listeners as a drawn out rant of an ending, perfectly transition into the beginning of Schism. When you count out beats as the strings are plucked, Schism resumes with the same time signature and tempo - mirroring the progression of notes. The transition from Schism into Ticks & Leeches is equally intriguing. Schism ends with strong double-kick bass and tom smacks, and Ticks & Leeches begins with what many would call a 'tribal' drum beat. The beat at the very start of Ticks & Leeches is slightly different every subsequent time it is repeated - the measures are two beats longer. Yup - you guessed it - those two beats are ACTUALLY the last two beats of Schism."
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Would you like to NEVER see another phone bill again? Well you should check out Ooma. It's a replacement system for your land-line phone that only requires a one time fee for the hardware!
This one time fee is $399, it includes the main "Hub" for your home that controls all the calls. The Hub looks like an answering machine but can do so much more. This service uses a broadband connection, sort of like Vonage and Skype, but unlike the other guys, the Ooma system uses your current regular phone system in your house with the addition of a $40 box called the "Scout" that goes in line just before your phone. These Scout boxes give you access to voicemail at any phone in the house.
With Ooma you can even hold two separate conversations with two different people. This feature works like call-waiting, except you can put one person on hold and call another while the first is on hold, or switch between the two calls, all just by pushing on the number pad on the first line or second line buttons.
So for most homes your look at around $500, but since that's a one time rate and you will get free calls anywhere in the us whenever you want... forever... you will easily recoup that money and it will start paying for itself in under 2 years even if you are paying as low as 20 bucks a month! So after 2 years, at the longest, you will be essentially making money off your investment.
Apple has, once again, released a new line of iPods. This time they have innovated, kind of.
There are two new iPods added to the arsenal: (from left to right) iPod nano(4 or 8GB), iPod classic(80 and 160GB, and the new iPod touch(8 or 16GB.
The iPod nano sports a shorter body and wider screen that can play video, the iPod touch is an iPhone without the phone or camera, and the iPod classic is a slightly redesigned version of the 5th gen ipod. No more glossy finish for the iPods!
Love the idea of visual voicemail that the Apple iPhone offers but don't have an iPhone? Well check this free service out called Callwave.
This service is a replacement for your regular voicemail your cell phone currently uses. Callwave receives calls just like your regular voicemail, but when you get missed calls or voice messages you can have notices emailed to you or you can also have your voicemails texted to you. Texted to you, but they are auditory messages from your friends? Yep, Callwave actually takes what the person said and converts it into text. This works about 90 percent of the time. The point of this service is to ultimately give you the option of listening your voicemails in whatever order you'd like.
Above is the OS X widget that you can use that will show missed calls, even play voicemails right from your computer!
National Public Radio (NPR), has decided to offer every show they air in podcast form! This is awesome because what if, per sé, you want to listen to Car Talk, but you are just too busy on the weekends?
Well, now you can just have your favorite shows automatically downloaded to your computer with iTunes or any other audio-RSS reader. Then you can listen to the Car Talk brothers whenever you get some extra time to laugh! Here's a link to all of the NPR shows, check 'em out!
Yep, Free iMovie HD 6, right from Apple. I think they just want people to experience how good iMovie was, then they can see the full benefits of the brand new version that is a part of iLife '08.
I'm wicked excited that Apple released their new redesigned iMacs today not because I love iMacs, which I do, but because it features Intel's new Core 2 Extreme 2.8 GHz mobile processor!!! This is excellent news because that means they will be updating their laptops probably around school time(hopefully), which means new MacBook Pro for me!!!
Anyways, the new keyboards are flippin' awesome...
The new iMac design is awesome...
The new iLife and iWork '08 suites are awesome too...
:)
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Finding beauty in life's simplest pleasures is what makes me happiest. Getting caught up in the complexities of our daily lives, after all, is what keeps us from truly enjoying life. I find great pleasure in finding ways for the things we interact with on a daily basis to be more efficient. Which leads to the best feeling in the world: taking something that would otherwise seem drab or commonplace and being able to turn it into something useful, or better, aesthetically pleasing to one's intrigue. Whether it's photography, music, engineering, or love, life is full of opportunities for the artistic expression of joy and happiness.
Ultimately, I just enjoy capturing the simplest things in life and admiring how beautiful the world can be if you just slow down long enough to appreciate it!
