The Syncing Apple

Upgrading to Leopard 10.5.2 fixed many sync issues with iDisk, however, is stopped syncing all together on my ibook. This ars article has some good tips on fixing sync issues w/ iDisk.

How-To: Truly reset your .Mac sync data

I’ve been in search of a quick, simple and modern image editor for the Mac. For far too long I’ve been dragging around Photoshop 7, simply because I know I can use it to quickly do what I want. But what I need to do is limited. I want to resize and scale photos, add text (watermarks) to them and maybe overlay one or two. Maybe take a PDF and rasterize it to a thumbnail. I deal a lot with screenshots and adding hi-lights to them is about the most complicated task I ever need to do.

I’ve looked at the Gimp for OSX and recently Acorn (which seems totally alien to me- couldn’t get it to do the most basic things) and have been frustrated, till today. Banging away at google I hit upon Imagewell. The people at XtraLean put this app out, and it is exactly what I was looking for (and it works fine in Leopard). It has a crazy price (free for basic stuff- and what it does for free is amazing) and is only $20 bucks to unlock the more advanced features.

It easily passed my acid test- I was able to download it without a bunch of questions and i could use it right away. I pulled in a PDF and was able to quickly resize it to the size I needed and save it out as a png. Very easy and intutive. Intrigued, I went back to their site and looked around the Forums and stumbled across their concise and short screen casts, which quickly illustrate the cool things you can do with this app. I think I’ll buy this one and can leave Photoshop 7 to finally wither away.

Trying to get my mysql environment setup on 10.5 I ran head-long into the mysql python 1.22 drivers breaking with xcode 3.

from _mysql.c:40: /usr/include/sys/types.h:92: error: duplicate ‘unsigned’ /usr/include/sys/types.h:92: error: two or more data types in declaration specifiers error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

The fixed is coved over at the Ingels 3.0. fairly simple fix, but due to my complete lack of c programming skils, one that I couldn’t have come up with on my own. But edit a few lines and it complies fine. Thanks Ingles.

Browsing the net I came across a great site that answered some questions I had about the new firewall in Leopard. Using it now on the company macbook, and it’s nice. Having the 4 gigs of ram helps also. My poor macbook was pushed to the limit with just 2. The site is worth checking out- there are lots of good Mac tibits.

Take that apple!

I’ve been dreaming of having a USB keyboard that uses the keys in my Macbook. I’ve been in total love with the keyboard on the MacBook since it came out and I picked one up a few weeks later. The keyboards on MacBookPros feel like crap. The current Mac USB keyboards are also near useless- their gentle slope hurts my hands after a few days of use. Soon however, my dreams may be reality as pictures of the new Apple keyboards are leaking all over the net, and they are definitely MacBook-based. The MacBook keyboard looks like an old 1980’s chicklet keyboard, however, it has the best spacing and feedback of any keyboard I’ve ever used.

See Apple Keyboards Compared to Old Keyboards at circa1978.com.

At the 2007 Worldwide Newton Conference in Tokyo on July 8th, Paul Guyot announced that his most excellent Newton Emulator for ARM, Einstein, was now open source and available immediately on Google Code. His announcement to the NewtonTalk mailing list is worth the read. One improvement that sounds enticing:

“the heavy work done these past weeks allowed me to design a new experimental module where NewtonOS instructions are executed natively on ARM PDAs. “

There have been other improvements to Einstein since last year- the biggest (to me) is the ability to cross-compile and build Einstein on your Mac while targeting the Nokia 770. No more waiting for binaries to be released. The 800 was tested and the binary didn’t run– ITOS2007 has some different libraries (from ITOS 2005 and 2006), which probably caused issues. I’m attempting to roll a build for my 770 this weekend. We’ll see how it goes.

Here are my screen shots of my 770 from the release of Einstein last year.

Also announced was the release of Driver Labo, the wifi drivers for Newton by Hiroshi Noguchi. AFAIK, these are the only available drivers in the world that support WEP on the Newton. I had purchased licenses back when they were available, but since 2005 Hiroshi hadn’t ever responded to requests and pleas to accept payment for new licenses. As a result many Newtons can’t participate in locked-down Wifi networks. The release of these drivers as Open Source is a welcome event.

There is an overview of the WWNC ‘07 with some pictures of course.

Word around was that Apple introduced a new version of iSync with 10.4.9, and with it the promise of direct OSX support of the V3m. And Apple did add support for the V3m model to iSync, but they didn’t add support for the Sprint version! It still wouldn’t pair correctly with a fresh install of 10.4.9 and my razr.

Luckily however, Clockskew has been keeping pace with his excellent iSync plugins. He has recently introduced a forum, where he stashes his latest downloads for his plugins as well and support for them. The forums help, I’m sure, as individual emails to CS don’t benefit other users.

I had some issues with his earlier plugin (my post here) but this one seems to work OK, with some reservations. It won’t work when you choose (in iSync) to erase device and sync, which is what I wanted, as I don’t trust that it won’t just dupe a whole bunch of contacts in my Addressbook. iSync started to clear the existing contacts from my phone, but but quit claiming it couldn’t delete them. Upon looking at my phone it had deleted all contacts save one, and thought it may be that one sticking up the works. However, when I manually deleted that, iSync still wouldn’t complete the erase and move on to the merge, until I manually changed the ‘on first sync’ option in iSync to just merge data on device and the Mac. Which wasn’t an issue now since all the contacts on the phone had been deleted.

I have yet to try the calendar syncing, since I keep most of my important calendar items on Entourage. I still have to enable the Entourage/Addressbook, iCal syncing that Entourage has introduced.

http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jan/j47d52oo/m_8848125_350_ref.mov

I ordered a Razr V3m from Sprint last week since the krzr looks to be too fat, and the razr has a larger screen. The phone is nice but one of the most important features I’ve been lusting after is the ability to sync my contacts over using iSync and USB. All the Moto phones use USB, and have thankfully left the the old proprietary connectors behind. One problem- the Mac and iSync seem to know nothing about the V3m Razr.

These sites however, have fixes. Clockskew has nice phone plug-in available for download, that worked fine for me, until I updated the Sprint Software on the V3m. Then it stopped working (allthough the author seems to have it working with the latest Sprint firmware on his Razr….). Luckily the strange site Whopack (which seems to exist only to impart this exact bit of knowledge) has another working solution. Follow the steps at Whopack and you to can easily sync your contacts back and forth from the V3m and iSync.

And one other issue- why won’t an ordinary mini-usb cable charge this phone? Now I have to drag around the adapter that came with the Razr.

That was fast- The Apple store called me back on Sunday night and said the MacBook was ready for pickup. I got it Monday evening and so far its been ok- but of course I don’t expect anything to happen for at least a month or so. It does seem to be running cooler, according to CoreDuoTemp (which is now 1.0 btw) but that could also be 10.4.8.

They replaced the keyboard, trackpad an the upper casing again, as it had already started to get dirty, I suppose I will just have to live with it getting darker this time.

My Macbook suffered from RSS over a month and a half ago. After taking it into the nearest Apple Store, I had to wait about four days to get the MB and heat-sink repaired. It went to the depo and was shipped back to me. About two weeks ago it began shutting down again. It’s so hard to use a laptop that randomly shuts-down.

Back to the Ardmore, PA Apple store. This time however the Geniuses seemed to know about the problem and said they could fix it in house. I dropped it off Saturday at about noon and I got a call Sunday at 6pm- they had already fixed it and it was ready for pickup.

While I was at the Apple store I got a Mini to replace my single-cpu G5 PPC, which has been nearly unusable since I got my MacBook. The G5 will turn into more of a file-server and backup, the Mini is cool and very quiet. I had to go get 2G Ram and 160G hard-drive, but the cost is still comparable to a stock white MacBook. And no RSS.

I’ve had my MacBook (white) for a few weeks now. And I strongly suggest you get the glossy screen if you don’t work with over head fluorescent lights. The screen is so bright and nice I can’t go back to my older LCD panels any more- they look horrible. Also my G5 now seems so sluggish. The first thing I did is put 2G ram in, and its just an incredible deal from Apple. This much power for such a cheap price. Parallels runs so nicely that I don’t even use my XP laptop anymore.

The recent 10.4.7 update switched the JDK to java 5.0. If you still need to use 1.4.2 for some reason, its still in there. Here is how you change it. It’s just a symlink in /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions

chac:/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions dillera$ ls -l
total 40
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Jun 10 22:20 1.3 -> 1.3.1
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 Apr 18 09:31 1.3.1
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Apr 18 09:31 1.4 -> 1.4.2
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 Apr 18 09:31 1.4.2
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Jun 10 22:20 1.5 -> 1.5.0
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 Apr 18 09:31 1.5.0
drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Jun 27 19:23 A
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1 Jun 10 22:20 Current -> A
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Jun 10 22:20 CurrentJDK -> 1.5.0
chac:/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions dillera$ sudo rm CurrentJDK
chac:/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions dillera$ sudo ln -s 1.4.2 CurrentJDK

chac:/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions dillera$ ls -l
total 40
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Jun 10 22:20 1.3 -> 1.3.1
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 Apr 18 09:31 1.3.1
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Apr 18 09:31 1.4 -> 1.4.2
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 Apr 18 09:31 1.4.2
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Jun 10 22:20 1.5 -> 1.5.0
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 Apr 18 09:31 1.5.0
drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Jun 27 19:23 A
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1 Jun 10 22:20 Current -> A
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 Jun 28 10:55 CurrentJDK -> 1.4.2
Now it’s all better.

There is a large amount of chatter regarding the new glossy LCD screens on the MacBooks, and the option to have one on your MacBook Pro. I found an amazing link to page that describes what the technical differences are, and why you want one or the other.

It seems to me that it comes down to your viewing habits- if the majority of your work with the laptop is going to be in a well-lit space, like and office, where you don’t have so much control over the lighting conditions, you are best off with the non-gloss (matte) panels. If however, you work mostly at home, or in some darkish coffee shop the sharpness and the clarity of the glossy LCD is undeniable.

I’m favoring the gloss, since I get to work at home most of the time.

Don’t forget to grab 1.1 - it was just released yesterday and it is a welcome improvement.

Archive & Install is da bomb. Everything just works so far. I only have to upgrade VPN Tracker it seems. At this point I have no gripes, and I like the new mail (it seems way faster to me), but I should have just deleted all my existing email and let IMAP re-sync… instead Mail.app began to import my old mail indexes….

Also, iChat may be using Jabber, which is very, very cool, but the interface SUCKS. The sorting is dumb, and it has no concept of Jabber groups.

Which would you rather look at all day?

I hope you are using AdiumX for your messaging needs on the Mac. But wait– now that iChat does jabber natively, perhaps it is a worth a look, once I get Tiger. But back to the matter at hand– namely AdiumX. How are you alerted via sound regarding changes in status? Might I suggest you need the Napoleon Dynamite soundset now.

Don’t be a friggin idiot Kip!

Sweet.

So I still don’t have Tiger. Having fought so hard to keep my 10.3.9 machine working with firewire and usb, I’m actually able to resist the lure of a new Mac OS X operating system. I know it will make me angry. I’ve been hearing bad things about the new Mail.app. Which I rely on.

Also the fact that I no longer have access to the wonderfully lower prices at the University of Pennsylvania computer store. Sigh. It’s $70 there, as compared to what, like $150 from Apple? And all I need is a Penn Card. I may wait till 10.4.1, or I may end up running across a copy. File this away for that time.

To gripes about the price:

1. Apple is making tons now– why not a free upgrade?

2. Failing that, .Mac users should get Tiger for $50. Apple is not getting $150 (or the lame $94 that Amazon is offering)