Wednesday, January 25, 2006
OUTLOOK!!
Why the F does Outlook take over my machine when it's doing it's things? Why can't it just do them nicely like every other app on the face of the planet? When Outlook wants to do something - transfer/send/receive/sync with server/etc - my entire machine grinds to a complete halt and does absolutely nothing else until it's done. For a long time I thought iTunes might have been the culprit, then Visual Studio, I even considered that perhaps Firefox was bombing it on me every once in a while, but Outlook is DEFINITELY to blame and I'm pissed. This is an enterprise class office application used by millions of people EVERY day of their lives. Somebody clean this shit up please.
It was the worst Atari game ever made...
So true, so true.... watch the video for the whole story.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
iPhoto 6: First Impressions - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
Looks like Morgan will love to get her hands on a copy of the new iPhoto!!Check it out Morg:
- The files are organized so you can actually find them!!
- iPhoto doesn't insist on copying files into its library folder on you anymore (it's optional!)
Read more at tuaw.com/2006/01/12/iph...
Slashdot | High-tech Cars Replacing Driver Skill?
Via Slashdot, a great article about the trend of driver skill being replaced by computer/machine skill. Not a wholly bad idea in itself, but the fact that most people don't REALIZE they're using these systems is what scares me.
They don't understand what the machine is doing for them, and consequently don't know how to do it themselves when the occasion arises.
Read more at slashdot.org/article.pl...
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Ragtops, eat your heart out.
Who wouldn't want one of these sexy retractable hardtops? I would feel like James Bond with a car like this.
Read more at stadium.weblogsinc.com/...
Monday, January 09, 2006
MWSF Wishlist
Now that I've been over what I think about the current crop of rumors about MWSF, I'll bet you all want to know what I am WISHING for at MWSF this year?
- A NEW FINDER
The Finder sucks. It is, at best, slightly worse than the Mac OS 9 Finder, and is in major need of an overhaul. No more choosing if you want brushed metal or standard windows, no more file-deletion-task-blocking balogney, no more ultra-wide task granularity (spinning beach ball every time you try to do anything), no more 'interrupting' (one app claiming the foreground when you're working in some other app), no more foreground server connecting ( actually no more foreground anything! Do everything in the background, do it quickly, an do it ON ANOTHER THREAD so I'm not tied up waiting for it to finish).
If Apple were to deliver a NEW Finder, I would be over the moon, but I won't expect that for real until "Leopard" comes in the fall (?)(or maybe it'll come right now to go along with new Intel machines? I don't know if this is 'required' or not) - A DECENT NETWORK VOLUME BROWSER
Separate the network browser from the Finder, in so much as it needs to be. It should 'look' like it's part of the Finder, but function completely separately. I should be able to browse network volumes the way I browse local volumes (though I like the current pick-a-server-and-"connect" paradigm), it should be fast, and I shouldn't have to wait a dog's age for new servers to appear/unavailble servers to disappear/server name changes to take affect etc. And move the friggin' Windows Workgroup/WINS server config stuff out of the Directory Access App to somewhere that makes sense.
MWSF
The bi-annual MacWorld conference will be held tomorrow at the Moscone Center in San Francisco tomorrow. There will, unfortunately, be no live webcast, but a rebroadcast of the event will be shown from the usual place (quicktime.com somewhere).
There are a few things people have been predicting, and I think I'm ready to comment on a few of them.
There are a few things people have been predicting, and I think I'm ready to comment on a few of them.
- Intel Machines
This is a full 6 months earlier than the first Intel machines were promised, (at a MacWorld keynote) but I think this one has a pretty good chance of being unveiled at this event. I think it's the perfect time, due to all the news of fantastic iPod sales over Christmas (I'm sure we'll hear more about that during the keynote as well), for Apple to keep the press ball rolling, and keep their name in the spotlight. However, I think that it's very early to be talking about actually shipping these machines. I won't be surprised to hear a new Intel machine announced, with an expected ship date around Valentine's Day. If it comes, it'll be a laptop model. - Low Cost Laptop
I feel pretty good about this one too. Apple's been doing the 'laptops in schools' thing for a while now, but it's been going in fits - a school will sign on, go for the term of the contract, then switch to Dell. I think they want a machine that is cheap to buy, cheap to build, cheap to replace, with ultra low margins (ie: they basically sell for what it costs to make them) so they can make money on the services associated with these school deals, and (for regular consumer sales) iPods and Airports and all o' that. I could see these machines being bascially a 'made with cheaper plastics' version of the existing iBook, (maybe with only one screen size) or as an Intel model. Less likely that it'd be an intel model though, because I think the new Intel machines will probably use the new DuoCore stuff, and Apple will try to position it as 'The Best', not 'The Cheapest'. - Media Center
I don't like this one that much. We'll all see I guess, but I just don't see Apple going after the Media Center machine - at least not the way MSFT and Co. have been. If we see something along these lines it'll be drastically different from what's currently available. I don't know what that would be. - Low Cost iPod
Not a bad a idea - it would let them capitalize on the brand identity and break into the lower-margin, lower-revenue markets. I sort of expect them to either redo (double the memory, same price?) or dump (replace with a small nano?) the shuffle line - though I still love it. It wouldn't surprise me it any replacement for the shuffle has a screen, though I couldn't be less enthused about that. - iLife '06
I think this one's almost definitely going to happen. iPhoto needs an update to make it capable of handling the really large photo libraries many people are amassing, and better sorting/searching, and better sharing features like "move these photos to this folder for me". iMovie is still okay, though speed improvements and bug fixes are always welcome. iDVD is due for some more themes if nothing else, and Garageband hasn't been touched in a while. - Productivity Suite
I'm not sure - I think the idea of an Apple spreadsheet application is rather weak, given the popularity of Excel (I still don't like it - though it's good for working with databases). I would expecct updates to the iWork stuff - new themes for Keynote, new templates for Pages. Personally, I think they should make Pages the best it can be, and the cheapest it can be, and leave it at that for now. - New Monitors
Maybe. I don't really care, though the possibility of something 'insanely huge' sounds fun. 40-inch studio display, anyone? - FrontRow for everyone?
Probably.
Friday, January 06, 2006
Good software getting bad
WHY does Acrobat Reader take half a day to open now?
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Speech, 9/10/05 - Passion Embodied
You owe it to yourself and to the rest of the world to go and read this speech. I don't know if I've ever been so moved in all my life. If there ever was a compelling argument for despising the current American government, this is it.
(BTW, That's Robert Kennedy, Jr., son of the late J. F. Kennedy, former US president, not Robert Kennedy, AKA Jr., son of Douglas Kennedy, of River Denis.)The speech here: www.sierraclub.org/pres...
