Silvermac

Guys from 37 signals write about their experience with program installation on Windows Vista. To give you an idea how it works, here is only part of installation process, as described by the writer:

First I have to make sure my copy of Windows is “genuine,” which involves installing an ActiveX component (yuck!) or downloading and running a 1.35 MB program that takes 15 seconds to load and forces me to copy and paste a code into a tiny text field. Once I’m past the validation step, I click to download and run the Script Debugger installer, which leads me through six confirmation dialogs before actually starting the installation.

But the best of all is Ryan’s description of Windows:

Windows in general has been like a confused and slow person. Vista is like a person who lost their meds and is trying their best to ignore the voices

Gotta lov’em, 37 signals

Microsoft is launching a subscription service aimed at providing better protection for the Windows operating system, which has been vulnerable to Internet attacks, MSN reports.

Windows Live OneCare will protect up to three computers for US$49.95 a year.

I just can’t understand how people can put up with this anymore. First, Microsoft releases a product that is so flawed that it would never make a shelf in any other industry. Then they write EULA that gives you no right for any damages and puts no responsibility on the software maker. Then finally, they publicly announce that their software is insecure and that there is a paid service to protect it. But guess who do you pay to? The very software maker who sold you the dodgy operating system. So why not put it in in the first place?

We all know that America is a crazy place, we also know that their laws are absolutely ridiculous. The place where everyone sues everyone else for all possible and imposible reasons and that sometimes it gets really entertaining to watch how they make fools of themselves and ruin each other lives. But it will be the most entertaining to watch someone suing the hell out of Microsoft for “selling me a car with faulty door locks and charging me annual fee to keep my doors closed while I’m driving”. I just can’t wait the show to begin.

If you ever wanted to change the document default icon but don’t want to use tools like Candy Bar, here is a simple way how to do it manually. All you have to do is to go to the resources for particular application, find the icon set and replace it with the one you like. I’ll use Smultron as an example, a nice text editor with the set of icons that I didn’t really like and wanted to use something more ‘textier’ .

Below is the view of Finder with a Smultron file.txt using the default icon.

To chane this we need to go to ~/Applications/ and right click on the Smultron icon.

continue reading…

iPhoto will rebuild the thumbnail cache, or rather ask you if you want it to be done, every time it feels the need. Sometimes this might not happen for a while and with a huge library your scrolling can become crawling if things go bad.

I have a library of some 1800 images and after doing clean OS X (Tiger) and iLife 06 install I have imported my images back but scrolling was, to say it mildly, a joke. After two days of using it iPhoto didn’t ask me to rebuild the thumbnails cache so I had to ask for it.

After exploring the menus and not finding anything there I have actually tried a few key-combinations while starting iPhoto up and there it was – hold Command and Option down while starting iPhoto. The result is the following prompt:

Now select what you want iPhoto to do and click Rebuild.

Update 06 Oct 2007 - The original article was written with iPhoto 06 in mind, but the same works with iPhoto 08. The only difference is that iPhoto 08 has an additional function to examine and repair file permissions for iPhoto gallery.

Technorati tags : iphoto thumbnail cache

iLife 06 is out and most of the folks seem to be very happy with it, me included. One thing I welcomed was iWeb, a website creation tool that Apple should have introduced years ago, but better late than never.

Just prior to launch someone figured out, from the slip-up screenshots, that Apple will realease iWeb, but nobody knew exactly what it was going to be. Okay, it was an easy guess it will be web site creation tool, but on what it was based – nobody had a clue. Speculation was that it might be RapidWeaver by Real Mac Software. I remember around the time of Paris Expo 2005 and just prior to launch of RapidWeawer 3.2 there were some voices in their forums that program might have been aquired by Apple. Well, it didn’t happen and I’m glad and sad at the same time.

It would be great if Apple included something like RapidWeaver into iLife, users would love it, but then again the good old RapidWeaver would be gone. I have been using it for some time now and the enthusiasm of developers is unprecedented. Colaboration with userbase is second to none and I guess if Apple bought the RW off, they would really screw it up in a version or two.

So Apple decided not even to go Konfabulator way this time and wrote the application themselves. What they did – it leaves me pretty disappointed. Entire iWeb is so ‘dot-mac-icised’ (you figure out how to pronounce this word) they could have named it iDotMac. Seriously.

But the question is – Can you publish to the non-dot-mac web server?

The answer is no. You can’t publish (like RapidWeaver does) but you can save it to a local folder and then upload it via FTP. So let’s see how it all works.
When you open the program, the first thing that happens is introduction to .Mac. And this happens every time you open it.

So if you are happy to pay for .Mac here is your chance. Otherwise hit Cancel.

I will leave it up to you to decide whether you like what you get in iWeb or not, but when the time for publishing comes you are faced with yet another .Mac offer. Publish button is in the lower left corner of your screen, and once you hit it you get the message above again.

So hitting Cancel button will bring us back to the site editing and the only other thing we can do, is to publish to the local folder.

To do so we simply go to File | Publish to a Folder… in menu bar.

The next step is to select the folder or to create one and then publish it there. But guess what comes next ? Yes, another .Mac reminder, this time not telling us to subscribe but rather telling what we are missing. Oh, come on, Steve !

Unless you really really want to subscribe to .Mac – you are left alone from here. What you need to do is to get an FTP program and upload the site to your non-dot-mac hosting service.

I noticed one interesting thing regarding files in the local folder, they decided to create index.html file that is just a redirector to another index.html file that sits one folder below.

I’m not exactly sure why is this, but I guess it might be something to do with password protection which is one of the options with .Mac. So if you’re uploading files to your web server you will be quite fine to upload only the files and folders contained in “Site” folder in the above example (or whatever your site folder is called).

DiggUpdate gives you quick access to the front page stories of www.digg.com in your Mac OS X menu-bar. DiggUpdate will display a small icon at the top right of your screen. When there are new front page stories you have not seen, the lamp in the icon will turn yellow. Simply click on the icon and you will see the new front page stories in your menubar as long with a short description. You can click on any of the stories to visit them.

Download from VersionTracker or Mac Update

technorati tags: digg, diggupdate