The Author – Bart Busschots
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Apr
13
iPhone on Schedule but OS X 10.5 Leopard Delayed
Filed Under Computers & Tech on April 13, 2007 | 4 Comments
Well, I had predicted that Apple would try get Leopard out by WWDC. In a statement today Apple did say that was their plan, but it hasn’t worked out. Apple blame the iPhone saying they have had to borrow developers from the OS X team to get the iPhone ready for June. I guess the good news is that the iPhone is on target for its June release date, but the cost of this is that Leopard will not be out till October. The only silver lining I can see is that Apple say OS X 10.5 will be ‘feature complete’ by WWDC and that developers will be getting a beta version at WWDC. This means that although we won’t get our hands on Leopard in June, we should at least get to see the final feature set. Putting my prediction hat on I expect we’ll see an extended Leopard demo during Jobs’ keynote at WWDC in June.
[tags]iPhone, OS X Leopard, OS X 10.5, Apple[/tags]
Mar
25
PasswordVault2Go – A Great Shareware Tool
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Security on March 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Passwords are an annoying fact of life in our modern electronic world. If you’re any sort of regular computer user you’re going to start building up quite a collection. You could use the same user name and password for everything, but that’s very insecure. Also, you often don’t have a choice of user name, or you can run into very restrictive password policies, either way it’s unlikely you’ll manage to get the same user name and password everywhere even if you tried! Remembering the details for things you log in to every day is never the problem. It’s the passwords for the things you only use a few times a month or even a year that cause the problems. Saving passwords in browsers can help a bit but it makes things even worse when you try to use another computer and of course your browser isn’t going to be any help when it comes to remembering your domain password at work or your FTP password for that website you only update every few months. On top of all your passwords you also have software registration codes to keep track of and your browser certainly isn’t going to help you with that. Inevitably you end up getting locked out of sites or services and having to re-buy software you’ve bought before because you can’t find your registration key.
[tags]PasswordVault, PasswordVault2Go, Lava Software[/tags]
Mar
23
When Will OS X 10.5 Leopard Be Out?
Filed Under Computers & Tech on March 23, 2007 | 3 Comments
I get asked this a lot. Outside of Apple I don’t think anyone knows. Just this week I’ve seen two conflicting reports citing ‘industry sources’, one predicting Leopard will ship in Mid April, the other predicting October. The only official line we have is ‘Spring 2007’. Depending on who’s definition of Spring you use that means any time before June 21st. That really is all we know. Any predictions you hear are just that, predictions. My regular readers have probably noticed that I like making Apple related predictions on my blog so that should I ever be right some day I can point back to the post and say ‘look – I told you so’. Sure, it’s childish but hey, I’m a bloke, and we don’t grow up, we just grow old …. so … lets do some predicting 🙂
Considering just how much Apple made fun of Microsoft for delaying Vista I really don’t think they want to let the ‘Spring’ date slide. However, from what I’ve been reading on various technology blogs it seems the latest developer build is still far from a final product so it appears Apple still have work to do. This makes it likely we’ll see Leopard right at the end of Spring. Apple moved their developer’s conference (WWDC) forward a few months to June 11-15. I think they did this for a reason and I think that reason is Leopard. My prediction is that Leopard will be announced at WWDC and will ship a few weeks after that.
[tags]Apple, OS X, Leopard, OS X 10.5[/tags]
Mar
6
My Review of NetNewsWire 3 Preview Release on the NosillaCast
Filed Under Computers & Tech on March 6, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I did a review of the pre-beta preview release of NetNewsWire 3 for Allison on the NosillaCast. Check it out in Episode 85.
[tags]NosillaCast, NetNewsWire[/tags]
Feb
27
A Nice Free Tool for Measuring Pixel Sizes on Screen
Filed Under Computers & Tech on February 27, 2007 | 5 Comments
It’s often handy to figure out how big elements on your screen are in pixels. The freeware tool Free Ruler lets you do just that. This is another example of the kind of Mac programs I really like, those that do just one thing but do it very well. The program really couldn’t be simpler. You get a semi-transparent ruler that floats over the screen that you can move around. You actually get two rulers at 90o to each other and you can resize both independently though they move together. There’s not really much more to say about this tool so I’ll leave you with a screen shot.
[tags]OS X, Apple, Software, Free Ruler[/tags]
Feb
26
Two Tips for Getting More out of Thunderbird
Filed Under Computers & Tech on February 26, 2007 | 7 Comments
I’m probably a very rare beast, a Mac user who uses Thunderbird rather than Apple Mail. The reason I use Thunderbird is because I don’t like lock-in. I’ve had my same mailboxes on Windows, Linux and Mac, so I know that as long as I use Thunderbird I can move to any OS I want at any time and keep all my mail, contacts and settings completely effortlessly. I’d just have to copy one folder. It can certainly be argued that Thunderbird is less polished looking than Mac Mail and it has a few less features but on the whole it’s a very capable client that works well.
I’ve been using the basic features for years but of late the sheer volume of mail I have to deal with at work has led me to start experimenting with ways of making my life easier. The first optimization people generally think of is message filters so I’m not going to talk about those because I think they are pretty obvious and people are used to using them. Instead I’m going to give two hopefully less obvious tips.
[tags]Mozilla, Thunderbird, Email, To Do, Organise[/tags]
Feb
18
Two Free and Simple Video Tools for OS X
Filed Under Computers & Tech on February 18, 2007 | 2 Comments
One of the things I like best about the Mac platform is the abundance of good simple software tools that do one thing very well. Because of the frameworks Apple provide to Mac developers these tools all tend to share a common look and and feel and generally have very simple and intuative user interfaces (UIs). Personally I really like this approach to software, give me lots of small and simple apps that do one thing really well over a monolith that does millions of things poorly any day!
iRecord is the perfect example of this kind of Mac tool. The one thing it does is quickly and simply record video from your iSight camera. The (UI) could not be simpler, it has a grand total of one button! It’s a big red record button, you push it to start recording and again to stop. That’s all you have to do. Your video gets saved to your desktop.
The second tool I want to talk about is Perian, the ‘Swizz-Army Knife for Quicktime’. Perian is a Quicktime component that adds support for extra codecs to Quicktime. I came across this tools while looking for a free FLV (Flash Video) player for OS X. It deals with FLVs wonderfully as well as AVIs and DivXs. You can see a full list of the codecs supported on the web-page. For Mac users who are used to drag-and-drop installs installing a Quicktime component may seem a bit tricky since you actually have to copy it to the Quicktime folder in the Library folder on your hard-drive. However, a cleverly designed DMG file makes installing Perian trivial, drag a few pixels, drop, done!
Both these tools are free and embody what I believe are the best things about Mac software. Enjoy!
Feb
16
The Month of Apple Bugs Digested
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Security on February 16, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I’m actually surprised by how little discussion I’ve seen about January’s month of Apple Bugs. For those of you not familiar with the Month of Apple Bugs (MoAB) project, the idea was to post one Apple related bug each day in January 2007. Perhaps one reason for the lack of discussion is that the bug for the 31st of January has not been released yet. A very ominous title (“Unspecified Kernel Remote Fun”) has been posted but nothing more. People may be waiting to see just how bad these supposed remote exploits are before commenting. However, I’ve been digesting the thirty bugs we do have for a few weeks now and I think I’m ready to share some of my thoughts, even if may have to alter my views a bit when (and if) last bug is finally released.
[tags]Apple, Security, MoAB[/tags]
Jan
8
Musings on What iLife 07 May Bring
Filed Under Computers & Tech on January 8, 2007 | 2 Comments
A pretty major omission from my MacWorld 2007 predictions is iLife 07. No idea why my brain wasn’t tuned in to the fact that every MacWorld I remember seems to have brought an iLife release, so why would the year be any different? You could argue that with Leopard on the way iLife may come later in the year, and that was my view for a while, but I’ve changed my mind. Anyhow, regardless of when it does come out I want to discuss what I’d like to see in it.
I don’t really use iMovie or iDVD enough to have anything interesting to say about them. I used both twice in iLife 06 and each time it was a problem-free and rewarding experience. I have a lot more experience with the other iLife components so I’m going to concentrate on those, namely iTunes, iPhoto, iWeb & GarageBand.
[tags]MacWorld, Apple, iLife, iTunes, iPhoto, iWeb, GarageBand[/tags]
Jan
1
Running NMAP on Intel Macs
Filed Under Security, System Administration, Computers & Tech on January 1, 2007 | 4 Comments
Before I switched to an Intel based Mac I had always used NMapFE as my nmap front end. Since I only need to run nmap on my G4 MacMini at home and my G5 PowerMac at work I didn’t notice until today that NMapFE doesn’t work in Intel Macs. I had recommended NMapFE to Allison of the NosillaCast and she replied to tell me it didn’t work for her. I tried it on my own MacBookPro and sure enough, it doesn’t work. So, I went hunting for a good nmap GUI for Intel Macs and eventually came up with a good solution. The bad news is that this solution involves installing three things separately. But, don’t worry, all three are small and painlessly simple to install.
[tags]nmap, security, Mac, OS X[/tags]