Archives for October 2007

Do the work, be invisible

Sometimes a quote just speaks for itself: Did you know, sixty years ago, six young women programmed the ENIAC, the first all-electronic programmable computer? Six young women mastered the power of the ENIAC — an 80 foot long, 8 foot tall, black metal machine — and harnessed its power through an archaic programming interface using […]

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Google Docs has version control

I haven’t yet reinstalled Microsoft Office on my MacBook Pro, and would prefer to avoid it in any case. So, for a client project I’m using Google Docs to add some information to an existing Word document they sent me. Last night, when extremely tired, I accidentally deleted a few lines of text, but only […]

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A one-note song while I work

Hmmm, it turns out the bird nearby that has the extremely annoying call is the Pipiwharauroa or Shining Cuckoo: Shining cuckoo song (.wav format). [Via : New Zealand Birds | Birds | Bird Song.] I haven’t seen the darned thing yet, but I wish it could get off that single note.

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Safari 3.0.4 resizes images

Hmmm, I was just looking at an image — NASA – Earth’s Horizon: Airglow above Earth’s horizon and solar array panels add color to this scene of a portion of the International Space Station as the orbiting complex is docked with the Space Shuttle Discovery. I clicked the link to the large version (650Kb) and […]

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Women in space

So, when do you get to see a bunch of people sitting around the room like this, for an interview? When it’s a live interview from the space station, that’s when. I tuned in to NASA live TV and by chance caught this interview with the STS-120 and Expedition 16 crews, including Expedition 16 Commander […]

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Can’t wait to try Time Machine

I haven’t finished pulling stuff off my only external backup drive yet, so I’m not willing to erase it and turn on Time Machine. But I’m very keen to give it a whirl. Which really only proves the truth of something John Gruber says today of Time Machine: Apple has made something so effect-laden and […]

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Leopard’s web server

I run various installs on my own Mac of WordPress And Docuwiki, and occasionally other software. This allows me to carry out local testing and development. Mostly these involve some version of PHP and MySQL (and now I realise I didn’t back up the MySQL databases before I wiped my MacBook Pro — oh well). […]

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NetNewsWire’s styles

One of the many wonderful features of the NetNewsWire RSS feed reader is how flexible it is for layout, fonts and colours. I prefer the widescreen view myself: three columns with subscriptions on the left, headlines in the middle and the full post on the right. NetNewsWire allows you to set fonts and colours and […]

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Spanning Sync keeps my calendars together

Since I switched to Google Apps I’ve been using Google’s online calendar for appointments and events. That’s very fine — it’s online, so I can access it anywhere, or more important, from any machine, but my cellphone and iPods sync with iCal, not Google Calendar. That’s been easily solved with the most excellent Spanning Sync. […]

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NetNewsWire click to flag

A few times recently, for various reasons I’ve reinstalled NetNewsWire. Every single time I then try to click in the Flag or Read columns to toggle status. Every time it fails. But, there is a fix: Ranchero Software: NetNewsWire 3.0d46 Change Notes: “Added a hidden pref to turn on clicking directly in the flag and […]

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Leopard – first impressions

The clean install of Leopard went smoothly. Now I’m installing various applications, entering serial numbers, setting preferences, adding fonts, and so on. I love doing an erase and install because it cleans out all the cruft that has accumulated as I try out software, make screenshots, play with images and generally give my Mac a […]

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Leopard’s in a Tardis box!

10 minutes to go on the Leopard install, and I’m in awe at the cardboard box it came in. It’s regular thickness cardboard, but Leopard’s black and silver X is against a shiny swirly pinky totally 3D holographic background that reflects me and the room I’m in. I’d swear it’s at least 3 inches deep. […]

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