09.08.02
Posted in General
at 10 am
I’m getting more acclimated to MacOS X each week. A tweak here and a tweak there has lead me to replace some of my ‘must haves’ with some of the stuff that X does out of the box. There’s a few tweaks heree and there, but I think I’ve kept my compromises to the minimum.
(Note: this is all in 10.1.5. I should move to JagWire some time, but I’m still fuming over the lack of upgrade pricing. Fry’s has it for $109 and change, the best price I’ve seen so far.)
Coming to X, I thought there were a number of system modifications that I couldn’t live without. I even had an entry about some of my Favorite Control Panels but I’ve found that I either don’t need them or I’ve found adequate replacements. TinkerTool X has been a major part of that, providing double headed arrows in scroll bars, and allowing more flexibility in my Dock placement.
Using a laptop has caused me to reduce my mouse useage even more significantly than on my desktop B&W G3. DragThing has been indispensible here in order to get certain high traffic apps launched: Web browser and Mail being the top two, both of which have Function Keys assigned to them, along with Terminal and iTunes.
I use DragThing since I can’t assign keystrokes to them within the Finder/Dock. In fact I have kept my icons in the dock to a minimum; I’ve taken out any icons that were there just for launching. Now in the last week I’ve turned off DragThing’s Process Dock (Which I had placed in the upper right hand corner ofthe screen). Where previously I kept the Dock hidden and on the bottom left side of the screen, I now have it on the middle right hand, fully visible with icons that are only a quarter inch tall.
(This also allows me to remove the other crutch that DragThing afforded me, a replacement, floating Trash Can.)
So it’s nearly a 1 for 1 replacement. I gain a few things: it’s easier to hide, it shows Apps and windows, and it shows the ‘live’ icons (like the number of new messages in Mail.). However I lose a few: I must show all processes (I’d prefer to hide DragThing and Stickies), and it doesn’t float over the Desktop icons. If I position it at the top of the right hand side, my Hard Drive icon moves down 3 or 4 icons lines down, which just tweaks me out. So I’ve pegged it to the middle of the right side where it doesn’t cover the scroll bar arrows and rarely interferes with my scrolling.
The bottom of me screen is still covered by a line of icons from DragThing: Internet Apps, Text Apps, Media Apps, Tools, Utilities and frequest folders.
LiteSwitch has been a life saver as well. It basically implements the standard Windows Alt-Tab app switching functions with a few tweaks. This is far more effective than the built-in Cmd-Tab.
I never really used WindowShade X and now its future looks even bleaker now that I’ve got the Dock on screen full time.
The only other non-standard thing I’ve done is a key remapper that chnaged my useless Enter key (next to the right hand Cmd key) to an additional Fn key so that getting to PgUp/Dn Home and End are much easier. It also added Shift-Delete to work like a Forward Delete.
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09.04.02
Posted in General
at 12 pm
Would someone please decide how much that gorilla weighs? Can’t we just pick one weight and stick to it?
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08.28.02
Posted in General
at 10 pm
This weekend a branch of my family had a reunion for the first time in 40 years. The Vasboe clan met in Federal Way, Washington about 40 miles south of the Space Needle. The activities of the day wrapped up by 9:30pm, so by 10:30 I was on the road, armed with my iBook, MacStumbler and a vague sense of direction.
I hit one of the major highways (HWY 99) and headed towards the bigger city. At about the ten mile mark and two suburbs later, I came across an intersection with an open access point. Most of the points you see are ‘tmobile’ which is the fee-based service offered by Starbucks.
The two access points I came across were both open pipes to the internet. After a bit of homing in I settled into a signal that was strong enough to maintain the connection.
Quick, and free, I was surfing along checking a few sites while my mail downloaded in the background. My sister-in-law checked in on an e-bay auction she had been interested in and I even checked in with my small Jabber roster to see if anyone was online.
It’s interesting that this scenario could occur: HIGH-SPEED, WIRELESS, FREE Internet connections, just sitting around, hanging out waiting for someone to use them…
(Of course, this is nothing compared to the amount of coverage that is available in Portland. Thanks PersonalTelco!)
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08.26.02
Posted in General
at 7 pm
Interesting Reading: http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/dorf/20020306.html
It looks at the issues revolving around what position Congress should be taking in regards to Bush’s War.
I’ve included the text in the Read More section.
Read the rest of this entry »
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08.16.02
Posted in General
at 8 am
Yes! http://phonezilla.net/3stations/archives/000400.php
Finally a way to stop some of this stuff, legally.
I’m at WebVisions today, where I’ll be the Stage Manager. Wish me luck! http://www.oregon.org/webvisions/
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08.15.02
Posted in General
at 1 pm
I recently cut off 9 inches of my hair, just a bit short of what’s needed for this organization: http://www.locksoflove.org/. It’s too bad as I would have loved to have donated my hair to this group, and I could have taken another inch off to get it to that length.
I should be out to that length in another 4 years or so… I’ll have to try again then. It will be interesting to see if I have my journal archives still available in 2006… 🙂
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08.11.02
Posted in General
at 10 am
Now that the Wi-Fi connection is working, I’d like to get a couple of accessories for my Newton MessagePad 2000. Highest on my list is a power adapter, so that I can plug it into the wall and operate withput having to drop in freshly recharged batties constantly. (The wi-fi card takes a lot of juice.)
So I’ve found the following info:
http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/newton-faq-hardware.html#IIB7
7) What kind of AC power adapters should I use?
“The best advice is to use a Newton-branded adapter. Any Newton adapter will work with any Newton. There are two adapters, the original adapter (shipped with MP1x0s) and the 9W adapter (officially for MP2x00 and eMates). Both work in every Newton but the 9W adapter charges batteries faster than the original adapter (except in the MP100).”
More in the read more section.
Then there were some recent e-mails:
“The Radio Shack unit that is mentioned in the FAQ (http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/newton-faq-hardware.html#IIB7) has been working fine for my wife now and hasn’t given us any problems. It’s
also fairly useful since it comes with a million adapter tips so you canuse it with pretty much anything in your house.”
And this message as well:
“The other issue is that the Newton is very well matched to the voltage/current characteristics of the original power adaptor. So you can achieve optimum results for charging the battery inside the Newt in case of you use the original power supply only.
“The ideal alternative power adapter should have voltage regulation AND active current limitation as well.
“Most of the ac adaptors you can find are very simple – only one way rectifier, no regulation, no active current limitation. I do not recommend using such an adaptor.
“If you use a regulated adaptor with an output of 6 V I do not expect any risk for the Newt, but the batteries will charge very slowly.
“If you intend to use an regulated adaptor with 7.5 V output voltage you should be very careful regarding the max. charging current.
“What I successfully did was using a laboratory power supply, set to max. 7 V output voltage and max. 1A output current. But charging in this configuration is still remarkably slower compared to charging with the original power supply.
“You should be very very careful doing experiments with different power sources – I am burned already – I destroyed my MP2100 once completely.”
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07.20.02
Posted in General
at 12 pm
I was looking at a can opener in the grocery store yesterday and there’s a fundemental flaw with most of them. There’s three pieces that are at issue: the circular blade, the geared gripping advancer, and the hinge.
The blade and the advancer only work well when they remain aligned, right next to each other. The cutting of the top of the can only works smoothly if the force from each side are focused closely together.
The mechanism that keeps them aligned is the hinge of the two arms of the can opener. This hinge is made to swing open *very* easily for no particuar reason. It is also very loose and it wobbles so that the alignment between the blades and the advancer slips more and more.
It seems to me that a spring assisted mechanism should be used to hold the two pieces together. I think we should look to a scissor based tool where the hinge is stronger, more like a cutting shear, or a pair of pliers.
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Posted in General
at 11 am
Amy sent me a great link: http://www.mapscience.org/ (nw) which has some great maps to check out.
The site shows proposed routes that nuclear waste will take in its travel to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. (Privacy tip: just put in your zip code.)
Their use of the Baltimore train tunnel fire is more than a little over the top, but it does point out the fact that there are a number of different scenarios that could play out with this incredibly toxic waste.
It’s hard to imagine that humans could produce such a deadly toxin and think that the small amount of electricity that it generates would be worth it. The electricity is gone the instant the power plant shuts down. But the toxin will remain for geologic *eras*.
It’s too bad we haven’t found a way to switch that around…
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07.19.02
Posted in General
at 1 pm
One of my pet projects has been to collect some info on the best way to format links in e-mails so that they are clickable in the widest number of e-mail clients. One of the missing pieces has been AOL’s mail client, since I don’t have a way to test it. So I was glad to stumble across this article. It goes into detail about how they see most of the AOL mail clients handle the situation. It would be nice if they ahd a chart showing supported methods in each version, but I’ll have to wait for that, or figure out some way of doing it for myself…
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