Apple

I’ve been a Mac user since 1991, so it’s inevitable that I’d have this as a category.

But what about ‘janitor’?

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…due to what is described as an “unfortunate error in translation,” the Spanish version of Windows XP “gave users an option to select their gender from not specified, male, or ‘bitch.'” Uh, whoops.

— As the Apple Turns, while pointing out various Microsoft geographical and linguistic gaffes.

Incidentally, the title of this post involves an old bit of wisdom passed down from my father to me, in which it was imparted that there are actually three sexes in the human race. This little-known fact can be verified in nearly any large public building simply by strolling past the public restrooms, where you are likely to see three doors: male, female, and janitor.

iTunes: “Edie (Ciao Baby)” by Cult, The from the album Sonic Temple (1989, 4:46).

Saft: Everything Safari should have, but doesn’t yet

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Thanks to a mention by Dori, I’ve just discovered Saft, a wonderful little add-on for Safari. While the headline on Saft’s site promotes full-screen browsing as its main feature — something that really doesn’t concern me all that much — there’s so much more packed into this little piece of software.

Head on over to Saft’s Usage page and check out everything it can do. If you spend any appreciable amount of time in Safari on a day-to-day basis, it’s well worth the download.

iTunes: “Strangers (Live)” by Portishead from the album Roseland NYC (2000, 5:20).

iTunes and Jazz: More about Metadata

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Regular readers of this mess I call a website will occasionally have seen me rant about metadata, especially where the iTunes Music Store is concerned. In short, it’s woefully incomplete, and at times, flat-out inaccurate. It was quite heartening for me to run across Jazz in 2500?, a jazz-lovers look at the disservice done to music when only the least possible information is preserved when purchasing music online.

The consumer that buys an album on ITMS should have access to the same liner notes, session information and songwriting credits that are sold with the CD version. Online music stores should facilitate rather than hinder access to this information before, during and after a song or album is purchased.

[…]

Removing the identity of artists is one of digital music’s largest threats to jazz preservation. A full understanding of jazz goes beyond the “Great Man” theory and recognizes the influence of side players – the wide network of people that developed this musical language together. Selling songs and albums separated from names disrespects the artists and hinders the education of new listeners.

ITMS often does not list the names of the musicians who play on jazz albums. When they do list the names, it is never on a song-by-song basis, making the information confusing and useless on compilations and box sets.

[…]

Box sets and CD reissues often feature meticulously researched session information, as well as essays from experts. Having this information sold with the music enables jazz fans to educate themselves and others. Most jazz albums for sale in the ITMS have none of the original album’s liner notes or session information.

Maybe it’s true that most people aren’t bugged by this stuff, or the lack thereof. However, those of us who do care, care a lot.

Besides — why in the world should we accept marketing to the lowest common denominator? There’s enough business out there that do that already. Apple and the iTunes Music Store should be at the forefront of showing how things should be done, and that they’re also music lovers, not just music retailers.

iTunes: “That’s It! (Dub)” by Hyperdrive from the album Club Cuts EP Vol. 1 (1998, 8:19).

iTunes cover art in iChat user icon?

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I want an iChat/iTunes plugin that would set my iChat icon to the cover art of the currently playing track in iTunes.

Does this exist?

If not, could someone write it?

That’d be really nifty.

Update: I really should Google before I post: Mac OS X Hints: Set iChat status message and icon to iTunes song.

iTunes: “Dreams” by Land of Dreams from the album Essential Chillout (2000, 5:57).

As the Apple Turns RSS feed

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I’m tossing this up here because until today, I had never, ever, ever seen nor heard of any mention of an RSS feed for everyone’s favorite Apple-flavored soap opera, As the Apple Turns (I even just dug through their help pages and v2.0 FAQ to be sure I wan’t entirely off base — at least, as far as this is concerned). However, in a typically off-the-cuff mention, the heretofore super-secret-ninja-RSS-feed address has been leaked (and leaked by no less august a personage than the AtAT team themselves): http://www.appleturns.com/rss/.

Hey, I thought it was exciting.

Mac OS X Panther Hacks

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I just wanted to toss out a quick congratulations to Phil, who with the release of O’Reilly’s Mac OS X Panther Hacks, is now officially a published (co-)author!

I haven’t even managed to wrangle my infamy into that particular accolade. ;)

iTunes: “Life In Ecstacy (Long Dong)” by Trust in 6 from the album Techno-Trax Vol. 1 (1991, 6:37).

Eau de Power Mac

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Any perfume connoisseurs out there?

Taste and scent specialists International Flavors and Fragrances have partnered with fashion and art magazine Visionaire to produce a special fragrance capturing the scent of computers — specifically, “the headspace in the Apple computer store in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood.”

Should you want to sample this paragon of computing and olfactory perfection, you can order the “Scent” issue of Visionaire, which comes with not just the Gigabyte perfume, but twenty other specially commissioned scents (Cold, Noise, Heat, Hunger, 2AM, Sadness, Success, Violence, Softness, Electricity, Mother, Wasteland, Fear, Fetish, Strange, Drunk, Wet, Space, Broken Glass, and Instinct) from the company’s website for the low, low price of…\$175 (plus \$25 for shipping).

Y’know, if it weren’t so far out of my budget, I’d pick one up just to find out what all these things smell like. \$200 is a bit rich for my blood, though.

(via As the Apple Turns)

iTunes: “Girl Trouble” by Violent Femmes from the album Why Do Birds Sing? (1991, 2:58).

Daring Fireball on Dashboard and Konfabulator

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I haven’t poked my head into the Dashboard versus Konfabulator brouhaha for two reasons: firstly, I’m not a user of Konfabulator (looked at it, decided that it used far too much screen real estate for too little functionality, and that was that); and secondly, the whole thing seemed patently ridiculous to me.

However, John Gruber — who is far more qualified than I am to expound upon such things in any case — has done a masterful job of explaining why this is really a non-issue.

A sliding puzzle. A calculator. A clock. A little notepad. Tiny little applets — little pieces of software that are something less than full applications themselves, but which run alongside real apps and are easily accessed at any time.

Obviously, Apple ripped off the idea for Dashboard. Stolen wholesale, without even the decency to mention where they took the original idea.

Which, of course, would be the desk accessories from the original 1984 Macintosh — conceived by Bud Tribble and engineered (mostly) by Andy Hertzfeld.

[…]

The post-WWDC peanut gallery is atwitter with the idea that Tiger’s Dashboard is a blatant rip-off of Konfabulator. You can’t read anything about Dashboard without hearing that it’s a Konfabulator rip-off.

Bullshit. Dashboard is not a rip-off of Konfabulator. Yes, they are doing very much the same thing. But what it is that they’re doing was not an original idea to Konfabulator. The scope of a “widget” is very much the modern-day equivalent of a desk accessory.

The Mac community needs two things: more commentators like Gruber, and more people who listen to commentators like Gruber.

iTunes: “Goddess” by Soho from the album Goddess (1990, 5:13).

Apple’s getting into weblogging

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Very interesting tidbit of information about the server version of OS X 10.4/Tiger in Apple’s preview pages: they’re including a ‘weblog server’ based on the blojsom project, which in itself is based on the blosxom weblogging software.

A new Weblog server in Tiger Server makes it easy to publish, distribute and syndicate web-based content. The Weblog server provides users with calendar-based navigation and customizable themes, is fully compatible with Safari RSS and enables posting entries using built-in web-based functionality or with weblog clients that support XML-RPC or the ATOM API. The Weblog Server, based on the popular open source project “Blojsom,” works with Open Directory for user accounts and authentication.

iTunes: “Gorgeous (Suspiria)” by Gene Loves Jezebel from the album World’s Greatest Club Collection, The (1998, 4:36).

Apple Tiger banners at WWDC

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I love it when Apple gets snippy…

Redmond, start your photocopiers.

Other banners sport the slogans “Introducing Longhorn,” “This should keep Redmond busy,” and “Redmond, we have a problem.”

(via MacMinute)

iTunes: “You Suck” by Consolidated feat. Yeastie Girls, The from the album Nettwerk Decadence (1992, 4:13).