Apple

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

Jazzy Genius

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While there’s been some grousing about the accuracy of iTunes 8’s new Genius feature, I’m getting a kick out of playing with it. Sure, it’s not always spot-on (though Apple says that will change over time as their database grows and the matching AI improves), but that lends a certain entertainment value to the playlists it generates. When it works, though, it’s slick.

Here’s a playlist my iPod just put together (pulling only from songs that happened to be loaded at the time), seeding off of Tony Bennett’s take on “Steppin’ Out With My Baby”:

  1. Tony Bennett, “Steppin’ Out With My Baby”
  2. Frank Sinatra, “Nice ‘n’ Easy”
  3. Bobby Darin, “More”
  4. Johnny Mathis, “Chances Are”
  5. Dean Martin, “You Belong to Me”
  6. Fred Astaire, “The Way You Look Tonight”
  7. The Andrews Sisters, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”
  8. Marilyn Monroe, “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend”
  9. Billie Holiday, “All of Me”
  10. Perry Como, “Magic Moments”
  11. Louis Armstrong, “West End Blues”
  12. Louis Jordan, “Let the Good Times Roll”
  13. Benny Goodman, “Swingtime in the Rockies”
  14. Frank Sinatra, “Witchcraft”
  15. The Glenn Miller Orchestra, “At Last”
  16. Bobby Darin, “Hello, Dolly!”
  17. Billie Holiday, “Spreadin’ Rhythm Around (Remix)”
  18. Tony Bennett, “(I Left My Heart In) San Francisco”
  19. Dean Martin, “That’s Amore”
  20. Louis Armstrong, “Ain’t Misbehavin'”
  21. Duke Ellington, “Take the A-Train”
  22. Judy Garland, “The Man That Got Away”
  23. The Andrews Sisters, “Rum and Coca-Cola”
  24. Billie Holiday, “God Bless the Child”
  25. Frank Sinatra, “You Make Me Feel So Young”

Not bad at all, I’d say.

(I also love that I just happened to have the songs on my iPod to build that kind of playlist. It’s semi-randomly loaded, so there’s often no real telling what might be on there at any given time. Hmmm…it may be about time to do another “here’s how I organize my music” post….)

iPhone/iPod Touch Application Recommendations

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Recommendations based purely on my own personal needs, wants, and desires. These are the applications I’ve installed on my iPod Touch that have managed to stick around for more than a few days of experimenting…

Applications:

Utilities

  • WeatherBug: More information than the standard Weather app. I’ve put this on the home screen and moved Weather to a later page.

  • WordPress: I’ve hardly used it, as I’m usually close enough to my main ‘puter to blog from here, but it could come in quite handy the next time I travel.

  • Kiwi: A nice simple Wikipedia interface.

  • Google Mobile App: A one-stop shop for Google’s major offerings. Mostly just a launcher into their iPhone-optimized websites, but handy for using only one spot on the iTouch screen.

  • Google Earth: A little slow, but lots of fun to play with. Nice use of the accelerometer for moving your view around also. Plus, it’s free and makes a good “wow!” tech demo. ;)

  • Amazon Mobile: Because I really, really need a way to make spending more money even easier!

Media/Entertainment

  • Remote: I’m not using it much right now, but it’s fun to play with. It does make it tempting to put an Airport Express in the living room to pipe iTunes into the stereo there, though….

  • Rowmote: Slick little companion piece/replacement for Remote that acts as a remote control over WiFi for a whole host of applications on the Mac. I’ve been using this to control the QuickTime player while Prairie and I watch TV episodes we’ve downloaded from Bittorrent, and it works great. Very handy!

  • Pocketpedia: “I wonder if there’s a way for me to easily catalog my DVD collection and sync it with my iPod?” I said one day. A few minutes later, I had Pocketpedia on my iPod and DVDpedia (which generates this list) and Bookpedia on my Mac. Perfect!

  • Now Playing (formerly Box Office): Movie listings at local theaters, reviews, even trailers, all in one slick little app.

  • Stanza: An e-book reader that ties directly into Feedbooks, allowing you to download tons of free texts. I read H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine over the past week on lunch, Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and a number of others. There’s also a desktop client, but I don’t think I’ll use that nearly as often, this is more for easy entertainment when I’ve got a few minutes to kill.

  • Kindle for iPhone: I wouldn’t spend the money for an actual Kindle, but I’ve ended up spending enough time using Stanza for eBooks that I figured I’d give this a try as well. All I’ve picked up so far is the Stephen King short story ‘Ur’, and I haven’t even read it yet, but a few minutes of poking around leads me to believe that Kindle isn’t bad either.

Photography

Social Networking

  • Tweetie: I tried a few, and this is by far the best Twitter app I’ve found. Multiple accounts, saved searches, trend watching, and ping.fm integration. This is my #1 most-used 3rd party app.

  • Facebook: I don’t really use it that often, but often enough that it’s stuck around. I’ve been using Facebook more often recently, and along with that, the Facebook app. Pretty slick, actually.

  • Myspace Mobile: I still hate Myspace, but I have to admit, if their actual website worked half as well as their iPhone app, I might not hate them quite as much. Not bug-free, but so much more bug-free and pleasant to look at than the actual website that this is my preferred method of checking in on those friends who I can’t talk out of the MySpace ghetto.

  • LinkedIn: I don’t stop by here as much, but if I need to, I’ve got the app to do it.

News

  • Mobile News: AP’s news browser. When I just want a quick browse of major news stories, this is the way to do it. I especially like the localization options.

Games

  • Boom!: Minesweeper. ‘Nuff said.

  • Enigmo: I’m not entirely sold on this one. Neat and all, but the screen’s so small on the iPod/iTouch that I lose track of what objects have been placed where. I think I’d like this as a desktop game rather than in its mobile version.

  • Quordy: A great little word game. Prairie and I have both had a lot of fun with this one — since the default is to start a game by shaking the iPod as if you were shaking a Yahtzee dice cup, if we’ve got a few minutes to kill somewhere, Prairie will just say “Shake it! Shake it!” and (rather than breaking into a dance, which I’m sure would be amusing as well) out comes Quordy.

  • Aurora Feint: While I’m not putting a ton of time into the RPG aspect of the game, the Tetris-like game itself is fun enough to keep me engrossed.

  • Jirbo Break: I’ve always liked Breakout clones, and this one works fine for me. I’d made it through all the levels, but they just released an update giving it 99 total levels. Guess I better get back to work!

  • Cube Runner: Marvelously simple, engrossing, and a great demonstration of the accelerometer. Still one of my favorite games.

iPhone/iTouch Optimized Sites:

  • Ping.fm: The dashboard interface to the Ping.fm one-update-does-all website. Now that Tweetie ties into ping.fm directly, I’ve removed this.

  • Twitter: Since I use Ping.fm to update, I’m fine with using the Twitter mobile client to check updates. I do at times wish I could easily check @ replies, but not often enough to install Twitteriffic (which has just never quite felt “right” for me, in either its desktop or mobile incarnations) or another dedicated client. Tweetie to the rescue again!

  • NewsGator: Even though there’s a well-regarded NetNewsWire app for the iPhone/iTouch, I still just use the NewsGator mobile site. It’s faster and easier to use than NNW mobile, and while I keep poking at NNW mobile, it still hasn’t been able to win me over. I’ve actually been pulled away from the NewsGator family, and now use the Google Reader mobile interface.

  • CNN Moble: Not actually iPhone/iTouch optimized, and not terribly pretty, but works if I just want a quick look at “what’s happening now”.

  • Metafilter: Read-only as far as I can tell, but a slick way to browse MeFi.

  • IMDB Mobile: Again, just a nice way to dig through the IMDB. A little slow sometimes is about my only complaint, but since it’s not actually affiliated with IMDB, I can’t complain too much.

  • Google Reader: Though I’m a long time NetNewsWire (and therefore NewsGator) user, I’m experimenting with Google Reader. Their iPhone/iTouch interface is as slick as their web interface, and definitely gives the Newsgator juggernaut some strong competition. Now if I could only sync Google Reader to NetNewsWire….

  • Tricorder: Pure Star Trek silliness. Could really use being recreated as a standalone app so that it doesn’t have the annoying advertising at the bottom. Perhaps using the accelerometer to affect the displays?

And that’s it for me. Any other recommendations from all of you?

Applescript: iPhoto or Aperture?

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I’m experimenting with the Aperture free trial right now for photoshoots with my D70s, but I still wanted to use iPhoto for my Casio point and shoot. Apple allows you to set either iPhoto or Aperture to automatically launch when the Finder mounts a memory card, but by choosing either one, I’d have to quit and manually launch the other application depending on which camera I was importing shots from.

However, Aperture also gives you the ability to set any application to launch when a memory card is inserted. I set up this simple little Applescript (saved as a launchable app) to be the app launched on memory card insertion:

tell application "Finder"
    if exists disk "CASIO-DSC" then
        launch application "iPhoto"
    else if exists disk "NIKON D70S" then
        launch application "Aperture"
    end if
end tell

Now, whenever a memory card is inserted, the Applescript launches, checks the volume name of the memory card (which is set by the camera when you format the card), launches the appropriate photo application, and then quits.

Pretty simple for a lot of experienced Applescripters, I’m sure, but I’m pretty happy that I got it figured out.

Another Valentine’s Day Present

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Valentine’s Day morning, as I was puttering about the house and getting ready for the day while Prairie slept in, there was a knock at the door. When I answered, I was handed a package from Amazon by one of our landlords. This was a little confusing, as I didn’t remember ordering anything, but it was definitely addressed to me. Okay, whatever…

The Cult of MacWhen I opened it, I was quite pleasantly surprised to find The Cult of Mac, which I’d put on my Amazon Wishlist not too long ago. On the shipping invoice was a nice little note from ‘Liz in Pittsburgh,’ who reads this site and decided to send me a Valentine’s Day present — cool!

So, many thanks to Liz! I got about halfway through yesterday as I was bussing around town, and have been enjoying all the stories of the Mac über-fans (and, unsurprisingly, seeing elements of myself in more than a few of the stories). I hope your Valentine’s Day was a good one as well!

Photo Drop

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Photo Drop

Photo Drop is a slick little Dashboard widget — actually, one of the first that was slick and potentially useful enough for me to download and toss in to my Dashboard, which isn’t exactly the most-used OS X feature on my system. It’s a nice, simple one-trick pony: drag a photo to Photo Drop, set a few quick options for the final look (size, effects, etc.), and you’re done. Plus, it’s free. Not bad!

Throwing down the gauntlet…

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Bill Gates, in an interview with Steven Levy for Newsweek:

Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.

There’s a few other doozy quotes in there as well, but that’s the one that really got my attention.

More under the jump…

Read more

4,000 Lattes…to go?

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From this morning’s introduction of the iPhone, as Steve Jobs was demonstrating various features of the gadget (as reported by MacRumors):

10:27 am finds moscone west
10:27 am finds a nearby starbucks
10:27 am presses a button and calls starbucks
crowd laughs
10:27 am orders 4000 latte’s to go
10:27 am oh sorry – wrong number
10:28 am hangs up

Prank calling Starbucks live on stage at MacWorld? Nicely done, Steve! ;)

(via blog.ariffic)

Aperture

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Consider this firmly on my wishlist come Christmastime: not only has Apple just upgraded Aperture to version 1.5, but Frasier Spiers has announced the first beta of an Aperture version of his excellent FlickrExport plugin (I consider the iPhoto version of FlickrExport an unconditional must-have for iPhoto/Flickr integration, along with Ken Ferry’s Keyword Assistant).

Even better, the educational pricing for Aperture is just $150 — half off the standard retail of $299.

It’s not a critical need, but it’s definitely a wishlist item. So pretty…

iTunes “Nebulus” by Fluke from the album Puppy (2004, 5:57).

Hot Tunes

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Goofy idea that I don’t have the programming chops to create:

A plugin for iTunes (originally I was thinking of a separate program, but I think that this could probably all be done through Applescript) that, when activated, polls the weather services on the ‘net for the current temperature and then randomly selects a song from the year that matches the current temperature. A sunny summer day of 85° would produce synthpop from 1985, a cool fall afternoon of 63° would play the rock and roll of 1963.

Options that should be included:

  • Some form of fahrenheit/celsius recognition.
    • Switch between the two systems (85°F/1985 is 29°C/1929).
    • Converting between the two (85°F plays 1929, 29°C plays 1985).
  • Choosing songs from the decade, rather than the year (85° plays songs from 1980-1989, 72° plays from ’70-’79).
  • Applying some alteration (plus or minus X, other transformations) to affect the temperature to year conversion (otherwise, most places would get a lot of songs from the 70’s through the summertime, and many people don’t have a huge collection of 20’s and 30’s tunes to listen to during the winter months).

It’s the kind of silly little one-trick pony that could only be released as freeware, and likely wouldn’t get a ton of usage. It amused me when the idea crossed my mind, however.

(Incidentally, the song I’m listening to at the moment — which will be noted at the bottom of this post — was released in 1979, because according to my ‘puter, it’s 79°F outside. At 11:20pm. Ick. Yes, I’m whining. Yes, Colorado, Arizona, and many other places are hotter than it is here in Seattle. I’m still whining. Candles shouldn’t melt when they’re not lit.)

iTunes “I Hope That Somethin’ Better Comes Along” by Kermit the Frog/Rolf the Dog from the album Muppet Movie, The (1979, 3:58).

State of the Computer

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Well, the computer lives — though we’re definitely dealing with a near-total case of amnesia.

On the bright side, a new hard drive has been purchased and installed (and I love how easy it is to install a hard drive into a PowerMac G5 [.pdf link]), the OS is installed, and I’m going through the (slow, laborious) process of downloading and reinstalling all the various programs I use on a day-to-day-basis. Also, as I’ve been using Gmail as my primary e-mail address for some time now, most of my recent e-mail still exists (on Google’s servers), which is allowing me to rebuild my address book and contact lists.

So, there’s progress.

The downside, of course, is that so far I’ve been unable to coax the dead drive into doing much of anything. I haven’t given up completely, though. Using some instructions from Apple I used fsck on the problem drive and got the following:

Quicksilver:/ djwudi$ sudo fsck_hfs -l /dev/disk1s9
Password:
** /dev/rdisk1s9 (NO WRITE)
** Checking HFS Plus volume.
   Invalid B-tree node size
(4, 0)
** The volume   needs to be repaired.

A quick Google for ‘mac os x invalid b-tree node size‘ led me to this Macworld Forums discussion which indicates that either DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro should be able to at least recover my data, if not actually repair and resurrect the drive. So I think that acquiring one of those will be my next step, though that will have to wait for a week or three until I’ve got a paycheck not already claimed for little things like rent, bills, and food. With luck, though, those will allow me to pull the old data off once I get to that point.

And if that doesn’t work, then I can always try the freezing trick that’s been mentioned by Nitallica and Josh. Seems a little bizarre, but hey, if it might help….

In the meantime, rebuilding goes slowly, but I’m making progress. I also picked up an external enclosure for an old 80Gb drive I had been meaning to liberate from my old Blue and White G3, slapped the pieces together, and now have an external drive that I’ll be using as a backup repository using SuperDuper!, which I found though a rundown of OS X backup software pointed out to me by Marcus. Once that’s up and running, than even if this happens again somewhere down the line, I won’t have lost the data.

I know: backup, backup, backup! You always think it won’t happen to you…and then it does. Ah, well. So it goes.

Thanks to everyone for the support and suggestions!