Nice discussion around an update announcement: VMware Fusion Updated to version 1.1.1 - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW). I really do need to install the copy of Fusion I bought, but I use Win2K so little that it's at the bottom of my to do list. I'm still on an early version of Parallels.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
The Complete Guide to iPhone Car Integration
Via TUAW: The Complete Guide to iPhone Car Integration. Excellent work, clearly there are going to be a lot of products aimed at this issue. I guess Bluetooth headset is what Apple engineers imagine us using.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Enroll in a Google search experiment
Google's Experimental Search now allows users to enroll in one of the experiments. Like most people, I opted for "alternate views". Now all my http://google.com/ig searches have a new drop down on the right side that allows me to apply alternative views to my results. (This, of course, works only when I'm logged into the Gmail identity associated with my personalized search pages.)
Definitely worth doing, I don't see any downside. You can provide feedback.
Definitely worth doing, I don't see any downside. You can provide feedback.
Monday, January 28, 2008
iTunes 7.6 patches one of my biggest OS complaints!
I posted about one of my biggest OS X complaints a week or two ago:
Big problem made smaller.
BTW, they also fixed the $$%!$ broken smart playlist functionality.
Gordon's Tech: Multiuser machines and devices: the next most messed up part of OS X: "The real problem shows up with iPods however, and presumably with an iPhone as well.Well, iTunes 7.6 now has an option to TURN OFF iPhone and iPod sync. I set that option for every user on the multi-user iMac.
Each user account tries to seize control of the iPod. So if I sync on my account, then switch to my wife's account, the iPod can go into a limbo state. It thinks it's attached, but the OS says it isn't."
Big problem made smaller.
BTW, they also fixed the $$%!$ broken smart playlist functionality.
BlackBerry Pearl, iTunes and Missing Sync play well together
This one got a delighted laugh from Emily, so I know it's good.
I discovered tonight that Emily's BlackBerry Pearl will play AAC encoded music (not FairPlay, just AAC). Who knew?
So I re-enabled disk mass storage support in the BB advanced options, reviewed the warnings from Mark/Space about USB mounting and told Missing sync for Blackberry to sync my new "BlackBerry" iTunes Playlist. [1]
Worked like a charm.
I absolutely did not turn The Beatles "Any Time at All" into a ringtone for her Pearl. I know that would bring Homeland Security to my doorstep.
Now I'm ordering a 2GB Micro-SD card and a 2.5mm to 3.5mm stereo out converter cable. Emily will be able to play the kids audio books on demand from her phone. Using the speaker phone if necessary.
[1] Ok, one more complication. Our iTunes music library lives in my Public folder on the iMac server. Emily has to sync the Pearl with her account. The solution is easy. I configured her iTunes to reference tunes in place, not to copy them. Then I dragged my entire music library on to her iTunes Window. Ten minutes later she had her own access list suitable for sync to the BB. Of course it won't stay in sync, but I've done this before. I just need to periodically delete all. (Actually I've done much more complex things before ...)
Update 12/30/08: Be very careful. Missing Sync stores the iTunes on your phone's main memory area -- which is pretty damned limited. If you sync infrequently, the "leave at least 5MB" default setting can start to become small, with very bad consequences ...
I discovered tonight that Emily's BlackBerry Pearl will play AAC encoded music (not FairPlay, just AAC). Who knew?
So I re-enabled disk mass storage support in the BB advanced options, reviewed the warnings from Mark/Space about USB mounting and told Missing sync for Blackberry to sync my new "BlackBerry" iTunes Playlist. [1]
Worked like a charm.
I absolutely did not turn The Beatles "Any Time at All" into a ringtone for her Pearl. I know that would bring Homeland Security to my doorstep.
Now I'm ordering a 2GB Micro-SD card and a 2.5mm to 3.5mm stereo out converter cable. Emily will be able to play the kids audio books on demand from her phone. Using the speaker phone if necessary.
[1] Ok, one more complication. Our iTunes music library lives in my Public folder on the iMac server. Emily has to sync the Pearl with her account. The solution is easy. I configured her iTunes to reference tunes in place, not to copy them. Then I dragged my entire music library on to her iTunes Window. Ten minutes later she had her own access list suitable for sync to the BB. Of course it won't stay in sync, but I've done this before. I just need to periodically delete all. (Actually I've done much more complex things before ...)
Update 12/30/08: Be very careful. Missing Sync stores the iTunes on your phone's main memory area -- which is pretty damned limited. If you sync infrequently, the "leave at least 5MB" default setting can start to become small, with very bad consequences ...
BlackBerry Pearl - usage tips
For us the BlackBerry Pearl is a waystation on the way to iPhone 2.0, but Google is making it at least interesting. So I went hunting for tips, and found a few on "Tong Family Blog":
The codecs include AAC! I just tested it and they work very well.
Some of my favorite shortcuts (mostly from the Tong list but I've since added a few of my own):
Now that I've shown the BB really can play AAC I'll get a 2.5mm to 3.5 mm stereo out adapter and a 2GB SD card.
The codecs include AAC! I just tested it and they work very well.
Some of my favorite shortcuts (mostly from the Tong list but I've since added a few of my own):
- To move to the top of a screen (web page esp), press 1.
- To move to the bottom of a screen, press 7.
- To change text input methods when in a text field: Press the Menu key and then Click Enable Multitap or Enable SureType. (SureType is very unsure when entering URLs and usernames.)
- To switch applications, hold the Alt key and press the Escape (back) key. Continue holding the Alt key and roll the Pearl to select an application. Release the Alt key.
- To return to the Home screen, press the End (hang up) key.
- To lock the keyboard, from the Home screen, hold the asterisk (*) key. To unlock the keyboard, hold the asterisk (*) key and press the Send key
- To switch between the Default and Vibrate notification profiles, from the Home screen, hold the pound (#) key.
- To assign a speed dial number to a key, from the Home screen or in the Phone application, hold the key you want to assign. Type the phone number.
- To insert a period, press the Space key twice. The next letter is capitalized.
- To insert a period (.) in the Go To dialog box, press the Space key. To insert a forward slash (/) in the Go To dialog box, hold the Shift key and press the Space key.
- To open the bookmark list from a web page, press 5.
- To add a bookmark from a web page, press the question mark (?) key.
- To view a thumbnail version of a web page, press X. To return to the normal view, press any key. You can navigate a long web page by scrolling the thumbnail.
- To toggle the banner on a web page, press the exclamation point (!
) key again.
Now that I've shown the BB really can play AAC I'll get a 2.5mm to 3.5 mm stereo out adapter and a 2GB SD card.
Time to switch to Nikon?
The new Digital Rebel is out.
Prominently missing from the marketing blurbs is anything like "greatly improved light sensitivity".
The ISO range is unchanged from the last two releases:
Nikon is kicking Canon around the ring, so I won't be buying a new Canon dSLR this year. Instead I'll be seeing what the new consumer end Nikon looks like. I can probably get a decent price for my Canon IS lens ...
Prominently missing from the marketing blurbs is anything like "greatly improved light sensitivity".
The ISO range is unchanged from the last two releases:
Canon EOS 450D / Digital Rebel XSi: Digital Photography ReviewSo it's 12 megapixels now. Big whoop.
• ISO 100
• ISO 200
• ISO 400
• ISO 800
• ISO 1600
Nikon is kicking Canon around the ring, so I won't be buying a new Canon dSLR this year. Instead I'll be seeing what the new consumer end Nikon looks like. I can probably get a decent price for my Canon IS lens ...
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