At last - a review of USB "thumb" drives

Ars Technica: USB 2.0 Hi-Speed drive review - Page 1 - (6/2003)

Reading this review, and thinking about how it's written, it's easy to understand why PC Magazine has a "wasting disease".

Of course, as always, nothing's designed for my needs. I'd like:

1. A place to write my name on the drive case so when people pass it around it gets back to me.
2. When one removes the cap, a way to quickly clip it to the base with a slender line so it doesn't get lost, but doesn't block things. The biggest pain with these devices is losing the cap.

SplashPhoto - Mobile Image Viewer for the Palm OS

SplashPhoto - Mobile Image Viewer for the Palm OS

The desktop client runs on OS X and Windows. I'm going to try this with my CLIE, I wasn't impressed with what came with the TJ-27.

Update: Looks very good. It also looks a heck of a lot like the Tungsten E photo app. I suspect PalmOne licensed a simplified version of SplashPhoto. I'll probably buy this one.

Deleting Acrobat's annoying toolbars

PDFMaker unavailable in a Microsoft Office application (Acrobat 5.x on Windows XP or 2000) - Support Knowledgebase

The ghost of Acrobat 4 haunts my toolbars. I hope this document, on how to RESTORE the Acrobat 5 toolbar will give me hints on how to exorcise the A4 version.

Colour Management: yeah, it's bad

Colour Management by Virtual Traveller

I just try to stick with sRGB everywhere. Another great review from a great site.

Canon Camera Museum

Canon Camera Museum

Camera geek heaven.

Cameras for the 21st Century

Cameras for the 21st Century

Great essay, it covers all I've heard or read until now and adds new details.

Colour Negative Scanning and Virtual Traveller

Colour Negative Scanning: "A difficult test of Colour Negative scanning"

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Interesting discussion and hosting site.

Merging or combining two iTunes libraries

October 18 2003: iTunes Library on an SMB Share

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I'm linking to an earlier posting on a related topic.

I recently merged two iTunes libraries. The full story of why I had two libraries is fairly complex and involves using an iPod as a temporary remote iTunes library store (not the same as synchronizing an iPod with an iTunes library), creating a special user so I could manage two iTunes libraries on the same machine (one sitting on an SMB share, the other on an iPod based disk image), and doing delayed CD track name lookup. I might add notes on the full story as it has some interesting aspects - such as a high speed approach to importing CDs when one lacks a net connection, but here I'll concentrate on doing library mergers.

In this merger a "secondary" library is moved into a "primary library". In the "secondary" track names and album names are preserved, but playlists and ratings are lost.

1. My primary library is mounted on an SMB share. iTunes 4.0 used to have problems with some characters when one hosted a Mac itunes library on an SMB share but I haven't run into that lately. If a problem shows up, look for odd characters.

2. Secondary library should be located in a folder that contains only music. (Advanced preferences can be used to move iTunes libraries.)

3. Set primary and secondary library advanced preferences to "Keep iTunes library organized". (I used one user account to manage the primary library, another account to manage the secondary library. I think iTunes Library Manager can do this with one account but I didn't bother.) In my case the secondary library was on a share accessible from both accounts.

4. Update all tracks in the secondary library with CD track name lookup.

5. Switch to primary library. Using the Finder locate folder containing secondary library. Drag and drop folder containing secondary library music into an empty area on the left side iTunes bar.

That's it. The files are copied into the primary library. I imported 300 songs (all legally btw) without a glitch. Songs had their title, etc.

macosxhints - Selectively closing multiple Safari windows and tabs

macosxhints - Selectively closing multiple Safari windows and tabs: "OK, so this isn't a really complex tip, but it might be useful to somebody anyway. I'm sure we're all good experimental users, and we know that you can close all windows by pressing Command-Option-W in a window with no tabs (or one, if you have the tab bar always on), and that this becomes Close Other Tabs in a window with tabs. In a tabbed window, Close All Windows is then Command-Option-Shift-W. But what if you have a lot of windows, maybe with lots of tabs? And what if you want to close every window but one, similar to the Close Other Tabs feature? I tend to use Close Other Tabs a lot, often while Googling and looking at various results in many tabs. Often I also have many Google searches open in many windows at the same time, and I might want to pare it down to one window, but keep all its tabs intact, which is what this trick is aiming for.

The Dock comes to our rescue at this point: Close All Windows really means Close All (non-minimized) Windows. So, minimize any windows you want to keep open, and then press Command-Option-W or Command-Option-Shift-W, depending on whether you have multiple tabs in the frontmost window. Every open window gets closed, but the ones in the dock stay there until you need them.

A simple trick, but it might save you a few seconds from having to go through each window one by one and press Command-Shift-W or Command-W (again, as appropriate regarding the tab status of the window) to close them all."

The OS X security vulnerability is generalized and serious

Daring Fireball: About the Help Viewer Security Update, and, Also, Why I Don't Think You Need Paranoid Android

Security is expensive and customers don't value it that highly. The OS X security problem are deep and are related to an infrastructure with nice capabilities, but absent security. A good summary:

... This is a generalized and serious vulnerability in Mac OS X:

1. Remote web server causes a volume to be mounted in the file system, and the contents of the volume are displayed by the Finder.
2. The now-mounted remote volume contains a malicious application that contains an Info.plist file that asks to register a custom URI scheme with Launch Services.
3. Upon displaying the malicious application, the Finder registers the new URI scheme, as per the app’s Info.plist file.
4. After waiting a few seconds for steps 1-3 to occur, the remote web server sends another URI, using the newly-registered scheme.
5. Launch Services will launch the remote application.

The key to prevention is to nip it at step #1, and prevent remote servers from automatically mounting volumes in your file system.

To protect your Mac, you should definitely disable the following URI protocols, using RCDefaultApp:

* disk:
* disks:
* afp:

You should also assign the ‘ftp:’ protocol to any application other than the Finder. (Or disable it, but I think that’s overkill.)

‘afp:’ is the scheme for AppleShare servers; I have confirmed that an ‘afp:’ URI in the following form will allow a remote AppleShare volume to be mounted automatically and silently:

afp://username:password@host.domain/volume

Note that disabling the ‘afp:’ protocol using RCDefaultApp will not prevent you from connecting to AppleShare servers manually. You can still connect to AppleShare servers using the Finder’s Connect to Server command, or using the Network dingus in a Finder window sidebar. Disabling the ‘afp:’ protocol merely prevents ‘afp:’ URIs from being passed to the Finder from other applications — e.g. a web browser.

You must also make sure your web browser and ‘ftp:’ handler do not automatically expand or process quote-unquote “safe” files.

OS X DTP/Drawing/Reports application

DrawWell Technologies Ltd

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I wonder what their market is?

Apple iPod Diagnostic Mode

Apple iPod Diagnostic Mode

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This may not longer be available with the current OS.

Details of iPod disk scan

iPod: Disk Scan Icon Appears When iPod Is Turned On
To manually initiate scan, reset iPod then when apple menu appears press everything EXCEPT the play/pause button. See also my overall troubleshooting note.

Daring Fireball: Disabling Unsafe URI Handlers With RCDefaultApp

Daring Fireball: Disabling Unsafe URI Handlers With RCDefaultApp

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This is the os x bug fix I'm implementing.

For Sale Used $77: Altec Lansing inMotion Portable Audio Speakers 1.0

Amazon.com: Electronics: Altec Lansing inMotion Portable Audio Speakers 2.0

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I have the first generation version of these speakers, now for sale on Amazon. I don't know what the distinction is between version 1.0 and version 2.0, the descriptions seem identical.

My speakers are in very good condition, they've been sitting on my office desk with some occasional travel. I'd say they're very close to new, except that the rubber plug that covers the firewire connector (it's used with older iPods that don't have a docking port) is dusty. I may even have the original box at home. (Update: don't bet on the box, I haven't found it yet.)

Version two sells for $110 on Amazon. I'm selling version one used for $77. Amazon typically adds about $5 to cover shipping; in reality it costs about $8 to ship with insurance but I've factored that into the price.

If you'd like to buy these, follow this Amazon link (may not be available prior to 5/21) and look for my entry in the used item section.

If you want to learn more about me before buying, my blogs and personal site tell more than anyone would like to know.