WinNc.Net - Norton Commander Clone - Filemanager for Windows
Every so often I get so irritated with Windows XP that I search for anything that would help. Something like ... Norton Commander. NC was a DOS 2.1 (maybe earlier) file management application. It was brilliant. Even OS X isn't quite as good for file management ... ok, OS X is better -- but not THAT much better.
One of the best featurse of NC was it built a tree of directories, so one could navigate instantly based on character matching.
Under OS/2 I used FileCommander, an NC clone, but it didn't quite make the transition to Win2K.
Today I came across this Norton Commander clone. I'll give it a try. XP's file manager was never very good, and it's completely collapsed in the face of my hard drive.
Now if only Google toolbar would add the ##@! full text indexing we were promised. (I hear MSN might get there first ...)
Of course Longhorn is supposed to solve all these problems. I'm not holding my breath.
Update: Uh-oh. There's no "norton change directory". The DOS version of NC built a directory tree index, one could navigate to a folder/directory through a dynamic string match (type more characters, jump around the tree. The author of WinNC.net is very responsive --he says they've received few requests for this feature. A classic problem with customer-driven product development -- the customer can't ask for what they can't imagine. NCD/NC was a work of genius.
WCD is a cross-platform text-only command line implementation of NCD. I think it could be nicely integrated with WinNC.Net and I've suggested that. In the meantime I'm going to see if I can figure a way for WCD to drive Windows Explorer.
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
macosxhints - A collection of tips on accessing Windows file servers from OS X cleints (SMB Shares)
macosxhints - A collection of tips on accessing Windows file servers
The list is a good one, mostly familiar to me, except this one tip of unclear value:
"Set your Windows workgroup/resource domain and WINS server:
1. Find out your Windows resource domain for workstations in your office and local WINS server address. (Ask your desktop computer support people.)
2. Launch the 'Directory Access' utility (in the /Applications/Utilities folder).
3. Click the padlock icon in the lower left of the window and authenticate as an admin user.
4. Select SMB, and press Configure.
5. Set Workgroup to your Windows resource domain, and WINS server to your WINS server IP address, and press OK.
6. Press Apply and wait for a few seconds.
7. Restart your Mac."
The list is a good one, mostly familiar to me, except this one tip of unclear value:
"Set your Windows workgroup/resource domain and WINS server:
1. Find out your Windows resource domain for workstations in your office and local WINS server address. (Ask your desktop computer support people.)
2. Launch the 'Directory Access' utility (in the /Applications/Utilities folder).
3. Click the padlock icon in the lower left of the window and authenticate as an admin user.
4. Select SMB, and press Configure.
5. Set Workgroup to your Windows resource domain, and WINS server to your WINS server IP address, and press OK.
6. Press Apply and wait for a few seconds.
7. Restart your Mac."
macosxhints - About the Lost and Found directory
macosxhints - About the Lost and Found directory Check your os x disk for a lost and found directory. If one exists, read this!
Looks like OS X 10.3.4 has trouble with playing DVDs on some machines
Apple - Discussions - DVD Player and/or drive craps out on DVDs
Interesting discussion. It looks like this might be a fairly new problem -- either 10.3.4 or a bit earlier. On some machines DVD playback stutters about 1/2 to 3/4 way through commercial movies. I wonder about a CD/DVD driver problem. Doesn't appear to be hardware related.
Interesting discussion. It looks like this might be a fairly new problem -- either 10.3.4 or a bit earlier. On some machines DVD playback stutters about 1/2 to 3/4 way through commercial movies. I wonder about a CD/DVD driver problem. Doesn't appear to be hardware related.
OS X 10.3.4 intermittent system freezes (iTunes, others): VM and HFS issue
MacInTouch 8/3/04
Rohan Lloyd nailed down a widespread Mac OS X freezing problem [discussed in our iTunes reports], which is apparently a known Apple bug, and noted his workaround:
The 'iTunes Freeze' that some readers are experiencing (well described by Jim Pollock) sounds like a problem I have experienced that is not related to iTunes.
I recently started getting system freezes with the same symptoms (system would hang, iTunes would periodically play about 5 seconds, mouse would move but nothing else)
I reported the problem to Apple, they got me to get a kernel stack trace when it happened and confirmed that it was a known problem related to VM and HFS that they are working on.
It's got nothing to do with iTunes, it's just that iTunes has a realtime thread playing audio that periodically runs out of data and has to wait till a non realtime thread fills up the buffer from disk. (at least that's my guess at what's happening)
About the same time I downloaded and tried out hfsdebug. When I look at the Volume header of my root volume:
$ sudo hfsdebug -v -V /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD
I saw that it had 'serious inconsistencies'
kHFSVolumeInconsistent (volume has serious inconsistencies)
After a backup/re-format/restore over a week ago, I haven't had the problem again (fingers crossed).
Monday, August 02, 2004
Apple - Discussions - DVD Player 4.0 skipping and stuttering during commercial movie playback
Apple - Discussions - DVD Player and/or drive craps out on DVDs: "DVD suttering halfway through disk ( msg # 4.: Posted Aug 2, 04 4:24 pm ) New!
I'm using 10.3.4 on an iBook 600. I played quite a few commercial DVDs on this machine using 10.2.x. Yesterday, for the first time, I tried to play a commercial DVD using 10.3.4.
Shrek was fine half-way through. Then it began stuttering severely. It was unwatchable. I never saw an error message. The DVD is fine in a dedicated player.
Any thoughts on how to debug this? If 10.3.4 no longer supports commercial DVD movie playback on my iBook that's a rather severe loss of functionality for me.
meta: jfaughnan, stutters, skips, skipping, play back, playback, Panther, DVD Player 4.0.
I'm using 10.3.4 on an iBook 600. I played quite a few commercial DVDs on this machine using 10.2.x. Yesterday, for the first time, I tried to play a commercial DVD using 10.3.4.
Shrek was fine half-way through. Then it began stuttering severely. It was unwatchable. I never saw an error message. The DVD is fine in a dedicated player.
Any thoughts on how to debug this? If 10.3.4 no longer supports commercial DVD movie playback on my iBook that's a rather severe loss of functionality for me.
meta: jfaughnan, stutters, skips, skipping, play back, playback, Panther, DVD Player 4.0.
Thursday, July 29, 2004
TrustedReviews: a sophisticated web site of product reviews
TrustedReviews
Interesting angle. The kind of thing we used to read PC Magazine for in the old days, when it was a hefty pile of paper. (And a shill for Microsoft before Gates was a bazillionaire.)
Interesting angle. The kind of thing we used to read PC Magazine for in the old days, when it was a hefty pile of paper. (And a shill for Microsoft before Gates was a bazillionaire.)
Google Answers: An unhyped gem
Google Answers
You can pay for researchers, but the amazing feature is that answered questions may be freely searched or browsed. Fascinating browsing. A place to start looking when your search doesn't work.
You can pay for researchers, but the amazing feature is that answered questions may be freely searched or browsed. Fascinating browsing. A place to start looking when your search doesn't work.
Review (preliminary): Canon s410 vs. s230
Amazon.com: Camera & Photo: Canon PowerShot S410 4MP Digital Elph with 3x Optical Zoom
I'll eventually post a review on Amazon and my photo web page. Some initial impressions from a very picky customer:
1. s230 was (is) a fabulous camera -- almost a perfect blend of form and function. The s410 is a better camera, but it's drifted a bit from the vision of the original design team. It feels like a "B Team" product rather than an "A Team" product".
2. s410 has more than twice the picture power (50% more zoom, 90% more pixels)
3. s410 has a ridiculous menu that configures startup tones, pictures, etc. Stupid but one can ignore it. I have to see if I can modify the startup screen picture, if I can I'll put our name and address on it!
4. s230 looks and feels better than the s410. It's slightly more slender, feels more solid, is less flashy, looks more elegant. The s410 looks a bit cheap and gaudy by comparison.
5. Both are made in Japan!
6. The s410 has improved on the s230's mode setting (camera/video) and menu structures. It's hard to alternate between the two because of this, but one is much less likely to record video instead of taking a picture. I also like the way to switch between manual and auto mode.
7. The s410 has a spiffier intelligent focus mode -- that doesn't work any better than any of these things do! I turned it off, I prefer to use center focus at the right distance then reframe.
8. The s410 gets HOT if you take pictures quickly. CPU is working more. I wonder about battery life.
9. The s230 used the same data cable as my G2. The s410 uses a USB mini-B cable. Nice to have a standard data cable, but I wonder what happens if one accidentally uses a powered USB cable!
10. s230 and s410 use the same battery and elegant power charger. YAY.
11. s410 has a tactile feedback on the shutter that feels stiff to me -- as though it would increase camera vibration. I don't like it.
12. Both the s410, s230 and G2 use standard CF cards (YAY), but the s430 benefits from a high speed card.
I'll eventually post a review on Amazon and my photo web page. Some initial impressions from a very picky customer:
1. s230 was (is) a fabulous camera -- almost a perfect blend of form and function. The s410 is a better camera, but it's drifted a bit from the vision of the original design team. It feels like a "B Team" product rather than an "A Team" product".
2. s410 has more than twice the picture power (50% more zoom, 90% more pixels)
3. s410 has a ridiculous menu that configures startup tones, pictures, etc. Stupid but one can ignore it. I have to see if I can modify the startup screen picture, if I can I'll put our name and address on it!
4. s230 looks and feels better than the s410. It's slightly more slender, feels more solid, is less flashy, looks more elegant. The s410 looks a bit cheap and gaudy by comparison.
5. Both are made in Japan!
6. The s410 has improved on the s230's mode setting (camera/video) and menu structures. It's hard to alternate between the two because of this, but one is much less likely to record video instead of taking a picture. I also like the way to switch between manual and auto mode.
7. The s410 has a spiffier intelligent focus mode -- that doesn't work any better than any of these things do! I turned it off, I prefer to use center focus at the right distance then reframe.
8. The s410 gets HOT if you take pictures quickly. CPU is working more. I wonder about battery life.
9. The s230 used the same data cable as my G2. The s410 uses a USB mini-B cable. Nice to have a standard data cable, but I wonder what happens if one accidentally uses a powered USB cable!
10. s230 and s410 use the same battery and elegant power charger. YAY.
11. s410 has a tactile feedback on the shutter that feels stiff to me -- as though it would increase camera vibration. I don't like it.
12. Both the s410, s230 and G2 use standard CF cards (YAY), but the s430 benefits from a high speed card.
Monday, July 26, 2004
Photo sharing services (NYT)
The New York Times > Business > E-Commerce Report: Businesses Help Organize Photos
The article mentions a few services I've looked at, but it doesn't address key questions like storage limits, upload size restrictions, business models, printing services, print ordering, OS X support, workflow convenience, etc. In other words, it's not that useful an article .. EXCEPT it mentions which are popular now. These are the ones mentioned:
- CNET is buying Webshots, Webshots angle is sharing photos about places (travel, etc)
- Google has bought Picasa (which also distributed "Hello", a peer-to-peer file sharing app. See my prior posting on Picasa.
- Kodak's Ofoto.com, District Photo's Snapfish.com and Shutterfly.com are growing in popularity
- Yahoo is adding new features and may return to frontrunner status (displays ads with photos)
- Sharelot (displays ads with photos)
I've used Picasa/Hello, Flickr (very hot but he missed them), SmugMug, and Shutterfly. Of these only SmugMug let me upload full sized images for sharing and distribution -- they charge a yearly fee and have no ads. Google/Picasa/Hello is the real favorite since they seem to be able to provide tons of storage at low costs.
The article mentions a few services I've looked at, but it doesn't address key questions like storage limits, upload size restrictions, business models, printing services, print ordering, OS X support, workflow convenience, etc. In other words, it's not that useful an article .. EXCEPT it mentions which are popular now. These are the ones mentioned:
- CNET is buying Webshots, Webshots angle is sharing photos about places (travel, etc)
- Google has bought Picasa (which also distributed "Hello", a peer-to-peer file sharing app. See my prior posting on Picasa.
- Kodak's Ofoto.com, District Photo's Snapfish.com and Shutterfly.com are growing in popularity
- Yahoo is adding new features and may return to frontrunner status (displays ads with photos)
- Sharelot (displays ads with photos)
I've used Picasa/Hello, Flickr (very hot but he missed them), SmugMug, and Shutterfly. Of these only SmugMug let me upload full sized images for sharing and distribution -- they charge a yearly fee and have no ads. Google/Picasa/Hello is the real favorite since they seem to be able to provide tons of storage at low costs.
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Swiss Army Knife (Victorinox) with USB and flashlight
News: "Together with the Swiss data storage specialists at Swissbit AG, the renowned manufacturer of the Swiss Army Knife, VICTORINOX, developed SWISSMEMORY for computer users on the move. Modern, traditional and Made in Switzerland."
EDIROL MA-10D Digital Powered Speakers
Amazon.com: Electronics: EDIROL MA-10D Digital Powered Speakers (Pair)
I'm thinking of these together with an Airport Express ...
I'm thinking of these together with an Airport Express ...
Kensington PocketSpeakers
PocketSpeakers
I want these for my desktop machine! I need something compact for listening to music. These use USB for both power and digital audio. Sounds peruasive!
I want these for my desktop machine! I need something compact for listening to music. These use USB for both power and digital audio. Sounds peruasive!
Two large ships sink every week ...
Freak waves the real monsters of the sea - Environment - www.smh.com.au
This article also mentions 3 cruise ships, including the QE2, running into @ 30 meter waves over the past 8 years. With a bit less luck any of them could have gone down.
For years these giant waves were thought to be wild imaginings of drunken sailors. A recent satellite study shows they show up every few months. They can sink most ships.
I wonder how safe sailing ships are? I suspect they're far more dangerous than airplanes ...
Two large ships sink every week, on average, but the cause is never studied in the same detail as an air crash. It simply gets put down to 'bad weather'.
This article also mentions 3 cruise ships, including the QE2, running into @ 30 meter waves over the past 8 years. With a bit less luck any of them could have gone down.
For years these giant waves were thought to be wild imaginings of drunken sailors. A recent satellite study shows they show up every few months. They can sink most ships.
I wonder how safe sailing ships are? I suspect they're far more dangerous than airplanes ...
Saturday, July 24, 2004
Choosing a WEP Password
MacInTouch Home Page, quoting Apple KB: "Choosing and using a WEP password can been a challenge, because WEP is an older security protocol that was developed before members of the Wi-Fi Alliance had agreed on a uniform way to treat passwords. The result is that a WEP password may not work for all computers in a multiplatform environment. However, this is the easy trick you can use to make a WEP password work for everybody on your network:
For a 40 bit WEP network, always choose a 5-character password.
For a 128 bit WEP network, always choose a 13-character password."
For a 40 bit WEP network, always choose a 5-character password.
For a 128 bit WEP network, always choose a 13-character password."
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