OS X Address book: labels and large numbers

I like Address Book far more than iCal, but even so I've underestimated it.

Great features: Mac 101: Two things I love about Address Book.

Update: Poking around Address Book I came across the “share feature”. It’s rather complex, but intriguing. I’ve a later post on how to use this sharing feature.
--
My Google Reader Shared items (feed)

Parental Controls - The wikipedia problem solved

I'm setting up a special account on one of our laptops that will be used by my son with light supervision. It will be much more restricted than the account he uses when closely supervised.

So I'm back with Apple's notoriously buggy Parental Controls. It's been a while, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that several old bugs are better in the latest version of Safari and 10.5.

One is acting strangely however. I wonder if it's a new Safari bug. When I limit access to listed web sites, many links within the sight are unavailable. This isn't how it's supposed to work (emphases mine) ...

Mac OS X 10.5: About the Parental Controls Internet content filter

... If 'Allow access to only these websites' is selected in Parental Controls, the Internet content filter blocks any website which is not on the list. When the blocking web page is presented, a list of allowed websites is also shown. If using Safari, allowed websites are displayed as bookmarks in the bookmarks bar.

Note: For most websites, the Internet content filter considers the domain name and not the path. For example, if http://www.example.com is added to the list, then http://pictures.example.com will be allowed, as will http://www.example.com/movies....

The key word here is "most". In one site I tested it works as above. In another, only the main page is accessible. I can't find any documentation that explains why behavior varies by site. I'll try asking on Apple Discussions.

Update 11/20/09: I found a 2008 post on this topic. The user never found a fix, but later, on a different 10.5 machine, the problem resolved.

Update 11/21/09: Wikipedia has a nonstandard approach to IP addresses. I can use ping to find an IP address for simple.wikipedia.org, but I can't use that address in a URL. I suspect this is done to meet some security and confidentiality goal. However this approach may also defeat Parental Controls, which probably works from IP addresses.

Update 11/21/09b: We use OpenDNS on some kid machines, and OpenDNS supports a "shortcut" redirect like "simple" for simple.wikipedia.org. Except it doesn't work for this domain. Wikipedia is doing something unusual with IP addresses, perhaps as a side-effect of protecting user IP addresses. I think Wikipedia manages IP addresses differently for logged in users, so I'm going to explore that option next.

Update 11/21/09c. I dance the geek dance of Dilbertian triumph. What worked for me is the combination of establishing a user account and secure server access (https to wikimedia.org server). The sequence I followed is:

1. From Admin account off content controls for the child account browser.
2. In Child account create a user account on wikipedia and use their secure login: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/simple/wiki/Special:UserLogin. Create a bookmark to this page.
3. Go to main page: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/simple/wiki/Main_Page. Create a bookmark to this page.
4. Now return to Admin account and limit access controls to the above listed bookmarks.

It now works.
--
My Google Reader Shared items (feed)

LEGO Digital Designer is pure evil on OS X

I downloaded LEGO Digital Designer : Virtual Building Software for my Lego-crazed 10 yo. It's going to be hard to tell him it doesn't work on OS X.

I got it working on one account, but on another it says there's no internet access (cannot access internet) -- then it hangs. I have to kill it.

It looks and smells like a cheap hacked port from Windows, probably outsourced to the lowest bidder.

I'm one seriously annoyed customer. Maybe it's time to try to interest Ben in the non-Lego world. Lego doesn't really need our money this holiday season.

Update: It's incompatible with parental controls. If controls are enabled in any way, even if all web access is allowed, it doesn't work. I wonder if it uses some chat protocol to communicate with the server; I know enabling parental controls blocks jabber/google talk protocols in 10.5 (bug).

--

My Google Reader Shared items (feed)

Microsoft Access 2007 – RIP

I’ve seen software die.

First the code gets crufty. Features pile on, but half of ‘em don’t work right. Old features might or might not work. There are security holes.

Then a bright new team gets the gig. Old code is hacked out, new ideas are grafted onto old models. Usually you end up with a cacophonous concatenation.

That’s how Access 2007 smells. I know the team tried hard, but it’s a train wreck.

It’s not just a few bugs, or one or two missing features, or a limited design flop. It’s all of the above and more. As a power tool for hacking relational data it’s following the FrontPage path to oblivion.

Yeah, I’ve written before about how bad Access 2007 is. Even so, I think I was in denial. It took trying to complete a significant data manipulation project to make me face facts.

Microsoft isn’t going to fix Access. They want to sell the latest iteration of SQL Server and their Sharepoint services – Access is a costly distraction that happens to work pretty well with the Great Satan (Oracle).

There will be another release or two, then it will follow the path of FrontPage - which was once part of the Office Suite.

See also:

• Access 2007- It's really bad
• Living with Access 2007- -Disabled Mode-, Trust Center, and a Bug
• Microsoft's Access 2003 to Access 2007 animated reference guide (Flash)

I add the despised comment captcha

Gordon's Notes: I add the despised comment captcha.

This blog too. I hope I can turn it off soon.
--
My Google Reader Shared items (feed)

Calling from Montreal to St. Paul using Google Voice

I've been using Google Voice for over a year to save about $1,000 on my mobile phone long distance calls from St. Paul to Montreal. I use Google's web tool on iPhone Safari.app to call a number; Google first calls my cell then it calls the remote number.

It's been working very well, especially lately, even though Apple is a greedy coward for purging all GV apps from the iPhone and forcing me to use the inferior Google Web app.

It's good stuff, but of course there are limitations. The first connection in the two connection Google Voice call must be within the US. So if I'm in Montreal, for example, I can't useGoogle Voice to call from Montreal to St. Paul.

Except ... I slowly realized ... I can, from anywhere with a web browser, setup a call from one of my GV registered numbers to any other number on earth.

It's not calling from Montreal to St Paul, it's telling Google to call St. Paul, then, when someone picks up, Google connects to Montreal.

Got that? This Google Voice screen shot might help (imagine 111-1111 were a real number in Montreal, 1660 Stanford how I label our home phone number):

I can only create these connections to numbers that I've registered with Google (and that registration is all but exclusive, no more than two GV users can share a number), so practically speaking it's only useful for me setting up a phone call from my home to wherever I happen to be.

Still, it's an example of the kind of creativity the GV platform allows. (Apple, can we trade 99,000 iPhone apps for the Google Mobile suite?)

iWeb doesn't do tables - and OS X HTML Editor alternatives

I really do need to find a web page authoring solution other than FrontPage 98.

That's not easy. Yeah, FP 98 wasn't perfect. On the other hand, there's almost nothing to compare to it today. I'd stay with it, except it's a bit silly to fire up a Win VM just to run ten year old software.

I tried seeing if I could live with one of Google's many (many) HTML editors -- such as Sites, Google Docs, or Blogger. Briefly - yech. Google's templates are terrifically ugly. I'm no artist, but Google makes Microsoft look inspired. Sites layout seems to require tables -- but you can't make borders vanish. I've been waiting years for Google to stop sucking at this, and it's past time I give up.

So on OS X that leaves only a few options. I tried an early version of Karelia Sandvox, but it didn't impress and it's $60. I'm sure it's better now, but I do own iWeb '09. So that's a logical choice, but iWeb uses a proprietary database format - hard data lock.

As is common in modern software, there are no good choices. For now I'll do throwaway stuff in iWeb while I look for alternatives.

Which brings me to the title of my post. I know iWeb can't be really serious -- because iWeb doesn't do tables. Not at all.

Wow.

Update: RapidWeaver has grown up a lot since I looked at it years ago. I was really impressed by this ...

...The RapidWeaver Sandwich file format (.rwsw) is a completely open file format. We call them "RapidWeaver Sandwiches" because it's easy to open them up and see the filling. In the Finder, they’re viewed as normal ‘bundles’ however inside it’s all developer-friendly XML...

Of course that doesn't mean I could do anything with this format, but I'm impressed they talk about it. I couldn't find out much about how Sandvox stores its data. I did get the impression that it can be tricky to move RapidWeaver work from one machine to another -- that's a serious problem.

I wish I wasn't the only person in the universe who worried about data freedom and exit strategies!

Update b: While it doesn't have tables, I have to admit that the iWeb page I did looks quite nice and it was very easy to put together.

Update 11/9/09: In my very first iWeb page I ran into a weird bug. This doesn't mean iWeb is necessarily unusually buggy -- bugs love me. I had a text field that had one URL in iWeb and another on the web. I tried lots of tricks to fix the bug, but nothing worked. Finally I deleted the text field -- and another object vanished with it! Somehow it was entangled with an image that had a link to. I had to carefully remove the text object only letter at a time, then recreate it to clear the bug.

--

My Google Reader Shared items (feed)

Google Account storage allotment bug

Google has some paid storage issues.

When I look at My Google Account Personal Settings, I see I'm using 83% of my Storage Space (8.27 GB).

However, in Gmail it says I'm using 9.9 GB of 17.2 GB (57%).

In the manage storage view It says I'm using

• Gmail: 1.6 of 8.33 GB (19%)
• Picasa: 1 GB (100%)
• Paid Storage: Picasa 8.27 GB (83%), Available 1.73 GB (17%)

So from some views I'm seeing the sum of my standard Gmail allotment plus 1 GB from Picasa, in other views I'm seeing a percentage of the sum of all my allotments, and lastly I see a view where all the storage allotments are segregated.

These are unlikely to all be correct.

Update 11/10/09: Google is redoing their storage plans, so maybe things will clear up. I don't see the new options yet.

Update 11/11/09: My primary storage now shows 80GB for $20. Here's how it's recorded across Google:

• Gmail's view: 9.9 GB (11%) of 87.2 GB
• Account Personal Settings view: 8.27GB (10%) of 80 GB

manage storage view:

Free (total is about 8.27 but Gmail grows continuously)

• Gmail: 1.6 (22%) of 7.27
• Picasa: 1.0 (100%) of 1.0

Paid (80 GB)

• Picasa: 8.27 GB (10%)
• Gmail: 0GB (0%)
• Available: 71.73 GB (90%)

Purchase storage view

• 8.27GB (10%) in use

So it's still somewhat scrambled but the Manage Storage Screen now gets things straight. I seem to have 80GB in my general storage pool, 1 GB in free Picasa storage, and 7+ GB (it increments continuously) of free Gmail storage. So I have over 88GB total. It's still not clear if I can use any of my Gmail allotment for Picasa work, but I suspect not. It looks like future Gmail overflow would go into my 80GB pool, but these days Gmail is back to growing faster than my use.

Now that my storage is north of 80GB however Google can take their time sorting out the varying reports. I have enough for now and I can go back to using Picasa Web albums freely. I'll stay with the $20 a year plan, this gives me headroom for the next few years.

So do this mean gDrive is finally coming?
--
My Google Reader Shared items (feed)

Google Dashboard - authorized access (revoke)

The most interesting bit of my Google Dashboard is the Account - "websites authorized to access" link.

That link showed all the sites that exchange data via my Google ID, including 4-5 I no longer use. I revoked their access.

Since Google owns my soul my Dashboard goes on and on -- but this was the one new thing I recognized. There are about 18 other Google Services I use that aren't on the Dashboard.

Google is my master.

My Google Reader Shared items (feed)

When Google and Google Apps Collide

Most of our family Google Services are tied to our family domain and Google Apps. That doesn't work for Google Voice though, so I had to create "true" Google accounts for each family member with a GV number. I used our Google Apps emails as the user name.

Turns out, this has an interesting side-effect. Google binds calendars to a user name, so there's a calendar for emily@our_family_domain in Google Apps. So, you might wonder, what happens if you go to calendar.google.com when logged in to the standard Google Account with the Google Apps email?

Then you find your Null calendar ...

Get thee to the null calendar!

Google struggles with their Google Apps/Google Account dichotomies.

--
My Google Reader Shared items (feed)

Google Reader: Feed Bundles and Shared Items

There's a lot of experimentation going on in Google Reader. It feels like it's getting more energy than, say, Buggy Blogger (much less the Stuffed Sites).

Two to look at are Shared Items and Feed Bundles.

Shared Items aren't new, but they're getting more love. I don't know if this is new, but if you go to a Reader-generated post-share page (like mine) and you don't own the page or currently "follow" it, I think you'll see a button to "follow it".

I say think because I've only seen it once, and I clicked the button and now I "follow" that person's shared items. Following, as near as I can tell, is pretty much the same as subscribing to a feed though things you "follow" get are added to a special "follow" folder in. So this is a convenient way to add someone to your Reader "People you follow" section.

Feed bundles are a subset of the feeds that someone likes that are packaged and distributed separately from their primary feed. In Reader's "Browse for stuff" section you can find over 240 bundles from Google alone!

NYT iPhone app now with sharing

The New York Times iPhone App has added article sharing via email, facebook, and twitter.

An excellent improvement, especially since it doesn't seem to crash nearly as often as it once did.

--
My Google Reader Shared items (feed)

So that's why you should click Like in Google Reader

I thought of the Google Reader "Like" button (not available in GR mobile) as a way to vote up posts.

Silly me. Now that Google has launched the personalized discovery ("Explore") service we know what "Like" is good for ...

These are items from the Internet that you might enjoy. Hit the smiley face at the bottom of items that you like -- we'll customize your list to help you discover even more stuff.

My fate is in your hands Lord Google.

Apple breaks Smart Playlists on iPhone and iTunes alike (yet again)

Over the past several months Apple has broken iTunes smart playlists in multiple ways …

• Apple - Support - Discussions - Smart Playlists broken on iTouch (some say it’s OS 3.1, others iTunes)
• Smart playlists broken on ipods in Itunes 9 - Mac Forums

On my iPhone the sort order of the Smart Playlists for my podcasts is consistent, but nonsensical. Setting the sort order on iTunes has no impact on the iPhone.

There’s an older iTunes bug as well - iPhone bug- not updating last played or playlist count for podcasts.

This is not the first time Apple's broken their Smart Playlists -- this was a big deal in 2005.
Reading the various modern posts it sounds like there are multiple interacting bugs and that playlists that reference other playlists are broken as are podcasts in particular.

It feels like someone at Apple has been messing with very old code they don’t understand, possibly as part of iTunes long, slow, migration to being a true Cocoa app. It also feels, as usual, like Apple hates their QA staff.

Some people have suggested various workarounds, some easier than others. Here are the results on a podcast list that was sorted nonsensically:

• In the Sync tab for Podcasts turn off “Automatically include” and check playlists in “include episodes from playlists”. (no effect)
• Recreate all smart playlists (not done)
• Don’t use playlists that reference other playlists (not applicable in this case)
• Hide playlists with date criteria inside a separate playlists that doesn’t have date criteria, sync the one without the date criteria (not applicable in this case)
• Uncheck live update in smart playlists that sync with iPhone. (this worked)

Incidentally, it’s very unclear what Live Updating does now. I can’t find any good documentation on it! What does it mean to have a “smart playlists” that’s not live updated. Is it a kind of temporarily frozen Playlist?

Update:

• iTunes 9- Smart Playlist not syncing as expected – Apple acknowledges that it’s messed up. The “copy to play order” is a new trick to try. There’s a bug with playlists that span media types (podcast and MP3)
• Problems with "last played" not being updated and smart playlists not being updated in 2006 - and even earlier.
• This Discussion post is telling: "...trying to synchronise Live Updating Smart Playlists with the Nano causes the Nano to freeze upon disconnection: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10469096#10469096 ... The Smart Playlist thing is an old issue that we've seen with previous iPods. It's been broken/fixed/broken/fixed so many times now. I've spoke directly with Apple Level 2/3 about this back in 2006, and it does take a critical mass of people to report it before it's considered serious enough to be fixed: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=179445 ... However, be aware that Apple never considered Pod-board Live Updating to be a supported feature - legacy KB article 61686 - see the 179445 link for the wording - and, as I was told - if it was never officially present, it can't ever be officially broken (or fixed!)...
• On review of the long, long Discussion thread (Apple used to terminate these more aggressively) it's clear that Apple breaks Smart Playlists in many ways over many years. It's such a fabulous feature, but sometimes it seems like every Brain at Apple went to work on the iPhone. Maybe they just don't have anyone able to manage features this clever.

Update 9/29/09: Still broken after 9.02. I've done some further testing, and the only fix that works is to turn off Smart Playlist auto-update -- which basically turns them into dumb Playlists.

Update 11/8/09: See Comments. One fix is to create a filter smart list that separates the library into music and non-music, then to use this as a playlist source. Feels like this is related to a problem with different media types being stuffed into Apple's data model.

Update 11/11/09: Glashu has an interesting post on Apple's Discussion thread for this topic. He talks about Playlists vanishing from his iPod however, which isn't what I see (emphases mine)

Facing the exact problem as many are describing here, but I found something that absolutely fixed this. All my Smart playlists worked great until I went to iTunes v9. I use a very sophisticated series of nested smart playlists .. only one playlist that I listen to on my iPod and so I was very annoyed when it no longer worked. Ironically, it's probably not actually a bug, but probably the result of Apple fixing a bug.

The common denominator was a single standard playlist that would prevent ANY smart playlist associated with it to not show up on my iPod or the sync list in iTunes. I copied the problem playlist, built a smart playlist pointing to it and went through and deleted one song at a time until the smart playlist magically appeared on the sync list for my iPod and the rotation and updates worked.

It turns out that one song was messing up EVERYTHING. When I right clicked and chose Info for the song, the one thing that was different was that somehow, under the options, it had been classified as a podcast instead of a song and the "Skip when Shuffling" box was checked. Switching the Media Kind back to Music from a Podcast fixed it but I would clear the skip check box,too. Changing that one song back to a song fixed ALL of my playlists that depended on that one base playlist...

It's not the problem I have, but it continues to point at problems with Apple applying common rules across entities with different attributes.

Update 2/3/2010: iTunes 9.0.3 was supposed to fix some smart playlist bugs, but it didn't fix this one. To retain sort order I have to disable Live Updating. Still waiting for a fix.

Update 4/7/2010: iTunes 9.1 does not fix this bug. Perhaps the next iPhone OS update?

Update 7/4/2010: iTunes 9.2 doesn't fix it. I finally tested on another iPod, this is now just an iPhone bug. I'll retest when I get my iPhone 4.

Update 9/11/10: It's almost right with iPhone 4.1 and iTunes 10, but now some podcasts won't sync. This bug will be continued at that link ...

Update 7/8/11: Still a problem with the In Our Time playlist, which is a mixture of podcast and non-podcast files. I exported all of the tunes, deleted everything in iTunes, emptied trash, quit and restarted iTunes and reimported all. Along the way I found some odd behaviors, like two files that were hard to delete.

On restore I of course lost all of my Last Played and Date Added metadata, but I can sort them by year. I had to set all types back to Podcast, and to check the 'Remember playback ...' option.

Then I played the start of a Podcast. Then I synched. Still doesn't work; last played is not updated.

Ahh. I think it's only updating the Last Played date if I play all the way to the end. I also changed the tune type to Music rather than Podcast however.

Mouse funky? Try washing the mouse pads

Our four year old Microsoft mice were feeling kinda funky - on XP and iMac alike. Mouse feet intact, but hard to move, kinda erratic.

Actually the feet looked a bit ... gunky. They cleaned up easily, but not for long.

Right. Mouse pads are both about 15-20 years old. They were last washed ... never.

They must be biohazards by now. Imagine the lifeforms.

My mice fly post-scrubbing.

--
My Google Reader Shared items (feed)