Google has changed the way it indexes my blogs (notes.kateva.org, tech.kateva.org). Until recently search results were individual posts. Now search results are increasingly archive pages that include significant numbers of posts.
This may reflect Google's declining opinion of my worth, or simply a declining interest in blogs, but whatever the cause the new behavior is far less useful.
I tried Bing, but it's much weaker.
There are a two things I miss about Windows. I miss Windows Remote Desktop Services, it crushes OS X remote desktop. I also miss Windows fonts, especially Windows antialiasing.
OS X fonts have been a particularly annoying problem. Some applications, like my 5 yo copy of FileMaker Pro 8, show persistently garbled fonts. On the other hand, my new copy of Numbers.app defaults to a poorly rendered 9 point Helvetica Neue.
I've lived with these bugs for years, but tonight, in the process of investigating a hung app, I sorted them out.
In Library/Fonts (see Mac OS X: Font Locations and Their Purposes) I found a folder of Microsoft Fonts left over when I deleted Office 2008, and I found a good number of old style fonts dating back to 2006 [2]. After cross checking with the excellent font lists in the extensive article Font Management in OS X I removed those fonts. This had the unexpected benefit of fixing FileMaker Pro 8 - the fonts there now display nicely.
For the Numbers font problem I experimented with control of OS X antialiasing. In OS X Preferences:Appearance I set "turn off text smoothing for font sizes" to 8 and smaller (it was initially 10 and smaller). [1] I'm not sure that made any difference. What did help was creating a new template with all cells set to Helvetica 12, then saving that as a template and making it the default spreadsheet to use on startup. (Currently there's no other way to change the default font in Numbers.app.)
In the course of the above I found:
[1] The options in 10.6.7 are different from the options in 10.6 in Aug 2009.
[2] The accounts on my 27" iMac have migrated across many machines, probably going back to 10.1. They've picked up some cruft along the way.
See also:
Update 5/28/11: I should have tested FileMaker Pro 8 a bit more. It looked good at first, but when I searched later all my records seemed blank! A reinstall, surprisingly, didn't fix anything and didn't seem to add new fonts. I had switched to Verdana, and tried old Georgia instead. That worked well.
Update 5/30/11: When I tried to empty the trash I learned that Arial and Times were still in use! They were in the Microsoft Fonts folder, and they were my bad-boy fonts. I had to restart then empty the trash.
I prefer Gmail's non-standard method of handling email, but it's a very poor fit to legacy IMAP clients.
Recently I realized that email I was deleting in OS X Mail.app (10.6) was being archived in Gmail. This is not what I wanted. I feel like this is a relatively new behavior -- at one time one had to jump through some hoops to map Mail.app's delete button to the Gmail archive behavior.
I've had more success with setting OS X to move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox (no change) AND Store deleted messages on the server (this I changed).
It's going to take me a while to add these to my usual workflow. Some I know, the interesting new ones are bold. Read the article for details ...
Six unexpected uses for the Application Switcher | Business Center | Working Mac | Macworld: ""
You’ve probably got the basics of the Application Switcher down pat by now: press Command-Tab to see a bar full of running-application icons and keep Command down as you tap the Tab key to quickly switch to the application of your choice.
2. Open a new window [good for dealing with minimized windows]
... Command-Tab to the program in question and, before you release the Command key, press Option. Release the Command key first, and then the Option key... If the target program’s windows are all minimized, the most recently minimized one returns to duty. If no windows at all are available, a new one is created.
3. Open a document in a different program
When you want to open a document in something other than its default application—a Word file in Pages, say—you can use variations of the Finder’s Open With command. But if the target application is already open (and can handle the document), you can also just drag the file from the Finder onto the Application Switcher bar. The trick is to start the drag operation, and pause it with the mouse button held down, before you press Command-Tab; keep Command down so the bar stays on the screen, and drag the document onto an application’s icon.
4. Bypass the Clipboard
You select a swath of text from a Word document to transfer to a document in InDesign, and realize you can’t Copy and Paste because you’ll lose what’s already on the Clipboard. You can transfer the selection using the Application Switcher instead.
Drag-and-drop a piece of selected text to another application using the Application Switcher.
Start dragging the selection in the Word document (move it a little bit and then stop). With the mouse button still down, press Command-Tab. Holding Command down to keep the Switcher open, drag the selection into the InDesign icon. You’ll be switched to InDesign, where you’ll see the usual “ghost” of a dragged selection, just as if you were dragging it within the InDesign document itself. Drag it into position and let go of the mouse button.
The target window isn’t frontmost in the destination? Hang on to the selection by keeping the mouse button down, and press Command-~ (tilde) to cycle to the correct window. You can also use Command-N to create a new window as a drop target.
5. Hide and show background applications
You’re in Pages. You can see only Finder windows in the background, and you want to refer to a Stickies note. You don’t have move to background applications to rearrange windows or to hide them as you leave. Instead, press Command-Tab to open the Application Switcher, tab to highlight the Finder, and, with Command still down, press H to hide the Finder's windows. When you release the Command key, you’ll still be in Pages.
Unhiding a background application is a little tricky because if you repeat this procedure (in this case, tabbing over to the Finder and pressing H), the background windows will reappear, but you’ll also be switched into that application when you release Command. To make the windows reappear while keeping your Mac’s focus in the current application, you need to press Command-Tab, tab to the application icon, press H to unhide its background windows, and then press Esc while the Command key is still down. Release the Command key and you’ll still be in the original application.
6. Jump to an alphabetical Exposé
You can quickly trigger Exposé when the Application Switcher is on the screen by pressing the Up or Down arrow; you’ll see the windows for whichever application was highlighted in the Switcher bar.
If you know the trick for arranging Exposé windows alphabetically—pressing Command-1, you’ll be pleased to know you can jump right to this alphabetical arrangement from the Application Switcher. Instead of using the Up or Down arrow key to open Exposé, highlight the application you want and press the 1 key (you're already holding down the Command key). Hold it down for a couple of seconds. What’s happening is that Exposé is triggered, and then it notices that Command-1 is being pressed and so offers the alphabetical arrangement—you’ll see the windows swap into correct positions.
I didn't even know the Cmd-1 trick. It's neat! Sheesh.
I can get pretty disgusted with Google Calendar, but then I make myself remember how bad Apple's iCal is. By comparison, gCal is a ruddy gem.
I had to remind myself of that today, because gCal was particularly disgusting.
It started when I tried importing my son's baseball team schedule into a public calendar using my old (best on the web!) import directions ...
Gordon's Tech: Import Calendar data into Google Calendar via CSV files
Here's the header and first row of the CSV file that I was finally able to import. It looks like you need the bloody seconds in the date. I worked with Excel for Mac, used the convert functions to turn text into numbers, then chose the precise format, then exported. Subject,Start Date,Start Time,End Date,End Time,All Day Event,Description,Location,Private Edgumbe Peewee Hockey,10/24/09,2:10:00 PM,10/24/09,3:10:00 PM,FALSE,Practice, Highland North,FALSE
This time I did necessary concatenations of strings and type transforms using Apple's excellent (and under-appreciated) and inexpensive Numbers.app spreadsheet.
The good news is that gCal no longer requires "seconds" in the time fields, and, although I don't think it's documented, it will even work with "military" time (14:20 instead of 2:20 PM).
The bad news is that time zone support is flaky. After I imported all of my calendar entries were off by about 3 hours, even though my time zone (general calendar settings) and the calendar's time zone were both CST.
I made several tries at fixing it, but this is what worked.
After I did that my next import worked.
Fortunately I know to always do imports into a unique calendar; there's no way to undo an import and repetitively deleting 50 bad calendar items is a good source of Google hate [1]. I created and deleted test calendars until I figured a workaround for the bug. (If you do get bit by a bad import sync to the (abominable) OS X iCal and repair there.)
See also:
[1] Why are calendar apps so awful? My theory is that they are quite hard to do well, but management doesn't value them. So they never receive sufficient investment.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was testing a Facetime videolink to my mother. It's not my first attempt. I'd tried Google Video Chat two years ago, but after months of struggle I gave up; it had, and still has, dismal usability. iChat was even worse. In all cases I've been using the excellent Logitech QuickCAm Vision Pro for Mac. (Still the best webcam ever sold, though I fear it's going away without a true replacement.)
After a few weeks of testing I can report that Facetime is a big usability improvement over Google Video Chat. I configured my mother's machine to auto-answer my calls; I can call from my phone or desktop and her machine will pick up. Facetime doesn't need to be running, OS X 10.6.x will launch it.
There's only one problem.
After I close the call at my end Facetime continues to run on her machine. It doesn't auto-exit (and, at this time, she can't see well enough to reliably quit the app) [1]. This means her webcam stays powered on [3]. Under some conditions, perhaps mostly time, the embedded OS that manages in-camera focus and exposure control crashes. The Webcam still works, but it focuses to infinity and the light levels are very low. If you pull the USB cable, wait a few seconds, then plug it in again, the camera will reset.
I'm considering a few workarounds. Firstly, it would be great if Apple officially supported auto-answer, so FT could then auto-exit on close. Alternatively I could
I'm leaning to the nightly restart as the simplest fix, but I should also try remote control -- again!
[1] As her macular degeneration has progressed we've been focusing on her iPad use.
[2] Apple needs to kill AppleScript, but I fear there'd be not replacement.
[3] The webcam then stays in active mode, so it appears like it's always sharing an image.
See also:
Update:
When a Google search doesn't return much, it's often because the function one is seeking is now a part of the OS.
OS X Energy Saver allows one to schedule a restart. I'll schedule my mothers machine to reboot at 2am daily, that should clear out any dangling FT sessions.
Incidentally, there's a longstanding, perhaps ancient, UI flaw with OS X Energy Save scheduling. Look at this:
It looks like the first option is available for selection, but the second (schedule restart) is unselectable -- it's "grayed out".
Look carefully (it took me a while). The select box (drop down) on the first row is also grayed out. This is standard behavior. The reason the 2nd row is so confusing is that it starts with a drop down -- there's no preceding text to display in normal font. Despite appearances this row is available for selection. Just click the check box.
I deleted a prefs file and did a number of Google searches before I realized what was going on. I found others who made the same mistake ...
I implemented Google's two factor authentication about three weeks ago. It's mostly working, but there are a few issues:
The big positive is that with two-factor and https I'm now willing to connect with an untrusted machine. By untrusted I machine a machine that has a reasonable chance of hosting a keystroke logger. That means any machine running XP and any machine I don't control. My work laptop, for example, is doubly untrusted.
A second bonus is that I'm now more comfortable with using my Google account as an OpenID/OAuth server.
The biggest problem is application-specific passwords. They behave like regular passwords, so if a keystroke logger captures the password one it can be used to, say, get access to your email from OS X Mail.app.
You really, really, really do not want to use an application-specific password on an untrusted machine. Google should provide more warning about their use. I use them on my iPhone and and my home Mac.
Use of application-specific passwords on an iPhone is a PITA. You can't generate these from an iPhone and they're a nuisance to type in. I've stored one in the encrypted 1Password database I use on my iPhone for reuse only on that device. (I'm taking this risk since if my iPhone is stolen and the 1Password database is hacked I'm in a world of pain anyway.)
Having this password on my iPhone is particularly important because Google.app's current behavior is obnoxious. In my case I entered a application-specific password and authenticated. Subsequently other iPhone Google App references (example desktop shortcut to Google Reader) requested a Google account password, not an Authenticator password and not an application-specific password. Every two weeks or so, however, Google.app makes me enter a NEW application-specific password.
The second shortcoming is that there doesn't seem to be a way to easily de-authorize a computer. When you first connect to a Google account from a new machine you're asked to enter your Google password [1]. Then, if you're using Authenticator.app, you're asked to enter your Authenticator token. At that point, if the machine authenticates, there's an option to authorize it for a month.
There should be a way to reverse that decision from your Google account. For example - what if the machine is lost? What if, as in my case, you make that choice from an untrusted machine and decide it was a bad idea? (In theory deleting cookies will undo this, but, perhaps due to user error, that didn't work for me. Of course that also requires physical control of the machine.) For now, be careful to only "authorize" your primary, secured, non-portable, home machine.
Lastly I've found I needed around 8-14 application-specific passwords, even when I reuse one - such as for IMAP and SMTP authentication from OS X Mail.app. There's no way around this one -- I use a lot of Google services from many devices and accounts.
Overall I'm pleased with Google's two factor authentication. They've given it a lot of thought, and I love that they've open sourced key parts of the infrastructure. We needed this years ago, but I'm grateful to have it at all.
[1] At that point, on a keystroke logger infected machine, your Google password is public knowledge. That's why I was willing to simplify my Google password. I now assume it is public, though I obviously haven't made it public.
See also:
Google's parental controls are pretty feeble, though there's a roundabout way to lock filtering to the most severe setting.
What about Microsoft's Bing? Bing starts out with one significant advantage -- the connections are not https encrypted so OS X domain filtering actually works.
Alas Bing's controls seem even weaker (emphases mine) ...
... Ensure that SafeSearch is always on when your kids search on Bing, choose what they see online, set time limits and game restrictions, and more. Windows users can install the free download, Windows Live Family Safety....
Ensure SafeSearch is on, I presume, by standing over your favorite teen! [3]
Interestingly in 2009 Microsoft had a better approach to parental controls ...
Bing Modified To Enable Porn Filtering - CBS News
... , "explicit images and video content will now be coming from a separate single domain, explicit.bing.net...
... Almost all third-party filtering tools can be configured to block specific domains or sites, as can the parental controls in Microsoft Vista and Mac OS X...
After this 2009 press release however, Microsoft removed all references to explicit.bing.net [1]. I wasn't able to find any explanation of what happened to it. [2]
My own tests suggest Microsoft really did abandon this scheme. The domain 'explicit.bing.net' brings up the usual bing interface, so the domain still exists, but there's no longer any redirecting to this domain. For example, a search on "Hot Babes" with OS X Parental Controls blocking explicit.bing.net brought up an impressive array of high resolution images.
Without the ability to lock Bing's parental control settings, and with the inexplicable demise of explicit.bing.net, Bing manages to come in 2nd behind Google's parental controls. The one advantage of Bing is that the lack of https encryption makes it easier to track pages visited.
[1] Either that or their feeble Blog search doesn't work with Safari. Microsoft is falling apart almost as fast as it grew to power.
[2] I wonder if corporate lawyers advise against attempting to do parental controls. Microsoft probably has less liability if they do nothing than if they provide an imperfect solution.
[3] Though it doesn't help OS X users like me, Windows Live Family Safety sounds relatively useful.
I suspect there aren't many of us stuck in Apple's photo management Limbo. Maybe a few hundred geeks. Perhaps we should develop a secret handshake?
We are early iPhoto adopters who have our images distributed across several Libraries. Sometimes we did this deliberately because iPhoto was pretty wimpy in the old days; it couldn't handle large numbers of images. At other times Library multiplication was the result of travel or partnerships (ex: marriage).
We, the Lost, would like to put all the images together in one place. Once upon a time we thought Apple would add Library import to iPhoto, but about four years ago we realized that wasn't going to happen. Since then some of us have used iPhoto Library Manager to merge iPhoto Libraries but others are too chicken.
For years we thought we might join libraries in Aperture, or that Apple would create an 'iPhoto Pro' with Library management. By this time price had become irrelevant, but instead Aperture languished.
More recently Apple reinvested in Aperture, and dropped the price dramatically ($80 via App Store). It is clearly intended to be iPhoto Pro. iPhoto itself is becoming simpler and losing features.
The problem is, Aperture 3 doesn't really import iPhoto Libraries. Yes, I know it claims to do it. I know many people say it works. Wrong both times. The import process has not only been buggy in the worst possible way (indetectable loss of very valued data), it can't work correctly. Aperture 3.x doesn't even have a place to store some of iPhoto's metadata, such as comments on events. In other cases Aperture 3 does have a place to store iPhoto metadata but, astoundingly, the import process ignores this.
So we're in Limbo. Even if Apple tries to fix Aperture, it might be years before they succeed. I have a bad feeling they won't bother -- there aren't enough geeks like me. Most of us own Aperture anyway.
I'm guessing I'll have to stay with iPhoto and use IPLM's merge feature. I'll be approaching that with the same enthusiasm as juggling antimatter. Merging iPhoto's monstrous data structure would be a hard problem even if Apple tried to help ...
This post updates a prior article: Grandma's iPad - A user guide and review.
My son and I just spent a few days with my elderly parents. My mother's macular degeneration and rheumatoid arthritis continue their slow inexorable progress. She is no longer able to use her Mac Mini, it's now primarily a sync service for her iPod, an image server, and perhaps a facetime connector [2][3].
She remains thrilled with her iPad, despite a need for a skill refresher [1]. I've just completed the OS 4 update; the added complexity of multitasking was offset by improved usability features we really wanted. Here's what I learned ...
These are the apps she uses -- they're all on Page 1. I've found very few third party apps worthwhile for her:
These are embedded apps she doesn't use (all on page 2): Safari (uses via the web page links), App Store, iTunes, Game Center, Calendar, Maps, YouTube.
I'd love to buy more elder-friendly apps for her, but this is a largely untapped market [4]. So far Apple does the best, and even their best isn't so great.
[1] If she lived closer to me I'm sure she'd be a wizard at it, but she tends to lose skills since I'm not around to reinforce them.
[2] Upgrading to 10.6, which required a drive upgrade, cost us the mini's optical drive. Tip: If you take a apart a used Mini, keep the #$$$ dust out of the exposed drive slot.
[3] I've set Facetime to autoanswer, She has a lovely Logitech Pro webcam. We'll see how well this works, too early to report on.
[4] A tough market to reach. No interest to advertisers, has trouble buying software/apps, tends to have a limited lifespan as an active user. (A minimally-demented 75 yo geek is not in this market.)
See also:
...Sometimes you're the windshield
Sometimes you're the bug...
Mary Chapin Carpenter
I followed the iFixt directions to Install a Mac mini Model A1176 Hard Drive; now my Mother's Mini has more capacity and is clunk-free too.. I boosted the memory to 2GB as well; that's easy to do on the way to a drive replacement.. Blew out a tone of dust when I had the top off.
The last was probably my downfall ...
"seemed to succeed - until I discovered my optical drive had broken. Disks do not mount, after some tries they eject. There was a LOT of dust inside my Mini, I think some got in the optical drive. A cleaning DVD and compressed gas didn't fix it. I wonder if it would be wise to seal the opening to the optical drive -- certainly before cleaning...
The Super Drives in this model of Mini have a high failure rate. I'm not sure how to replace it, but I'll find out.
I wanted to get my mother's machine to 10.6 so I could try auto-answer Facetime with her, so I persisted. Along the way I learned ...
[1] So she couldn't accidentally edit the folder.
Update 4/23/11: The replacement for this drive is ... nothing. Nobody sells replacements at anything like a reasonable price. Bugger.
Update 4/27/11: Mayer of iFixit provided a list of substitute drives:
Just about any 12.7 mm ATA/IDE/PATA drive will work. So before you spend the bucks decide what capabilities will meet your needs. Here's one that iFixit has: 12.7 mm PATA 8x SuperDrive (UJ-85J)
Here are some that will work:
As of April 2011 the $90 iFixit drive is one of the few I can find, they have 1 left. SATA has replaced IDE.
Google Maps is flailing tonight. Slow to load, pretty much worthless. Of course nothing on their status page, but I'm used to that.
I about gave up, then I remembered there's an alternative. I tried Bing Maps. It's been a while. Bing maps were always good, but they've gotten even better. Very impressive.
Google better get their reliability up a bit ...
I've been planning to switch to Google's two factor authentication once it was a few months old (time for bug fixing), so James Fallows recent experiences only confirmed my schedule. Interestingly he's not the only recent victim. I assume, based on my personal experience, James' wife was the victim of a keystroke logger infection (was she using a Mac client?) or password reuse.
It worked pretty much as per my notes. Google's setup process takes about 15 minutes, including installing the authenticator app on your iPhone or Android device (other phones get SMS authentication). A few things to note ...
Two factor authentication means I'm willing to enter Google credentials on relatively untrusted machines (given https encryption). That means ...
See also:
Update 4/18/11: I've found a hole in the system. You can set any computer to save 2nd factor authentication for up to 1 month, but you can't revoke this remotely and there's no UI to undo the change locally. Since the extended authorization cert is saved as a cookie, you need to delete cookies on the machine to re-enable Authenticator requests. So you should really reserve extended authentication for trusted machines. A corporate laptop, for example, should not be considered a trusted machine.
Update 5/1/11: I'm surprised how often I need to generate a single use application specific key. For example, I just had to do one for the Google's iPhoto PIcasa image uploader. I'm up to about 13 of 'em. Bit of a pain really. I've contemplated storing one for general reuse in my password database but haven't done that yet.
Update 7/4/11: I still rely on two-step verification, but Google needs to do a lot more work on this.
Update 9/8/11: I rethink it all.
