iPod tip of the year: any AAC file can be made "bookmarkable"

Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes - Managing Files

Make Bookmarkable
written by Doug Adams
posted: Mar 1, 2004
This script will change the 4-character file type of the selected AAC tracks to 'M4B ', thus making them bookmarkable. (That is, the track will resume playing wherever you left off the last time you played it.) Works on protected and non-protected AACs.

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Since Mark posted this on 3/1/04, it's amazing it's taken a month for this to make the wires. This makes putting my medical lectures on iPods far more useful. It was a major "feature" for audible.com so they may be unhappy about it leaking out. I wonder if Apple will change the behavior in an iTunes update. The script makes it easy to do vs. doing the file type change by hand.

Special google commands - filtering out hits on prices

Google Help: Numrange Searches

Numrange can be used to specify that results contain numbers in a range you set. You can conduct a numrange search by specifying two numbers, separated by two periods, with no spaces. Be sure to specify a unit of measure or some other indicator of what the number range represents.

For example, you might conduct a search for DVD player $250..300 or 3..5 megapixel digital camera. Numrange can be used to set a range for everything from dates (Willie Mays 1950..1960) to weights (5000..10000 kg truck).

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Or you could negate the string to filter OUT results that include prices. Good way to find reviews on a topic?

Google Search: define: glycoprotein

Google Search: define: glycoprotein

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Nice new "hidden" google feature. Definitions are surprisingly good.

How To: Switch between Outlook and Palm Desktop synchronization

palmOne - Support - Knowledge Library: "How To: Switch between Outlook and Palm Desktop synchronization"

TechTutorials.com - Fixing a Stuck Print Job in Windows 2000

TechTutorials.com - Fixing a Stuck Print Job in Windows 2000

This happens to me quite often. It's one of the biggest Win2K annoyances. Nice fix.

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"Fixing a Stuck Print Job in Windows 2000

Occassionally a print job gets stuck in the print queue and cannot be deleted. When you try to cancel the print job it will show as 'Deleting', but the job will never go a way. Additionally, new print jobs that you send to the printer will not print either.

There are a couple of easy ways to fix this problem as follows:

1) Open the services control panel (start -> settings -> control panel -> administrative tools -> services). Right click on the Print Spooler service and select stop. After that has completed, right click on the Print Spooler service again and select start. You can then close the control panel and the offending job should disappear from the queue.

2) An easier way to do this is to just click on the Start Menu, select 'Run' and type in 'CMD'. At the command prompt, type 'net stop spooler'. Once that is complete, type 'net start spooler' without the quotes of course.

After you perform either one of these actions, the job should disappear from the queue and you should be able to print again. "

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Google's Definition Lookup

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Google's Definition Lookup: "If you type (without the quotes) 'define:' and then a word, Google goes out and finds Web pages where that term is defined. For example, I put in the word 'type' and got back a fairly long list of sites where the word has been defined in some way. (Nothing came back when I put in 'weblog' but 'blog' returned a bunch of definitions. Go figure.)"

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Google is the command line interface to the web. Very weird that the CLI should be "hot" in the post-Mosaic web. Maybe we're post-GUI too?

The CLI is a handy way to "hide" advanced features that one is testing out.

Udell: InfoPath, Adobe and others

InfoWorld: Next-generation e-forms: January 23, 2004: By Jon Udell: E-business Strategies

Microsoft's XML-oriented InfoPath, which shipped with Office 2003 in October, is now deployed and in use. Adobe plans to ship a beta version of its PDF- and XML-oriented forms designer in the first quarter of this year. And e-forms veterans such as PureEdge and Cardiff, whose offerings are built on an XML core, are lining up behind XForms, an e-forms specification that became an official W3C recommendation in October 2003.

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Nice Udell article on InfoPath, I need to send this ref to Andrew.