Apple - Mac mini
Everything that was rumored and more. Wow.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Monday, January 10, 2005
Feed your iPod: free lectures to load an iPod with
IT Conversations: "Listener-supported audio programs,
interviews and important events."
I'm surprised I'd never heard of this, but neither did my friend Andy who's generally up on these things. He just pointed me to it.
These are largely technical lectures. Listeners write reviews and rank them. You can stream the audio or download lectures as bookmarkable AAC, ideal for iPod lectures:
This is a great find.
interviews and important events."
I'm surprised I'd never heard of this, but neither did my friend Andy who's generally up on these things. He just pointed me to it.
These are largely technical lectures. Listeners write reviews and rank them. You can stream the audio or download lectures as bookmarkable AAC, ideal for iPod lectures:
Download (AAC/MB4 for iTunes/iPod): This is the best choice for listening to IT Conversations on an iPod or in iTunes (Mac or Windows). These files support bookmarks. If you stop listening in the middle of a program, when you return later, you'll be able to continue where you left off. Particularly handy for those programs that run longer than your workouts. :-)Note: you can make any AAC bookmarkable by changing the extension (PC) or the filetype (Mac)
This is a great find.
Windows Macro / Scripting Utility
Automate Your PC - Win9x/NT/ME/2000/XP Windows Macro Automation and Windows Scripting Utilities. Windows macro scripting solutions with MacroScript and VBScript.
I use HotKeyboardPro. It works well enough for what little I do. This one was recommended by an industry blog I follow.
I use HotKeyboardPro. It works well enough for what little I do. This one was recommended by an industry blog I follow.
AppleWorks 6.2.9 released
AppleWorks 6.2.9 (OS X) 6.2.8 (Classic):Information and Download
On the eve of a hoped for iWorks announcement, Apple has released AW 6.2.9. It's available for download, I don't remember the full app being available for download before.
On the eve of a hoped for iWorks announcement, Apple has released AW 6.2.9. It's available for download, I don't remember the full app being available for download before.
Fascinating article on OS X next-generation search and data model support
Faster, Easier Product Development: Delicious Library Takes Advantage of Cocoa Bindings
Apple does geek marketing better than anyone. This "developer article" is really written for a non-developer to read; it's a marketing document. Still, it does reveal a lot of interesting things that were introduced, without much notice, in 10.3.6. Much of this is fundamental to Tiger (based on what I read in Apple's Tiger notes).
Anyone interested in "search" (meaning everyone nowadays) will appreciate the comments on search.
Apple does geek marketing better than anyone. This "developer article" is really written for a non-developer to read; it's a marketing document. Still, it does reveal a lot of interesting things that were introduced, without much notice, in 10.3.6. Much of this is fundamental to Tiger (based on what I read in Apple's Tiger notes).
Anyone interested in "search" (meaning everyone nowadays) will appreciate the comments on search.
Desktop search: why it has to be much smarter
Faughnan's Tech: Copernic/AOL: current leader in the sponsored (freebie) Windows desktop search race
I keep this blog primarily for my own uses as a place to keep notes on topics. Occasionally I do make editorial comments, but I was surprised recently to learn that at least two people read my posts on Copernic. I even replied to a comment explaining why I haven't yet bothered with MSN search.
So although I don't expect much readership, I'll expound a bit here on my thoughts on desktop search. If nothing else I'll link back to this in future.
I think desktop search has to be smarter than most people think -- at least for the 0.01% of the world that resembles me. (Caveat: I'm so far off the spectrum of users that no product manager with experience would use me as a representative user. On the other hand, I may resemble a "department" of typical users.)
I have thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of documents distributed across local and networked drives and, now, Blogger repositories. They go back about 15 years. I have maybe 10,000 images and they're growing fast. I have over 4GB of email in Outlook repositories and 2GB in Eudora. I have spreadsheets, databases, etc.
"Dumb" full-text search of my repository just returns noise: thousands of hits.
On the other hand, Lookout works great.
Why?
Because I use Lookout to search only my Outlook repository. And that repository has LOTS of rich metadata. There are date entries, subject entries, people entries, item-type (contact, task) etc. Lookout provides ways to constrain searches by metadata. It seems to use the metadata in its ranking (Subject >> text). It allows me to omit indexing attachments -- which adds more noise than value. I learn to edit email subjects/titles in Outlook (secret tip: this is very easy to do) before I throw my email in the Save folder (I don't use any other email folders). I can add an optional layer of on-the-fly metadata by adding categories. (Very poorly supported in Outlook otherwise this would work better.)
Desktop search has very little metadata to go on. Yeah, NTFS has LOTS of rich metadata support -- but it's ignored by almost all applications. Microsoft synchronizes (awkardly) Office document metadata with NTFS metadata, but even in Office support is weak. The workflow for adding metadata, even document titles, is very poor.
The biggest source of filesyste meaning-rich metadata on a PC is the folder/path name -- even more than the file name. I do better using a self-built kludged implementation of Norton Change Directory than I do with Copernic or any other filesystem indexing method. That works because I try to make my folder names descriptive.
Smart desktop search for someone as atypical as me needs to be smart about metadata. It needs to value strings in path names more than strings buried on page 50 of a 200 page document. It needs to value "Title" strings more than deep tex strings. It needs to value file name strings. It needs to rank recent above old. Heck, I could make a longer list (anyone want to pay me :-?).
Search results need to be very quick to sort and (me only -- subsort) and to allow additional subqueries (ok, I'm very data oriented.)
I think OS X Tiger search is going to knock the socks off the PC products I've seen so far -- including Google's disappointing offering. Reading their developer notes, they clearly understand the problem -- and, more importantly, they plan to deliver on their understanding.
Yeah, I know Microsoft has great stuff in the labs (Longhorn, etc) -- but so did Xerox 20 years ago.
Of course, as noted above, I'm really extreme. On the other hand, a departmental group of 10-20 people may have similar needs to mine. So someone building a desktop search solution for someone like me is building something that may work in an organization.
I keep this blog primarily for my own uses as a place to keep notes on topics. Occasionally I do make editorial comments, but I was surprised recently to learn that at least two people read my posts on Copernic. I even replied to a comment explaining why I haven't yet bothered with MSN search.
So although I don't expect much readership, I'll expound a bit here on my thoughts on desktop search. If nothing else I'll link back to this in future.
I think desktop search has to be smarter than most people think -- at least for the 0.01% of the world that resembles me. (Caveat: I'm so far off the spectrum of users that no product manager with experience would use me as a representative user. On the other hand, I may resemble a "department" of typical users.)
I have thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of documents distributed across local and networked drives and, now, Blogger repositories. They go back about 15 years. I have maybe 10,000 images and they're growing fast. I have over 4GB of email in Outlook repositories and 2GB in Eudora. I have spreadsheets, databases, etc.
"Dumb" full-text search of my repository just returns noise: thousands of hits.
On the other hand, Lookout works great.
Why?
Because I use Lookout to search only my Outlook repository. And that repository has LOTS of rich metadata. There are date entries, subject entries, people entries, item-type (contact, task) etc. Lookout provides ways to constrain searches by metadata. It seems to use the metadata in its ranking (Subject >> text). It allows me to omit indexing attachments -- which adds more noise than value. I learn to edit email subjects/titles in Outlook (secret tip: this is very easy to do) before I throw my email in the Save folder (I don't use any other email folders). I can add an optional layer of on-the-fly metadata by adding categories. (Very poorly supported in Outlook otherwise this would work better.)
Desktop search has very little metadata to go on. Yeah, NTFS has LOTS of rich metadata support -- but it's ignored by almost all applications. Microsoft synchronizes (awkardly) Office document metadata with NTFS metadata, but even in Office support is weak. The workflow for adding metadata, even document titles, is very poor.
The biggest source of filesyste meaning-rich metadata on a PC is the folder/path name -- even more than the file name. I do better using a self-built kludged implementation of Norton Change Directory than I do with Copernic or any other filesystem indexing method. That works because I try to make my folder names descriptive.
Smart desktop search for someone as atypical as me needs to be smart about metadata. It needs to value strings in path names more than strings buried on page 50 of a 200 page document. It needs to value "Title" strings more than deep tex strings. It needs to value file name strings. It needs to rank recent above old. Heck, I could make a longer list (anyone want to pay me :-?).
Search results need to be very quick to sort and (me only -- subsort) and to allow additional subqueries (ok, I'm very data oriented.)
I think OS X Tiger search is going to knock the socks off the PC products I've seen so far -- including Google's disappointing offering. Reading their developer notes, they clearly understand the problem -- and, more importantly, they plan to deliver on their understanding.
Yeah, I know Microsoft has great stuff in the labs (Longhorn, etc) -- but so did Xerox 20 years ago.
Of course, as noted above, I'm really extreme. On the other hand, a departmental group of 10-20 people may have similar needs to mine. So someone building a desktop search solution for someone like me is building something that may work in an organization.
Blogger: Wanted -- a better BlogThis!
Blogger: Dashboard
My enthusiasm for Blogger is derived from the extraordinary easy of creating blog entries. My appreciation was strained over the past few months as their performance and reliability went down the drain and as Google failed to index blog entries (not just mine, I think they were holding off to avoid straining Blogger's laboring servers). Recently however, Blogger has become reliable again and Yahoo is doing a great job indexing blogs (better than Google, so I use Yahoo's search on my blogs).
Blogger has also made a great leap forwards in their web-client editing environment. Firefox 1.0 users have a "Compose" tool that's an excellent wysiwyg editor -- the best I've seen. Web clients are now making a serious challenge to desktop apps.
BlogThis!, however, has not kept up. This bookmarklet is fundamental to Blogger's ease of use, but it could do with some rework. I've sent Blogger feedback requesting the following:
1. A new BlogThis! button that says "Post Draft and Edit".
When one clicks on this button this is what should happen:
1. Blogger saves the post as a draft.
2. Blogger logs the user in (ask for un/pw if no cookie) and opens the just posted item in Compose mode.
The workflow is:
1. Go to web site. Select text of interest.
2. Click "Post Draft and Edit" button.
3. Edit the blog post in Compose.
A related change is that "Compose" needs a "Save" button that saves one's work without exiting the editing screen.
If you agree, send feedback to Blogger.
My enthusiasm for Blogger is derived from the extraordinary easy of creating blog entries. My appreciation was strained over the past few months as their performance and reliability went down the drain and as Google failed to index blog entries (not just mine, I think they were holding off to avoid straining Blogger's laboring servers). Recently however, Blogger has become reliable again and Yahoo is doing a great job indexing blogs (better than Google, so I use Yahoo's search on my blogs).
Blogger has also made a great leap forwards in their web-client editing environment. Firefox 1.0 users have a "Compose" tool that's an excellent wysiwyg editor -- the best I've seen. Web clients are now making a serious challenge to desktop apps.
BlogThis!, however, has not kept up. This bookmarklet is fundamental to Blogger's ease of use, but it could do with some rework. I've sent Blogger feedback requesting the following:
1. A new BlogThis! button that says "Post Draft and Edit".
When one clicks on this button this is what should happen:
1. Blogger saves the post as a draft.
2. Blogger logs the user in (ask for un/pw if no cookie) and opens the just posted item in Compose mode.
The workflow is:
1. Go to web site. Select text of interest.
2. Click "Post Draft and Edit" button.
3. Edit the blog post in Compose.
A related change is that "Compose" needs a "Save" button that saves one's work without exiting the editing screen.
If you agree, send feedback to Blogger.
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