Blogger Help : How do I create a backup of my entire blog?
There's now a way to backup a Blogger blog -- even if it is tortuous.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Skype gets interesting: inbound number and voice mail
SkypeIn and Skype Voicemail Beta
Skype is a popular (too popular?) Voice over IP (VOIP) solution. It's primary use is cheap long distance calls, technical conferencing, and low cost conferencing. There are several similar alternatives.
Now, however, Skype is getting .... interesting.
They're offering users a 'unversal number' that can be reached by external phones (hmm. What does it do with fax calls?). Calls can go to voice mail or get routed to the Skype client (if it's connected). Cost is about $60/year for one number and voice mail, but I'd expect a variety of hidden fees also exist.
If they also provided programmable routing (route to my mobile phone, route to my home phone, etc) I'd have signed up already, but given their infrastructure it doesn't seem far fetched to expect routing in a future release.
Skype is a popular (too popular?) Voice over IP (VOIP) solution. It's primary use is cheap long distance calls, technical conferencing, and low cost conferencing. There are several similar alternatives.
Now, however, Skype is getting .... interesting.
They're offering users a 'unversal number' that can be reached by external phones (hmm. What does it do with fax calls?). Calls can go to voice mail or get routed to the Skype client (if it's connected). Cost is about $60/year for one number and voice mail, but I'd expect a variety of hidden fees also exist.
If they also provided programmable routing (route to my mobile phone, route to my home phone, etc) I'd have signed up already, but given their infrastructure it doesn't seem far fetched to expect routing in a future release.
SkypeIn provides an affordable, flexible alternative to costly mobile phone roaming charges with SkypeIn personal numbers. SkypeIn customers can receive inbound calls to their Skype client from ordinary fixed telephones or mobile phones while they travel worldwide, providing seamless interconnectivity without having to pay costly roaming charges. Skype Voicemail enables users to manage incoming voicemail messages, making their Skype usage more ubiquitous...All Skype services are pre-paid, apparently they lead the industry in credit card fraud.
... SkypeIn customers choose a country and area code and are assigned a regular telephone number... Users may purchase up to three numbers from their home country in Denmark, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States during the beta period.
Skype Voicemail customers can receive a voicemail message up to 10 minutes long from any user or traditional phone. Skype Voicemail customers may record their own personalized voicemail greeting, playback their messages, even while offline, and send incoming calls to voicemail if they away, offline or simply busy on another call.
SkypeIn and Skype Voicemail complement Skype’s first premium service, SkypeOut, which allows global calling to public telephone numbers for local rates....
10.3.9 has a significant java bug
Best places to read about it: OS X hints: macosxhints - A fix for broken Java after 10.3.9 upgrade and Apple.
Overall 10.3.9 sounds promising but imperfect. I'll wait another week.
Update: Sounds like it's caused by having java running somewhere (other user space) preventing the update. In theory this is allowed, but in practice here's the superstition I follow for major OS X updates (XP updates, in my experience, have not required this sort of superstition):
Overall 10.3.9 sounds promising but imperfect. I'll wait another week.
Update: Sounds like it's caused by having java running somewhere (other user space) preventing the update. In theory this is allowed, but in practice here's the superstition I follow for major OS X updates (XP updates, in my experience, have not required this sort of superstition):
1. log in on my very plain admin account (no odd configuration, no startup items, etc). Run PCC (or similar) to flush caches.I sometimes "repair privileges after #4, but I think that's less important.
2. shut down, restart and login again to admin
3. run the update
4. shut down and restart
AutoIt: Scripting language for Windows apps
AutoIt
In DOS days I did far too much using Microsoft's Batch programming "language" (still a surprisingly useful skill). In OS/2 days I was fond of ReXX (spelling?). At various times since then Microsoft has had a variety of batch or scripting tools; they've never been very well accepted. Even AppleScript, often forgotten, has gotten more traction. (Recently AppleScript has become very useful, and it will be even more central and critical in Tiger.)
Disappointing.
AutoIt is one partial solution; open source and free.No 'build by recording' mode unfortunately (that peaked w/ AppleScript classic). Correction (thanks to a comment by the author of the scripting utility! see below) -- AutoIt has a recording tool - ScriptWriter. It is included in the SciTE distribution of AutoIt. I'll try it out and comment here. AutoIt is starting to feel like serious tool.
I've also used Hot Keyboard Pro, which is only a partial solution.
In DOS days I did far too much using Microsoft's Batch programming "language" (still a surprisingly useful skill). In OS/2 days I was fond of ReXX (spelling?). At various times since then Microsoft has had a variety of batch or scripting tools; they've never been very well accepted. Even AppleScript, often forgotten, has gotten more traction. (Recently AppleScript has become very useful, and it will be even more central and critical in Tiger.)
Disappointing.
AutoIt is one partial solution; open source and free.
I've also used Hot Keyboard Pro, which is only a partial solution.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Does 10.3.9 resurrect the iBook CPU fan?
Mac OS X 10.3.9
This was a very, very good upgrade for me thus far. The .7 and .8 upgrades for me went from bad to worse. Notably in networking, sharing printers, Finder weirdness, among other things. All of that is now fixed! and what's more important is a noise that I heard that I hadn't heard since .6 update ... the CPU cooling fan...IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!Ok, if this is true then I'll upgrade. I too have noticed how quiet my iBook fanhas been for a while. Quiet is good, but hot is not so great.
I thought for a few months that my iBook was turned into a convection-cooled device (as the infamous Cube) since the CPU fan never went off. Ever since I upgraded to .9 it's all (the CPU fan included) running again.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
OS X 10.3.9 includes Safari 1.3
Surfin' Safari
wow. This didn't get much discussion in the release notes! 10.3.9 includes a major Safari update. I wonder what else is in there. I'm waiting a few days before installing.
wow. This didn't get much discussion in the release notes! 10.3.9 includes a major Safari update. I wonder what else is in there. I'm waiting a few days before installing.
BlogAssist: make Safari a better Blogger client
BlogAssist is a clever OS X menubar application that applies simple operations on text in the clipboard to speed entering HTML. It's particularly relevant to blogging, especially when working with Safari and Blogger (Safari is not well supported in Blogger, so one has to type HTML directly).
For example, you could copy a URL from a web page, choose the Web Link option, paste the result into a blog comment, and then replace the placeholder display string. In other words:
via TUAW.
For example, you could copy a URL from a web page, choose the Web Link option, paste the result into a blog comment, and then replace the placeholder display string. In other words:
1. Select text and copy into clipboard (btw, it's easy to forget to copy!)
2. Apply BlogAssist operation (operations can be user modified or defined via menubar.
3. Paste into text area.
via TUAW.
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