Sunday, January 29, 2006

Trimming tracks in iTunes and other tips

This TUAW article has a some good tips, and a link to an Apple site with even better ones: TUAW Tip: Trimming tracks in iTunes - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW). I've not paid enough attention to how iTunes has grown.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

What Google wants a web site to be

Google Information for Webmasters is very informative. It links to their sitemaps page. I'm starting to see Google search results with sublinks below the main link, I suspect those are coming from the Sitemaps. I'd like to give it a try myself.

Graf Skates: the MacBook of the Ice

Guy Kasawki loves Graf skates and Bauer sticks; he compares them to the MacBook. Hmm. If Guy likes them, maybe I would too.

There's a term for this sort of thing (P1 likes B and C, P2 likes C, maybe P2 will like B?) but forget the name and I'm too lazy to Google it.

Of course I don't need Graf skates. I only skate and stick handle to amuse my 9 yo. It's like me riding Lance Armstrong's bike. Looks stupid. On the other hand, I'd really enjoy riding a bike like Lance's, even if I was poking along. At my age, I don't mind looking stupid.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

iPhoto Library Manager: merging iPhoto 6 Libraries

This appears to be the ONLY way to combine multiple iPhoto Libraries. (Example: import work done on a traveling laptop with the main library on server.) Review will follow below as an update to this post.
Apple - Support - Discussions - Does this Library Merge technique work ...

iPhoto Library Manager was updated this am. It now supports merging libraries with iPhoto 6:

http://homepage.mac.com/bwebster/iphotolibrarymanager.html

The Library switching functionality is free, the merging functionality is a very reasonable fee. I have not tested it but will be doing so shortly. Since we've established that merge techniques that worked with iPhoto 5 don't work with iPhoto 6, this is the only known way to combine, integrate, merge, import etc. iPhoto Libraries. It's amazing that Apple doesn't support this themselves, I can only guess that they want to reserve that functioanality for Aperture.

The best firefox extensions: information week


[Updated: added a screenshot of my extensions]
InternetWeek | Firefox Essentials: A Dozen Must-Have Extensions

A great reference - very frank. I have the Google toolbar, SwitchProxy and IE View. I think I'll end up with most of what he recommends.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Running iPhoto 6 on a G3

I wonder if the success of this tip might vary depending on video card. Interesting performance comment. I wonder if the G3 restriction was more for the other iLife modules.
macosxhints - Run some iLife '06 apps on a G3:

It's easy to get iPhoto 6 and iWeb installed on your G3 by copying the iLife installation package to your desktop, control-clicking on the package installer, picking Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu, and then removing this code from the Distribution.dist file using TextEdit:
// Rule out insufficient hardware
if ( !hasAcceptableHardware() )
{
my.result.title = system.localizedString('TITLE_INCOMPATHW');
my.result.message = system.localizedString('ERROR_INCOMPATHW');
my.result.type = 'Fatal';
return false;
}

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Petcam: checkup on your doggie

This is obvious -- except it hadn't occurred to me. I've heard of using a webcam to monitor grandma (my mother would just love that), but of course it works just as well for Fido: Home petcam made easy.

There are several security issues. A wireless webcam may not support robust encryption standards. If you are uploading images you need a place to access them -- and most of the upload sites are a bit ... unseemly. If you are accessing the webcam directly then you run into serious security issues -- it needs to connect to the DMZ of one's LAN...