Connect SATA or IDE device to USB - any!

Very nifty if it works. Quickly plug in any naked IDE or SATA device into a USB connection. $25. I'd wait to see if it actually works: NewerTechnology - ATA/ATAPI/IDE/SATA to USB 2.0 Universal Adapter.

Google Firefox Goodness: Browser Sync and updated toolbar

Google loves firefox. Now if only Firefox Mac would go Cocoa ...

Official Google Blog: Get in sync refers to a new sync tool (slows FF startup) and the updated toolbar.

Update 6/8: An unexpected benefit -- this makes Firefox a much better RSS reader, and it can now be competitive with Bloglines. Every machine can have the same RSS feeds, and they're readily kept in sync. I don't know if it syncs read status though.

Update 7/10: Uh-oh. Once I got to 4 machines synching Firefox, and multiple simultaneous sessions, things went downhill. Performance became pretty darned miserable -- even on a fast machine I couldn't tolerate the time it took for FF to starup. My cookies seemed to get trashed. I'm setting the utility so that nothing is routinely synched, I'll sync on a periodic rather than regular basis.

Get a junk fax, earn $100

Brilliant. Vengeance for us, money to a set of deserving lawyers:

Learn How To Stop Junk Faxes With Fax Recovery Systems, Inc.

...FRS makes it easy for you to fight the spammers. Simply print the Agreement and send it to FRS with the junk faxes you have received. You will receive a $100.00 check for each monetary settlement that FRS collects.

They get $400, we get $100. Win-win.

Using Onfolio IE toolbar as an RSS reader

I'm not interested in most of what Onfolio offers, but I do want to try their Read RSS News Feeds feature. Microsoft bought the product, so it'll be available through them soon. Meanwhile you can get it from the Onfolio site.

BTW, I tried the RSS reader in IE 7 beta. Lame! Surprisingly lame. What were they thinking?

Update 6/26/06: My copy of IE 6 has turned to bird poop. Is it the beta version of Windows Live toolbar? Was it my misguided installation of IE 7 beta two? I'm not certain, but I think Microsoft's idea of a beta is very different from Google's definition. Google's beta software performs like Microsoft's post-release rev 2 products. I am so avoiding Microsoft betas from now on.

I use Firefox for most things, but I need IE for work. So it's an uninstall until the next edition of the toolbar. Shame -- I really like the Onfolio product.

One less reason to buy Office for the Mac: Google Spreadsheets

It's hard to build a web 2.0 wordprocessor. On the other hand, a web 2.0 spreadsheet seems far simpler. Now Google is launching one.

Now, not every lab product Google does is good. I still haven't found a use for Google Base, and I was very excited about that one. One problem they have is with privacy -- Google's default is to share, but that's not what I usually want with this stuff. I want ownership. Google's blog reader was bloody awful when I last looked. Their Calendar stuff seemed good, but the Gmail integration is dumb and I need to deal with PDA sync -- which they don't support.

On the other hand, look at the example they provide on their intro page -- a little league schedule. Exactly what I need to fuss with. More of a simple database than a spreadsheet really, but if they do iCal integration...

There's also the Mac implications. The biggest gap in the Mac world is the spreadsheet. FileMaker is a decent personal database (though one with an uncertain future!), and Nisus and Pages are tolerable writing solutions. AppleWorks, the only spreadsheet app, has been sunset. The main alternative to Office's spreadsheet, therefore, might be this one.

If it doesn't work with Safari, this might tip me to a Cocoa version of Firefox (Camino) as a test ... Google tends to support Safari last, if at all.

PC-Cillin and the failed alternatives

My mother's Win98 box throws an 'LUCallbackproxy.exe' error on logout or shutdown. As near as I can tell, it's a Norton Antivirus bug with Windows 98 that they're not interested in fixing.

So that rules out NAV. Next I looked at McAfee. Lord, but those Amazon reviews are nasty. The NAV reviews are almost as bad.

PC-Cillin has decent Amazon reviews, in line with less trustworthy CNET editor and user reviews. Looks like the antivirus marketplace for Windows will be Microsoft Live for XP and Vista, and PC-Cillin for everything else.

(Soon she'll inherit my XP box. I'll replace it with a MacBook laptop and boot XP as needed. That XP will run without antivirus software -- it won't be doing much on the net ...

The Free iPod Book 2.0

iLounge has released the ad supported Free iPod Book 2.0. It's 21st century techno-porn for the iPod fanboy. The advertisers should be happy. The two page view works fine at 1024x768 if you use Acrobat's Cmd-L full screen mode.

Very professionally done. It's a testimony to the power of the iPod ecosystem. SONY must weep to see this ...