Open identity management and data formats

whobar.org supports the alternatives to Google or Microsoft's identity management: OpenID, InfoCard, i-names. Big stuff.

See also microformats.

Above leads courtesy of a web 2.0 post.

Windows can do that?!

Wow, there are one or two XP tips here even a geek like me didn't know about (ok, I knew most of them):

The Joel on Software Discussion Group - Best tips that no one seems to know about?

cd p*\Skype
to cd into c:\program files\skype

Really? That I HAVE to test ...

Also

People that navigate through explorer or the registry with the mouse expanding each node, one by one by one....drives me nuts!
arrow keys + quickly typing the name of the node you want gets you home sooner.

And to open an Explorer window from a directory - start .

Google's 12V standard power supply

USB is the closest thing to a standard DC power supply, but it's only 5V. Firewire is 12V -- much nicer. A Firewire power supply would charge a camera nicely, whereas USB doesn't cut it. Maybe coincidentally, 12V is the output Google wants to see for a universal power supply in cars and buildings... (Is 12V what auto electrical outlets provide?)

Google adds dynamic calendar events

Dynamic updates to shared date-specific data, including the weather. Now if only I could sync Google calendar with Outlook, or the OS X calendar, or even my (yech) PalmOS PDA.

Update 9/27/06: I got a link from Jacob Reider's blog to an ultimate sync post and to ScheduleWorld. Wow. That sync guy is one serious geek (that's a compliment coming from me). I'll have to decipher it and see if this could really work ... I wonder if Jacob posted that one after seeing my post -- I know he reads this sometimes (though Gordon's Tech doesn't go to Jacob's medlogs site).

Incorporating Google's AJAX Search API into a blog

This is something I’d like to do:

Blogger Buzz: AJAX Search API Hackery

... the sidebar's "Google Search" field searches multiple indexes (Web and BlogSearch), as well as individual site-restricts (in this case the AJAX Search API blog, the Google blog and www.blogger.com) - you can customize any of these ...

If I get it into my blogs I’ll update this post with details.

Update 9/26: I haven't had time to play with this, but see the comment from Marc Lucovsky about dong this. Marc has a topic-specific blog on AJAX search as well as a quite interesting personal blog. I've added both to my Bloglines list. BTW, I'm a fan of topic-specific blogs, which often have well defined lifespans. Ideally when they reach retirement they should be replaced by a summative web page, but that life-cycle completion is probably overkill for many resources. As I was told by a former boss (repeatedly, evidently I didn't get it the first time), don't let the perfect defeat the sufficient.

Aperture 1.5: pinch me

I'm hallucinating. This has to be some kind of sick joke. How could Apple have fixed everything that was broken in Aperture 1.0 and offer it up free to long suffering 1.0 users?

AppleInsider | Apple premiers Aperture 1.5 at Photokina

... Presenting at the Photokina trade show in Cologne, Germany on Monday, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company showed off several new features of the software, including a powerful new open library, iLife '06 and iWork '06 integration, XMP metadata support, new adjustment tools and an export API that makes it easy to extend the Aperture workflow to third party applications and services.

With a new open library system, managing RAW, JPEG and TIFF images in Aperture 1.5 has been made more flexible, allowing photographers to store image files wherever they want -- either within the Aperture library itself, or in other disk locations, including external hard drives, CDs or DVDs.

The new version of Aperture can also generate high-resolution previews of each image so that users can review, rate and organize images as well as perform slideshows -- even when the master images are offline. The previews, which can be generated at a range of size and quality levels, make it possible for photographers to keep their original images safely stored on a desktop system at home or in the studio, while still being able to take a compact version of their entire photographic library on the road using a MacBook or MacBook Pro.

Aperture 1.5 is now supported across Apple's full line of Macintosh computers, the company said, from the Mac mini to the Mac Pro, and offers new integration with the iLife '06 suite of digital lifestyle applications and iWork '06 productivity software. The tight integration means that photographers can build complete websites with iWeb, create self-contained slide presentations with Keynote, or produce DVD slideshows with iDVD, all using JPEG versions of photos directly from their Aperture library. Integration also includes syncing to iPod using iTunes 7 and the ability to access and copy Aperture photos from within iPhoto...

... Wih Aperture 1.5, Apple is also introducing a new export API plug-in architecture that allows third party developers to tap into the expanding Aperture user community with plug-ins that seamlessly connect Aperture's workflow to complementary applications and services. Plug-ins from industry leading companies, including Getty Images, iStockphoto, Pictage, Flickr, PhotoShelter, DigitalFusion, Soundslides and Connected Flow, are being previewed at this week's Photokina tradeshow -- demonstrating a range of printing, publishing and storage workflows that take advantage of the new architecture.

Pricing & Availability

Aperture 1.5 is available this week in English, French, German and Japanese as a free Software Update to current Aperture 1.0 customers.

I have never seen any update of any product that fixed so many broken things. Aperture 1.0 users must be singing in the streets. Me? Now I can buy my MacBook. Oh, and Aperture too. Please take my money Apple.

9/29/06: The Apple Discussion forum is full of posts saying users still can't edit image dates, and that all date oriented functions are still based on EXIF date headers. Some of the posts are replies to missing posts -- a sign that Apple is deleting negative comments ... I'll update with more news as it arrives ... They did so much that was good I'm holding out hope that this is merely a misunderstanding ...

9/30/06: Maybe I should retitle this post "bite me".

iTunify: convenient packaging of iTunes scripts

Macintouch writes:

iTunify 1.4 is the set of tools for iTunes. From within iTunes, it can find duplicate tracks, find/replace ID3 tags with support for regular expressions, import/export art and ID3 tags, turn bookmarking on and off for AAC tracks, remove dead, checked, or unchecked tracks, and more. This release fixes audiobook indexing in iTunes 7, tweaks the interface, supports more ID3 tags in Find/Replace, supports more criteria in Find Duplicates, adds an option to enable/disable the "Part of gapless album" track option, and makes other changes. iTunify is $15 for Mac OS X (Universal Binary) with iTunes 7.0 or later.

The main difference between iTunes OS X and iTunes XP is the former is scriptable. That's a big advantage. This app packages up scripts you can find and use for free; so it's $15 for convenience, quality assurance, updating, etc. Not a bad trade-off.