Media-Convert: Web-based converter for most everything - Download Squad

Good resource: Media-Convert: Web-based converter for most everything - Download Squad

Carbonite (XP only): Online backup goes mainstream

I came across this via The Atlantic's print edition, not via any of the many blogs I track. Odd.

Carbonite Online Backup is XP only, but the price is right. $50 a year for "unlimited" (really?) backup.

If it were OS X as well I'd have signed up by now, but no matter -- the $50 price point is the key. At long last, online backup is going mainstream. It's the only way to go, but expect restores to be unbelievably slow and tedious for sometime. It can't be the only backup solution, but it's a good companion to backup to an onsite external hard drive.

iMac G5: fans running more often

My 20" iMac fans run often nowadays - a load that was tolerated before drives fans up. No idea why. In the past Canon's crummy printer drivers caused this kind of problem with a bad print job (printing is an OS X weakness), but Activity Monitor (show all) has no bad news.

CPU temp is about 168 by Thermograph measures. High, but unfortunately not too high by the low standards of the "30% failure rate" 20" G5 iMac.

iMac G5 constant fan noise - Mac Forums has some hints. I'll try those and update here. Cleaning out the air ducts sounds harmless enough.

I wonder too if Apple, knowing the problems with the design of this machine, has tweaked the temperature response curve to lower the threshold for high speed fans.

PS. I'm posting this using Firefox 2 RC-2. I love the inline spelling check!

Update 10/8/06: Seems better. Here's what I did:

1. Checked Activity Monitor for any hung processes (none found, be sure to view ALL processes)
   
2. Reset the SMU (System Management Unit)
3. Opened up the iMac and blew out clouds of dust from vents, etc.
4. Changed performance to Highest (this is odd, but it came from MacOS X Hints).
   

I'll see it it stays better. Hard to say what worked, I didn't have time to mess with this so I did everything that seemed reasonable.

Update 1/24/2010: Four years later I noticed this again. I reset the SMU and it improved. Thanks to Google custom search I found this old post and new what to do.

Camino: Command-click to select table cells

In Camino, my current OS X Gecko web browser, you can command click to select table cells and copy and paste them. Surprisingly useful. I think this is probably true of Firefox too.

Gordon's Tech: Google's splog mislabeling continues

Google's splog (spam blog) identification process reminds me of our incompetent FBI's No-Fly list. In the last few weeks I've twice gotten the "captcha of doom" requirement on posting. The good news is that if you respond rapidly Google seems to remove their sanction pending review. There's no sign anything has happened though, if you enter the magic URL: h
http://www.blogger.com/unlock-blog.g?blogID=123454 where you replace the 123454 with the Blogger blog ID.

Google spreadsheets: Lord this is buggy

I've been using Google Spreadsheets for some collaborative projects. Good Lord, this is buggy stuff. Slow too. Google has a reputation for calling release-quality products "beta", but in this case alpha is the right label.

It's a great idea, but there's a lot of work left to do.

Adobe Contribute for OS X

Adobe - Contribute - a curious application which sounds vaguely like a modern equivalent of Microsoft's old FrontPage, but for OS X. Free trial, cost $150. Not obvious how well it works with Blogger.

I am likely to give it a try, but probably in the new year after the bugs get worked a bit.