PagePacker makes pocket-sized books

TUAW pointed me to this an application that produces very nice booklets from OS X printing:

Big Nerd Ranch Weblog » PagePacker makes pocket-sized books

... I often wander around without a computer, so I needed a nice easy way to print important bits into little books of information that I could carry around in my pocket. Chad Adams figured out a brilliant technique of cutting and folding pieces of paper into little books and called it PocketMod. The technique was brilliant, but the software was a little awkward. So I, knowing a little about Cocoa, hacked together PagePacker. ...

You need to read the folding directions. Very clever, and very 21st century in terms of how this has evolved through the contributions of several persons. However, note the odd mention that it expires in June due to Leopard …

Integrating an iPod into a home: multispeaker

Wireless remote speakers have been disappointing, but I’d love to put something like this in the kitchen with remote speakers in the living room. Price is competitive, $300 for the base station and one remote speaker.

EOS Wireless - Products

... IntelliTouch announced Eos, a digital, wireless, multi-room audio speaker system for iPod. The system links up to four stereo remote wireless speakers using a frequency hopping scheme that the company says provides a range of up to 50 meters through walls and ceilings. It offers a base station with an iPod dock, two high performance stereo drivers, a ported sub-woofer, and SRS WOW sound enhancement, while the remote speaker systems feature the stereo drivers and subwoofer plus a removable, integrated power supply that allows the speaker to mount directly on a wall power outlet. A weatherproof wireless outdoor amplifier, which features two audio zones with separate volume controls, is also available. The Eos is scheduled for release in March at $299 for the base station and one remote speaker. ...

The base station has an IR remote control. They use a proprietary wireless technology.

Eos uses GigaWave, a proprietary digital wireless technology to broadcast interference-free CD quality digital audio to up to four satellite receivers at a distance of up 150 ft (50 meters).  To avoid interference, Eos’ GigaWave uses proprietary digital spectrum technology (DSS). The special communications algorithm used in our GigaWave technology will not interfere with WiFi networks (both 2.4GHz & 5.8GHz) or digital products (like telephones) in the 5.8GHz range.  This same technology allows Eos to stay clear of interference cased by with by other products that communicate in the 2.4 and 5.8 GHz range (as well as microwave ovens which operate at 2.4GHz).
 
Another reason that Eos has such phenomenal broadcast characteristics is the fact that it incorporates an error correction scheme that is capable of resending packets if signal is interfered with.
 
Our proprietary wireless protocol, combined with error correction technology is the reason why Eos is the only product on the market to ever can broadcast interference-free, CD quality audio to up to 4 satellites.

I’ll be looking for reviews ...

Optimizing a blog for ad revenue

Guy Kawasaki Still Leaving Money on the Table [Adsense Case Study] at Digital Inspiration has great tips on optimizing blogs for Adsense revenue, but note that Guy Kawasaki is only pulling in 3K a year. Really, it's not worth the bother for most of us.

Windows On-Screen Keyboard (OSK)

When Some Keys on the Computer Keyboard Aren't Working (Digital Inspiration) - just type osk in the command line. Great tip!

iShowU: screencasting for OS X

I've been using iShowU to create a series of OS X video tutorials (screencasts) for my mother. I'm impressed! It's one of only 2 or 3 OS X apps that can do this, and it's only $20. Works fine and you can edit in iMovie. I'm going to experiment with exporting from iMovie as a "iPod" video, which in my past experience is surprisingly viewable.

For screencasting use create a very simple user account and run the screen res at 800x600 (or 1024x768). Screen rate is 2 screens/sec and set size to match the res (800x600). Stop and start with the shortcut keys. I'm experimenting with output.

For viewing the choices seem limited. I wonder if .Mac would work better! I'm currently using a link, which in Firefox causes the .mov file to be downloaded then played by Quicktime. I'm also staging via Google Video, but then in it plays in very low res Flash (like all shared video I can find).

What I want is a "free" (ad supported) video sharing site that would stream using the better Quicktime codec.

Update 1/1/10: I'm impressed! This works extremely well. I do my screen captures now using H.264 for compression and res 800x600 with "thousands of colors". I set the low refresh rate to 1 fps and the high refresh rate to 4 fps and choose the 'use low when mouse not moving' option. A short tutorial screencast takes only about 6ooK. I upload the videos to my Google web creator page as files and then create a blog post pointing to them. I don't use the video pages because the files are so small I don't need to stream, and the QT H.264 codec gives far better results than Flash video.

Update 8/17/10: iShowU is still around, now with 10.6 versions and a "pro" version. Price is very reasonable, the upgrade price is just the delta between the original and new price. Unfortunately, the've adopted an insane licensing/copy protection strategy. You need to consider this new hassle in your purchase decisions.

OS X unzip: what to do when it seems to fail (hint: Stuffit)

I downloaded the latests version of Chipt's excellent Backpack widget today, but when I unzipped it I saw two files instead of one widget. One had a size of zero, the other had no size information. It looked corrupt, so I tossed it and started to write the author. As I started my email, an idea struck me.

It had been opened using an old copy of StuffIt Expander (9.0.1). That's not the way OS X normally opens zips. I used get info to view the file information, and saw that the "Open with" setting was StuffIt. I switched to the obscurely named BOMArchiveHelper -- the internal OS X application. That did the trick; the folder now had a proper widget and I installed it. I clicked the "Change All" button as well.

There's more than one problem here. As has been well described by 'Drunken Fireball' and others, Apple seriously mangled the innards of OS X when they switched from the well designed Mac Classic metadata system for data file type and creator to the kludged mixture used by OS X (way too weird to describe, it's some mix of old metadata, new metada, the three character file extension (whether hidden or not) and the phases of Venus).

The other problem is StuffIt. I don't know if Chipt was using StuffIt.... Chipt wasn't using StuffIt, but a few misguided developers have stuck with it. StuffIt is an abomination. It was once a great product, but a few years ago the current owner went a bit berserk with various DRM schemes, hiding the well established free version, working to lock users into proprietary schemes, etc. I don't know the current version of StuffIt, and I don't care. Stuffit's day has passed. I keep it around only because a few people use the .sit format (alas), but I'm beginning to rethink that. I'm going to delete it from my system, and install it again in the rare instance that I need it.

OS X usability hall of horrors

We all know that OS X has lots of design flaws, usability errors and half-built zombie components (such as Services, Sherlock, the Finder, and the Dock. I didn't realize how long the list was, however, until I built and configured a Mac Mini for my 70+ yo mother. The act of documenting the build opened my eyes to how bad things are. Of course XP is worse, but, really, that's a feeble excuse.

I don't expect 10.5 to be much better, but I hope I'm surprised. Of course OS X works very well for me, but that's not the point. Here's the list, in no particular order:

1. It’s not hard to put an icon behind the dock, esp. when the auto-arrange option is set for the Finder. If the user can’t control the doc (it's been locked as part of system configuration), the icon may not appear to be retrievable.
2. It’s too easy for users to drag things and make them go “poof” -- with no obvious way to undo this.
3. The options to customize toolbars is too limited. Where’s the Help button?
4. There is NO documentation on how to use OS X in the box or on the machine. NADA. You need to buy a book.
5. The trash should be on the $#!%$! Desktop, not attached to the Dock.
6. The Dock is one big usability disaster.
7. Using the Trash icon to “Burn” a CD is really dumb.
8. The Address Book is a disaster. You can’t customize the Toolbar. It feels little changed from 10.0. The UI is a complete mess. Do you know how to delete an address book entry? Now let's talk about Mail.app integration ...
9. It’s much too easy to lose the main Window in Mail.app.
10. The sequence of steps required to make a ‘Preview’ window “right sized” is obscure and bizarre.
11. Widgets: Oddly enough, if you’re careful, you can put together a good set, but pressing F12 should hide everything else and the Widget layer should be impermeable - so can’t click through to Desktop or other apps...
12. iTunes breaks a number of UI conventions, but the one of the worst is using the ‘smart size’ Green button to switch to the mini-player instead of resizing the main window. iTunes also disregards the existence of the Dock. I think the iTunes developer team dropped several competence grades in the past few releases.
13. Location information for the Dashboard widgets is set by the address card information for the currently logged in user. This is not documented. Cute and stupid. (The address related widgets don’t work outside the US, and they don’t provide any error messages to that effect either.)
14. Open Mail.app. Then open Address Book. Then create an address. Then in Mail.app click on addresses. Note the newly added address does not appear. Eventually it is recognized, but it takes a surprisingly long time and a few application restarts. Shameful.
15. Create a sticky. With cursor at the end of a line, print it. Notice the last word does not print. Wretched.
16. The "stuck" CD/DVD problem. (If a CD has fingerprints or otherwise cannot be recognized properly, it doesn't mount on the desktop, but it doesn't eject either!)

You do get the feeling nobody in Cupertino cares about this stuff any more ...