TUAW news: Parallels, AirPort Extreme, Google Earth

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) is one of my favorites. Some news today that caught my eye:

1. Parallels has a new beta -- I'll update. Sounds great.
2. The new AirPort Extreme has special features to support USB drive mounting -- so it's a bit of an occult and very slow NAS device.
3. Google Earth 4 is out of beta. The prior version was very crashy on brand new Mac Mini I was testing ...

Nisus Writer Pro: pending in the spring

Nisus Writer Express is our family wordprocessor. I like it very much, but there are a few things I miss. Nisus Writer Pro sounds like it will have most of them. I do hope the upgrade pricing will be reasonable. I wonder if they'll support open document format, but their key value is selling a very solid and well structured wp that uses RTF -- the only real "universal" (meaning Word users open it without paying attention) document format.

iPhone letdown: the problems loom and Palm gets a bit more breathing room

As I’ve detoxed from my “Jobs reality distortion field” intoxication the dark sides of the iPhone have sunk in. I agree with all the items on Top 10 things to hate about the Apple iPhone | APC Magazine, here’s my personal summary:

• Cingular may be the only US carrier with a worse reputation than Sprint.


• EDGE means this is basically a voice/SMS phone, an iPod, and a WiFi Slate (Remember Jobs saying Apple would never do a slate/PDA/Newton? You didn’t believe him did you?) in one package. It’s not a wide-area network device.


• It will need a case of some sort to protect it, so it’s getting bulky.


• It sounds very much like this will be a locked device — no third party applications. In particular, no ePocrates for physicians. Maybe this will change, but that’s the consensus. [jf: this appears certain. Closed and locked, maybe because Jobs remembers his career as a phone hacker.]
  


• I assume it will have a bluetooth keyboard/headset combo that’s easy to carry, so I’m not that worried about the data entry issues. The onscreen stuff will be for portable use, the remote kb will hold the earset in one’s briefcase.


• TIME claims you can’t sync it wirelessly! Pardon me??!!


• No Exchange/Outlook support?

That’s an awful pile of negatives. I’m waiting for the smoke to clear, but I wonder if I’m going to have to buy a low end Treo and wait for the next iteration of the iPhone …

Update 1/10/07: There remains a faint hope that Apple will sell a version of this without the phone that is not locked. In other words, an iPod/PDA/Slate product with VOIP support but no phone, including an 80GB hard drive and an open platform for $500. Sigh. I don't get a good feeling about this ...

Update 1/13/07: I've heard a few theories about why the phone is locked. The last three are mine.

• slow phone hackers: unlocking the phone, attacking Cingular's network, etc.
• the OS implementation is very unstable -- so Apple wants to limit who can work on it
• Apple will create a software channel and extract a percentage for every app produced
• Optimize user experience and reliability
• Create a robust DRM environment for viewing and distributing digital media
• Security (no virus, bot, spam), security management, and authentication for eCommerce (digital cash) and all authenticated transactions. Expect the iPhone to have some sort of biometric identifier at launch time.
• Enable a shift from selling software to leasing sofware.
  

The last is why the iPod is locked, why iTV is locked, and why iTV doesn't manage anything but iTunes DRMd media. More on the DarkSeid of Apple in a future post.

Belkin USB hub powered by firewire

I'm quite pleased with my Kensington USB dome hub -- it's solid and very accessible. The only downside is the power supply -- it means yet another cable. I was a bit disappointed that Kensington didn't take power from the Mac's firewire port.

That's the neat part of the Belkin USB 2.0& Firewire 6-Port Hub For Mac Mini. Power comes form the Firewire. It consumes one Firewire port (on the Mac) and provides two on the hub, so net 1. That's nice, but it's really a USB hub powered by firewire. Great -- I wish more vendors did this.

There are two problems. The Mac connector cables are very short -- it's really designed for the Mac mini and one Amazon reviewer claimed the cables were too short for his Intel Mini. Also, the USB ports are mostly in back of the device, I'd rather have more in front.

Worth keeping in mind.

Guidelines for the construction of content-rich web sites

The Basics of Search Engine Optimization is a high quality essay on how to build topical websites that will be popular and thus well ranked. It's a reference worth keeping.

Regenerating and maintaining Outlook's Master Category List

Outlook (all versions) stores the master category list in the stores the master category list in the registry. This is absurd, but since only a tiny number of Outlook uber-geek users care about Categories (tags in modern parlance) it’s not a big deal.

For Outlook PIM-geeks, it means changing machines deletes the list. Individual tasks retain their categories (the string is stored in the PST), but there’s no corresponding Master Category List entry.

Here’s how I regenerate under these circumstances:

1. Export all tasks to Access. (this is easiest for me, other formats will work better for non-Access people)


2. Dump all categories into a text editor (I use TextPad)


3. Turn them into a list (trivial grep task) and sort with duplicate delete.


4. Edit and cleanup.


5. Turn into comma-separated strings.


6. Copy and paste into the Master Category List enter box

It only took a few minutes to regenerate my MCL this way.

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 …