Utility to charge a RAZR from an OS X machine

The world's worst phone became a little less crummy today. Scott Gruby, an experienced Mac developer, has a utility that will allow an OS X machine to charge the phone:

Scott Gruby’s Blog :: Charging a Motorola RAZR over USB

The Motorola RAZR has a mini USB plug on it for charging and hooking to a computer which is great as I have lots of those cables lying around. Unfortunately it won’t charge over USB from a Mac out of the box. Luckily, I know some tricks and someone told me the magic to get it to charge. I whipped up a little program that tells the RAZR (or any other Motorola cell phone) to charge over USB....

... The app is pretty simple; place it in your applications folder, launch it and set it as a login item. Whenever you plug in your phone, it should start charging. If your machine goes to sleep, it will stop charging. (For those curious, all the program does is open and close the USB interface on the phone.)

Easy to install, easy to uninstall. I'll definitely try it. Scott asks that, in return, we take a look at his receipt management software. I'll give that one a try too.

BTW, this app is not easy to find! Scott published it in November 2006, but I couldn't find it on versiontracker. I only know about it because Scott mentioned it in a comment on a post of mine. Scott's blog is also an underappreciated gem, I've added it to my bloglines collection.

Update 2/7/07: Nina Love (see comments) was able to charge her RAZR from her MacBook apparently without installing this utility.

StuffIt Expander: bypass evil email harvesting

StuffIt Expander is nasty stuff. Some versions mangle zip files, the installation is very ugly, it's very hard to remove, the vendor harvests email addresses and is an infamous spammer -- bad news.

Unfortunately, some vendors still use .sit files. As a rule, I don't buy from them. If you're stuck, you may be able to download form the above link without surrendering your spam-mail address.

RSS to email and RSS for the old web

Amit had two related posts worth keeping for reference:

How to generate email from an RSS feed

and

RSS notification for non-syndicated web sites

I'm going to try the latter with Dyer's news site.

Update: alas the links Amit recommended for rss monitoring of a web site both failed me. One is no longer working the other is very complex to configure.

BlogAssist now on services menu

Dejal - BlogAssist has been on my system for ages, but I've made little use of it. I'll try version 2.1 of this html tool. Only web tools that work with services can use the service option -- so Safari or Camino only.

USB adapters for the evil 2 Gen Apple iPod Shuffle

The 2nd generation iPod shuffle uses yet another proprietary apple connector (YAPAC). Yes, another dongle on the desktop, another usb port taken, another thing to lose, another device to carry when traveling.

Sure Apple could have used a mini-B USB interface instead (the original shuffle used a full-sized USB connector, the original iPod used a standard firewire connector), but that would have been insufficiently greedy (aka unfair to Apple shareholders and stakeholders). Apple makes a zillion dollars off their ownership of the full sized iPod interface. They needed another proprietary connector for devices that are too small for the current iPod connector.

Grrrrrrr. This alone is reason enough to buy a Shuffle alternative -- if anyone would make one that played AAC encoded music. (Apple does not own AAC, they own FairPlay. Most iTunes users with any sense do not rely on FairPlay encoded music.)

Those of us who bit (I had a $50 certificate burning a hole in my pocket) really want a mini-USB adapter that would permanently sit on the base of the Shuffle. It would extend the Shuffle about 1 cm and would include both a mini-B connector, a insertion point for the earphones, and a small ring for string, chain, etc. Ideally it would let one charge the Shuffle and listen to it at the same time (if the Shuffle would allow that).

Maybe Griffin will make one for us -- if Apple lets them! I'm sure to do this legally one has to pay a license to Apple. For now (until Apple shuts them down?) there's a big honking full-sized USB connector from Incipio. The $6 price is right, but it is too big and too ugly for longterm use:

IncipioBud - USB adapter for the 2 Gen Apple iPod Shuffle

Ken Tidwell (via Macintouch)
http://myincipio.com/product/IP-300
If Apple shuts out any US manufacturer (Griffin?) of the device we want, then maybe we'll see a lbac
Works for me - says the product is out of stock*, but the page/link, with images, etc. loads right up. However, using their search for 'IP-300' fails, as it does for other items that are also currently listed as OOS.

IncipioBud - USB adapter for the 2 Gen Apple iPod Shuffle

The IncipioBud allows you to easily connect a iPod Shuffle to any USB port without having to use the relatively large iPod Shuffle Dock (included with your iPod Shuffle)... The IncipioBud is the perfect travel companion, taking up virtually no space in a bag or pocket. No need to haul around the Dock and cables that came with your iPod Shuffle, just pack the IncipioBud and a user all set. The IncipioBud also comes with a convenient lanyard loop on the side so you can attach it to backpack or laptop case.

This tiny adapter weighs in at only 5.6 grams and measures a mere 47mm X 16mm!

* Small
* No Cables or Clumsy Cradle to take with you
* Works with Both Mac and PC
* Allows you to Charge off of one of our USB charging solutions

This Google search phrase '2g shuffle usb dongle' returns several by other outfits..., including an endgadget article for one from a vendor by the name of 'Thought Out', which discusses how Apple legal wolves were after them over something iPod related back in 2005.

If Apple shuts out any US manufacturer (Griffin?) of the device we want, then maybe we'll see a black market in a future mini-B version. I'll buy this one for now!

kw: adapter, converter, dongle, USB, mini-B, iPod Shuffle, 2G, 2nd generation, 2gen

The mysteries of Microsoft Access: Built-In Functions

I rag on Microsoft all the time, but my dark secret is I'm a power-user of many of their products. Only a true geek can know the darkness at the heart of Microsoft software.

The darkness varies. Word is bad to the bone. Outlook is a complex mix of hacks and insights, kludges and cleverness, a slouching beast with thwarted aspirations to nobility. Excel has kept its pure Mac heart in the company of demons. PowerPoint is simply dumb. And then there's Microsoft Access ....

Access is the most complex of all, a broken veteran of too many wars, too many gunfights, too many shady deals, too many dark betrayals ... and yet ...

Access can still do yeoman's work. If you learn its twisted paths, where to go and where to fear, it can chew through gigabytes of data, transforming strings, exposing relationships ... There's a fierce engine behind a tinsel town facade. It is also very strangely documented -- not the least because it's a house of cards and mirrors built upon a half-dozen dead "strategic" technologies. There are vast amounts of information buried in the peculiar not-quite standard help files, but it's all piecemeal. The web resources are often little better.

Take Access Built-In Functions for example. You can write some very fast and powerful tranformations of text strings using these, none of my 3 books on Microsoft Access discuss them in any detail. A web search turns up a few references, but nothing definitive. Microsoft's site has almost nothing.

Almost, but not quite nothing. Here, at long last, is the Alphabetic List of Microsoft Access 2003 Build-in Functions. Here's the list by category. Here's a discussion in the context of expressions.

BlogJet 2 - don't upgrade yet

BlogJet 2 is now available with some nice improvements on the prior version:

Post Management and Searching

BlogJet now stores your posts in the cache, so you can access thousands of your posts in a blink of an eye (even with no connection). Finding posts is now easier because of the instant search, which shows results as you type.

Alas, it's NOT ready. I upgraded based on past experience and it through an access violation within minutes of my using it. That's bad coding.

I'd give it another 2-3 months before upgrading.

Update 3/21/07: The latest release is 2.0.0.9 and it didn't work with Blogger correctly a few weeks ago. I'm going to try Microsoft Live Writer for a while.