Coding Horror builds a new PC

It's been years since I built my XP box, and it's likely I'll not build another one (Apple doesn't work that way.)

Even so, I like reading about a state of the art build like this one?Coding Horror: My Work PC, or, Taking Your Own Advice. The systems came it at $650, including a 10,000 rpm drive.

Keyword Assistant updated for iPhoto 6.0.6

iPhoto has had a small update, so my copy of Ken Ferry's indispensable Keyword Assistant has put itself into safe mode.

Happily, Ken was right on top of this update. KA has been updated:

Software: Keyword Assistant

This version requires iPhoto 4.0.3 - iPhoto 6.0.6 and Mac OS X 10.4.8. It runs natively on Intel- and PowerPC-based computers. See the changelog for what's new.

As with all prior versions, you need to switch to an Admin account to install KA. I've complained about this to Ken (at least it should provide a helpful error message), but it's hard to bellyache too much about a free product.

PocketDock AV: every cable solution for an iPod

AppleInsider pointed me to: SendStation - Products - PocketDock AV. It'd the ultimate dock/cable solution for an iPod, including S-video output. It's primarily of interest to anyone doing video out from an iPod. It will cost $37 when it's really available. I'm tempted.

How to extract images from resistant outlook emails (img src is cid)

I received an unusually interesting email of alleged comparative planetary sizes from a colleague, but I was unable to extract the embedded images. When I saved the HTML I found text like this (angle brackets changed to [] due to Firefox/Blogger limitation):

[img id="MA2.1171429358" src="cid:part2.02060304.06000606@earthlink.net" datasize="32941" border="0" height="423" width="754" /]

A Google search resolved the mystery (Where is imagedata). If you use Microsoft Word as your Outlook text editor, this is how images are embedded. It has the interesting side effect that the images cannot be easily extracted, that may be intentional. I wonder if there's a way to use the apparent embedded identifier trace the image back to an email account ...

In any case, I transiently switched my Outlook editor to Word 2003 and I was able to individually (but not all at once) save each image as a separate BMP.

TextEdit can contain mutiple PDF documents

macosxhints.com - Embed multiple PDFs in one TextEdit document. TextEdit is a bit of a playground for Apple's OS X developers. There are quite a surprises in it.

If you have several PDFs you'd like to organize, dropping them all into a single TextEdit document is one way to do it.

How FairPlay Works

Schneier pointed to this very well done description of Apple's FairPlay, including a nice discussion of AAC:

How FairPlay Works: Apple's iTunes DRM Dilemma

Protected, purchased content is locked within iTunes; songs are not scrambled on Apple's server. This speeds and simplifies the transaction by delegating that work to iTunes on the local computer.

The result is an authorization system that does not require iTunes to verify each song with Apple as it plays. Instead, iTunes maintains a collection of user keys for all the purchased tracks in its library.

To play a protected AAC song, iTunes uses the matching user key to unlock the master key stored within the song file, when is then used to unscramble the song data.

Every time a new track is purchased, a new user key may be created; those keys are all encrypted and stored on the authorized iTunes computer, as well as being copied to Apple's servers.

When a new computer is authorized, it also generates a globally unique ID number for itself and sends it to Apple, which stores it as one of the five authorizations in the user account.

Apple's server sends the newly authorized machine the entire set of user keys for all the tracks purchased under the account, so all authorized systems will be able to play all purchased songs.

I didn't realize AAC was used by satellite radio. The essay also explains why Job wrote his anti-DRM post. The writing is really on the wall for DRM.

How to escape your mobile phone contract

You can die, move out of the coverage zone, make lots of calls from a location that's costly to your carrier, find a hole in the contract, or use a contract trading service.

A very handy referece: Getting Out of a 2-Year Cellphone Contract Alive - New York Times.