Coding Horror builds a pc

Build a PC, CH style. Once upon a time people sold books on how to do this. Now there are blog posts that do a better job.

Changing times.

I'll probably never build another PC, but the example and parts list are good references in case I change my mind.

PS. CH has about 3,000 bloglines subscriptions. Wow, to think I knew him when he was starting out... (This blog has 2 subscriptions, and at least one of those is mine.)

Update 7/11: Part II. I liked the comment about drivers that come with the mb - toss 'em.

Update 7/24/07: CH has a cumulative summary and a set of suggested configurations.

Don't use Safari 3 with Blogger

Apple - Safari 3.02 Public Beta scatters div tags everywhere if you use it with Blogger. Messes up editing and formatting. Don't use it yet!

Blogger: what the %$! happened to the title field?

This is truly bizarre, but I've validated it on Safari and Camino on OS X, and I think, on Firefox XP. I have more than one blogspot account, and it's the same on all of them. It occurs at home and at work.

I can't click into the "Title" field in either the BlogThis! post submission widget or in the blogger editing environment. The cursor won't move into the field. I have to tab into the field, then use the arrow keys to move a cursor around.

This has been going on for a week for me. I figured it was so outrageous Google would fix it by now, but now I wonder if it's simply the universe conspiring against me.

I think I need to stop reading books about probability wave collapse; the world is just getting too peculiar.

Update: Ok, it's a bug. Phew. Why the $#!$#$ doesn't Google/blogger announce this in their !#!$%$! status page?!

Update: It's not just the title field. A lot of the controls on the BlotThis! widget no longer respond to mouse clicks. Grrrrrrrrrr.

BTW, you can vent your spleen here ...

Nisus Pro has been released

Nisus Writer Pro is a $45 upgrade for Express users. Express is my favorite wordprocessor. I'll be looking at an upgrade for me, not sure if I'll do the family pack though -- I'm the one who likes the advanced stuff.

More after I try it for a while. Good news!

Google Reader vs. Bloglines: the winner is ...

Bloglines. Much to my surprise since, I'd assumed Reader was much better than Google Reader. Recently though I've been using Reader for a research project. Somethings work well, but it's suprisingly buggy for a product that Google's been pushing for months. (It's still a "Lab" rather than beta project.)

Tags, for example, weren't working on posts today, and they don't seem to work at all for feeds. You can share individual articles if you like, but you can't share your entire subscription collection the way(s) you an with Bloglines.

On balance Bloglines still has the edge, with one big caveat that some of my subscriptions seem to update erratically; quiet for a week then fifty articles all at once.

Update 7/13/07: I came across a more extensive comparison with a similar, but more detailed, conclusion. Neither will create a feed from multiple feeds, but I think Yahoo Pipes may do that. I should experiment with named Pipes...

Yet another OS X screen sharing app - this one for small displays

Telekinesis puts your Mac desktop onto your iPhone - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) is yet another OS X screen sharing application. I doubt it works with multi-user, but of course I'll try it once it's not alpha. I don't do alpha.

Ten minutes with an iPhone

Why would I bother adding to the millions of Apple - iPhone reviews based on a 10 minute trial at the Apple store?

Because I can. Also, what I have to say I've not read elsewhere. Lastly, I'll keep it very short.

1. If your computing platform is OS X you have no choice now. The iPhone is good enough that competitors will retreat to fighting from non-Apple ground. So I'll get an iPhone when my Sprint contract ends in October. No choice for us.
   
2. The aspect ratio appears to be close to that of a widescreen movie: "The iPhone hits the aspect ratio issue in two important ways: First, when held vertically, the 320×480 screen can reproduce a 4×3 television image that is as high a resolution as either the iPod or Zune’s 320×240 screen. Second, when you turn the iPhone sideways, you get a nice 3×2 aspect ratio 480×320 screen. The drawback here is that when watching content that is either 16:9 or 2.35:1, you will have to reduce the image size on the screen to fit the proper aspect ratio."
   The 1.5 ratio is a compromise between being HDTV ratio (1.8) and something that can barely fit in a man's front pocket (insert juvenile humor here) and something that can work with web pages (which assume a 1.3 ratio). It's a good choice but, not being a video person, I'd have preferred a less elongated shape. I'm not sure how pocketable the iPhone really is.
3. Speaking of pocketable, the thickness is probably ok (thicker than the idiotic RAZR of course), the width is just fine, the length might be over the limit and the weight is on the high side. We will likely have the technology to be an iPhone, be pocketable, and be semi-affordable by 2009. Not this year though.
4. I missed Flash more than I thought I would. I'm relieved to read plausible rumor sites claiming Flash is on the way.
5. The typing is not as fast or as useful for me as the combination of Graffiti One and CIC's old WordComplete, but there's not bloody stylus to lose. I'll take it. In a few minutes of use I got good results as long as I didn't look at the output but just typed as though it would all turn out ok. My hand ached a bit, but with use the intrinsic muscles will strengthen. The iPhone will produce new repetitive strain syndromes of the hand, it might not be a bad idea to start slow, work up, stretch muscles, and try alternating hands.
   
6. Performance in the Apple store was slow, I assume the WLAN was saturated.
   

Update 7/6/07: Another late review which says some new and interesting things. Incidentally, Cringely thinks Apple has a built-in capability to do a 3G update -- I doubt it.

Update 7/10/07: I've been thinking about Flash, and reading responses to its absence. I now think Apple will do their own .swf viewer, just as they did their own PDF viewer. Adobe has spent years providing how wise Apple was to have an OS X native PDF viewer; Apple is not going to rely on Adobe for anything important. Adobe lost Apple's trust a long time ago ...