Sync with MobileMe - how to control the direction of the initial sync

The MobileMe help file was useless, but this Apple forum post has the answer. In this case the configuration will overwrite iCal with MobileMe data, but you can invert the direction at step 6.

Apple - Support - Discussions - Help overwriting iCal with Cloud ...

1) Open MobileMe Preferences, and click on the 'Sync' tab.
2) Ensure that 'Synchronise with MobileMe' to 'Manual'
3) Click on 'Advanced...'
4) Click on 'Reset Sync Data...'
5) A window will appear, saying 'Replace: {All Sync Info}'. Use the list to change this to:
Replace: {Calendars}
6) Make sure that the animated arrow is flowing from the cloud to the mac. You can change its direction by clicking on the arrows underneath the image.
7) Click on replace.

I did this with the 10.4 .Mac preferences (after update, the name doesn't change) and it worked there.

It's not obvious how to do this for only one of the many sync options you have. I think if you switch to manual sync, then uncheck all but the item you want to sync uni-directionally, you can leave the other sync items untouched.

Google Chrome doesn't like Google Docs

It wasn't hard to see that Chrome doesn't like Google Docs. When I tried to highlight an entire spreadsheet row, the last column was missed. When I tried to copy and paste a row, the results were odd.

Then I pasted into a cell, selected text, and cleared formatting ...

Well, we knew it's early beta.

Still, I didn't expect it to blow up so quickly in Google's own backyard. This ain't subtle, the Chrome team must have know about the problem.

I've seen similar results, maybe a bit better, when I've used Safari on Google Apps. Safari and Chrome both use WebKit, in contrast Gecko browser (Camino, Firefox) work pretty well.

My guess is that there's some bad code in the Google Apps - spreadsheet and probably doc. So maybe the next step is to cleanup Google Apps -- which will help Safari.

At least this bug ain't hard to find!

ATPM's task and GTD app catalog now with iPhone info

ATPM 14.09 - Next Actions: Master List for September is a catalog of OS X apps for "getting things done" -- what we old timers new as a task list (plus).

Now it includes an 'iPhone Presence' indicator. It's a terrific list.

BTW, I'm still pretty happy with the combination of Toodledo (web site) and iPhone ToDo.app. Not cheap, but being able to work with tasks from any computer is worth something.

Picasa web album face tagging - not only fun

I didn't think my wife and her brother looked that much alike, but I can't argue with Google's face recognition algorithm. At a particular angle, in a particular light, there's a definite resemblance!

Yes, Picasa's facial recognition software is a grade 2 event ...

Gordon's Notes: Singularity alert: Picasa web album face tagging

... Yeah, we all knew it was coming, but it's creepy-cool anyway. Not quite goose bumps, but a grade 2 singularity event. (Grade 7 is when the Great God Google refers you to your soylent green processing station, Grade 1 is personalized search.)

So will Google link the faces to the appropriate Google Profile? You just know they've got that one on their social networking strategy. (So how do kids get their profiles? Is it like Confirmation?)

I love it. Now if there were only some way to sync the tags back to iPhoto ...

I'll report on my tech blog after I try it. I'm sure the servers will be smoking tonight, so it'll take a few days. (Update: yeah, it's pegged. Stuck at 44% of faces.)..

It took a day or so, but a lot of faces are recognized. The tagging UI is excellent. I was joking about the Google Profile, but I wasn't far off. Google matches tags against one's Gmail contacts and attaches email addresses in the tags.

Now we need to sync the tags back to iPhoto. This really needs to be in the next version of everyone's photo management software.

Privacy? Hah. That's strictly for the impoverished and the ultra-rich.

CroCari: the future of OS X browsers

With the release of Chrome for Windows, all OS X geeks think the same thoughts:

1. Safari/web kit should be replaced with Chrome/web kit.
2. The Camino engineers are best able to integrate Chrome with OS X

So this is very good news.

Daring Fireball Linked List: Pinkerton

Mike Pinkerton, long-time Mac web browser developer, and one of the leaders behind the Gecko-based Camino, is also involved in Google’s efforts to create a Mac browser based on Chromium.

Chrome + Camino + Safari = CroCari.

Software evaluation: now we have to watch out for license tokens!

[See the update -- 1Password changed their policy today!]

I was read to buy 1Password. I clicked to purchase, and discovered 1Password uses license tokens!

Damn.

I'd never have invested in testing the product if I'd known that. These encrypted license tokens are a pain to manage and store. I want nothing to do with 'em. Mercifully, they're not too common ... yet.

So now I'm back looking for an iPhone password management solution. Maybe FileMaker will deliver Bento/iPhone with encryption and I won't have to bother with a dedicated app.

I'll try to avoid this mistake again. From now on, I'll walk through the purchase process before testing a product to avoid an entire class of nasty surprises.

Update 9/3/08: To be fair to 1Password, I went to the trouble of writing an email so they'd know this was a problem for one customer. They wrote back and said something like "yeah, you're right, as of today registration gets you a regular registration number". So they'd been hearing this was a problem. I'll download the new version and register tonight.

Chrome comments

So now my old XP box has Firefox, Safari, IE 7 and Chrome.

This is good.

• When you enter "about:memory" in the title bar you get "stats for nerds". The Browser stats compare Firefox 3.01 and Chrome "0.2.149.27".
  
• Shift-Esc brings up the task manager, listing evil Plug-Ins like Flash. Sure feels like an OS to me.
• There are a few options, like putting the home button on the toolbar.
• When you type a url, the file name is in faded text. Cute.
• Nice emulation of FF 3's best feature -- the all-in-one status bar. IE copied it too. This is good.
• I enabled Gears for Google Docs, it created a shortcut of the form:
  "C:\Documents and Settings\jfaughnan\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --app=https://docs.google.com/"
• You can search History, but it doesn't integrate iGoogle history.
• Ctrl-B toggles the bookmark bar.
• The "chrome" is pleasingly minimal. No separate status bar, no menu to speak of, so it really uses the screen well.
• The address bar also integrates Google search, and it searches all visited web pages.
• Lunarpages, a web service provider that I've recently replaced with DreamHost, has an invalid security certificate (yeah, they have problems). FF gives me a dire warning, but lets me visit. Chrome just wipes them away -- no error message, the page can't be visited.
• The "courier" font size on ToodleDo is unusably small with Chrome. It's usable with FF, IE and Safari.
  

Since the address bar searches all visited web pages, does this mean that if you visit a web page you've been keeping "secret" (obscure URL), that Google is now going to index it?

Rumor says the OS X version is far away - alas.

Update: Chrome search against pages visited is run against an archive stored on the local machine. So those mildly secure since obscure pages are not exposed.