Scribd iPaper: a Flash based alternative to PDF

Today Brad DeLong's web site included one of his lectures -- hosted using Scribd iPaper.

It's supposed to be an alternative to PDF; another way to make Microsoft Office documents accessible to a broad audience. Where as PDF is optimized for print, iPaper is optimized for web display.

There's some support for non-Office documents as well ...

Upload Your Documents | Scribd

.... Microsoft Word Files doc, docx Microsoft Powerpoint Files ppt, pptx, pps
Microsoft Excel Files xls, xlsx
PDF PDF pdf, ps
Open Office Open Office Documents odt, odp, sxw, sxi, etc.
Text Text Documents txt, rtf

There's only a few wee little catches.

1. iPaper documents are pegging my browser (Camino on OS X at this time).
2. iPaper is a descendant of Adobe's FlashPaper. It uses Flash for display. Yes, Flash, the buggiest, most insecure rendering platform known to the 21st century.
3. iPaper appears to be a totally proprietary format, in fact it's not clear if one can download an iPaper file or if they have to be hosted at Scribd.
   

I prefer to avoid Flash whenever possible, so Scribd isn't a good answer for me.

gSyncit for Outlook 2007 to Google Calendar and Contacts Sync

Looking through the archives I see I've written several posts about gSyncit (ex: gSyncit and SyncMyCal: not compatible with Lookout for Outlook). Each experiment ended up with me giving up on the topic.

Most recently I was trying Google Calendar Sync again with Outlook 2007. It worked for a week or so, then stopped with a cryptic error. I've a history of disappointments with Google Calendar Sync, so I decided to try gSyncIt again.

It's grown quite a bit since my earliest experiments. At one time I see I was asking for control over the sync process; they now provide a lot of tweaks and controls. More than most people could tolerate, but I'm a veteran of Sync Hell. I want 'em all.

I've enable unidirectional sync - Outlook Calendar to Google calendar and Outlook Contacts to a specific Google Contacts group. It will be a long time, if ever, before I dare to try true bidirectional sync.

So far, so good.

I registered this time, so they've got my $10.

Update 11/9/08: Not yet characterized, but there are time zone problems. I think Google Calendar tries to be "smart" about the time zone one is currently in. Big mistake. Correction -- this isn't a gSyncit/Outlook problem. I think this is a Google Calendar quirk depending on the time zone settings on the web client host machine.

Update 11/11/08: It's not exactly a quirk, more like a feature that's a bit too obscure. I've a f/u post on this dated 11/11/08.

Update 12/8/2008: gSyncIt has a bug with all-day events that span multiple days. It replicates them. I've seen this before; Outlook has a very nasty internal representation of an "all-day" event. I'm surprised gSyncIt hasn't fixed this bug, it's not subtle.

MobileMe trial ending - cancel now or never

I'd thought my Apple MobileMe trial account was going to expire at the end of the trial period.

I'd looked for that when I signed up; I don't sign up for trials that auto-enroll if not canceled.

Well, either I missed something or Apple has changed the rules. I received a notice today that Apple was going to convert me to a full account in 14 days.

I canceled immediately. MobileMe does not offer what I need. It's not even close. I'd only hung around in case Apple had a huge MobileMe update in the works, but I'm not going to pay for what they have now.

That's Rule #3 of Gordon's Rules of Acquisition. Don't buy on promises.

To cancel your MobileMe account you go to www.me.com and click the headshot icon to edit account settings. In account settings choose Cancel.

At that point all your MobileMe data will be vaporized, so if you've actually been using the service you'll have to decide what to do with your data.

Workaround for Lego Star Wars install bug

I really dislike buying desktop computer games. The software quality is poor, and the vendor support is lousy.

Unfortunately my 9yo prefers Mac games to Wii games, so when he's earned a big incentive for overcoming a real challenge, we end up with another OS X game.

It's just as well there are so few of them.

The latest problem came with Aspyr's Lego Star Wars (DVD) (Mac) (2005). After I'd installed it my son couldn't play. It started up oddly, with a long video loop. A key press produced a gray screen, then the loop resumed. Finally it crashed.

So what was the problem? There's nothing like this on the Aspyr site and the only update patch is a long delayed and apparently troublesome fix supporting native execution on Intel Macs.

I suspected a security/privileges bug. Game vendors, who usually outsource development to very junior engineers in international markets, rarely bother with security models. They build to the usual XP assumption (everyone runs as admin) then port the game to OS X.

Sure enough, from my admin account the game worked. I suspect the game tries to write to the Application folder. That's a no-no. Non-admin users on my system, including my usual account, don't have write privileges in the global Application folder.

I could have reinstalled to the user-specific application folder, but then the other kid accounts on the family machine would need their own installs. Since Leopard gives more control over permissions, I could have installed in a folder that everyone could write to.

In our case though I have an external drive with open space. OS X doesn't enforce permissions on external drives, so after installing there everyone could use it.

Shame on Aspyr for building a crummy application, and double-shame for not documenting the problem and a workaround.

Controlling what iTunes video goes to an iPod or iPhone

This is a bit weird. I think there's an iTunes OS X bug involved.

I wanted to control what TV shows went to my iPhone. My son wants to go to the polls with me early tomorrow, and he will need entertainment if we have a long wait. (Minnesota polls, however, are extremely well run. Waits are unusual.)

There are a lot of controls on what Music goes to the iPhone, but, oddly enough, fewer controls for space hogging TV shows.

The Library "checkbox" selector method breaks down when one has multiple devices -- those are library settings, not user or device settings. There are checkboxes for Movies that are device specific, but not for TV Shows.

One trick is to choose to sync "unwatched" episodes, then use the context menu "set new" option to mark watched episodes as "unwatched". (The new/watched term incongruity is a bug.)

Another is to follow this author's advice: Syncing the Next n Unwatched TV Shows to your iPod, AppleTV or iPhone using iTunes.

What worked for me was to create a simple playlist of the TV Shows I wanted and to use the "Selected playlists" option in TV Show sync.

Obvious in retrospect. Here's the odd part though.

When I first created my Videos folder, it didn't show up as a playlist I could select -- maybe because it also held some home movies. I created a smart playlist of an series of TV shows to see if that would work better; when I next checked BOTH appeared as playlists I could check.

Weird.

Anyway, the Simple playlist approach works fine for my TV Shows. That should get Tim through the voting wait.

We interrupt our programming for this political message

Gordon's Tech, this blog, is where I put my geek experience. It's apolitical, and even my geek business opinions stay out of it.

Those sorts of things go into Gordon's Notes, along with some opinions on other topics.

Topics like American politics, technology opinions, and the Enlightenment. Yeah, I'm a fan of the Enlightenment.

They go into Gordon's Notes, with the exception of this political message.

If you're a rational Republican, who'd have been happy with McCain 2000 but is struggling with McCain 2008 and Palin the Dominionist, please consider the latest endorsement from a rationalist Republican - a former publisher of the National Review, including an endorsement from the daughters of Goldwater's vice-presidential nominee.

Add that to de facto endorsement from David Brooks, explicit endorsements from George Will, the famous Colin Powell endorsement, Christopher Buckley's job-ending plea, endorsements from myrias of conservative newspapers and GOP governors ...

Well, you have a lot of respectable Republican conservative company if you vote for Obama tomorrow.

Consider it a downpayment on the rehabilitation and reform of the GOP.

We post-liberal Democrats need a respectable opposition. We need a reformed GOP. If you vote for Obama, you can join fellow Republicans who want to reform the GOP, and retrieve it from the Paliniacs.

We now return to our regular programming.

Joys of Google Calendar - in Gmail and the toolbar

I've become a Google Calendar fanboy.

Now that Spanning Sync has integrated our glorious family domain Google Calendars with OS X's pathetic and lethargic iCal I can view my work and home calendar, Emily's calendar, and the Google Calendars for Minnesota Special Hockey and more.

I can view and edit them on any browser, and on my iPhone. (Albeit with a once daily sync, please ask Apple to open the iPhone Calender API and invite Google in.)

It's fantastic; the work/home calendar integration is almost worth the pain of my Palm to iPhone conversion by itself.

Now I get the bennies, like attaching my calendar to the Firefox Toolbar or embedding my unified Google Calendar Gadget in the sidebar of my Gmail view. Even iGoogle is getting interesting now that I can create a portal with all my embedded Google Gadgets [1].

Thanks Google.

[1] Which would even more useful if Google's directory would clearly separate Google-authored gadgets from the rest of them!

Update 11/7/08: Had to swap out Google Calendar Sync and swap in gSyncit.