Fallen Into Knowledge

A list my ten most used applications, roughly in order of use:

1: Safari.
Internet browser. I know Firefox is cool, and I really like some of the plug-ins available for it - greasemonkey and adblock come readily to mind. But, on the Mac, safari is still my favorite browser.

2: Mail.
Email. It just does email, but it does it well. I really like the rule-based filters. I have a list of nine filters that evaluates incoming mail and highlights some mail based certain criteria, filters all incoming mail through a white list, then a black list, and then a Bayesian filter looking for junk. the result is that the mail I want to see quickly is highlighted, and the mail I don’t want to see I don’t.
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Well, it looks like I had better not switch careers and become a prognosticator of future apple technology:  my record isn’t too good.  That said, I would like to point out that all the things that did happen in the keynote I had predicted.  Its just that I also predicted about thirty things would happen that did not.  Leopard, iLife, and iWork were absent, although the version of Keynote that Mr. Jobs used in his presentation had features that are absent from my version.  HD was not the focus of the apple TV, though it was mentioned; it has Pre-N as I thought it would.  The “real video iPod” and the “iPhone” were both released (well, sort of released - we still have to wait until June), its just that these are the same thing.

Having said all of that, I want an iPhone.

If you are even vaguely interested in technology, you know that Macworld is upon us, and you know that Macworld is where Apple releases a passel of new products. You might also be aware that rumors of those releases abound before the big event, and although nobody really knows anything - Apple is is famously tight-lipped about future product releases - everybody has their guesses as to what Apple has in store for us. Here are mine:

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So, the dates for this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) have been announced (August 7-11, if you are curious), and those of you with good memories will remember that in addition to announcing the Intel switch Steve mentioned that one of the topics to be discussed this year is the next release of OS X, Leopard.  I jumped the fence about a year ago now, with a purchase of a 15” Powerbook.  I write this on a new 20” iMac, and I will say this:  the grass is greener on the Apple side of the fence.
Which isn’t to say that the Mac leaves nothing to be desired; in fact I have some pretty specific desires for the next version of OS X.  I’ve even gone so far as to make a list of them:
1> iChat needs some improvement.  for starters an instant messenger should only take two windows in text-chat mode:  one window for the contact list and one for the open chat(s).  iChat needs an Adium-like tabbed chat window.  Also, having to have three windows open to see all of my contacts is silly:  iChat needs to integrate the AIM, Jabber, and Bonjour contacts into one contact list.  Secondly, iChat needs to be multi-protocol:  that means Yahoo and MSN support needs to be added to iChat.  the new Macs (like my iMac) are coming with the video camera built-in: for me this means either snubbing my family (who use Yahoo) to use iChat, having multiple chat programs open, or using a program like Adium and not using the camera.  None of these are ideal solutions and I am sure there are others in the same position as I.
2>iSync syncs my bookmarks, calendar and address book information between my iMac and the Powerbook:  the process is seamless and happens in the background.  I want the same feature to be available for files and folders:  intelligent syncing of documents between two computers. Here is how I want it to work:  I get home from class; set my Powerbook down on the coffee table and open the lid:  I want the iMac to notice the powerbook (via bluetooth or airport) and automatically start to sync the files that have been changed since the last sync - in either direction:  if a file has been changed on both computers  - then notify me of a conflict (just like it does with address book).  Of course, I don’t want to mirror all of the files on the iMac to the Powerbook, so I also want to select the folders that I want to sync.  All of the technology is available for this sort of thing and the number of people who have both desktops and laptops grows all of the time.  In fact, most pro applications are licensed in a way that assumes that the user has both:  syncing that “just works” is long overdue.
3>This one has more to do with iWeb - but really would be helped by some OS work:  iWeb needs a better blogging engine  and built in FTP: publishing a new blog comment should be quick and painless. Also, a commenting system needs to be included

Okay, I am done … for now - any other ideas?

Yesterday I gets me an email from one of my profs:
“Please have read the rest of the mystic women writers, or at least up as far as the heretics.”
I tell myself to breathe:  this represents a large amount of reading.  I’m swamped, and its only week two.
And yet I still find time to completely remake my website.  Go figure.
This site was constructed using iWeb, the new app that is a part of iLife ’06.  Except for the photo galleries - those were made using Aperture.
Okay, now: Back to work.

I noticed that as of today i have been carrying around this laptop for a month.  Here are some statistics:

Number of times crashed:  0
Uptime, as of now:  ten days, seven hours, twenty-two minutes
Reason for last Reboot:  System Update to 10.3.9

Disk space:  28.16 GB free, out of 74 GB total
19 GB - music files
9 GB - Video Files
1.5 GB - Pictures
200 MB - Document Files

Emails this month, not including spam:  859.  (for an average of almost 30 per day)

It has been nice to have access to voice-mail, email, IM almost everywhere.  It has also been nice to take notes in class (I type faster than I write, and it tends to be more legible), to have eBook versions of the texts being discussed along side the Notes (I can search the text, cut and paste into the notes, and I have to take fewer books with me every day), and to write papers at the library.
I amazed at how much more useful laptops are now than they were when I got my first one in 1997 (as a graduation gift from my parents).  that one was a Pentium 150 with 16MB of RAM, and a 1.4 GB Harddrive and (!) a built-in CD-ROM drive:  this was about the best laptop money could then buy.  the current machine, 8 years later:  1.5 Ghz (G4 processor), 512 MB of RAM, 80 GB Harddrive, and a DVD/CD-RW drive.
I sometimes think how someone traveling forward in history even from the early 90’s would react to the world of today (surely not all of the reactions would be positive), let alone someone from the 50’s.  It boggles the mind.

(edit: Royale with cheese?)

Do you use Windows XP?
Are you tired of the stock look, but not keen about using a third party skinning engine?
What if Microsoft made a new, better looking theme for XP?
Well, they have.
They haven’t officially released it yet, but it has been leaked, and you can try it out at the site linked below.
The skinny: It works like a native Windows theme (because it is), and it is a real improvement over what I have been used to.
Download Royale Theme for WinXP (leaked)

This is interesting:
Microsoft is planning on entering the anti-spyware business.
Ironic. To date microsoft produces the only platform spyware runs under. Heh. Rather than fixing the platform, make band-aids.
Here is a picture of the Beta in action:
Microsoft anti-spyware
And the slashdot story (always good for a laugh):
Slashdot | Sneak Peek At Microsoft Anti-Spyware

For those of you who use a rss reader (go here or here if you need a free one) will be glad to see a “read the bible in a year” rss feed sponsered by the ESV people.ESV Bible RSS Feeds they have verse a day at random, “good” verse a day, and several differing options on how one might read through the bible in a year all syndicated via rss 2.0. Very cool stuff.
A couple of other cool feeds: the weather forcast/report customized by you, ; the word of the day, and the feed for this Blog;
great stuff.
also, though I don’t use it, there is a news reader plug in for firefox (aggreg8) as well as for Internet Explorer (pluck)