Andrew's Random Stuff

SV:

2011-01-14T10:53:00.001+13:00

dear, I found a good company several days ago, and try to buy some goods,
and I received satisfactory item 5 days later.
Introducing to you: buybuyele.com , maybe also useful for you.

This Blog has moved...

2005-11-09T14:38:00.000+13:00

The new address is: andrewsmactips.blogsome.com

Andrew's Mac Tips has moved!

2005-11-04T21:23:00.000+13:00

The new address is: http://www.andrewburke.orcon.net.nz/mac/index.htm

The Truth About the Shuttle

2005-08-11T05:40:00.000+12:00

I've had a lot of time to spare lately, so I used a lot of that spare time to closely follow the recent flight of the space shuttle Discovery. In the interests of full disclosure I should mention that I'm quite a spaceflight expert.

Anyway, I tracked Discovery's progress using NASA TV and all the usual web-based outlets; I was gleaning all the same information fed to the media. And yet I came to one conclusion—and the general media came to a completely different conclusion.

Here's the thing.

This flight was easily the most flawlessly flown in the history of the program
The orbiter arrived on orbit and landed in better condition than ever before
The STS is, and always was, an experimental flight program

There are always analogies associated with spaceflight—to help the great unwashed get a handle on it (this pump could drain a swimming pool in five seconds; that engine could power a small town). Here are some more to help you appreciate what's involved in flying the shuttle: If getting an airliner to cruising altitude can be compared to driving your car from home and down the onramp to the freeway, launching a shuttle to orbit is like taking a top-fuel dragster, not a quarter-mile, but all the way up a ten mile hill. De-orbit and landing can be compared to the world's longest ski jump, only on tarmac instead of snow, through a slalom, at night, flawlessly.

That it works as well as it does is a testament to the genius and hard work of everyone involved.

As a test flight vehicle, every flight is cleared to go only after open items are understood from the preceding flight; open items are either solved, or worked around, or mitigated—factoring in acceptable risk. So it's not the end of the world if a shuttle program manager states that "obviously we won't be making any more flights until we better understand the foam problem."

Gap fillers are great for lessening tile chattering during ascent, and they are, at worst, a nuisance during re-entry as they could cause localized heating and scorching of downstream tiles—requiring early and expensive tile replacement. Like stones stuck in the tread of your tires, pull them out if you have the opportunity but don't lose sleep over them.

This post is getting way too long. The point is that the shuttle is not a clapped out death trap; it is in fact a fantastically successful high performance well understood thoroughbred.

I've now given up on the "press version of events." It reminded me of that "Planet could be wiped out by asteroid at any time!" hype-fest of recent years. Even after the California landing, jerks with microphones made an issue about the cost of ferrying the orbiter back to Florida.

Don't believe everything you read in the papers...

It's Good to be Back!

2005-08-03T20:09:00.000+12:00

Apple Mighty Mouse: Hands On Review

2005-08-03T10:46:00.000+12:00

Russell Beattie Notebook - Apple Mighty Mouse: Hands On Review

Mighty Mouse

2005-08-03T09:57:00.000+12:00

Released today, the Mighty Mouse (hate the name) makes the jump from one button to four. Sensors detect how many fingers are touching the mouse when it's clicked—that's two of the buttons covered; clicking while only touching the ball is the third, and squeezing the sides is the fourth.

It appears to have a trackpad/schrollwheel type array under the surface for the left and right clicking. So why not use the schroll wheel technology to detect two fingers wiping the surface to do the schroll thing, and do away with the ball?

That would tie in with the whole Apple Do More With Less philosophy, and probably be cheaper to make. Maybe next year.

Infomercials

2005-07-27T22:50:00.000+12:00

I suffer from frequent insomnia. Sometimes I just don't sleep at all—sometimes I spring awake at 4:00am and can't get back to sleep. Times like these I flick on the TV and scan the channels; on two or three channels there are a constant stream of infomercials. They're usually for food processors or workout equipment, and they're usually pretty poor. You've seen one—you've seen them all.

But, say what you like about them, they must be effective. Otherwise they wouldn't be such a fixture. And this got me to thinking.

What if there were a regular Apple infomercial? But being Apple it wouldn't follow the normal format. What if it was full of really useful information for existing Apple users:

This week we're going to talk about using iPhoto in conjunction with online services
This week we're going to explore the power of Smart Folders
This week we're going to look at keyboard shortcuts as well as Automator...

Naturally these shows (which you'd Tivo or tape) would have regular callouts where they'd say: "If you don't already have a Mac then call XYZ or visit apple.com"

Non-Mac users might be intrigued enough to say: "No way can my machine do that," or, "Mmm. I could always get the mini and give it a try..."

With re-packaging, some of these segments could be supplied on a DVD with every new Mac. If they were really classy then Mac owners would loan them to their non-Mac friends.

There's more to marketing than buzz generation and glimpses; detailed stuff does sink in. Everyone, when pressed, will admit to knowing about the Miracle Knife set, or Gunner Whatsisname's exercise ball.

Why not apply the infomercial to an operating system?

NASA TV - Live 24/7 broadcast of the NASA Select TV Channel

2005-07-27T22:47:00.000+12:00

NASA TV - Live 24/7 broadcast of the NASA Select TV Channel - Brought to you by United Space Alliance

Talk is Not So Cheap

2005-07-25T22:12:00.000+12:00

According to the latest buzz: about 50 percent of net users in the US and the UK are using broadband. That's great. I wish I were one of them.

As one of the remaining dialup users I've noticed a new trend that's probably related to the broadband thing that's happening. That is:
A fatter pipe leads to fatter files.

I'm a little guilty of contributing to this trend; in days past I'd make a concerted effort to keep any image files on a webpage below 20 kbs to aid the speed of loading—these days I've relaxed that to 50kbs for the sake of quality over ultimate speed.

Now, like most folks, I've lately been looking at podcasts. I right-click and download them manually rather than using any of the subscribe and forget solutions out there. As you can imagine, I can't tie up the phone line for hours on end.

Most podcasts I've grabbed range from 30 to 45 minutes in length, and they have all been MP3s so far. When MP3s are created they can be set to different compression levels depending on whether they are high quality stereo music—or simple spoken word.

Now we're getting to my gripe.

People are recording blah blah blah guy talking into a cheap mike for a half hour podcasts and encoding them at quality levels way higher than they need to be. I have started to download, then abandoned files that were up to 40 megs for 40 minutes of simple talk.

40 megs!

I've found that my tolerance inflection point for podcasts is 14 megs—beyond that I don't care how compelling the content may be—I won't be listening to it...

So please check the compression levels before encoding these files. Believe me: If it's just you blabbing, the higher compression Spoken Word settings sound just great.

Andrew's Mac Tips -- Quick Look -- NewsMac

2005-06-29T20:31:00.000+12:00

Andrew's Mac Tips -- Quick Look -- NewsMac

A new page published today.

Andrew's Mac Tips

2005-06-28T10:14:00.000+12:00

Andrew's Mac Tips

I have a new website for Mac switchers. See above...

My Big Prediction...

2005-06-05T11:04:00.000+12:00

All this talk about Apple switching to Intel. Intel won't be supplying CPUs to replace the Power PC chips used in G4 and G5 machines. They will be supplying an X-Scale type CPU for the new Apple small tablet device (bigger than a PDA—smaller than a notebook)...

The New Polo - In Depth

2005-05-18T20:34:00.000+12:00

The New Polo - In Depth

Yeah, yeah. Yada yada yada. What I want to know is: Where can I get a set of that luggage?

Gimpshop Fancy Effect Sample

2005-05-09T21:56:00.000+12:00

Stop me if I do too much of this!

Gimpshop Sample

2005-05-09T21:44:00.000+12:00

Its a bit clunky, but I get the feeling that everything I need is there, somewhere...

Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus

2005-04-24T09:47:00.000+12:00

Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus

"Sorry, Apple fanatics. If Apple came up with the phrase 'it just works' for the Switch ad campain, then they copied it from Microsoft. The software giant has been using the phrase for at least a decade, which of course is widely documented in many places."

Ok. Here's the thing. In Apple's case—it's true...

XShelf 1.1.2 for MacOS X

2005-04-19T20:41:00.000+12:00

XShelf

An awesome helper app; drag a file or a clip to the edge of the screen and then drop it on the shelf. Rummage for a destination and then pluck the file from the shelf and drop it there.

I love this kind of stuff! (Especially in brushed metal).

Omni This and Omni That

2005-04-15T20:51:00.000+12:00

A few weeks ago I mentioned an app called OmniGraffle, a gorgeous looking and quite complicated piece of software for creating flowcharts. As I said at the time: the full blown version is quite expensive but you can download a fully functional version for free that's only limited in that you can't have more than 20 things in any single chart.

Last night I went back to the Omni Group site and tried some of their other software. The first I tried was Omni Outliner Pro; it's the same deal—a fully functional download limited to 20 entries, only this time we're talking about a list maker; make entries and then slide them up or down to re-arrange them, or left and right to make them children or parents.

I have another app called DeepNotes that does just this, but with Omni Outliner Pro you can also drop images, links, movies and other objects as embedded new entries right in the list. You can also format the list's appearance in a million different ways. Personally I prefer the clean approach, but lots of folks like to assemble scrapbooks full of clippings (I'm talking real scrapbooks and real clippings) when they're pondering or researching something, so here's the ultimate digital scrpbook for those people.

I'm probably missing something; there's probably some very compelling other use for this thing. Either way—it's great fun to play with and looks fantastic, but for arranging ideas I'll stick to DeepNotes for now.

The next thing I tried from Omni Group was OmniDictionary which is a window that pops up, either independently or via the services menu, by which you can look up the definition of a word. It does this by searching various online dictionaries, but by navigating to the Mac OS X DICT page at ropersonline.com you can download a complete package of dictionaries for use offline.

The package was pretty huge at 36 megs, but it's oh-so great having a dictionary literally built in to the OS. All in all, a pretty productive night...

I-Mate Jam

2005-04-14T21:11:00.000+12:00

Stupid name but great device. It's a Pocket PC with phone and we've seen lots of those, but it really is tiny—about the size of the screenshot.

Best of all, it just feels great in the hand—very solid; great finish. Just a pity about the ugly OS.

JetClock 1.0

2005-04-14T20:39:00.000+12:00

My Newtons all shared a really nicely implemented widget called Time-zone; it was a map of the world showing your current location. If you tapped on any other location it would show that location's current time. It also had a really subtle band across the top that showed which part of the world was in darkness or daylight. As and added gimmick, it also told you the exact distance between cities. I seem to recall that you could also call up extra information about any city, such as its coordinates; dialing codes etc.

Cut to the chase Andrew!

Anyways... When I switched to Mac I was more than a little disappointed that there wasn't a similar gadget in OSX. Sure, there's a clock in the menu-bar, and you can configure its appearance in various ways—but that's about it. No time-zones.

Now I've found a freeware app called JetClock. After de-activating the built in clock display I set JetClock to run on startup. It looks exactly the same as the standard clock, but I can click on it and a menu drops down showing the current time in four other cities.

In the preferences pane there's even a map of the world with little pushpins in it.

It's half way to the widget in Newton, works flawlessly and looks like part of the OS—just the kind of program I like...

That's 9413 Nautical Miles to You and Me...

2005-04-09T00:43:00.000+12:00

FLUG REVUE April 2005: Boeing 777-200LR rolls out

Bored on those Long Flights? Get Lower!

2005-04-08T19:21:00.000+12:00

Sidenote...

2005-04-06T17:22:00.000+12:00

The screenshot tells most of the story. Touch the left side of the screen for the drawer to slide out and then write a quick note which is auto-saved. You can also drag text and images there.

As well as being a cool gadget—it just looks great, which is always a plus.

You can find it by searching on versiontracker...

Prepare To Get Dizzy...

2005-04-05T22:28:00.000+12:00

The World Wide Panorama