Tuesday, May 21, 2002

Eugene McCarthy. "It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might remember." 5:12:53 PM

Theodore Roosevelt. "When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not Guilty.'" 5:12:52 PM

Richard M. Nixon. "Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too." 5:12:51 PM

Oscar Wilde. "I am not young enough to know everything." 5:12:50 PM

Richard M. Nixon. "Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too." (Courtesy: Quotes of the Day) 5:12:37 PM

Over at Jeff Cheney's other blog comes a story that is highly amusing and has me oh so slightly altering Monty Python - "Sit on my fleece, and tell me that you love me..." 5:12:36 PM

OmniWeb hits 4.1 sneaky peek 86. OmniWeb 4.1sp87 (Updated 5/21/02) - The Omni Group offers an update to OmniWeb 4.1 sneaky peek 87 today, following quickly on the heels of 4.1sp85 which caused problems for longtime users who temporarily lost access to their bookmark files. The update still doesn't squash the table rendering bug that is one of the last hurdles remaining before OmniWeb hits a final 4.1 release... Update: The Omni Group offered yet another update to OmniWeb late this afternoon. It looks like the push to reach the final release of OmniWeb 4.1 is underway... 5:12:35 PM

Why I stopped using iPhoto. I made a big move today. After using iPhoto since its unveiling in January, I removed the program from my PowerBook today. Why? Because the combination of my having just 192 megabytes of RAM and a photo library for this year that is 800 shots and growing, combined with iPhoto 1.1.1 was dragging my laptop to its knees anytime I wanted to do anything with my photos. The decision to dump iPhoto was really pretty easy to make. Ever since I started using it, iPhoto has been a serious compromise. It fails to render photos clearly in its slideshow feature - at least on my machine and with the large TIFF images I had stored in the database. It also takes up extraneous hard disk resources with all of the thumbnails and other features built into each day's photo database. In additional to iPhoto 1.1.1 being a 63 megabyte application, the database it created to hold my 800 photos took up another megabyte of space over and above the actual photo data. Yes, I know that storage space is cheap, and I will buy new RAM soon to make this laptop more snappy with OS X in general, but in my use, iPhoto just doesn't offer as many pluses as minuses for this photographer. I will take a look at other photo management options now, including iView MediaPro 1.5 and using my old system working with the excellent GraphicConverter program and its folder browsing capabilities. iView MediaPro offers higher-end features than iPhoto for its $65 cost, while GraphicConverter offers access to more file formats than you could imagine for its $35 cost. I am not advocating that anyone else stop using iPhoto. Like Apple's Mail application, if the simple capabilities of iPhoto work for you then there is no reason to look for more advanced photo managment solutions. I was just tired of my Mac slowing down every time I wanted to scroll through my images in iPhoto. After all, iPhoto is little more than a shoebox to store your photos - especially if you do your photo editing in another application. The shoebox just doesn't fit me any more. Do you have a comment about this story? Click the Comment link and let me know what you think 5:12:34 PM

Copyright office rejects Internet radio royalties deal. Internet News: "The United States Copyright Office on Tuesday rejected an arbitration panel ruling on Webcasting royalty rates, a decision that is sure to rankle the recording industry and bring smiles to the face of Internet radio executives nationwide."  [Scripting News] 5:12:33 PM

Constrictor 2.1 sounds like a useful screen shot utility. Constrictor v2.1. - Constrictor is a scriptable screenshot utility for OS X. It lets you position a frame and then snap the area inside, applying border effects and saving in a variety of formats. New in this version: Saving as PDF and EPS. Backdrop and full-alpha snapping. Copy to clipboard in all image formats. Generate thumbnail icons for snaps. Now includes sample AppleScripts. Keyboard control over frame position & size. Customizable size presets with command keys and names. Snap to preset sizes, with live snap guide display. New Italian localization. Bug fixes. [AppleScript Info] 5:12:31 PM

NotePod bumped to version 1.1. NotePod v1.1. - NotePod is a personal note manager and reminder which is available for Mac OS 9, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows (Note: functionality will be limited under Windows due to its lack of AppleScript). Version changes include: Notes can be rearranged in the list by dragging. Multiple data files can be saved in any location. [AppleScript Info] 5:12:29 PM

Forbes looks to MacWorld Expo in July. In its article about yesterday's speed bump and enhancements for the iBook product line, Forbes looks forward to MacWorld Expo in July and what future product announcements could be waiting in the wings. "Given Apple's early lead in wireless networking using the Wi-Fi standard, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to see Apple creating what is essentially a touch-sensitive screen that can display the contents of any computer it is connected to." 5:12:28 PM

What happens when Microsoft muscles in?. Just ask Keith Teare. Teare received a letter from Microsoft, which he published on his weblog, which among other things, demands that he stop publishing his weblog.   [Scripting News] 5:12:27 PM

Conversant 1.0b1 leverages Radio. Macrobyte Resources today offers a beta version of its upcoming groupware and content management system, Conversant 1.0b1. The program leverages the capabilities of UserLand Frontier or Userland Radio to work its magic on OS X, OS 9.x and Windows. A final release of Conversant is scheduled to be available by June 2, with pricing of $499 per year for a production server, $249 per year for an educational server, or $99 per year for a developer license. 5:12:25 PM

Application can recover some corrupted mail in Outlook or Entourage. EntourAid v1.0.1. - EntourAid, which has been converted from a BBEdit script to an AppleScript Studio app, attempts to recover e-mails in any Microsoft Outlook Express or Entourage e-mail database that is reported as corrupted and irrecoverable. Version changes: Allows recovery of between 1% to 99% of original database. Improved recovery algorithm for better detection. Added support for Outlook Express and Office:Mac 2001 Entourage databases. Minor bug fixes. [AppleScript Info] 5:12:24 PM

CD offers tips on creating QuickTime VR content. A new CD from Lightspeed Media offers step-by-step instructions and tips for creating QuickTime VR content for multimedia projects, Web sites or whatever else you want to do. The disc is on sale for $39.95 through the end of May. Over the last few years as I have done research and taken thousands of photos for books and for my Weblog, The Equinox Project, I have been in some unique places where I have wished I knew how to create QuickTime VR content. Especially a few years ago when I made four trips into the still-steaming crater of Mt. St. Helens with some geologists (Mt. St. Helens is the volcano here in Washington state that erupted on May 18, 1980). The general public is not allowed in the crater or behind the lava dome, where Volkswagon sized-rocks fall from the steep crater walls and roll toward the lava dome and where sulphur blooms on the crunchy top of the lava dome paint yellow and green patterns across the soil, hiding the fact that a few inches below the surface the ground is still heated to more than 300 degrees. Take a live look at Mt. St. Helens from a few miles away on Johnston Ridge - the place where a scientist stood on May 18, 1980 and quickly yelled into his radio, "Vancounver...Vancouver...This is it!" before the hundreds of miles an hour blast of heat and debris overwhelmed him. 5:12:22 PM

Merrill Lynch to Pay $100 Million to Settle Analyst Charges. Merrill Lynch reached a settlement with New York state over charges that its stock analysts issued misleading research on companies with which it did banking business. By Terence Neilan and Kenneth N. Gilpin. 5:12:10 PM

F.B.I. Warns of Possible Threats to New York Landmarks. Law enforcement officials said today that they have received information about general threats that point to the possibility of future terrorist attacks in New York City. By Sherri Day. 5:12:09 PM

Senate Leader Backs Independent Commission on Sept. 11 Attacks. Setting up a showdown with the White House, Senator Tom Daschle said today he would push for an independent commission to investigate the events leading up to Sept. 11. By Reuters. 5:12:08 PM

Tensions Mount Over Kashmir as Separatist Leader Is Killed. Abdul Ghani Lone, a moderate Kashmiri separatist leader, was assassinated today, a killing that India and Pakistan immediately charged each other with. By Barry Bearak. 5:12:07 PM

Bush's Upcoming Visit Draws Protests in Berlin. With a visit by President Bush a day away, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through Berlin today to protest widening the U.S.-led war on terrorism. By The Associated Press. 5:12:06 PM

Government Says Pilots Can't Have Guns in Cockpits. After months of debate following the Sept. 11 attacks, the Transportation Department has decided that guns will not be allowed in cockpits. By David Stout. 5:12:05 PM

Stocks Slide for Second Straight Day. Despite good news including better-than-expected retail earnings and a settlement for Merrill Lynch, stocks closed lower for a second straight day. By The Associated Press. 5:12:03 PM

O'Neill Starts Africa Tour With Bono. Bono of the band U2 and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill met today with President John Kuffour of Ghana at the start of an African trip that will focus on anti-poverty programs. By The Associated Press. 5:12:02 PM

Boxes and Arrows: Designing on both sides of your brain. Scott Berkum. Later in life, having read about our best thinkers and problem solvers, I learned that there is a natural balance that can be mastered between both intensely imaginative, and passionately logical lines of thought. It's my claim, echoing many people before me, that we need to seek out this synergy to be good at design. 5:12:00 PM

SJ Mercury: Librarian of Congress rejects proposed royalty rates for Internet music broadcasts. The Librarian of Congress has rejected proposed royalty rates that would have charged Internet broadcasters based on each Web user that listens in. Librarian James H. Billington will issue a final decision setting the new rates by June 20, the U.S. Copyright Office said Tuesday. 5:11:59 PM

Stephen Jay Gould, Evolution Theorist, Dies at 60. Stephen Jay Gould, one of the most influential evolutionary biologists of the 20th century who helped to reinvigorate the field of paleontology, died on Monday in Manhattan. By Carol Kaesuk Yoon. 5:11:57 PM

White House Secrecy. "NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr understands the Bush administration's efforts to keep certain information secret. But Schorr argues that these efforts would have more credibility were it not for the administration's general obsession with secrecy and the selective leaks of classified information coming from the FBI and CIA." (By Daniel Schorr for NPR's "All Things Considered," 5/20/2002.) Earlier: Bush View of Secrecy Is Stirring Frustration 5:11:55 PM

Star Trek, Present at the Creation. "Can you imagine a world, a universe, without Captain Kirk? Today, the very thought somehow seems... illogical. But to network executives in the mid 1960s, a television galaxy absent of Star Trek hardly seemed out of the question." (By Margot Adler et al for NPR.org, 5/20/2002.) 5:11:53 PM

The architect of Enron's downfall. "Mr Kaminski was not alone in his disdain for Mr Fastow, then Enron's chief financial officer. According to more than 800 pages of investigators' interview summaries with Enron employees, Mr Fastow was much-feared and frequently despised within the company, who many believed would destroy Enron with his financial machinations." (By Peter Spiegel for the Financial Times, 5/20/2002.) 5:11:52 PM

Marc Barrot has the kind of weblog I want. One where you can see seven days at a time, but only today's posts are expanded. Screen shot. It's been quite a while since I've had weblog envy.   5:11:49 PM

An idea worth passing along. On Ecademy, pwainewright says: "[O'Reilly] could have encouraged these real-time bloggers to subscribe RSS feeds of their blogs to an aggregated 'event blog', effectively pooling all the commentary and attracting more participants into the feedback process." Good idea. Perhaps we can try this at the Open Source Convention in July. A simple registry open to all attendees. Give us the URLs of your RSS feeds. An aggregator runs once an hour, reads all the feeds, and spits out a communal event-based blog, with pointers to the originals. Easy to implement with current technology.  5:11:45 PM

Nathan Torkington at O'Reilly likes this idea. And hey, he just started a Radio weblog. Looks like this year's Open Source Convention is going to have some good weblogs.  5:11:26 PM

USA Today: "Morgan Stanley estimates that US companies threw away $130 billion in the past two years on unneeded software and other technology."  5:11:25 PM

Eric Alterman starts a weblog on MSNBC.  5:11:24 PM

Reuters: "Technology buffs have cracked music publishing giant Sony Music's elaborate disc copy-protection technology with a decidedly low-tech method: scribbling around the rim of a disk with a felt-tip marker."  5:11:23 PM

Hossein Derakhshan: "There are about 1000 Persian weblogs."  5:11:21 PM

Internet News: "The United States Copyright Office on Tuesday rejected an arbitration panel ruling on Webcasting royalty rates, a decision that is sure to rankle the recording industry and bring smiles to the face of Internet radio executives nationwide."  5:11:19 PM

Keith Teare received a letter from Microsoft, which he published on his weblog, which among other things, demands that he stop publishing his weblog.   5:11:18 PM

A new multi-author weblog by three lawyers, for lawyers.  5:11:16 PM

Ben Hammersley has a story about weblogs in the UK Guardian today. A good trend, another BigPub piece that isn't dismissive of amateurs, and doesn't predict the end of the world for professional writers.  5:11:15 PM

Tim Jarrett quotes Justin Hall: "A friend at Deloitte & Touche asked me to talk with these kids about my career as a freelance writer. And so I stood up in front of them and shared. 'I'm homeless, in debt, and my clothes smell because I live out of a beater car.' And they looked at me confused and a loud little girl with long thin braids in a bright pink parka down in front during the second section said, 'Why should we listen to you then?' and I said, 'because I do what I want and I love my life.'"  5:11:13 PM

5:11:11 PM

Going Crazy With Outlines, Part II. Well, I reckon Paolo must be satisfied now, s l a m 's new outline layout only expands the latest day - posts from previous days are rendered with collapsed nodes. [read more] 5:11:10 PM

eWeek.  KaZaA virus discovered. 5:11:06 PM

NandO.  We might have the first war between nuclear powers in the next couple of days.  Kashmir is getting very ugly.  1 m soldiers on the front. 5:11:05 PM

eWeek.  (granted, this is five days old, but excellent analysis is always worth waiting for).  Allchin opts for the absolute worst defense.  Patriotism is the last defense of cowards.  It is even worse if Microsoft is engaged in keyword logging as part of their settlement with the DoJ.  This would mean that the US could, if conditions warranted it, keyword log all the computers in a country like Pakistan.  This would occur under the assumption that anyone outside the US isn't entitled the same freedoms we enjoy.  They are fair game. In exchange, Microsoft would get a pass on anti-trust from the DoJ for a decade or more.  This is the probable scenario. >>>A senior Microsoft Corp. executive told a federal court last week that sharing information with competitors could damage national security and even threaten the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. He later acknowledged that some Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed.<<< 5:11:03 PM

Pop-Under Ads Patented 5:10:57 PM

Overture Search Terms Showcase Piracy Desire 5:10:57 PM

Sun Drops Sawfish for Metacity 5:10:56 PM

Microsoft vs. Northwest Schools Part III 5:10:55 PM

Fair IP Laws? 5:10:54 PM

Pittsburgh Launches Large, Free, Public WiFi Network 5:10:53 PM

Lucent Reexamines Breakthrough Research 5:10:51 PM

"The Sims" Online, and on the PS2 5:10:49 PM

Copyright Office Rejects CARP Recommendations 5:10:47 PM

A New Kind of Science 5:10:46 PM

US warning on terror weapons. The US says it is "inevitable" that terrorists will acquire and use weapons of mass destruction, as New York is warned of possible attacks. 5:10:44 PM

Southern Africa 'on brink of famine'. Nineteen million people in six southern African countries are at risk from drastic food shortages, an aid agency warns. 5:10:42 PM

All sides accused over church tragedy. A UN report on the bombing of a Colombian church condemns FARC guerrillas, but also criticises paramilitaries and the government. 5:10:42 PM

Sharon fights to save his government. The Israeli PM presses ahead with an austerity package as he tries to shore up support for his government with new coalition partners. 5:10:41 PM

Bush faces European protests. Germany assembles a force of 10,000 officers to protect US President George W Bush during his visit to Berlin. 5:10:40 PM

Been busy all day so far producing 20 second commercials for the last batch of tickets available for the Reflex of the 80's. It's a concert BNN is throwing next Friday night, live at the Ahoy, 10 thousand seats in the house with a live radio and tv broadcast. Gonna be fun! 5:10:34 PM

PC World: "A team of researchers at the National Taiwan University here report they have developed a prototype rewritable optical disc that can store 100GB of information and is compatible with existing CD and DVD technology." 5:10:28 PM

fulminate: Dictionary.com Word of the Day. fulminate 5:10:26 PM

Conversant. Brent Simmons: Major congratulations and best wishes go to Seth Dillingham and everybody at Macrobyte Resources for releasing Conversant, their Internet groupware platform that runs in Frontier and Radio UserLand. Good job, folks. [inessential.com] 5:10:24 PM

Tracer Suite. John VanDyk: Today I'm releasing the Tracer Suite, which traces UserTalk code as it executes. This is useful for finding out how unfamiliar code works. [View from an Iowa Homestead] 5:10:22 PM

fulminate. Dictionary.com Word of the Day: fulminate [Dictionary.com Word of the Day] 5:10:20 PM

Idea for a website. If you’re a developer starting a new project it can be hard to know if you have a good idea or not. I had an idea for a website that would be a cross between Slashdot and AmIHotOrNot: OSXIdeas.com. People could post ideas for OS X software, and people could rate the ideas and discuss them. Developers could then get feedback on their ideas before investing in them. Non-developers could post ideas for software they’d like to have and see if any developers go for it. I probably won’t do this website—but if somebody else does, that would be cool. (I’d be willing to help, but I don’t have time to build it and run it all myself.) 5:10:14 PM

Conversant. Major congratulations and best wishes go to Seth Dillingham and everybody at Macrobyte Resources for releasing Conversant, their Internet groupware platform that runs in Frontier and Radio UserLand. Good job, folks. 5:10:12 PM

© Copyright 2002 Jake Savin. Last update: 5/21/02; 5:13:53 PM.