The FuzzyBlog!
Marketing 101. Consulting 101. PHP Consulting. Random geeky stuff. I Blog Therefore I Am.

Tuesday, June 25, 2002

BlogBack: Random Tidbits Revisited Once again, feedback on different random stuff from the past.  A lot of it this time from readers.  Thanks everyone.  Credits on everything (I hope, if not let me know). Gimp on the Mac?  Yup -- www.macgimp.com sells an installable CD, ready to run for $29.95.  (The fee is really for the installation, not the software).  Very cool.  Haven't tried it but cool.  $19.95 for students.  Thanks John. Looking to avoid ATM fees?  If you are eligible then look at: http://www.usaa.com/.  Basically it is for people in the military or ex-military but has a lot of benefits and is recommended (again, thanks John).  The answer to my "when will I learn that small, light, cool computers aren't necessarily reliable?" -- You won't have to learn that if you buy and iBook ;)  After three months, I've rebooted three times, and haven't had a single problem, not even an application crash, and no system crashes.  I love it. (Yup, you guessed it John again, he was a busy reader, thanks Man!).  Paolo also told me that is iBook / TiBook had a period of 42 days of uptime.  42 days!.  It really looks like I'm so going this direction as soon as I can just cost justify it (maybe if I "accidentally" dropped my Thinkpad on the floor, Gretchen will approve the purchase.). From Rob Jorgensen (it's long but as he sent it): From: Rob Jorgensen [mailto:XXX@macscripter.net] Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 8:09 AM To: J. Scott Johnson Subject: BBEdit Discount Hi Scott :-) Regarding your thoughts on BBEdit (no flames - I promise!)... If you visit the BBEdit Upgrade page, you'll find the following info (near the bottom of the page): "BBEdit Lite users (any version) Individuals who use BBEdit Lite may cross-upgrade to the current version of BBEdit for the cross-upgrade price of $79.00 (US) plus shipping and handling. Cross-upgrade orders may be placed via any of the methods listed at the top of this page. Please be ready to provide the creation date and version number of your copy of BBEdit Lite when placing your order." In essence, you can obtain the full version of BBEdit for $79.00 if you are willing to jump through a couple of hoops. BBEdit rocks and is well worth the extra effort. It is highly scriptable (via AppleScript), which makes it very easy to automate tasks which are normally performed manually on a repeated basis. BBEdit Upgrade Page: <http://store.barebones.com/bbedit-upgrades.html> BBEdit Lite Page: <http://www.bbedit.com/products/bbedit_lite.html> <insert normal "not affiliated...satisfied customer" disclaimer here> Welcome to the world of Macintosh! Regarding Mac software, there has never been a better time to be a Mac user. There is more software available now than ever before, with new applications released almost daily. :-) Best regards, Rob -- Rob Jorgensen http://macscripter.net/ - Your best source for all things AppleScript Personal AppleScript blog - http://radio.weblogs.com/0103146/ There's more blogback stuff but that covers a portion of today's inbox.  Very cool.  Thanks again to everyone.   6:20:50 PM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Online Relationships: Brains Are All Around You I just ran into a situation that really pointed out to me just how true the statement from Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems is: "There are more brains outside your organization walls than inside".  And I thought it was an interesting commentary on how an initial nebulous, ephermal IM relationship grows over time and then just saves you when you need it most. ==> Read Story <== 5:22:32 PM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

A Bad Scene: When the SysAdmin Is Forced to Leave the Building I woke up this morning with a really nasty nightmare about something that happened at a company I was at a few years ago: We had to fire a SysAdmin.  This still gives me cold sweats.  Here's the reasons: He's the guy with the keys to the kingdom.  If you have a good SysAdmin then he probably has all kinds of access.  I know we made a few mistakes in disabling his access so I thought I'd write it down and update it for a pure Internet company (i.e. we're no longer really worried about a SysAdmin's Novell accounts; I said it was a few years ago, didn't I?). ==> Read Story <== 7:44:24 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

It's Great to Be Back! Ah, it feels good to be back in the saddle again.  Not being able to get your fix of "must blog ....  can't blog.  Ack!".  It feels great.  And at least my desktop remains reliable.  I strongly doubt I will ever buy another thinkpad (It's my 2nd thinkpad, my 4th hard drive, when will I learn that small, light, cool computers aren't necessarily reliable?).  Not only have I now written my first blog entry of the day, I ground up an Outlook compatible Contacts database table model in SQL and got PHP and Jabber to interoperate!  Want to see if my Jabber client is online?  Go to: Image Set 1: Text Image Set 2: Icons Not perfect and some bugs but damn cool.  No I didn't write it myself, I did a Google query and found some cool PHP code for presence monitoring by David Creswick at: http://braznet.com/david/phpjabstatus/.  Thanks Man!  Great work. iBook and OSX: Beautiful Computing Just Feels "More Right" I spent a bunch of time on the road using Gretchen's new iBook and it was interesting.  Once I found Terminal in System / Utilities, I was much happier -- "Look Mom, a console on a Mac!  Will wonders never cease?".  There were a bunch of things from the perspective of a die hard Wintel user that didn't make sense and I'm working on blogging them since it's probably useful to someone.  The level of integration, fit and finish on an iBook continues to amaze me.  I'd also make the comment that working on a machine that is just plain visually beautiful is, well, different.  I can't really put my finger on it but the overall computing experience just feels "more right".  OSX and the Software Business NOTE: I'm not bashing BBEDIT here!  I know it's a good product.  This is perspective!  Still, send the flames to the usual location. I do think that OSX is going to wreak absolute havoc on the Macintosh software business though -- and people aren't really expecting that.  Here's an example.  I've heard about BBEdit for years now.  Even I know it's a good product.  So I went to look at it on www.bbedit.com and I see that it's $119 and expires after 24 launches.  Hmmm...  That's a lot more expensive than what seems to be a comparable Windows programming editor like www.editplus.com (approx $30) and the eval period seems, well, wrong.  I mean I can launch an editor 24 times in about 3 days.  That's not a lot of time to evaluate it.  So when users start switching over, as I honestly think they will, they will bring their price expectations over and if they find comparable apps like this to be expensive then they'll turn to XWindows stuff that's recompiled to Aqua.  As soon as enough of that stuff is available and there are more free options for OS X, will people still be willing to pay for software?  That's very unclear to me. Here's another example -- I don't know if The Gimp (www.gimp.org) is available yet for OS X or not but it will be soon enough.  Yes, it's not PhotoShop, but $600 is a lot of $$$ for a graphics tool.  And we all know that most people use about 10% of the features of any software product, so alternatives are a definite option.  And while it may not be PhotoShop, the Gimp is awesomely impressive when you really give it a chance. Comments on The Gimp from the Gimp Web Pages: >> Many people do find GIMP very useful. But it is not a Photoshop killer (for real Photoshop users, that is), Photoshop has lots of features that the GIMP lacks. http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/ And I also think that Apple's absolutely brilliant bundling of iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes and AppleWorks is also going to create the same consciousness that Microsoft has created -- "You really don't need to buy software (other than Office that is)".  So I'm really not sure how all this plays out in the long run.  Given that I'm an open source advocate, it makes me happy but I am really concerned about ISVs (I was one once and will be one again soon).  Thoughts?  Comments?  Am I getting it wrong?     5:43:38 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This