Category Archives: uncategorized

Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server Essentials: Day One. Fairly interesting class so far. I can’t say I learned anything new that really rocked my socks today. But, in all fairness, the instructor did say that today would be the most boring day. Today’s topics included: Installation (I’ve already done this more times than I care to remember), Network Configuration (ditto), User and Permissions (actually interesting; I may have learned a really slick trick for migrating users between boxes), File Systems (not at all what I expected), Application Environments (I may have to start respecting Java at some point; not yet, but maybe soon), and Service Discovery (the most interesting by far – now show my how to tie into Active Directory and I can retire).

I came to a decision on Friday. I simply cannot teach Microsoft Word. I just can’t. I’ve tried several times now. But whenever I go to show the class how to do hanging indents, or decimal tabs, Word decides it’s time to take over the formatting for me. I wouldn’t mind so much if it were consistent, but it’s so hopelessly inconsistent and illogical. I’ve tried so hard to like Word over the years. I was an avid user of Word 5.1 in college, until I switched to WordPerfect 3. Those two were the nirvana of word processing for me. These days, it’s AppleWorks all the way. It’s quite a capable word processor, despite its reputation, and it stays out my way. Word is just too tiring anymore; I feel like I’m fighting it the whole time, wrestling for control of my content. I don’t have time for that. It was refreshing to hear other people say that they feel the same way, though.

I just launched the latest nightly build of Camino and laughed out loud when I saw the “new” bookmarks manager. Don’t get me wrong – it’s great. Kudos to Pinkerton and friends. But I guess the matter of their inspiration for this particular decision isn’t exactly open to interpretation.

The Iraqis fired missiles at us. Ironically, in a strange sort of way, they may have been the banned missiles they claimed to have destroyed already.

Duck and cover. Bill, you will love this; I promise.

The full text of Tony Blair’s speech to the House of Commons on March 18.

Interesting article at Spinsanity: Myths and Misconceptions about Iraq.

One of the saddest things about this war, for me, is that I’ve realized what a hopeless Apple geek I’ve become. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve type iRaq instead of Iraq. That’s just pathetic.

Evan Coyne Maloney’s Protesting the Protesters II. Well done. Here’s part one if you missed it.

And on a lighter note, Chris Pirillo’s pictures from the Google/Blogger party. Some of the captions are really lame. Some are absolutely hilarious. My favorite is the guy staring at the giant Blogger logo.

This is it, boys; this is war.

I think that’s how it went.

I am not in favor of waging an unnecessary war. However, I believe that this war is justified. I know that many disagree with that, and that’s fine; believe what you want.

I believe that Iraq is a threat to the world, and I think it’s sad that so many other nations (and so many Americans) don’t want to see that.

I think it’s sad that innocent people will die in this war.

But I remember, right after 9/11, right after Bush declared War on Terror, one commentator said something to the effect of: “No war on terror can be complete until Saddam Hussein is dealt with.” That was in 2001, and I agreed with him at the time. I just wish I could remember who said it.

Here’s hoping and praying that the war will be over quickly, and that the rebuilding of Iraq will be a stabilizing influence in an otherwise unstable place.

Holy crap! You miss the news for one day and something totally unexpected happens! Al Gore has joined Apple’s Board of Directors! Check out the Slashdot discussion here. Wow.

Here comes Yellow Dog Linux 3.0. Cool. I like Yellow Dog. Although, to be perfectly honest, I have precious little use for it with OS X around. But it includes Anaconda, and that’s very cool.

News.com: Programmers disclosed a security hole this week in a part of the heart of the Linux operating system that could let users of a machine take it over even if they don’t have privileges to do so. Ouch. Maybe I don’t want to install Yellow Dog.

Check out Dave’s Frequency Test Drive here. He’s taking Frequency for a spin to help with testing. Also a big thanks to Andre Garzia of Soapdog Software for his help and feedback. My targeted release date for the Mac OS X version is April 15. Hopefully the Mac Classic and Windows versions will follow quickly.

Where have I been, by the way? Doing a clean install on Scooby. He decided to stop booting yesterday. I also reset the power manager, but I’m still having battery problems. Guess it’ll have to go back to Apple soon. Crap.

Hmmmm. I’m seriously considering moving from Entourage to Apple Mail. I took a long look at Apple Mail tonight for the first time in a long time. It’s nicer than I remember. I really like the nice integration with Address Book and iCal, too. My biggest concern is how it handles threads. One thing I love in Entourage is the ability to view mailing lists in nested threads. I don’t believe Apple Mail offers that. Otherwise, I’m sorely tempted.

I just wish I could ditch QuickMail for it. I’m sick of QuickMail. I’ve been using QuickMail since 1997 and it’s always pretty much sucked. And at work, we have about a dozen people suffering from this weird QuickMail problem where all their mail starts going into “Dead Mail” instead of the inbox. Very annoying. No known cause. Sometimes re-installing QuickMail fixes it.

Added my Top Ten Albums to the Top Ten Lists. And I did not include the album that my band recorded in 1997.

Why do some Radio weblogs take so long to load? Is it the templates?

Headache. Sore throat. Lots of gunk draining. Very cold.

And so it begins.

New pictures added in the Pictures section: Jen’s 30th Birthday Party and new pictures of Gracie.