One of the things I love about Apple, is that they make it easy to get the manuals for their products. This goes for Macintoshes, iPods, software, and accessories - everything, so far as I know.
Not only that, they don't just throw away the manual of one model when they come out with a new one. You can still download the documentation for that computer or iPod you bought two or three years ago.
Apple Stores also give free courses all day long - almost continuously - on a variety of subjects in rotation.
Some companies treat supporting their customer as a major cash cow. But not Apple. For them, that is just the cost of doing business and treating the customer well. Part of of that Californian easy-going lifestyle, I suppose.
Apple - Support:
Apple Manuals
NetNewsWire was updated just over a week ago.
Bare Bones Software : SUPPORT : TextWrangler : Updates:
TextWrangler 2.1.3
Release Date: 06/20/2006 - This disk image contains the TextWrangler 2.1.3 application, which can be used to replace any prior version of TextWrangler. TextWrangler is freeware and does not require activation with a product serial number. This version is recommended for all TextWrangler customers whose Macs meet the specified system requirements.
TextWrangler is a scaled down freeware version of famous Macintosh text editor BBEdit shareware application.
Google has introduced 4
Firefox extensions so far.
Google Firefox Extensions: "Extensions are small applications that you download and install into your Firefox browser to add new functionality. We hope you enjoy these extensions!"
The latest one came out earlier this month. It is called Google Browser Sync - it syncs your browser settings across computers. This includes what tabs and windows you had open in your previous session.
I am not endorsing that feature, just mentioning that it exists. It might have its pros and cons. Personally, it does not seem like anything I would have a use for.
The other 3 extensions Google has for
Firefox are:
- Google Toolbar 2.0
- Blogger Web Comments
- Google Send to Phone
In February 2006, Google introduced 3
Dashboard widgets for the Macintosh.
One of those is kind of handy for Macintosh users. It offers a no-frills blog posting tool for
Blogger users.
Google Macintosh Dashboard Widgets:
Widgets are mini-applications that you download and install into Dashboard to add new functionality.
The widget works. However, It lacks the ability to blockquote,
boldface,
italicize, hyperlink, and spell check blog posts. Those capabilities all come with the Google Toolbar.
By the way,
Blogger.com is the site you go to in order to post something to you blog(s) at
Blogspot.com.
If Google enriches the functionality of the widget a little bit - say, by adding a WYSIWYG toolbar - and a button to add a Technorati keyword for the currently selected word to the post - that would make it very useful.
From what I can tell, WYSIWYG rich text editing from web GUIs is not very hard these days. At least with Firefox, it is not. It seems to have a built-in feature called MIDAS that provides this capability. I am not sure if Safari/Dashboard have this capability though.
So it might be a lot of work for Google to add this functionality to their Dashboard widget.
By the way, here is something humorous about the spell checker for
Google BlogThis!
feature of their
Firefox toolbar that works with
Google Blogger.
The words I struck out in the previous sentence are not recognized by the spell checker!
Whoops.
Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.4.7
Apple released an
update to their
operating system today!
The new version is 10.4.7. It sports a long list of features.
They recommend this update for everyone with 10.4. It includes fixes for:
- iChat audio/video connection, creating AIM chat rooms
- dropped conncetions and freezes associated with file sharing
- improved Bluetooth- importing into Keynote 3
- syncing stuff to .Mac- PDF workflows for iPhoto and iCal
- reliability of Automator
- importing and deleting Font Book fonts
- audio playback in QuickTime, iTunes, and other Apple applications
- placement of icons on desktop
- diskspace-required calculation when burning folders
Apple has posted details at: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n303771
Article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/macworld/20060627/tc_macworld/osx20060627
technorati tags:macintosh, software
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Macintosh R&D is not to be - in India. Likewise, plans to do tech support via phone there also boomeranged.
Apple does not do technical support in the middle of the night. In the US, in the middle of the day - it is the
middle of the night in India.
So, while Apple could probably find some folks with high tech aptitudes that are chipper there during US daylight hours, they would probably be in the minority.
One thing that has not gotten much notice in the media about the timing of Apple's decision to pull the plug on their Indian operation. It came just after the first group of employees returned from training. It might simply be that upon completion of their training, the Indian workers - at least the ones they hired - were not knowledgeable enough to man the tech support phone lines.
Now, other personal computer companies might not have a problem with that. But Apple has a reputation to protect.
Simply telling a Mac-owner in the US to
buy a new computer
when
they phone India with a technical question would not cut the mustard.
While other PC makers try to catch up with Apple's
5-year lead in innovations, Apple has to also protect its reputation the cachet its brand-name holds among consumers.
Next year, it will be trying to convince consumers that its new
Leopard
(Mac OS 10.5) OS is the cat's pajamas - at the same time that its competitors are pointing to their own future Vista.
Apple cannot afford to let the current crop of Apple users get stuck if they want their next wave of sales growth to move unimpeded.
Instead of moving ahead with its growth into India, Apple bailed and India wailed. Businessweek Online has an article in it, in which they cite an unnamed source saying the reason was economic. Apple's spokespeople remain as tight-lipped in this article as they have in other ones about the reason for the aborted move. They only say that they will be expanding in other countries, instead.
BusinessWeek online:
....Yet he [Steve Jobs] is also a tough-minded executive who knows when to cut and run. That's why Apple Computer Inc. has shelved plans to build a sprawling technical support center in Bangalore, even as IBM and other tech powers are ramping up. Just three months back, Apple appeared to be on the same trajectory, and there was talk of the company hiring 3,000 workers by 2007 to handle support for Macintosh computers and other Apple gear. Many in India even speculated that Jobs might travel there this year to publicize Apple's commitment to the country.
It wasn't meant to be. In late May, Apple dismissed most of the 30 new hires at its subsidiary in Bangalore. (A handful working in sales and marketing will stay on.) Spokesman Steve Dowling would say only that Apple had "reevaluated our plans" and decided to provide support from other countries.
Another source familiar with the situation, though, says the decision was cost-driven. "India isn't as inexpensive as it used to be," the source says. The turnover is high...
A huge segment of the Indian computer-technology work force will probably catch up with a comparable sized chunk of the US work force within ten or twenty years.
Apple can afford to wait while other companies pay for the OJT investment that will require. Meanwhile, India will be fixing its unreliable power problems, sorting out issues with its sometimes surprisingly expensive in-country communications, tackling lingering corruption problems that beleaguer foreign companies making an investment, and other
soft costs
of doing business in India.
Apple can always come back again in five or ten years. They might find those things have improved across the board. Sure, wages will not be cheap then once those problems for US companies sorted out. There will be a lot more people with the training and experience that Apple is looking for, though. Some of them will already be long-time Mac customers themselves.
Apple's best-selling iPod music playing appliance had a little bit of its circuitry designed in India, the article points out. So, even if Apple does not do business with the Indian service industry - India's high tech Industry is still getting deals and making money, thanks to Apple.
Since the iPod has such a great reputation -
that has a certain cachet too!
Several Macintosh users have said they are considering switching from the Macintosh to the more open source tilted Linux operating system.
Their three objections seem to break down into:
1. Not open source. Actually, Unix and kernel of OS, core of browser too -
are open source.
2. DRM. Well, yeah, it is necessary to bar people who are pirates from stealing commercial programs/entertainment - but an unwarranted pain for those who do not.
3. Proprietary data formats. I agree. They suck. However, iPhoto is
not totally
closed
. Apple includes an API to read/write all the images/info in iPhoto. Further, Apple gives .Mac subscribers a program called Backup 3 that can back up iPhoto database and the data of other iLife application suite programs as well.
Tech Gurus Say They'll 'Switch from Mac' - Yahoo! News:
Part of Mac OS X is already open-source.
Darwin, the Unix foundations of the operating system, is available under the APSL (Apple Public Source License), a free software license.
The APSL is not compatible with the GPL, however, because it does not force developers using it to release their software for free. And no other part of Mac OS X, from its user interface layer to the applications (and their file formats), is open source.
Talk about a tempest in a teapot.
Several people switch from one brand of product to another, and it makes the news in a trade magazine.
Oh, wait, the name of the magazine is
PC Magazine
.
LOL! I get the joke.
Those PC Magazine guys always tickle me.
Macworld has a short but very in-depth, incisive review of the latest version of the
Camino web browser.
Macworld: Review: Camino 1.0.1:
Camino 1.0.1, a fleet-footed, lightweight, open source Web browser, is loaded with useful features such as built-in ad and pop-up blocking, tabs, spotlight-searchable bookmarks, and pause/resume downloading capabilities.
The first thing that struck me about Camino was the browser’s simple user interface and how easy it is to use. Mozilla (the technology foundation of both Firefox (4.5 mice; November 2005) and Camino) lets you easily import or export Safari bookmarks. And Camino’s Gecko layout engine is fast and error-free the first time it accesses graphic-intensive Web pages, as well as when reviewing pages through cached history.
The author of the article really dug into the program, testing it feature-by-feature. He found a handful of features I never noticed.
I really recommend reading this article to anyone who is a Mac user. Note that the article also points out you need Mac OS 10.2-10.4 in order to run Camino 1.0.1.
So there may be some Mac users, though probably darned few, who cannot run Camino. I just read a survey of Mac users tendancy to upgrade their OS. An incredibly vast majority does seem to upgrade as each new version comes out.
Dvorak's
confession
earlier this month about tweaking the nose of the Mac-using community came as no big surprise.
Anyone that has read his column, especially the last few years, has been perfectly aware of what he was doing. Online social web news site Digg made it painfully obvious in recent months. There, the users of the site regularly called him out on this big distortion on that.
It was to the point where people just started saying things to the effect,
Look, just don't go to this guy's site anymore. Stop paying him to say this stuff. Even if you don't buy anything off the site, they get money off the ads on the page when you visit and he gets to count you as one of his readers.
MacDailyNews | Dvorak tries damage control:
Here's the story behind this. I was doing a Twit Podcast at the San Francisco Apple store. Dave Winer, the father of RSS and an all-around blusterer, was there, and he asked me how I antagonize Mac users so effortlessly. I told him I had constructed a foolproof model of how to do this,
Dvorak writes. Winer immediately got bug-eyed and asked if he could record this on video with his digital camera. He was jazzed! I figured I'd give him an earful, since I knew he'd post it immediately.
I outlined a formula for maximizing interest in a single topic, which could result in a minimum of three columns. The video got passed around, and the Mac users were up in arms saying they've been tricked, that I'd been baiting them,
Dvorak writes.
I suspect that the reason he blew the lid off his own trusty, old forumula is that it was old - and it was already blown.
Now he looks like the god of tech yellow journalism in a year or two when yellow journalism crawled out of the closet, licked its fee, and looked blandly at the rest of the world going,
so what?
Meanwhile, the Mac marketshare is clawing its way back up through the single-digits and Apple is trading places with Dell to see which company is worth the most according to the US stock market.Yep. Well, whatever. Next!
From time to time, it would be nice to have an extremely fast, super lightweight application to create and update basic XHTML files.
Well, it tuns out - the Macintosh already does. I was taking a look at the
TextEdit application Preferences dialog box today. What should I see? Lo! It is a pretty seriously powerful set of web-related document options.
The choices are great. The web related file formats for the default Save File preferences are awesome: Strict HTML, Transitional HTML, Strict XHTML, and Transitional HTML.
It does not stop there. You have 3 Styling choices: Embedded CSS, Inline CSS, and No CSS.
The fun does not stop there. As you know, the Macintosh has a
system-wide spell-checkintg facility. So, you get that for free in your XHTML documents you are editing too.
Granted, it does not support quite every XHTML feature or tag. But it does support a lot.
You can even control line breaks. Turn them off on a swatch of text, for instance. I presume this emits the text wrapped in a
pre tag.
Also, you can do lists, and control which enumeration/bullet numbering/lettering/marking prefaces each item in the list.
Text alignment (right, center, left, and justified) is also supported.
Now, granted the Mac comes with GNU Emacs. You could always load up nXML mode or one of the many other XML editors into Emacs. That is not exactly WYSIWYG though.
When you are in a hurry, dashing off some content and don't want to have to test–render it a few times, just write it, save it, send/store it - TextEdit could be quite the handy little trick to have up your sleeve. Right?
Of course, you do have to
Learn your XHTML tags someday, if you have not already done so.
Ah, but that is another advantage of this trick. If you forget one or two, just create a document that uses their functional equivalent in TextEdit - and save it to XHTML. Then load in the document in plain text mode with it or any other editor - and see what XHTML elements & attributes (even CSS properties) were used.
Sweet, huh?
My Macintosh Manifesto of Appreciation and Scribing
I have been using Macintosh computers more than other personal computers, at least at home, for over twenty years.
Two decades ago, I bought my first Mac, a 512 KB
Fat Mac
- as it really was called at the time, owing to the fact it had more than the 128 KB memory that was in its twin, the original Mac.
Since then, I have owned 5 Macintosh computers.
What has always impressed me about them was the simplicity of both programming and using them.
Macintoshes work in a consistent way. So consistently, in fact, that one rarely has to read a manual for a Mac application before starting to use it.
Macs have always been at the forefront of object-oriented programming (OOP). I bought an object-oriented Pascal compiler for my first Mac. I also had a freeware Modula-2 compiler for it.
Today, my Mac comes with a ton of well-known object-oriented programming languages:
- AppleScript
- C++ (from GNU)
- Java (from Sun)
- Python
- Ruby
The Mac is at the forefront of a lot of cutting-edge computing.
- clustering
- programming
- web server
- web applications
- scripting
- open source
- XML
- graphics design
- super-computing
- movie making (MPEG-4, QuickTime)
- digital photography
- digital music (MP3)
Many of these things Apple either invented themselves or pioneered.
Here I plan to jot down some notes from time to time about things I might be using my Macintosh for, how other people use their Macs, and what useful things I would like to do with my Mac.
