Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Can't setup time machine to work over network

I enabled unsupported volumes, but I get an error that Time machine can't set up the disk image.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

ABC full episode viewer

ABC full episode viewer seems to suck on a mac. All I have to compare it to is Windows- where I've really never had any problems with it. They do not support linux. BOOOO! It crashes on a Mac quite often in both Firefox and Safari.

Online community and hot corners

One never ceases to be amazed at the lack of a helpful online community. My hot corners stopped working and in looking for some help online, all I found was: call the apple care and take it to a genius bar. Great. Thanks.

Anyways- my mysterious hot corners problem was fixed for some reason by turning all the hot corners off in system preferences and then turning them back on again.

Stupid.

Monday, January 26, 2009

A good app for album artwork fetching

http://fetchartblog.blogspot.com/

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19933#feedback

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Photo booth

So photo booth is pretty fun. But can one turn off the pseudo-flash?

Friday, January 16, 2009

Faster

New macbook is about 3 times faster than old office liux machine (measured on java app with and without graphics.)

Complaint: Screen

I agree with everyone else: this screen is way too glossy.

Seriously annoying.

Problem: key bindings

Don't know how to enable emacs key bindings on any programs. Wouldn't mind having emacs bindings all the time. On my linux machine, I just used them in eclipse by setting the keyboard preferences. Can't seem to do that on my macbook.

Problem: netork times out

After my macbook has gone to sleep and then wakes up, it's no longer connected to my wireless network (but can connect to other networks. I have to go to another machine and change the encryption of our network from one type to another. But my eee laptop does not seem to have at problem like this.

Problem: xournal and my pdf reading system

Can't seem to do all the things in xournal that I could do in linux. Can't access preferences to make my pen default.

Also- I can't seem to open a pdf in xournal from the file location itself. This is especially annoying when retrieving pdf files locations from zotero (which is the only way I do it.) I actually have to open xournal first and then search for the pdf file which is literally in embedded within 8 folders (that is how zotero automatically does it.)

the facebook thread

Rachele hates her new macbook! 11:16am - Comment

A at 11:18am January 12
oh no!

M at 11:26am January 12 via Facebook Mobile
How come?

Ai at 11:30am January 12
oh no!!! if you dont come to love it and need to get rid of it, definitely let Jessee know! he's been wanting one

Me at 11:34am January 12
Let me count the ways...

1. it is too small to work on for any length of time.
2. It is not intuitive (to me).
3. It would not read my hard drive (wrong formatting, but still.)
4. Installation of open source software is NOT going smoothly (fink <<>

Ai at 11:38am January 12
...you'll never sell it with that advertisement!!! seriously tho, so sorry you spent a lot of $ on something you're not happy with.

A at 11:40am January 12
lmao...it is small...that's why its so great.

Intuitive macs are not to PC users...took me a week to figure out how to do the most basic things.

I saved everything on my hard drive to my network, then dumped it on to my mac that way...

no idea about open source

YOU told me about papers so no idea

YOU also told me about annotations lol

CREDIT CARD?? Now that is WTF!

Me at 11:41am January 12
Oh well- better than windows, not better than linux.

D at 12:14pm January 12
No argument about Fink, it's been giving me headaches for months now. I think the strongest reason for people like us to own a mac is that (1) it's almost sort of like Linux, and (2) you can walk into a seminar or a conference talk, plug your laptop into the projector, and go. At this point I've given talks using all 3 platforms, and the Mac is the only one that hasn't led to me starting a talk late and sweaty. Or with my math fonts all messed up. Etc.

I don't know a thing about Papers. Have you looked at BibDesk?
http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net/

Also, I'm really getting to like Keynote way, way better than the OpenOffice alternative.

F at 12:21pm January 12
get quicksliver, an external screen for work in your office (you probably already have one), acrobat reader, and it should already be a bit better... You'll get used to mac quickly though, and hopefully it will be intuitive soon.

Me at 12:22pm January 12
Really? So what do you like about keynote? You say it is worth paying money for?

I'll check out bibdesk. Actually I finally got a good system on linux using a combo of zotero (lives entirely on mozilla) and xournal (pdf annotator). I can still use zotero on mac, but xournal- I'll have to figure out how to get it. I can't find anything on fink although it seems like i should have the unstable repositories (or whatever mac calls them) enabled. Can't find Kile, can't find xournal, can't find pyxplot. The only thing I have successfully installed using fink is gnuplot. Even Open Office is screwy.

Me at 12:25pm January 12
Thanks, F. I'll check out quicksilver. Can you annotate in acrobat reader? Or do you just like it better?

F at 12:27pm January 12
I just like acrobat reader better. Quicksilver is very useful to start program quickly

F at 12:29pm January 12
for openoffice, there is something called neoffice which is kind of ok. If you want Keynote 08, you can come and copy mine, it is in my office.

F at 12:30pm January 12
anyway, stop by this afternoon (I will go have lunch now) and I can show you a few things which might help.

Me at 12:35pm January 12
Thanks, Fanny! Actually I'm not in until late today cause I have to go out to Sommerville to help a friend move in a few minutes. Are you around tomorrow of Wed?

A at 12:39pm January 12
I bought keynote, but I don't use it. If you decide you want it, you are welcome to my copy. But I am learning more things through your comments lol.

Me at 12:43pm January 12
Thanks, A! Wow- the response to my status is overwhelming! Funny esp because previously I was also going to add to my list of complaints that the online MAC community is not as good as Ubuntu. But I guess I just needed to look closer to home :)

D at 1:04pm January 12
What I like about Keynote is that it's really smart about helping you line up text/figure boxes, either w.r.t. the whole page or w.r.t. other text/figure boxes. It does this without being Microsoft-style overbearing, and the end result is lovely-looking slides. Here's the thing about Keynote: Last I checked, you can only buy it bundled with Pages + Numbers, and those are meh. If you can get Keynote by itself, definitely do that.

For all that other software you mentioned (and now I have to look at it all myself because you've got me curious) you could look at MacPorts instead of Fink. Though I don't know whether they have any of that software either, and running two package managers is the desperate act of a cornered wild beast.

This is my favorite solution to the article-management problem:
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/06/one_dead_media.php

P.S. This is the longest thread I've ever seen on FB and it's all because you publicly stated you hate your Mac. HA!

A at 1:23pm January 12
LMAO, this thread should be posted in someone's blog so its internet-accessible to non-FB members...I think it's informative (making mental note to check out all programs listed to see if I can learn something new with my Mac).

I'm really powerpoint capable and just didn't want to learn ANOTHER new software and my keynote, pages, and numbers were given to me as a gift. But I LOVE giving presentations with my Mac (the next slide, notes, and timer features are awesome).

R at 1:35pm January 12
What's going wrong with Papers for you? For annotation of pdf's you could use Skim.


K at 2:15pm January 12
I primarily just want to be a part of this massive thread, very impressive. (Also, Quicksilver is awesome.)

M at 2:35pm January 12 via Facebook Mobile
NeoOffice works better than OpenOffice. Slow on my old G4 but should do well on a new MacBook. I've heard that DarwinPorts is better than Fink on OS X 10.4+... I think I have both installed.

Me at 2:41pm January 12
Whew... OK:

D: I will check out macports although I agree with you about the wild beast thing. I honestly thought that installing stuff would be easier on a mac, but i guess that is only for official mac stuff.

Faceted navigation: interesting.

Yes- an interesting response to my public statement.

A: Good idea. So those presentation features are mac specific or PP specific?

R: Papers is fine for organizing, but I really find is no better than the free Zotero. (Kip tried to convince me of this earlier.) If a program costs money, i think it should be better than the free version. Plus, I was under the impression that papers itself had some sort annotation program. I checked out skim- didn't install it but looked at its features: does it do a better job than preview in selecting the text to underline? Cause preview seems to suck at it. I really like xournal now for annotations: it lets me draw whatever I want and the underlining is really like drawing a line...

Me at 2:46pm January 12
under the text. It's much more like just taking notes on an actual paper. The good thing about preview annotation is that you notes can be as long as you want (instead of just writing them on the paper.)

K: word. And quicksilver does look good. Haven't installed it yet.

M: Yeah- OO seems really messed up (seems to be installed, but doesn't open.) Actually I tried installing neoOffice first, but it didn't work. Don't know why I have so many problems with this as it seems to be a pretty standard thing to install. I think OO is always slow, but I use it minimally, so its worth it to be just to have a decent free program. OK- I will check out both darwin ports and macports... double desperate cornered wild beast.

A at 2:57pm January 12
aren't you supposed to be helping someone move? lol

Me at 2:58pm January 12
FYI macports is an updated version of darwin ports, so we're back to just singular desperation.