Mac

Something I didn’t know when making MP3 disks in iTunes - Macworld | Playlist | Creating navigable MP3 discs.

Ages ago (way back in 1990-91, I think) one of my flatmates had the game OIDS on his computer. It ran just fine on a Mac Plus and on the new Mac LC’s that had just come out. Good memories of the flat all taking turns to see who could get the highest score.

Any now I find that there’s a version for Mac OS X available from Xavagus Prime Software. I downloaded it and all the game playing memories came back. Unfortunately, the old game playing reflexes haven’t come back with the memories - can’t seem to fly anywhere near as well as I once did.

Related link: Oids - MobyGames

The iBook power adaptor died. After years of faithful service the cable that wrapped around the yo-yo adaptor broke, and I’ve spent a reasonable bit of time trying to find an old style iBook adaptor to plug in. However, I found one this morning and we’re up and charging. Luckily, backups had been made so no worries there mostly. I can’t belief how expensive both Apple and third-party adaptors are, though.

The G3 lives on - and is still fine for word processing, music and podcasts, email, blogging, DVDs, presentations and basic web browsing. Not so good for video play back (Flash or MP4) though - and web pages with lots of Flash items etc. tend to drag.

The screen may die in a little bit though, so it may become limited to a desk with a monitor and keyboard for chidren’s homework in the near future

To add to my mostly Mac OS X based list of writing tools -
Bean: An OS X Word Processor.

(Oh, and I think I left NeoOffice (based on OpenOffice) off the original list too.)

Not that I’m going to buy a MacBook Air in the near future, but this might make some people think twice - Wide Awake Developers: Steve Jobs Made Me Miss My Flight.

A new documentary about Mac users and their love affair with the Apple brand. See Doco puts Macheads under the microscope - Stuff.co.nz. Trailer available here and movie web site at MacHEADS.

Related link: May the Force of the Operating System be with You: Macintosh Devotion as Implicit Religion | Sociology of Religion

A list (with pictures) of some of the times Apple didn’t get it right. Of course, the definition of not getting something right is often in the eye of the beholder (or user), and items like the Newton, Apple IIc and Lisa (all of which I’ve used) all contained elements that contributed to better designs in the future (for Apple and its competitors). I think the MacBook Air might be in this category of a niche-product that helps stimulate all sorts of developments down the line, independent of how successful a system it is in its own right.

See Learning From Failure: Apple’s Most Notorious Flops

Useful article (with AppleScript snippet) for adding some helpful functionality to Word 2008 for Mac for pasting plain text into a document. Pasting plain text is something I do fairly frequently, so I’ve filed this link away for the possible time I have to use Word 2008. See TidBITS Problem Solving: Word 2008 and the Paste Plain Text Dance.

Problogger, Darren Rowse, publishes his list of useful blogging tools for Mac OS X. I use (or have tried many of them) - Ecto (article editor which I have on both Mac and Windows), CyberDuck (FTP client), ImageWell (for quick manipulation and posting of images) and Firefox. I prefer TextWrangler over TextEdit though (I used BBEdit Lite from way back)

The full list is at 14 Essential Mac OS X Applications for Bloggers

There’s no standalone newsreader application in there though because he uses Google Reader to do that. See Greenflame · NetNewsWire (Free now!) for my preference there. I used the Sage plug-in for Firefox for ages, as well as Bloglines, but I really like having one app that does a single job well, but can talk to other apps if need be.

Both MS Word 2007 (Windows) and MS Word 2008 (Mac) claim to have citation and bibliographic features for writers who need that support - though with a limited set of bibliographic styles. Does anyone have any experience working with them or compared them to a third-party add-on like Endnote? If you only used the supplied styles could you do away with EndNote (and the perennial compatibility problems whenever the OS, word processor or EndNote gets updated)?

Links:

• Create a bibliography - Word - Microsoft Office Online (Word 2007).

• Microsoft Word Processing Software for Your Mac | Mactopia (Word:Mac 2008)
• AppleInsider | Road to Mac Office 2008: Word ‘08 vs Pages 3.0 [Page 3] (Some screenshots of the tools)

A couple of links relating to the ubiquitous Microsoft Office.

Firstly, a look at how the new versions of Office for Mac and Windows compare over at How Does MS Office for Mac Compare to Office for Windows?

And secondly, a link through to an article that notes that the recent Service Pack 3 for MS Office (for Windows) will disable Office’s ability to open a number of different legacy file formats. Not good if you have a set of older documents that you open occasionally or are maintaining for archive purposes. You can ‘undo’ the effects of this ‘upgrade’ but it involves Windows Registry hacking (yuck). Or you could install OpenOffice to access some of the older formats. See Microsoft Office Drops Support For Older File Formats | Compiler from Wired.com.

I can see an increasing need to have several different virtual machines on one’s computer that allow the booting into legacy operating systems and running of older versions of software - sort of like RLP here post-switch to Mac OS X.

I use NetNewsWire Lite to keep up with my blog feeds, though I’ve never felt the need to upgrade to the full version. Now, however, the full version of NetNewsWire is being released for free as its developer focuses upon growing their online services. So, if you you’re running Mac OS X 10.4 or later you can grab the latest version and take it for a spin.

More information at: RSS Reader for Mac - NetNewsWire

Hat tip to: TidBITS Networking: NewsGator Turns NetNewsWire Loose for Free

(Of course, I’m still stuck in 10.3.9 for the foreseeable future [anyone want to donate me a MacBook?:-)] and will be plodding along with the old Lite version just fine.)

I like databases, which means that when I see that there’s a new iTunes-style interface database, Bento, coming out for the Mac (by the same developers as FileMaker (Thanks, Matt)) I’ll sit up and pay attention. See Bento: Mac’s New Database App Is iTunes for Control Freaks:

It’s only available for Mac OS X 10.5, but there’s a preview (Alpha? Beta?) available at Meet Bento

I really, really hope it works well, though the reviewer at TidBITS Home Macs: FileMaker’s Bento: Undercooked and Slightly Fishy is less convinced.

Now, if someone could bolt a Leopard interface on top of MySQL and make it as easy to use as iTunes then that’d be cool.

Matt also notes in the comments that SQLite is lurking as part of Mac OS X 10.4 (see here).

As a Protestant Mac user working part-time at a Catholic theological college where everyone uses Windows PCs I found last Thursday’s technology section on Radio New Zealand National : Nine to Noon (Thu, 25 October) fairly amusing.

You can find the full transcript over at it.gen.nz » The Cult of the Mac, and at the end of it Colin Jackson quotes a chunk of Umberto Eco’s 1994 article The Holy War: Mac vs. DOS in which Eco comments:

The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the ratio studiorum of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach — if not the kingdom of Heaven — the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: The essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.

DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can achieve salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: Far away from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.

(Windows is, Eco argues, like the Anglican church, at times appearing Catholic but also in places deep down quite Protestant).

The new daylight savings dates for New Zealand got missed out by Apple in their updates so here’s a link to a page with updates on it for the new DST information. DST starts this weekend in NZ. See New Zealand 2007 daylight savings update for Mac OS X.

Hat tip to: TidBITS Macs & Mac OS X: Daylight Saving Time Rules Fixed for New Zealand:

BTW - I’ve been reading TidBITS since it was available as Hypercard stacks way, way back in 1990. I admire their longevity and commitment in a field that has seen many come and go in that time.

I’ve thought about putting Skype on the iBook and wondered about Mac-compatible hardware to support it - yelling at the laptop didn’t seem ideal. But really had no idea where to start. I’ve found in the past that quite a few USB devices (speakers, keyboards etc,) do work in Mac OS X but the boxes never say that because it’s unsupported. However TidBITS (which I’ve been reading since it used to be distributed as HyperCard stacks) has a recent, helpful breakdown here of some options.

See TidBITS: Choosing Mac-Compatible Skype Hardware.

Paul Roberts posts like a “true believer”. (It’s all about computer preferences, you see).

See staring into the distance::as far as our eyes can see » Computer-geek heaven (i) - Getting under the surface of the Mac.

Related links:

• Lam, Pui-Yan. “May the Force of the Operating System Be with You: Macintosh Devotion as Implicit Religion.” Sociology of Religion 62, no. 2 (2001): 243-262. (online here)
• Cult of Mac
• And here and here.

Open Source Mac - Free, Open-Source software for OS X is exactly what is says it is - “A simple list of free, open-source software for Mac OS X.” Nevertheless, it’s a helpful wee site.

Over the years I’ve used lots of different text and word processors to support writing I’ve needed to do:

• nroff and similar on UNIX systems for writing documentation
• View on the BBC Microcomputer in the 1980s
• Something on an Apple II+ which only displayed 40 characters per line
• WordStar, MS Word and WordPerfect under MS-DOS (pre-Windows)
• Nisus and MacWrite on my Mac Plus and Mac LC to write my Masters thesis
• MS Word 2.0, Word 95, Word 97 and Word 2003 on various Windows computers.
• MS Word 3, 4 and 5 and ClarisWorks on my Apple Powerbook 150 and 520c and PowerMac 6100 (Still have a set of Word 5 install floppies somewhere)
• AppleWorks and MS Word v.X on the Mac OS X G3 iBook (the latter for the PhD thesis)

Of all of these, MS Word 5 on the PB150 and PB520c offered the best system for just blatting out text without getting distracted by the bells and whistles of the software. The black-and-white display and keyboard of the PB150 seemed to work for me, plus with no internet connection etc. I only turned it on to write. Word v.X was okay (and it supported EndNote) but it didn’t really inspire me to write.

Now with the thesis all written up I’m wondering whether it’s time to look at trying some different things to aid the writing process in the next few months. Some tools that help organize the writing process as much as just allowing text entry and formatting. I’d like them to run on the iBook (which won’t be replaced in the near future) and to have some support if possible for bibliographic data. MS Word compatibility is less of an issue as I still have Word v.X and Word 2003.

From looking around the net these links look helpful.

Applications that help with note-taking and organising writing material

• Note Taking Application Faceoff at The Apple Blog
• Literature and Latte - Scrivener - looks really interesting
• Mellel, which looks good for academic writing and support for non-English languages
• Journler - Wherever Life Takes You
• mekentosj.com | Introducing Papers… Your personal library of science

Bibliographic support

• Bookends, reference and bibliography software for Macintosh
• Third Street Software - Sente
• I’ve used EndNote and avoided much of the grief others I know have had with it, so that’s still a possibility. It’s integration with non-Word word processors remains an issue though.

Some articles about Mac word processing

• Mac360 - Why The Mac Is The Ultimate Writers Tool Box.
• Mac360 - Is This The Best Word Processor For Real Writing?

I wouldn’t be adverse to a Windows XP/Vista word processor and material organizer though, if they did the job. Just don’t have a Windows laptop to run it on.

Anyway, now feels like a good time to try something new, before I get caught up in not being able to change while projects are ongoing.

Updates

• For Windows users then perhaps PageFour - Software for writers - novel outliner and tabbed word processor might do the task (thanks to Bill for the link)
• Mac OPML Editor for building outlines
• Acta, the classic outliner - available free and runs under MacOS Classic and earlier. (I used it extensively to write the Masters thesis back in 1990)
• Son of Acta - Opal: Easy notes and organizing for Mac OS X 10.4. See also Opal is the new Acta - O’Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog
• Outlining should also include consideration of The Omni Group - Applications - OmniOutliner
• I’ve also played with Inspiration - a mind-mapping tool of sorts. Useful for visual learners like me, who love to diagram ideas.
• DEVONthink
• Sidenote
• Notational Velocity - minimalist notetaker
• SOHO Notes
• Dan Schimpf Software: MacJournal
• Bartas Technologies - CopyWrite
• Flying Meat: VoodooPad
• Mori - Productivity Tools
• Sebastian Krauß / Software - My Mind

Came across this article today as part of my pulling stuff together for my “Hacking as Theology” paper I’m working on at the moment.
Sociology of Religion: May the Force of the Operating System be with You: Macintosh Devotion as Implicit Religion (From Sociology of Religion, Summer, 2001 by Pui-Yan Lam)

As practice, identity, and mystification, technological mysticism lies at the heart of advance industrial society. When we look at technology this way, we find some remarkable similarities with theological traditions. Like a religion, technological mysticism ‘binds together’ core values into a coherent, if implicit (and often unexamined) set of beliefs and rituals.