Monthly Archive for October, 2007

In case you didn’t notice . . .

Published by jim on 10/31/2007 in Uncategorized 6 Comments

we’ve got some old-school, new blood here at the WBB. Welcome, Jeff Eschert.

I’m futzing with the RSS feeds today, if things look really bad in your aggregator, let me know. I also need to do something about better identifying the authors of each post (probably the most frequently requested mod to the WBB, I know).

The year of the Mummy

Published by esch on 10/30/2007 in Uncategorized 2 Comments

pumkin-0041.JPGhalloween_06_0041.JPGhalloween_06_0691.JPG

Every year I try to come up with a unique jack-o-lantern that my kids will get a kick out of.  This year I’ve decided to try a mummy.  He came out a little goofy and definitly not scary, but I think I’d hang with him if I had the chance.  Last year was Frankenstein.  The Sunset was Halloween 2006…I hope you enjoy.  Oh, and by the way, check out this guy. I agree, it’s not funny.

www.donateyourtaco.com

Published by jmilner on 10/29/2007 in Uncategorized 1 Comment

The final tally had more than 9,200 people donating their taco…a pretty cool exercise in viral marketing, sociology and a few other things. We’re getting a luke warm response from Taco Bell, but as soon as I tell them McDonalds, Wendy’s and BK will be picking up the tab they should come around. Thanks again to anyone who donated and please check the site for more updates. Oh, and Go Pats :)

It’ s been a while since I’ve been heard or seen on the WB, but a good cause has brought me out into the sunlight once again.  What started as a lunch conversation turned into www.donateyourtaco.com within 24-hours.  The response has been overwhelming, and the opportunity to connect with a lot of people I’ve known for a while and a lot I’ve never met has been the best part…all of you included. 

Thanks in advance for taking a look and passing along the link…and thanks for donating your taco. 

more on the leopard upgrade

Published by jim on 10/29/2007 in Uncategorized 2 Comments

So here are a few more thoughts as I start doing some development work this morning in Leopard: [Note that i’ve been updating this list throughout the day]

  • With the Finder’s new sidebar, Saved Searches are useful. I really like the “All the docs I’ve opened in the past week” saved search. Unfortunately, saved search folders don’t behave like other folders (with fan and grid options) when dragged to the dock. That’s sorta lame.
  • I want to use safari as my browser. It feels much faster than Firefox (though I’ve currently got 37 tabs opened in Firefox). That being said, without a del.icio.us plugin for safari that works like the one I’ve got in Firefox, I can’t imagine using safari.
  • Mail seems to have straightened itself out. I left it opened overnight and apparently some of the idiosyncracies I was noticing with the gmail/imap integration had something to do with the fact that it was working pretty hard at syncing up about 12,000 messages.
  • Also, suprsingly, virtual desktops or Spaces, are not nearly as refined on OS X as they are under certain linux window managers. The preference and modal windows for all apps should appear on the same desktop as the app itself, always. This morning, I lost the preferences window for Mail.app several times since my messages were on desktop 1 and the prefs kept opening up on desktop 3. That scenario was solved under many linux window managers. So was the “floating app” scenario. Under spaces, I can’t say “I want iChat to be on ALL desktops.” That’s a little weak. My bad, This has been implemented under Spaces, you need to add the app to a list in the preferences window then you can select “every space.”
  • hmmmm- when did Terminal.app get tabs? Is that new?\
  • Man, I missed this one in the README: Leopard ships with Apache2 and php5. I still do a lot of devel in php4. Wondering if anyone has come up with an easy howto guide for apache2 and php4 on Leopard yet.
  • Also looking for some information on how superduper and time machine can be setup to work together. Not finding anything on the google.
  • The “Mail Activity” window option on the left gutter of mail.app is great. no more having to toggle to the activity window when trying to figure out what’s going on with mail.
  • w00t!! iCal can now subscribe to remote calendars using https:// This is a really nice addition since i can now subscribe to my private google calendar in iCal.

leopard, gmail/imap and mail.app

Published by jim on 10/28/2007 in Uncategorized 0 Comments

I did the IMAP setup on mail.app and I’m disappointed at the unpredictability of the gmail imap implementation. Things are funky with it. I can’t put my finger on exactly what’s wrong but I don’t like that when I send a message to myself I get two copies in my Inbox: one sent version and one received version. Something’s rotten here. I’m sure it’s a solvable problem but, still, it doesn’t seem very google-like. I’m also wondering what the IMAP move means for the lost ad revenue of not viewing mail on the website: will they start throwing ads in the footer of messages now?

also, i upgraded to leopard. but for all the touted 300+ new features, i find that the one thing that stands out is that I really sort of miss the rounded corners on the menu bar. their absence was instantly apparent to me. I remember a long time ago creating a theme for some linux desktop manager, spending hours getting the menu bar to resemble OS 9’s rounded corners. seems a shame for them to go away. spaces rocks though and is something i’ve missed since switching from linux to mac. i use super duper for backups so time machine isn’t really all that for me. other than that, i don’t notice a whole lot of difference.

[update:] This utility brings back the rounded corners.

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