Citegeist

“Don’t you think she looks tired?” A lesson for Apple from the Doctor

// July 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Macintosh, geekery

I’ve loved Wired Magazine since the issue where they wrote about Keanu Reeves playing Johnny Mnemonic. It can only be described as love: that glossy article was a perfect storm of my then-favorite actor, my favorite author, and lots of tech shiny. Zap. Love. Go ahead, laugh.

Annnywaaaaayyy… I love Wired. I’ve been a subscriber for years. I’ve justified my growing discomfort with the magazine’s insidious sexism and entrenched superiority by telling myself it’s the best avenue to good, thoughtful tech writing and bite-sized gadget reviews. Well, I’ve had it. From the high-texture, low-saturation, well-lit photography to it’s snack-sized snark snippets, I’m done.

This is nothing against the brilliant writing. Pieces by Chris Anderson, William Gibson, and countless others whose names I don’t remember have moved me and made me think. This rant is directed squarely at the editors who design all the snippets on the cover and tables of contents that suck readers in.

What does this have to do with Apple and Dr. Who? There is a small snippet of text on the upper-right corner of the August 2010 issue, which I can’t link to because it’s not on their website yet. The text reads: “#ATTFAIL: Inside the iPhone Network Meltdown.” And just like that, Wired moves from being Apple champion to shitstorm-bringer. Seeing this snippet peek at me from the countertop reminded me strongly of the end of “The Christmas Invasion,” David Tennant’s first full episode as Doctor Who. The Doctor, incensed and appalled by Prime Minister Harriet Jones’s order to blow up the Sycorax, says to her assistant, “Don’t you think she looks tired?” The ensuing media shitstorm results in the fall of her government.

It doesn’t matter that the Wired article is well-written, fairly unbiased, and very interesting. It doesn’t matter that they are trying to break new ground with their iPad edition. With “#ATTFAIL: Inside the iPhone Network Meltdown,” Wired has placed itself in the anti-Apple camp, which will continue to pull its readers–largely male gadget- and hacker-types, I’ll hazard to SWAG*–down the snark-fuelled, soundbyte-driven path away from mainstream humanity.

That’s not to say that I’m particularly an Apple Champion, either, nor am I an Apple Detractor. Macs have been my primary computer since 2004. Apple has beautiful, well-functioning products that I truly like and that have revolutionized mobile computing and music. BUT. But I’m bothered by the DRM, by the walled-garden attitude (is that the right metaphor for “if it doesn’t work, too bad, you can’t get in there and poke around?”), and the extreme propriety. So, I’m a fan, but not a fanatic. They are a company that provides products that I use and like, but they have their foibles and frustrations.
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*SWAG: speculative wild-ass guess. Yes, I’m being sardonic.

Mac Magic: a Skulk of Firefoxes

// May 6th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // Macintosh, Web Stuff

I recently started using the gmail interface for my work email.  Since it’s possible by default to run only one instance of Firefox on a Mac at a time, this left me unable to keep an eye on the gmail account that I use for professional development.  Doing this is easy enough in Windows using icons that launch different Firefox profiles, but the Mac solutions I found only taught me to create differing profiles, not how to launch them simultaneously. This post details how to create two or more Firefox profiles AND use them at the same time.  Each profile maintains different bookmarks, extensions and saved tabs.

Step 1: Create your second Firefox profile

In Terminal, type this command to bring up the Firefox Profile Manager:

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin --profilemanager

Firefox Profile Manager

Click the Create Profile… button to do just that.  Be sure to uncheck “Don’t ask at startup.”  This will allow you to use your regular Firefox icon (in your Applications folder) to launch the Profile Manager.

Step 2: Create scripts to launch each profile

Launch the Script Editor and paste this into a new script:

do shell script "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -P profilename &> /dev/null &"

where profilename is the name of the second profile.

Save this as an Application Bundle in your Applications folder, or wherever you like to store applications.  When you save the bundle, be sure to uncheck the “Startup Screen” box, or the script will ask you what to do when you launch it.

Repeat this step to create an Application Bundle for your default profile, using this string:

do shell script "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -P default &> /dev/null &"

Step 3 (optional): Assign an icon to your new application bundle

Like many things Mac, changing the icon of any file is easy and intuitive–once you know how it’s done.

1. Find a file or application with the icon you wish to use and press Cmd+I to open its information pane.
2. Click the icon in the top-left corner of the information pane.  It becomes highlighted.  Press Cmd+C to copy the icon to the clipboard.
3. Find your application bundle and press Cmd+I to open its information pane.
4. Click the icon in the top-left corner of the information pane. It becomes highlighted.  Press Cmd+V to paste the icon.
5. Close both information panes.

non-highllighted icon

highlighted icon

Step 4: put your new Firefox icons on your desktop, in your dock, or your favorite place to launch applications.

Extra credit:  Install Quicksilver and launch your custom Firefox icons from the keyboard.

Other tips:

1. I initially used the bitsy Firefox as the icon picture on both profiles.  This quickly became confusing but was easily remedied.
2. Once any Firefox profile is launched, you will not be able to launch another instance unless you have an Application Bundle that launches a different profile.  Be aware that if you launch plain vanilla Firefox you’ll get warned that Firefox is already running.  This makes the two Application Bundles necessary.

The tangled web I wove: This Lifehacker post on the topic is what set me down this path.  Along the way, I finally ran across a MacRumors thread that gets the scripting syntax right.  Now, if only I’d run across Asa Dotzler’s post on this same topic, I could have spent a few hours on Sunday doing something else, but feeling much less accomplished.

Update on an observed quirk: I added icons to my dock to launch my custom Application Bundles, but they behave weirdly.  When they are launched, their respective dock icons do not have the dot next to them, indicating that they are running.  There are, however, two additional Firefox icons at the bottom (dock is at left).  These icons do have the “I’m running” dot.  Huh.

Shooting Tethered With the Canon 5D and Mac OS X Leopard

// January 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // Macintosh, Photography

Nothing is ever as easy as it we’d like, especially when it comes to combining technologies.

I had the brilliant idea the other day to try to shoot photos with my DSLR camera connected to my laptop. A simple matter of finding the instructions, I thought. I know it’s possible; professional photographers do it all the time when they want to get full-screen previews of shots in a studio or portable studio setting. The manual for my Canon 5D was useless, as I thought it would be, so I turned to the interwebs for help.

Rather than take you through the saga of the afternoon I’ve spent figuring this out, here are instructions on what you have to do. YMMV if you have a different model camera or computer than I have.

Step 1. If you shoot Nikon, follow the directions Scott Kelby posted on his blog detailing how to shoot tethered into Adobe LightRoom using a free connector utility. You’re done.

Step 2. If you shoot Canon, first download the most recent version of the Canon EOS Utility, then check out Terry Reinert’s instructions for Canon shooters on how to shoot into Lightroom.

Step 3. If you consistently get a blank screen when you click “Camera Settings/Remote Shooting” on the main menu of the EOS Utility, try the trick listed at the bottom of the page by commenter Terry Lee.

Step 4. If you try the trick in Step 3 but are still having no luck, make sure that your battery is not low. I was getting a low battery warning from the Utility, and for some reason, that made the menu screen trick not work. Replacing the battery did the trick; I can now shoot a photo with the click of a button on my laptop.

An alternative is to try PhaseOne’s CaptureOne Pro software, which replaces not only the Canon EOS Utility but also Lightroom–to the tune of about $400, though there is a 30-day free trial. It worked immediately, no hoops to jump through. Folks in forum posts also mentioned the substantially-less-expensive Bibble for Canon/Mac tethered shooting, but I haven’t tried it.

The Holy Grail of Calendaring: sync’ing Exchange and Gcal using your Macintosh

// April 30th, 2008 // 10 Comments » // Macintosh, Web Stuff

The short answer: it ain’t happening. But if you’re a Mac user, you’re used to pretty things in pretty packages that “just work” …except when they don’t. Then, if you’re like me, you spend hours casting about for work-around or magical solutions that will kludge things together just right, then blame Bill Gates when it doesn’t work. (Because we won’t blame The Steve.)

My goals are to get out of running Outlook (and thus Windows) and to have one calendar that contains my work appointments (Exchange) and my personal appointments, which are currently kept in Google calendar. Here is a list of things I’ve tried and discarded:

• Outlook 2007 running under Windows XP, using the Parallels Desktop emulator. This application, while elegant, is a processor and memory hog unless you have 2 GB of RAM. If you have 2 gigs of RAM and don’t mind jumping through this many Microsoft hoops, this solution is for you. One word of advice, though: once you get a windows virtual machine created with Office and your favorite AntiVirus software installed, create a clone of it and store that clone somewhere other than your hard drive. You will need gSyncIt to copy appointments from Outlook to a single Google calendar and vice versa.
• GroupCal is a program that syncs between Exchange 2000 or 2003 and iCal. It does not work with Exchange 2007 or under Leopard.
• SpanningSync is a program that syncs between iCal and Google calendar, which is great, but it leaves Exchange out of the equation.
• Entourage 2004 is a bloated piece of Very Broken Microsoft Crap that I would wish on no one. Entourage 2008 is its slightly slicker package that I will still not tolerate, as it makes my system beachball at random and inconvenient intervals, often falling behind on simple tasks like opening or typing an email. (Also: I know this is coincidence, but over the last month, I’ve installed Office 2008 twice, on two different Macs, and both hard drives died within a few days of installation. My IT advises against using Office 2008; I’m sticking to that for now.)
• Plaxo Online, with its rather Facebooky interface, purports to sync Outlook and Gcal to itself. Unfortunately, Outlook sync’ing requires, well, Outlook.
• Publish my work calendar on the web using Office Online, then do some iCal-fu to import to iCal and Gcal. This seemed like too much work, not to mention that it requires Outlook.

My current solution: use the gmail interface for work email and have a second tab in my web browser to my Exchange calendar. Even if there were a way to sync Exchange appointments with Google Calendar, I would probably have to continue working this way in order to create, accept, and decline appointments. I don’t like the stranglehold that Microsoft has on my calendar data; either I’m missing something or they just do not play well with others.

Parallels Drag and Drop Goodness, or: Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way

// January 3rd, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Macintosh

Drag n Drop
Originally uploaded by cindiann

I was much chagrined to note that the music application on my new phone, the LG Voyager through Verizon wireless, would not run under the Macintosh operating system. All my favorite music has been ripped as mp3s into iTunes; for a while my only recourse seemed to be to install the Verizon app on my home PC and copy music from there.

Then I tried installing just the USB drivers from Verizon in Windows XP that I run on my Mac under the emulation program Parallels Desktop. I can map drives in Parallels; even better, when I have to get to a folder under Mac OS that I haven’t yet mapped, instead of having to stop the virtual machine, add a drive mapping, and restart the virtual machine, I could open the folder in question in Finder and simply drag the files to the appropriate Windows Explorer window.

Ta da! I’m copying my music to my phone now…

PS You don’t need to install the Verizon VCast application OR Windows Media Player 10 to access your Voyager as a USB drive. Plug the phone into your computer via its USB cable, then on the phone, touch menu > Tools & Settings > Tools > USB Mass Storage. When you’re done, click Exit on the phone to eject (the usual Windows method of safely removing hardware doesn’t seem to work, at least for me). Bonus: while your phone is connected to the computer, it’s also charging!

One last tidbit: Before you put the Voyager into USB Mass storage mode, you must enable it as a USB device in Parallels: Devices > USB > LG USB Modem. (when it’s in USB mode, it will be labelled USB MMC Storage). If you turn on USB Mass storage mode and all the phone will do is shut itself off, check this setting.

How to remove the QLOUD plug-in from iTunes

// December 7th, 2007 // 6 Comments » // Macintosh, Web Stuff

I posted this to the My Music application discussion page on Facebook today:

I had to reinstall the My Music app (which I had uninstalled because it never worked right) in order to click on the “Remove the plug-in” link. It took me to a page, not an uninstaller. Here is the text, so that you, too, don’t have to reinstall the app:

Windows Users
1. Quit iTunes. (Or Windows Media Player)
2. Go to Start > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs
3. Then select the Qloud plug-in and click “remove”.

Mac Users
1. Quit iTunes.
2. Go to your home folder.
3. Select the following: Library/iTunes/iTunes Plug-ins/ and delete the folder called “Qloud Plug-in”.

Noah, it would have been nice of you to reply to this thread with these instructions instead of a link to the app, thereby boosting its statistics…

Noah is (presumably) one of the developers. He had made a snarky reply to someone asking how to uninstall the iTunes plugin.

Dude, if you want people to use your softare, 1) make it easy and 2) be nice!

After spending an hour in the ninth circle of Windows configuration and upgrading hell last night, I have very low tolerance for developer hubris. I know how ironic this is, working in a library, where information products can be counterintuitive at best, totally counterproductive at worst. Yeah, working on that.

</rant>

Tips for Using Parallels Desktop

// May 12th, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Macintosh, Web Stuff

If you are a Mac fan but work in a business, you’ve probably realized that you just can’t get away from Microsoft. We use Exchange mail at EKU, and the users here are pretty advanced calendar users, which means Outlook for me. I didn’t even entertain using the truly loathsome Entourage, instead choosing to install Windows XP using a program by the awkward name of Parallels Desktop. Parallels Desktop is relatively cheap, and if you have site license access to Windows and Office and a few hours to devote to setup time, this solution is for you. Below are some things that I found useful in getting Parallels to work smoothly. Most of the configuration changes can be found in Edit > Virtual Machine (the guest operating system, i.e., Windows, cannot be running if you need to change the configuration).

First, no I don’t know anything about Vista, and I don’t want to, so don’t ask.

The newest version of Parallels has a couple of cool improvements: Each Windows application that you have running has its own icon when you use CMD-Tab, making app switching from Mac to Windows seamless. Also, they fixed a major annoyance: when you press CMD-tab in a Windows app, the Start menu doesn’t fly up like it used to, but it’s smart enough that if you press the left-hand CMD key while in a Windows app, it acts like the Windows button.

The coolest thing about Parallels is the degree to which the Windows apps look integrated into Mac OS X:

the unatural look of mac & windows”
Originally uploaded by cindiann.

This is an old screenshot, but you get the idea.

Not Your Average Bullshit, and Why the Macintosh Killed Productivity

// April 28th, 2004 // 2 Comments » // Macintosh, Random

Setting aside my usual skepticism for this kind of stuff (I think Steven Covey is hokey), I’ve been reading David Allen’s Getting Things Done, a book extolling a new way to get organized in the modern age. It does make a great deal of sense, but it will require the kind of consistency that has made all my previous attempts at organizing my life fail miserably.

I was immensely pleased to read: “If you’re in a large-volume e-mail environment, you’ll greatly improve your productivity by increasing your typing speed and using the shortcut keyboard commands for your operating system and your common e-mail software. Too many sophisticated professionals are seriously hamstrung because they still hunt and peck and try to use their mouse too much. More work could be dispatched faster by combining the two-minute rule with improved computer skills.”

Well, yes. Any training that I’ve done in the past has always contained a “Kill the Mouse” section. I have no idea why people are so loath to use keyboard shortcuts. Hello? Think about how long it takes to use the mouse to highlight a sentence inside a paragraph, then move up to the Edit menu and choose Cut (or click on that neat little picture of scissors). Even if you have the blazing hand-eye coordination of a 14-year-old video game addict, it takes a few seconds. Now, think about how fast it is to hit the appropriate arrow keys a couple of times in order to position the cursor, hold down the shift key, hit the arrow keys a couple more times, and they hit the delete key! As I’m typing this, I’m realizing that most people do it the long way because the long way is easier to teach. All those keys are so <whine>hard to use!</whine> This same fear is why many people are so afraid of command line systems.

By the way, if you haven’t already, go out and read Neal Stephenson’s In the Beginning… Was the Command Line.