I have yet to watch it, but if you do, (OK even if you don’t) this is a hilarious look (and count) of the dialog.
making eggs
Originally uploaded by atmasphere.
I just happened to look in this window on my way to a meeting today and saw this woman making all these eggs. I think it was a small gallery and that it was called “East Meets West.”
That’s a lot of eggs…
DashBoardShare.com
DashBoardShare.com like AutomatorWorld, which I just linked to is a way to share (in this case) Dashboard Widgets.
Automator World
I’m sure there will be others, but this is a great start. It’s always good to see the sharing of this stuff…
Automator World is dedicated the Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) scripting application Automator. Automator World is a clearinghouse of user-contributed Workflows and Actions, as well as Automator information, news and tips.
The Treo and Bluetooth
I can’t imagine I am alone in finding some frustration with the Treo 650 and the Bluetooth support. My device is unlocked so no carrier got to mess with what’s on the inside…. before you even ask.
I’ve had limited success utilizing dial-up networking. It works, though can take many connection attempts in order to get online with my PowerBook. My Sony Ericsson T610 simply worked.
Both bluetooth headsets I’ve tried – the Treo Headset and a Jabra BT200 have had mixed success. The Treo headset seems to function better (you’d hope right?) but still has quite a few flaws. The default behavior is for the headset, once paired, to receive all call activity. This is great if you want to always use the headset, but not so great if you just want to quickly answer the phone as it rings from the main unit. Transfers back and forth from headset to Treo have simply not worked for me. While I can pull a call from the headset back to the Treo using the Treo’s on-screen button within the Phone application, but I have never gotten a call patched back to the headset. An interesting (and sucky) twist with with this process is that once I’ve taken the call back to the Treo, I usually have to reconnect the headset (through pairing or a power-cycle) in order to get calls back to the headset.
Answering calls has been OK… but not great. Even when I think the devices are paired and choose to answer a call using the Treo, rather than the button on the headset, the call might still drop to the Treo making me feel like an idiot with two telephony devices on my head trying to figure out which one is active. Pressing the button on the headset does not always pick up the call so I am pretty stuck without a good solution at this point since I must use the Treo to answer the phone.
When I was using the SE T610, bluetooth seemed like a more natural extension of the phone. If I chose to answer the phone on my headset it was there and If I chose the phone it was there. If I wanted the call on my headset after answering the phone on my phone, I could just press the button on the headset for a second or two and pick it up.
Not sure what the deal is with the Treo…
Tiger Roars! (soon)
Both The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg and The New York Times’ David Pogue give Tiger rave reviews, even with the expected minor bits that require a future update. Spotlight and Dashboard earn the greatest attention as you might expect as does the new enhanced iChat AV which includes up to 10 party audio and 3 way video conferencing.
For me, the main draw in addition to the usual bonuses associated with an OS update, is Quicktime 7 with H.264. I am also very pumped to work through Automator. There have been too many times I’ve thought if I could just figure out a way to do that in AppleScript… I think that day is tomorrow.
Actually, having just checked Amazon May 4th. Amazon is really letting me down on the pre-order. I had yet to see any indication of shipment and just checked… what’s the point of pre-ordering?? Argh. I should have just gone with Apple… but that damn rebate got my attention.
Mail Act-On Plugin
Mail Act-On Plugin for Apple Mail.App looks like a great way to manage action with new mail. The author is using it for a GTD system and it looks pretty solid. Have to find some time to play, though at this point, you might want to wait for the official green light with Tiger given it is coming in on Friday.
It’s all in the headline…
Real’s new Rhapsody
So Real is supposedly the leader in the streaming services and today marks a major update so I figured I would check it out.
The new Rhapsody lets anyone* listen to and legally share songs, of their choosing, every month. Consumers simply download the Rhapsody jukebox software from www.rhapsody.com. Once downloaded, they can listen to 25 full tracks from Rhapsody’s library of over one million songs each month, and enjoy unlimited access to the jukebox’s other features at no additional cost. In addition, Real also announced significant enhancements to its critically-acclaimed Rhapsody Unlimited service, and added a new tier called Rhapsody To Go, designed to provide customers the ultimate experience in portable digital music. [RealNetworks]
Interestingly there is literally no way to even view a screenshot of the service thanks to some handy user-agent redirection on the Real site which takes all Mac users to the New RealPlayer 10 for Mac OS X page that has existed for quite a bit longer than just today. There is no mention within the PR that this is Windows only, though I did admittedly know that the previous version was as well.
By now you may have noticed that asterisk next to anyone from the release… it refers to US only customers… no mention of platform dependance anywhere.
The only subscription music service I current utilize is Sirius radio. I don’t want to be renting my music, though I would be interested in more complete samples pre-purchase…. paying a flat rate for the privilege does not cut it.
MTV Overdrive goes live
David Card from Jupiter offers a nice view inside MTV’s Overdrive broadband experience…It definitely sounds cool. The level of polish and the content refresh rate should easily draw viewers. The current MTV Generation is heavily wired and online…
Overdrive offers a mix of videos and exclusive performances, interviews, extra material to back up MTV shows (who knew Punk’d even had greatest hits?) and movie trailers. Most segments are 2-4 minutes long. News segments will be updated four times a day; the promoted Lineup channel will change about 7-8 times a day. Channels are teed up by promotional talking heads. Users can also cue up a playlist similar to MSN Video. (Didn’t Real try that once, only to abandon it?) There’s no twin-screen (simultaneous TV and broadband) content.
Programming is all ad-supported. MTV aims for a 1:6 ratio of ads to content. It’s trying to push advertisers to 15-second spots but will accept 30-second spots as well. No targeting yet. In fact, watching the exclusive first 10 minutes of Sony/Revolution Studios’ latest, xXx: State of the Union, as sponsored by Always was a little…disturbing. Pantene is all over the site; Sony, Sony Pictures, and Microsoft are also early advertisers.
It’s fascinating that MTV went this route but hasn’t done VoD. Execs told Jupiter that was an easy decision – the broadband audience is just so much bigger, and advertising is easier to pull off. [David Card]
Where Macs Remain
When you’ve got it right, you’ve got it right.
Tonight was open house at the middle school my daughter may attend next year. During the tour I got a look around the media center (a.k.a. library), where a surprise awaited. Over the last couple years, the local school system has replaced aging iMacs with Dell computers (the Dells came in and the Apples out this year at the elementary school). I saw desktops and notebooks around the periphery of the library. But in the center of the room, under the sign “Digital Video Library,” sat five iMac G4 computers set up on two tables. Apparently, the gentleman in charge of the media center decided Windows PCs suit for productivity tasks, but for creativity that only Macs will do.
Blockbuster’s no fee late fee
Just did a quick pass at Blockbuster for the weekend and noticed the drastic reduction in their signage for no late fees. While they’ve certainly clarified how it works via this counter-top sign I cam phoned, it still seems to be that there is a late fee, they just call it a restocking fee. They have to restock the movie whether you return it in a day or a week…
Verizon Wireless Street Team
Cool car with extreme sports video playing in back attracts the after school crowd
Server Based Filtering with Fastmail
Something I’ve wanted for a long time was an easy way to filter my mail at the server level. I converted to IMAP some time ago and had wanted to be able to fully take advantage of the server so regardless of where I checked mail (web, wireless or desktop) I always had the same rules applying without having to recreate things in each instance.
I’ve long known about Procmail, but have not had enough inner geek (or patience) to really dig in enough to figure out how to create my own scripts. My web host, Pair only offers (as do most) procmail as an option for server based filtering and as you might expect it’s completely DIY, though with some newsgroup support. I’ve searched and the only thing close to a simple UI to Procmail is Procbuilder, though yet again it was nothing something I was truly comfortable dealing with.
So what to do?? Enter Fastmail.fm.
Fastmail offers a terrific array of email account levels, which should suit most anyone. The most basic (and free) account, lets you get full IMAP (not POP) and advanced webmail access, but you will have to pay the one time fee of $14.95 in order to get access to the SMTP server which is extremely handy if you use a mobile device. I found that what I wanted was the Enhanced Account, which meant I needed to transfer the MX record for atmasphere.net (my main domain) in order to retain my identity while taking advantage of the service.
What do you get?
The main thing I wanted was server based filtering, though Fastmail also offers a significantly more robust spam filtering system (no need to adjust Spam Assassin manually, unless you want) as well as ClamAV virus checking. (About 12 hours after I made the move Pair announced they were upgrading both the Spam Assassin code to 3.0 and also adding ClamAV… though no easy server side filtering.)
If you use any account beyond the free one, you get access to the filtering. The more advanced tiers offer domain management, aliases and more storage. The filtering is very easy to use. Utilizing a simple web form you can pick bits from the headers of email and what action you’d like to have take place – from delete or bounce to filtering to folders of your choosing.
Fastmail made the switchover painless. They have a migration utility (point and click) on the site that allows you to create your new account based totally on the previous one. I imported my email and full folder structure within a few minutes and when I activated my domain transfer was good to go with almost everything in place. From within my mail client (Apple’s Mail) I simply dragged the messages that had come through after the import, but before the transfer and they conveniently copied to my new mailboxes.
Problems Resolved!
I’ve been using client side filtering for a long time and been very frustrated with the amount of mail I don’t want to read (including spam) that arrives on my Treo. Fastmail’s system has allowed my to quickly fix this issue. The Spam filtering is awesome as well. I can’t recall a time when I’ve seen so few spam messages coming through to my account. I am used to seeing anywhere from 800 to 2000 spam messages waiting for me each morning. Today, there was 1 message which got through the Fastmail filter and there were 11 messages pre-sorted to my Junk Mail folder for my review. There was one message incorrectly waiting there, but I easily adjusted that through the Web UI and don’t expect it to be there tomorrow am. Everything else was nicely killed. I love it!
I mainly use email on my PowerBook and via Treo while on the go. ChatterEmail is by far the most robust IMAP Treo mail client, allowing me to create accounts and then mailboxes within each IMAP account to sync or keep connected. Because of the way it works, I get notifications as mail gets filtered to each mailbox of my choosing as it happens which is quite nice.
Before server side filtering, I was receiving all mail in my inbox and having to sort through quite a bit, plus having to kill a ridiculous volume of spam. No more. My mailboxes are clean and I am only tracking what I want while on the go. When I return to me desk, mail is pre-sorted to the appropriate place, leaving my inbox pretty clear with messages more likely to need my attention.
One final note…
There’s a bug / feature in Mail.app that does not allow you to continuously check your server folders as you might like – even with the advanced preference set on your account to automatically synchronize changed mailboxes. I was only seeing Mail officially check and show changes when I either manually clicked on a folder (which causes it to make a live network connection) or choosing to manually synchronize my account. The fix for this is pretty simple thanks to the magic of AppleScript and the ever helpful MacOSXHints. Using the later script in the just linked post I now have an applescript force the sync on login every 5 minutes which is the same interval I have mail set to check for new messages.
Verizon Wireless expands “IN” to messaging
Great news for Verizon customers… let’s hope other carriers follow. In network free calling already exists for all the majors making messaging a logical next step. Perhaps this is just what is needed in the US to push messaging (SMS and MMS) into the mainstream…
Verizon Wireless has expanded its popular “IN” calling plan (free calls to every other Verizon Wireless customer) to messaging. For $5 a month customers can have unlimited text, picture and video messaging to other Verizon Wireless users. A plan costing $39.99 or higher per month and 1 or 2 year contract is needed to sign up for Unlimited IN messaging. [ MobileTracker]
First DVD/UMD package announced
Good news on the buying content front… one package, multiple formats.
Bandai Visual allows almost every PSP user to breathe a sigh of relief as they announce the release of the first DVD title to come packaged with a UMD of the same contents. Or at least I was relieved…
“Eureka Project” (sorry, didn’t bother looking up the English name) is the anime series that will be available in this dual media package beginning in July (in Japan).
As with anything related to UMD-Video, however, the price point becomes key. Put your fears to rest, though, as the version including a UMD-Video costs only 1,200 yen more (about $12 USD) than the version without. As our recent poll results show, this $12 figure is well in the price range of a large portion of PSP owners/future owners. [PSP-Vault]
Yahoo! News Beta
Yahoo! News unveiled their new beta and I really like it quite a bit. You can easily see the topics and from within a topic the main subtopics available. There’s heavy RSS and My Yahoo integration and you can do quite a bit of customization on the whole thing – even adding your own sources.
There’s a tour if you’d like to learn more…
The more Yahoo and Google compete, the better for all of us.
Adobe to buy Macromedia in $3.4 billion stock deal
LONDON (MarketWatch) — Adobe Systems on Monday, seeking to expand in interactive graphics applications for Web site developers and advertisers, announced an agreement to buy Macromedia in a stock-based deal valued at $3.4 billion. [CBS Marketwatch]
This completely changes the graphics world… at least from a competitive perspective! I wonder which overlapping products (GoLive vs Dreamweaver for example…) will continue to be developed following the acquisition. Adobe will now have the most complete software system to manage the creation, management and delivery of creative materials.
‘Sesame Street’ by Cellphone
This is not the vidcasting I discussed last week, but it’s certainly a nod in the right direction and with content positioned for a target I suggested would be an easy one to reach… parents.
On the French Riviera last week, television executives from around the world crowded into a mobile television seminar to gaze at a giant screen view of the late Ray Charles serenading Ernie of Sesame Street from the frame of a mobile phone.
J. Paul Marcum, Sesame Street’s general manager for its interactive group, came to the annual MIPTV international television conference in Cannes as part of a vanguard of producers to trade information about a format so new that no one is sure how business models will evolve.
Sesame Street, he said, is one of the first children’s entertainment companies to start offering phone fare, through an alliance struck in March with Verizon in the United States to offer some of its classics through a $15-a-month wireless broadband service called V Cast.
“It’s certainly not like we’re advocating selling phones to preschoolers,” Mr. Marcum said. “But you can’t ignore the convenience factor when people are in motion. A parent can pass back a telephone to the kids in the back of the car. And it’s a device that families are going to carry with them everywhere.” [NYT]
I can’t speak to the quality of the VCast service having no experience with it as a Cingular customer, but my wife got a Sesame Street demo from one of the doormen in our building who has the service and she noted how compelling it was.
Cingular does offer MobiTV, but of course not for the Treo… or my wife’s new phone so I guess we won’t be sampling this first-hand anytime soon. For us, it’s actually easier and quicker to create either segments or full programs and movies from our digitized library. The immediacy and reliability of content saved locally is a key point missed my offering streaming only access… especially since the networks are still being deployed – even if I can hear you now, there might not be EV-DO service handy. Queue time can be killer when you need something like this and what if it skips or even worse you run out of range…
Vidcasting is really the way to go. I can easily carry several episodes or movies on an SD card and hand a Palm device (hmmm… actually I have quite a few laying around) running The Core Media Player or even a PSP. Of course now the trick becomes do I really want my child handling my gadgets? The cheap portable DVD player we have seems more likely to sustain the abuse, though prices will continue to drop on Palm and other multimedia capable units.
Profiles for Palm OS
Profiles is a very cool app for your Treo (or any other Palm device) which lets you define settings and the appropriate options you might like to control. You can set sound levels, screen brightness, your radio and even the color scheme. I’ve just gone through and defined an indoor, outdoor, nighttime reading and meeting mode for my Treo. It’s free and very small. You’ll find it in your preferences after you install which is actually the only bummer as you can’t easily launch it in order to quickly switch modes. Though you can actually utilize your datebook or a simple time mode to switch profiles which is very cool.