Posted on

Print Center Repair

I am in desperate need of a permanent fix to my Print Center… I’ve tried the fix from Apple and I’ve tried Print Center Repair, the app, but I can only get things to stick for a day or two before my system forgets that I have printers set-up.

If I try to print without checking to see if the system is ready, whatever app I am in freezes up. When I fix things, I have to reboot, which is not exactly convenient for work.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this??? Please…

UPDATE – With the update of Print Center Repair today to 3.0, I think I have finally figured out what my issue is. I can fix the print center app, by starting the CUPS Daemon Process (cupsd). Not sure why this turns off and gets all out of wack, but I do know how to (now) fix this and keep my system running without having to restart!

Posted on

Internet Explorer 6 for Mac?!

That’s right…

That is the way MSN for Mac is identifying itself.

Internet Explorer 6.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; PPC Mac OS X 10.2.6; Tasman 0.9; MSN 8.0; MSN Explorer 2.0; MSNbMSN; MSNmen-us; MSNc11)

Posted on

MSN for OS X

I noticed MSN for OSX launched today…

The interface is very nice. I find it to be very similar to the Windows version and very easy to use. There are a few tweaks from the Windows version like the addition of a calendar button right at the top level. What’s missing though, are the deeper guided links within each content area. This is a nice bonus for the average user and I can’t quite figure out why MSN would choose to leave that stuff out. Photos is also suspiciously gone.

You can’t view the same page as a buddy, which I suspect is due to lack of “NetMeeting Light” that seems to be part of the MSN messenger client.

You can very easily deal with email and calendar events as well as contacts but for some reason (again) there is no sync and no import. You start from scratch…

Outside of a few additional quirks (trying to get Bejeweled to play was impossible) the service seems pretty solid overall.

Posted on

Life is a circle

After considering what I had written this morning I have decided to once again give Entourage a good go. It seems it really does what I need and does it well. I can do multiple accounts, handle complex filters and schedules as well as working nicely with Applescript. I can also add or modify full contact info for people and sync that directly in my Palm. Since I acquired my Tungsten C, I have once again, become a robust Palm user and want to have as much ready to access from my handheld. It is fantastic to have docs (office) and email (with full contacts) ready to rock while walking around the office, or traveling about either locally or pretty much anywhere there is a wifi Access Point…

The main bummer I found last time I tried this was Entourage’s lack of integration with POPFile, a really great spam filter. For some reason, Entourage cannot handle the extra header info I prefer to use (vs. subject modification) in order to activate filters for spam and lists.

Instead I am using SpamSieve, which runs quietly and works in conjunction with Entourage. Unlike SpamFire, it does not pre-check mail, but rather reads the mail as it comes through and works it’s bayesian magic. You definitely have to train it to get things going, but that is not a problem as you can select hundreds of messages at once and say they are good or spam. After about 600, the stats are pretty reliable. Like all filters, you can tweak it as you go and the applescript used can easily be triggered with keyboard shortcuts.

When I first stated using OSX, I naturally migrated to Apple Mail. I found it had some issues in the 10.0 release and switched back to Entourage. Sometime after 10.1 I went back to Mail and was quite happy until the app I felt I was pushing it too much and discovered PowerMail. While I really like PM, it has become a pain to manage contacts within email and a second application. Yes you can sync, but that really does not work that well and only offers email address, not full contact management. While Now Contact is a great contact manager, it does not do email. Entourage has it all and the whole thing (all four core apps in fact) syncs to Palm. Of course I have known that all along, but have steered clear for some reason. I’m back…

Posted on

The problems with Sync

Not sure exactly why keeping device information synchronized with a computer becomes so difficult but in my years of working with Palm devices it seems to present an issue when you stray from the built in apps. In fact, Palm’s answer to almost any issue you call tech support about is to disable third party conduits and then usually a hard reset. The hard reset erases everything from your device which requires a restore/rebuild of everything.

My current set-up is the Palm Tungsten C connecting to my Powerbook G4. My company uses Meeting Maker as the group-ware calendar and Meeting Maker offers a conduit to sync so you would think that all would be well… but it is not. It seems that my Palm can only receive information from Meeting Maker, but can not send things back reliably without causing the conduit manager to crash (predictably) unexpectedly.

You see duplicates happen. I don’t know what causes this to happen, it just does. I have tried erasing the dupes on my Palm and re-syncing with MM, sending info back up, but in every case, the conduit manager crashes. It seems to have a problem with the number of things that get duplicated (usually holidays, though repeating weekly meetings are an issue as well). If I delete things in MM, I can sync back to the Palm with no problem.

So what is my issue? As a mobile person, I’d like to use my Palm to initiate events as I should be able to. Those should be able to go back up to the computer and all should be dandy. Instead, I have the current info ONLY on my Palm which makes it look like I am potentially available in our work system which auto accepts meeting invitations if my schedule seems to allow it. I set this as a preference, btw to make things easier since the speed in which meetings tend to schedule is pretty brutal.

One final point on Syncing, unrelated to Meeting Maker. iSync needs a serious upgrade in my opinion. It takes FOREVER to sync contacts (I have over 1200) and even longer if you are daring enough to sync with iCal as well. I would say that adding iSync to my sync schedule adds about 10-15 MINUTES my computer has to sit and think about what data to move where. For me, it is no longer worth the pain and suffering. I like the Apple Address Book, but am beginning to migrate back to Now Contact, an App I have not used since 1996. Not sure why I stopped, maybe it was Palm Desktop… but it is very nice so far and syncs well with Palm. I can also use the recently released update to sync (in my case overwrite) my Apple Address Book, if and when I feel that needs to be updated.

Posted on

Etch a Site as Easy as Pie

It’s one part napkin, two parts pad and one part white board… but all becomes live html! This is a very cool way to prototype…

Denim, a new sketching tool that allows entire websites to be designed as a series of rough drawings, is becoming a hit with designers. It’s also being used by open-source programmers to build better interfaces for Linux. [Wired News]

Posted on

MSN and Safari…

Is it just my imagination, or does MSN and the MS Passport system not work at all with Safari??? I cannot login regardless of how I try unless I do it through IE. I was successful at getting my.msn to load, but I cannot do anything that requires authentication beyond that first step.

Posted on

BlackBerry on a Palm

This is really fantastic news… While devices will not likely be ready to use this for some time (hopefully before the OS 6 rollout in 2004) it will finally provide a serious email machine option. The more I think about the Blackberry, the more I like it, but then I remember I am a Palm guy. I can’t give up the benefits of Palm just to have email like that, knowing that the rest of the software is not as good, not too mention it does not even sync with my Mac.

Research in Motion plans to license the email technology it uses on its BlackBerry devices to companies making Palm handhelds.
Read

[Gizmodo]

Posted on

AOL weblogs?

From a trusted correspondent, talking with a contact who works at the Netscape part of AOL/Time Warner. “He said they had decided that weblogs are the next killer app, and that most of the work at the Mountain View office was going into building a weblog component for AOL. He also mentioned that about 400 people are working on that software. This is in constrast to about 20 who are working on Mozilla.”

[Scripting News]

Posted on

Back on AvantGo…

It has been about 2 years since I used AvantGo since they do not support Mac OS X. If you have the right device you can sync directly to the server rather than using the computer. The trick is getting the files onto your palm since the install only comes as an .exe file for Windows. I tapped a friend who was kind enough to install the software and extract the three files you need to get going.

If you are not sure what AvantGo is imagine having a nice set of bookmarks and the content from the sites in your pocket. It’s offline browsing/reading, though the app does support online browsing as well. I have found the browser to be quite good, comparing nicely to the (NetFront) browser Palm has built into the Tungsten series.

I am using the OS 5 beta and so far it is very impressive. The color and hi-res functions are really nice. It is easy to quickly fill the free 2MB you are allotted and I am considering the $19.95/yr. to enable up to 8MB of reading. While Plucker certainly works and is completely free, it is also a bit of work to get it going and to update each time. Using the built-in wifi connection, I can update my 2MB allotment in less than a minute. This is perfect as you walk out the door for the subway or to catch a flight…

The beta files were last updated on March 26, 2003. They have been working extremely well for me and I would recommend this to anyone with an OS 5 Palm device. You just need to bring your own connection. I’d be interested in hearing how those with other Tungsten devices might be doing syncing over bluetooth which should work well also.

Posted on

iTunes 4 – total track limit removed

iTunes 4 seems to have corrected the “limit” at 15,000 tracks. I have roughly 20K tracks and the app seems to be working just fine! This is great news as it was not easy to manage an iPod with either multiple libraries or another app. Even though Audion is nice, it is nowhere as easy to deal with an iPod as iTunes.

Posted on

my digital obsession

Since I am now way past the 15,000 track usable limit of iTunes my options for managing and listening to music day to day have had to change. For streaming music to my stereo, at work or on my laptop, I work with SliMP3 which allows me to use my browser or the IR remote with my stereo to control the tracks.

On our desktop computer I have been playing with an interesting player/manager called MP3 Voodoo. By far the most interesting feature is “view by cover” which is like having all of your albums on your desktop. You see everything, sort and select as you might normally expect, but the focus is mainly visual. Of course you need to have the covers saved (as cover.jpg) in each album folder of MP3s that you collect… Seeing the covers is a great way to recall what you have and also explore music you might not have listened to in a while. They can also be reviewed while listening much like you might have an album out on your coffee table as you listen.

SliMP3 is about to support covers which will let you view the cover of albums that are playing, though you will still be limited to choosing what to listen to by the usual text options.

Since covers don’t automatically get pulled in with albums that get ripped (in any app I have tried), the process is unfortunately pretty manual. There are a few apps that can find covers, but they have been less than perfect and actually pull down the occasional incorrect picture, which kills any faith you might have for things to run in large batches. My solution is an espresso of two (or three) and some time to kill. This weekend was very successful for cover retrieval, but I am sure there will be many more filled with tracking down the rest. I think my current album count is over 1800 at the moment… I am sure it will continue to grow!

Posted on

FootTrack lets you organize, search & compress digital video

This looks very cool… gives you an iPhoto view of your footage (from all your source tapes) and allows you to then pull directly into iMovie.

T-Squared Software has released FootTrack 1.0, a new application that allows you to import, organize and search your digital video tape footage. The software also lets you compress your footage, allowing for more tapes to be stored on your hard drive. A 60 minute tape of digital video takes up approximately 12.5GB of disk. When compressed in FootTrack it takes approximately 180MB including images for each clip. FootTrack runs on Mac OS X and costs US$29.95 [MacMinute.com]

Posted on

Open Links in New Tab

This tip works from all apps… Just set the Safari pref and you are good to go. Seems silly that Apple would not have noted this functionality within the pref itself. The way things are worded would lead you to believe that the page you are on would be replaced with the new request.

I’m using the latest version of Safari (1.0b2, v73).

Here’s a tip for NetNewsWire users: if you want links to open in new tabs in Safari, do this in Safari’s preferences:

1. In the General preferences, at the bottom, click “Open links from applications in the current window.”

2. In the Tabs preferences, click Enabled Tabbed Browsing.

Then, when you’re opening links from within NetNewsWire, each one should open in a new tab in Safari. [inessential.com]

Posted on

Safari autofill…

I’ve noticed that the autofill function in Safari seems to prefer that you press return or enter rather than click submit. I guess this makes some sense as the buttons could be programmed differently. When you hit return, you should see a dialog box asking whether you want to have the login info saved…

Posted on

BlogPluck

You can now read blogs on your Palm via plucker thanks to this new release… Giving it a whirl now…

UPDATE – This does not seem to work in OS X 10.2.5 If I learn more I will post it.