If you use a Mac but haven’t heard of Quicksilver yet, you’re wasting clicks and keystrokes. It is the equivalent of ActiveWords in the Windows world, but with a host of community-contributed plugins and a deep framework for customization.
In fact, I used this framework to remedy something that was bothering me once I became better acquainted with Quicksilver: lack of browser-independent web searches. If you have been frustrated by not being able to use a browser other than Safari, OmniWeb, or Internet Explorer to display the results of Quicksilver Google searches, check out the AppleScript at the end of this article.
Continue Reading “Quicker Slicker Quicksilver” »
It’s been a week since Apple announced it will start using Intel chips. And, frankly, it’s come about twenty one years too late. But now that Apple is going to provide the most robust, powerful operating system in the world on the most ubiquitous hardware platform in the world, where does that leave Linux?
Continue Reading “MacIntel vs. Linux?” »
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
-Margaret Mead
For awhile now, I have been using the open source libgaim-based Adium alongside Defaultware’s shareware Proteus. While both offer connectivity to all the major instant messaging services, it is clear that Adium has won out on my desktop–and not just because it is free. In fact, there are a number of instances where freeware outstripped commercial/shareware offerings and open source has outstripped proprietary systems, and not for ideological reasons–but because the features, functionality and, yes, robustness has proved superior in my book to commercial alternatives. Perhaps this is a microcosm of how the “revolution” will look: a slow, steady progression, desktop by desktop, with programs like Firefox and Audacity leading the snail’s pace “charge”.
O’Reilly Mac DevCenter recently published a nice article on productivity tools for the Mac. Enjoy!
Or, “Why I Was Up So Bloody Late Last Night.”
It’s true. I did a dumb thing. I used apt-get to install Apache 2.0, then tried to load up PHP5 compiled for Apache 2.0 using the recommended installers from PHP.net. I should have known that Apache was still at 1.3 (which I later discovered after the fact with httpd -v), that mixing and matching between the Debian-bound apt-get and the Darwin package manager was a bad idea. I spent hours scraping and reinstalling my system when dependencies failed for just about every command line app I use–including the app I live my life in–ssh.
This brings up a couple points. The first is that Darwin should have been called DINQU–Darwin Is Not Quite UNIX. Because it’s true. Maybe the Mach kernel is still there, but just about every other piece seems to have been heavily modded by the troops in Cupertino. So, the more you start doing things the UNIX way, and not the Apple way, the more you take your life in your hands.
The second point will probably shock you: I found something that Windows does better!
Continue Reading “The Achilles’ Heel of Darwin” »
BrandChannel.com just gave Apple it’s reader’s choice award for most popular brand–above Google, Starbucks and Ikea! This just seems to confirm my instincts that the iPod “fad” has helped Apple’s credibility to skyrocket.
