Have you heard about Microsoft’s Windows XP Starter Edition? The features in this loss-leader include no local area networking, only being able to run three applications at once, and no support for file- and print-sharing. According to News.com, Gartner analysts are recommending consumers “steer away” from the product: In conclusion, the authors recommended that enterprises [...]
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I’d love it if the Quicksilver folks would add a short “this is what Quicksilver does that Spotlight doesn’t” page to their site. Even so, this is a good place to start. There are strengths to both tools. Personally, I find Spotlight an excellent search tool — a bit more effective than Quicksilver. Spotlight is [...]
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There’s a fun little article that positions Windows XP as an operating system that is not yet quite ready for prime time. Written by a Linux proponent and very likely intended to be at least somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the article is amusing: But all this could change when the “Longhorn” version of Windows is released in [...]
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Not just the name of the Ghost Buster’s ambulance, ecto2 is, as it turns out, a very fine blogger client. After stretching MarsEdit’s boundaries I’ve switched gears. Ecto offers more features and makes blog management easier — although a bit more technical — than MarsEdit. Ultimately, the deciding factor for me was ecto’s superior support [...]
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Essay number 40 at the Scott Berkun site has some very interesting perspectives on exactly why “smart people defend bad ideas.” This is a phenomenon I’ve had to deal with over the years in various situations. It’s an entertaining article, too: So if nothing else this essay serves as a kind of personal therapy session. [...]
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Whoops. Well, a few days late, I noticed that Growl 0.7 is available; if you’ve been waiting for the Mail 2.0.1 Growl fix, it’s in there. Some nice new features are included, too: Growl 0.7 is now released into the wild! This release includes an awesome new feature, network notifications. Also included is the ability [...]
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Now that I’m getting into the swing of blojsom on OS/X I’m starting to see the flaws in the pre-packaged software — and the improvements. Apple choose not to just drop blojsom into OS/X. There are some pretty heavy customizations. I was disappointed to see that 10.4.1 has a fairly old blojsom installation (2.14, while [...]
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Gather your ideas, to-dos, notes, photos, and files online. Set email and mobile reminders so you don’t forget the little things. Easily collaborate with others. That’s what Backpackit.com has to say about their service. Looking through the examples I’m not sure what to make of this Swiss army knife tool for organizing your thoughts over [...]
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I recently read a short piece on anti-patterns that got me thinking about the bad old days of programming. In particular I recall early C++ development on Windows as being an experience that almost got me out of computer science altogether and in to architecture. We’ve come a long way since then. Programming today can [...]
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While tinkering about on Wikipedia today I thought I’d see what some pages look like in other languages. The most remarkable one is Simple English, which takes complex and often hard to understand topics and presents them in concise, simple terms. Started as a response to English learners and teachers, its pages are less complex [...]
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If you’re looking for ways to make your system more, well, your system, drop by the icon factory, “the web’s best source for free icons.” You’ll find tools for creating, cataloging and manipulating icons as well. Most icon libraries are free for personal use. Commercial applications can license icon libraries for startlingly reasonable royalty-free rates.
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This is interesting. A detailed Mac OS X security lock-down guide from the NSA: NSA has developed and distributed configuration guidance for Apple Operating Systems. This guidance can be used by US government and other entities as a security baseline. Definitely worth putting on my security bookmark list.
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This is me. Martial artist, zen student, programmer, writer and author, technologist, father of two, photographer and a resident of Los Angeles (well, the outskirts of it).
I also publish Rational Scrum and am President & CEO of Hyrax International LLC, delivering comprehensive process improvements to its clientele. Specialities include audit and assessment of program areas such as project management, quality assurance, risk management and customer satisfaction as well as delivering focused initiatives to improve customer efficiency.
