This tip deserves to be in the OS X hall of fame. I’ve implemented it on both my Macs already.
posts
My Parenting Influence?
‘Nothing Appeals to Everyone’
Are software touchscreen keyboards good for everyone? Certainly not. But this is another aspect of the Apple Way. Apple tries to make things that many people love, not things that all people like. The key is that they’re not afraid of the staunch criticism, and often outright derision, that comes with breaking conventions.
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That the iPhone — or specifically its software touchscreen keyboard — does not appeal to everyone is not a problem. Nothing appeals to everyone. Even if you try to make something that appeals to everyone by adding every single clamored-for feature, you wind up with something like Windows that does not appeal to people with a taste for the elegant and refined.
Nike’s Huge Robot Printing Hope on Asphalt
This is very, very cool.
On the Hackintosh
It’s important to keep in mind the system’s limitations: a relatively slow processor and an underclocked graphics chip, a tiny 1024- by 600-pixel screen, a cramped keyboard, no optical drive, and a horrible, horrible trackpad. It’s a discouraging list of drawbacks, but apart from the trackpad, you know about these limitations going in: you buy a netbook like this, regardless of the OS, because you’re willing to trade performance to get an inexpensive, 2.4-pound laptop with a tiny footprint.
On the Unknown
From the aforementioned NY Times story:
Health is the most private of all matters for very good reason, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has never disciplined a company for a failure to disclose health problems. In part, we all buy, sell and trade on someone’s health without knowing their fates. Sergey Brin or Larry Page, Google’s founders, may be fit as fiddles, but they could get run over tomorrow by a Prius in Palo Alto (a Prius would still hurt, right?).
Someone Missed the Memo
Didn’t Apple pull out of Macworld? The NY Times seems to have missed the memo:
Next February, when Steven P. Jobs — knock on wood — does his big reveal at Macworld, the geegaw people will most want to see probably won’t be on display.
Whoops.
Eee PC Gets Mighty Mouse Trackball
Speaking of Eee PCs, plastibots.com has a story covering a Eee PC hardware hack that adds the trackball from Apple’s Mighty Mouse into the case for fast-action scrolling:
I found the 2-finger scrolling using the touchpad a P.I.N.T.A. . So, since it’s never my intent to leave well enough alone, and I was itching for something to take apart and hack, I decided to integrate a trackball into my EEE 901. The Apple Mighty Mouse was the best candidate becase the trackball acts like a wheel on the mouse - I can use it solely for scrolling rapidly through pages of content. Of course, there are other options out there, but its ball acts as a mouse controller (not for scrolling) and I didn’t want to pay the price. I figured the Mighty Mouse would be more of a challenge anyhow.
They Did Their Town Map in Excel
I want to point out that this map is actually provided by the town as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. I am not kidding.
Look, the town population is only about 1700. That’s smaller than a lot of high schools. I can understand that they don’t have a trained cartographer on staff, and when someone decided to make a map, they were not going to be using the latest and most advanced tools that professional cartographers use. But if you want to make a map with giant pixels, try MS Paint (or your preferred equivalent). It is, in fact, significantly harder to make a blocky pixel map in Excel. It’s a spreadsheet program. It’s designed to crunch numbers and show you if the town can afford this year’s hayride. It takes some doing to get pictures out of it.
Eee PC Comparison List
Happy Fourth
(Video via Laughing Squid via The Memphis Blog)
Shots Fired in Virginia Apple Store
“We heard a woman scream back toward the bathroom area and all of us stopped. One of the staff members opened the door and one woman yelled, ”Call 911 someone’s been shot,’" said another unidentified witness.
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Investigators believe the gunman came through a rear loading-area door, fleeing the same way he came in. Police used helicopter and K–9 units to conduct a sweep of the area and are calling the incident as an attempted robbery.