Tag: personal

• Enough with The Beatles – today’s real news is on the iPhone

  Apple’s announcement today that it added The Beatles to the iTunes Store overshadows two news items of much greater importance to iPhone and iPod Touch users.

  The first is that Google Voice finally squeaked its way through the App Store’s approval process. U.S. users with a Google account now have better mailbox and voicemail functionality than before, with free text messaging, voicemail transcription, call screening and call blocking. The service also offers cheap international calls. Google has tussled with Apple in the past about the Google Voice app, just one battle in an already contentious relationship between the two companies.

  Second, an update from Twitter late today now allows push notifications. @ mentions from people you follow now push as a notification to iPhone and iPod Touch users, making Twitter a much more real-time conversation tool.

  2010.11.16

• OSX 10.6.5 and the Dell Mini 10v Hackintosh

  

  Apple today pushed the latest OSX update, 10.6.5. I can happily report that the update does not break a Hackintosh install on the Dell Mini 10v.

  If you’re currently running a previous edition of 10.6.x or earlier, here’s how to safely upgrade to 10.6.5:

  1. Run the latest version of Netbook Installer [direct link to file] set to defaults
  2. Restart your machine
  3. Install the update through Software Update
  4. Restart

  You’ll find it helpful to repair disk permissions through disk utility. I also ran a CleanMyMac session.

  the 10.6.5 update addresses a number of fixes, according to Apple, including:

  • Improves reliability with Microsoft Exchange servers.
  • Addresses performance of some image-processing operations in iPhoto and Aperture.
  • Addresses stability and performance of graphics applications and games.
  • Resolves a delay between print jobs.
  • Addresses a printing issue for some HP printers connected to an AirPort Extreme.
  • Resolves an issue when dragging contacts from Address Book to iCal.
  • Addresses an issue in which dragging an item from a stack causes the Dock to not automatically hide.
  • Resolves an issue in which Wikipedia information may not display correctly in Dictionary.
  • Improves performance of MainStage on certain Macs.
  • Resolves spacing issues with OpenType fonts.
  • Improves reliability with some Bluetooth braille displays.
  • Resolves a VoiceOver issue when browsing some websites with Safari 5.
  • Improves Bluetooth pairing with Magic Trackpad.
  • Resolves performance issues with third-party displays that use InstaPort technology.
  • Add SSL support for transferring files with iDisk.
  • Resolves an issue when opening 4-up Photo Booth pictures in Preview.
  • Addresses keyboard responsiveness issues in the Dock when Spaces is turned on.
  • Resolves an issue syncing Address Book with Google.
  • Fixes an issue when replying to a Mail message sent by a person whose name contains certain characters such as é or ü.
  • Improves performance for users bound to an Active Directory domain.
  • Improves reliability of Ethernet connections.
  • Systems with a Mac Pro RAID Card (Early 2009) installed can now be put to sleep. For more information, see Mac Pro RAID Card (Early 2009): Enabling system sleep.
  • Improves reliability of fibre channel connections, resolving a potential Xsan volume availability issue.
  • Adds RAW image compatibility for additional digital cameras.
  • Security improvements; for information about the security content of this update, please visit this article.

  2010.11.10

• Magazine editor plagiarizes blogger, claims Internet is public domain

  Here’s how to further destroy your career as an editor of Cooks Source Magazine after you’ve been confronted for plagiarizing content.

  Judith Griggs, the editor of Cooks Source, sent the following e-mail to a blogger who confronted her for republishing a blog post in her magazine:

  “Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was “my bad” indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.

  But honestly Monica, the web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we just didn’t “lift” your whole article and put someone else’s name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace.

  If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me… ALWAYS for free!”

  Check out more….

  Update: Both The Washington Post and BoingBoing have picked up the story.

  2010.11.04

• Qrank set to launch movie and sports channels, currently serving 200K users

  Rodney Gibbs, CEO of Austin-based developer Ricochet Labs, today made some impressive revelations about the company’s highly addictive Qrank iPhone app.

  The biggest news of Gibbs’ brief presentation, made at the InnoTech Austin conference, is that Qrank is set to launch partnerships with several sports and movie channels. Gibbs mentioned ESPN Sports as an example of a media partner. These partnerships will allow for various channels by topic. In the example of ESPN, a sports channel will let fans focus solely on sports trivia.

  Ricochet is working to allow more playable rounds of trivia each day. Qrank currently limits users to one round of trivia per day.

  Some other quick facts about Qrank, according to Gibbs:

  • about 200,000 Qrank users to date
  • 200,000 total downloads on iTunes
  • 70 percent comeback rate, the rate that measures how “sticky” the app is with users
  • 3 million games played
  • there are currently about 36,000 active live-game venues

  Qrank is working on a system that will allow for the redemption for real-world prizes. The ultimate goal is to drive traffic to businesses.

  In addition, Gibbs predicted an Android release for Qrank as early as this fall.

  2010.10.28

• Russia’s failed space program in pictures

  

  Wired Science has a fascinating gallery of the Soviet Union’s failed moon program. Wonder what this stuff would look like on the moon had the program been successful.

  2010.10.15

• Posterous gets a full feature iPhone app

  Posterous, the service that lets you blog from your email client and syndicate your stuff to services like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, just released a pretty sweet iPhone app. Sure, Posterous has had its photo app in the iTunes Store for some time, but I found it a bit clunky.

  The new Posterous app lets you post text, images, video and control geotagging and autoposting services directly from your iPhone.

  2010.10.12

• Facebook now lets you download all your stuff, adds groups

  All of your Facebook data and uploads are now portable, and can be downloaded in a single .zip file that contains your updates, photos, messages, etc. The service is rolling out over the next several days.

  Look for social networks and services that offer the ability to import this .zip file and create a new profile based on your Facebook export.

  Facebook today also announced Groups, which offers enhanced taxonomy of social connections:

  The goal is to map all real-world groups in a way that’s all-inclusive and can be used in several different contexts. Facebook wants to be the place you go for group email, group chat, etc. You can sort people by family, activities, sports teams—pretty much whatever you want. And just like anyone can tag a photo, each group can be controlled by any of its members.

  In terms of a design implications, Groups will live on the lefthand side of the page. You can send and receive email within the Group, even edit a document. It’s not clear if that collaboration can take place in real time.

  2010.10.06

• The value of plain language in government communications

  This is important. The Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN) are federal employees working to integrate simpler language into otherwise complicated legislation and policy.Based on the premise that the best content is the clearest content, the group provides a lot of resources on the value of plain language communications.

  Especially of interest are the Before and After documents.

  I’m currently writing about the role of social media in tearing down the corporate firewall between products, markets and customers, and I think plain language is a major component of that movement, as well. I’ll post the story as it’s available in the coming weeks.

  In the meantime, discover the value of plain language by reading Beth Mazur’s May 2000 article for Technical Communication, Revisiting Plain Language.

  2010.09.29