If you are a PC owner running some flavor of Windows, have you had a chance to try out Google Chrome yet? Chrome is a new internet browser created by the fine folks at Google. Now, you may be asking yourself why you might want to try yet another browser, but if you’re like me, you like running programs that have very small footprints and don’t eat up a lot of resources. As much as I love Safari, Firefox, and Camino, they are a bit resource intensive, and running slightly older hardware means I need to conserve as much processing power as possible.

But wait, isn’t Camino a browser for the Mac OS? Yes, yes it is, which brings me to the point of this blog post - where’s my Chrome? You know, the version for us Apple lovers. Well, according to Google’s website, the Mac and Linux versions are currently under development. This is fine and all, but I am really anxious to try it out on my aging PowerBook G4, otherwise known as ‘Old Faithful’. Truth be told, I’d prefer Google take their time and get it right then push out a sloppy, half-arsed release, but I am looking forward to the day I can run my games in windowed mode without having to shutdown my browser to help increase performance.

- Joshua

Filed under macintosh apple google chrome browser

/rant-mode on

I don’t think I’ve ever used any other piece of software that gets updated more often then iTunes. Almost every time a software update comes down the pipe for OS X, some update and/or fix for iTunes is somehow attached to it. It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to restart my computer with each and every update, but when I have multiple programs open that I’m using needing to be shutdown and re-opened when the restart finishes, well, let’s just say it bugs the crap out of me.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t commend Apple for being so diligent about updating their software, and iTunes is one very complex program. Housing an audio player, video player, and a full-featured storefront for downloadable content, it really does handle a lot of tasks in one package, necessitating lots of updates on a regular basis. It never fails to grind my gears, though, whenever the software update pops up with a need to update on what seems like a weekly basis.

/rant-mode off

- Joshua

Filed under itunes apple computer software

When you think of introductory program languages, what do you think of? Basic? C? Certainly not C++, right? Well, according to the College of Business and Public Policy at UAA, C++ is the best language to learn for an intro. to programming course. I was always told (rightfully so, I think) it is a high level programming language and can be quite difficult to learn.

I’m not questioning the department’s decision so much as I’m curious how this class will pan out. They’ve been doing this for a long time so I’m pretty sure they know what they’re doing, but when I tell people what the curriculum covers they get a puzzled look on their face and say, “they’re really teaching that in a beginner course?” Oh well, I’m excited for the prospect of learning a new language, I’m just hoping it doesn’t chew me up and spit me back out. Time will tell, I guess.

- Joshua

Filed under programming language computer c++ school college

For whatever reason, links within blog posts on this site are not working properly. The HTML code is automatically adding extra information to each link and I’m trying to figure out why. I have a workaround in place, but it means updating each link manually. So, if you come across some that are still broken, please be patient while I get them fixed. Thanks!

EDIT: At the risk of sounding like a whiner, this is proving to be a real pain in the butt. Most of the links should now point to their correct destinations, but certain links’ behaviors are still acting a bit wonky. I prefer it when clicking on any link inside a blog post opens a new tab or window and does not display the newly accessed page in the existing tab or window. Well, some are working this way and some aren’t, but I’m determined to get them all updated. Patience is a virtue, I guess.

- Joshua

One thing we really, really like about our Macintosh computers is the plethora of awesome shareware and freeware applications available for OS X. The following list is a collection of some of our favorites:

1) AdiumX

Need an all in one IM client? AdiumX has been on the scene for quite some time and has steadily grown to become the most widely used client for OS X users. With a bevy of useful features, we’re surprised the company hasn’t started charging for this wonderful app.

2) Colloquy

Like AdiumX, Colloquy is a robust and beautifully designed freeware IRC client. While it does lack a bit for programming and running automated scripts, the easy to use interface makes it our favorite out of those available as a free download.

3) NetNewsWire

Up to a few months ago, NewsGator was charging for their premium RSS client, NetNewsWire. With a huge list of pre-entered feeds and a built in web browser which allows you to open stories and links directly within the program, this one gets our vote as the cream of the crop. So much so, in fact, we’d have been willing to pay full price for it if when it wasn’t free.

4) Transmission

Transmission is an open source bittorrent client for *nix based operating systems. While it might not be as feature-rich as the Windows-only µTorrent, the primary and most needed functions are all present.

5) Cyberduck

There are quite a few FTP clients available for OS X, but most of the free ones aren’t nearly as cool as Cyberduck. Lightweight, fast, and sporting an eye-pleasing GUI, it is a great FTP client for the thrift-minded webmaster.

There are a lot more candidates worthy of any spot on this list, but these are the ones we use every day. If you want to see what else is out there, look no further than VersionTracker (which has selections for multiple operating systems) or MacUpdate.

Filed under software shareware freeware apple macintosh os

Besides a few UI annoyances and minor issues with Spaces, OS X Leopard is pretty sweet. And, even though I gripe about Spaces from time to time, I don’t think I could live without it now that it is a “use it every day” tool for me. Yes, all in all I’m quite happy with how things are functioning on our computers.

There is one issue I’ve encountered, though, that seemed to rear its ugly little head as early as Leopard update 10.5.1. Every now and then, I completely lose sound on my PowerBook G4. No, not that I just can’t hear sound through the speakers, the computer doesn’t recognize an audio output device whatsoever. Resetting the computer seems to work okay, but it happens so frequently lately, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s a problem with Leopard or an issue with the sound card itself.

Some hunting on the internet shows it’s happening to others, but I can’t find any sites where Apple has acknowledged the issue and plans to release a fix in the near future. Honestly, it may be affecting so few users it might not warrant the troubleshooting effort from the fine folks in Cupertino, but it certainly is annoying for those of us who suddenly lose iTunes functionality during our favorite songs.

- Joshua

Filed under os leopard apple macintosh

When your trade paperback and graphic novel collection comes close to exceeding two hundred books, it can be difficult keeping track of everything. The worst part is trying to remember which copies of certain titles you need. Thankfully, a company called Bruji has created a database program specifically for cataloging books - Bookpedia. It has built-in, iSight driven barcode scanning software; once your books are scanned in, Bookpedia references the ISBN with the Amazon catalog and dynamically pulls all the book's information into your library. The thing I like most about the software is the ability to create a wish list of titles I need, which can easily be transferred over into the main library database once I've purchased them. This, of course, means no more guessing and trying to keep track of hundreds of books.

Bruji also has 3 other titles designed for keeping track of your movie, music, or video game collection. Each can be purchased individually or as bundles, with greater discounts depending on how many you purchase. There are other programs available, but I liked Bookpedia's clean, iTunes like interface the most.

- Joshua

Filed under bookpedia bruji software database apple macintosh

One of the things that bummed us out about the Xbox 360 was a dependency on Microsoft software for using extra features available on the console - most notably, digital content streaming. In order to stream music, pictures, or video from your computer, you originally had to be running some flavor of Microsoft OS (XP or Vista) so you could use Windows Media Player version 11 (WMP11). WMP11 has a built-in ability to search out other systems on your network to stream content to, and the Xbox 360 is one the systems it recognizes as a compatible device. This is all fine and dandy for Windows users, but what about us MacOS users?

Yes, we could climb out from under our safety blankets and install Windows through one of a couple of virtualization programs available for OS X, or we could make use of Apple's Boot Camp, but we really, really don't want to. We're forced to use PCs at work and school on a regular basis, but we choose to use our Macs at home. We realize this limits us, but when company's like Nullriver are awesome enough to recognize the need for software alternatives for Mac users, we get to stay sheltered in our comfortable Apple world just a little bit longer.

Connect360 is a program which runs as a preference pane plugin and acts just as WMP11 would for streaming media from a Mac to a Xbox 360. We tested it out last night and found that it works flawlessly. Due to limitations of the Xbox 360 for only accepting certain video types, we had to convert some videos to a compatible format before they would work, but it wasn't a big deal or inconvenience. A few TV episodes and movie trailers later, we realized Connect360 is $20 very, very well spent.

Filed under connect360 xbox 360 microsoft streaming

The buzzword around my office over the past few months has been VMware. I never took much interest in conversations regarding this process of server virtualization, but that's also because I didn't have a clue what it was. My computing interests lie primarily in web design and application programming for the web, and I don't pay much attention to anything else computing related. After hearing everyone short of the janitors muttering VMware all the time, I finally asked one of our network engineers what it is. Here is what he said:

Like an emulator, VMware software provides a completely virtualized set of hardware to the guest operating system. VMware software virtualizes the hardware for a video adapter, a network adapter, and hard disk adapters. The host provides... (more)

Okay, that's not exactly what he said, but it's pretty much his explanation in a nutshell. Now that I know, I could care less about it; hardware and software on that level just doesn't interest me in the slightest. Now, if VMware was a new, sleek scripting language, I'd be a lot more excited to finally be in the know.

- Joshua

Filed under vmware computer

We're not sure how many people listen to the streaming internet radio station we have available through this site (as far as we know, only the two of us tune in), but anyone who does has probably noticed the station going down from time to time. The music is streamed from a computer in our house, randomly pulling songs from a library of over 100GB of music. If the connection through our ISP ever hiccups or bugs out, we may get a new dynamic IP address assigned once the connection is restored. If that's ever the case, we need to go in and make tunneling allowance adjustments and link updates on the site before everything is back in working order. A recent outage has the station (you guessed it) unavailable for the time being, but we'll be sure to make the necessary fixes over the weekend.

Filed under radio station streaming

CanSecWest security conference's PWN 2 OWN hacking contest was held earlier this week, in which 3 laptop computers and as much as $20,000 in prize money was up for grabs. The prize laptops were also the targets for the hackers, and required being hacked under certain conditions; one running Windows Vista SP1, one with an up-to-date flavor of Linux, and the last running OSX Leopard with the most recent updates installed. This article has most of the details of what happened, but the major eye opener was the MacBook Air being hacked in under two minutes while the other two laptops remained steadfast and un-breached.

I don't know what the full implications of these results are, but I do know that Apple is probably scrambling right now to get a security patch ready for a near future system update. It sounds like the contestants were not your average-fare script kiddies, so I doubt anyone will be running out and crashing a slew of Apple computers anytime soon. Still, though, it is pretty scary stuff.

- Joshua

Filed under apple macintosh macbook air os hack security

So, you've decided the default widgets that come preloaded in OS X just aren't enough and you're wanting more. The best place to look, of course, is the downloads section on Apple's website. With that in mind, here are 5 freeware widgets you may want to consider adding to your collection:

1) iStat Pro

iStat Pro displays information about your computer, such as internal temperature gauges, active fan speeds, current memory usage, and so much more.

2) SeeSS

Do you work in web design, either recreationally or professionally? Have you realized the power of hand coding your sites, but have a hard time remembering all of those CSS commands? Don't worry, SeeSS has you covered.

3) Wikipedia

Wikipedia is an on-line encyclopedia that houses references and articles about almost everything under the sun. The Wikipedia widget is a companion to the site that allows you to search for articles and items without having to navigate to the site within a browser.

4) PEMDAS

Find the default calculator widget lacking? Yeah, us too. Luckily, a like-minded coder developed PEMDAS, a scientific calculator that performs many, many functions.

5) ROT13 [delen]code Widget

If you post on message forums, then it's possible you know about proper etiquette when it comes to posting spoiler information. One method employed by many forum sites is ROT13, a code language that requires decoding to understand it. With the ROT13 [delen]code Widget, you no longer need to have a separate browser window or tab open - you can just use this handy widget.

Filed under widget apple macintosh os

In my organization, Thursdays consist of meetings in which we discuss upcoming events and collaborate with other departments. Today our boss told us we'd be re-visiting the idea of supporting Windows Vista for our users. You see, we decided last year when Vista was released that it was far too unstable for us to comfortably support. We didn't tell our users they couldn't use it, but they were pretty much on their own if they decided to. This was a difficult decision for us to make since most of the computer retail industry now only offers Vista on computers for sale. We also know this alienates many students (staff and faculty could simply keep using XP on their work machines) since a lot of them tend to buy new computers in the Fall to use in the upcoming school year.

Next month, Microsoft is scheduled to release service pack 1 for Vista, which is a collection of major bug fixes and patch implementations. During that time we'll be testing and re-testing it to see if it has come far enough in the year since its release to receive our stamp of approval. No one in our office uses Vista whatsoever, even on our personal machines, so we're quite literally jumping back to square one with these tests. I am on the committee who has the final say in approving the updated version, so hopefully we'll have some good news for those who are currently using the product.

- Joshua

Filed under microsoft windows vista os software computer

One of the major perks of working in IT is all the software we have access to. We get beta test versions, site licensed versions, free versions, and other versions. Due to licensing restrictions, though, the one type of software we do not have access to is software released by Apple. This stinks for me since I am the "Apple guy" in our office, but it doesn't mean goodies never come down the pipe for me. We are privy to a lot of software created by third part manufacturers.

As I walked into work this afternoon and approached my desk, I saw a glowing gift from the gods leaning against my monitor; we finally got our site licensed copy of Microsoft Office 2008. I've been running 2004 for awhile, so I wasn't in need of a productivity suite. I am, however, anxious to try out the newest version since, well, I'm a computer geek and I just really want to. Word on the "intarwebs" is 2008 isn't quite ready for primetime and should be avoided like the plague until Microsoft releases at least one major patch. Temptation and curiosity has gotten the better of me, so I wasted no time getting it installed. I have yet to even crack the seal on any of the programs and give them test drives, but I'll be sure to report any major findings on our blog. If you are waiting on the fence like a lot of people, feel free to send me an e-mail with any questions and I'll see if I can answer them.

- Joshua

Filed under office software

Today at MWSF (that's MacWorld San Francisco for all you n00bs), Apple announced the release of the MacBook Air, the newest addition to Apple's family of laptops. The Air is is a subcompact notebook designed for lightweight portability and is less than 1" thick. It has many awesome features you can learn about by watching this video, but our favorite has to be the networked optical drive. The Air does not have a built-in optical drive, but instead can piggy back off a drive installed in any other Mac on a shared local network. If you own any other Macintosh computer running OS X, all you need to do is put an optical media disc in its optical drive and the Air can read the contents of the disc - very, very spiffy.

Filed under macbook air apple computer

In my place of business, we use Microsoft Exchange Server as our preferred e-mail server software. Being a Microsoft product, it doesn't like to play well with non-Microsoft e-mail clients such as Mail.app, Thunderbird, and others. This normally isn't a problem since we use PC's running Windows XP as our primary work computers and Outlook 2007 as our preferred client. For Apple OS X, Microsoft does make an Office suite that includes an Exchange compatible e-mail client called Entourage. I should, therefore, be ready to setup my work e-mail with full Exchange properties at home on our iMac, right? Well, if only I was complacent with being allowed to use Entourage and no other client.

Despite multiple websites and message forums saying it is either impossible or, with some serious tweaking, a major headache to try and use any other client, I still thought I had the chops to make magic happen. I first installed Entourage so I would have a client that would work properly no matter what. I then started installing numerous other clients to see if I could get them to interact with our Exchange server. I was able to use the e-mail portion with no major hiccups, but I couldn't find any software that was able to utilize Exchange calendaring. I did find a workaround, though, or so I thought.

iCal, Apple's free calendar program that comes included with Leopard, has the ability to import calendar settings from an Entourage account that is actively installed on the same computer. Bingo, herein was my solution. Only after importing the Entourage calendar into iCal did I notice that my work PC no longer had any appointments showing up in Outlook. Even my appointments in Entourage were gone. Not a single previous or future appointment existed on any of my computers. WTF? Luckily, my calendar isn't completely borked and I'm able to receive and create new meetings and appointments, but why would Apple set iCal to do something like this? Is it a bug or programming oversight? I guess I've got more research to do, but I am done with attempting to thwart the Microsoft beast... for now.

- Joshua

Filed under exchange leopard microsoft os apple computer

Head First Labs, a subdivision of O'Reilly Media, Inc., publishes a wide variety of how-to technology guides focusing on programming languages. I'm in the process of reading one of their books, Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML. What sets it apart from similar books is that its written in a fun and friendly style that is engaging and easy to comprehend, which is very important for people who would rather set fire to their eyebrows than read any kind of tech manual. Though I work in IT and love computers, I am definitely one of those people.

Once I finish their HTML book, I want to move on to a book that teaches Javascript (or perhaps a book that focuses primarily on CSS). When I first realized I wanted to progress in this direction, Head First Labs didn't have a Javascript book available from their library. I was worried I would have to suffer through a terribly dry and boring book by some other publisher, and then the gods smiled upon me - Head First Labs announced the release of a Javascript book. I don't know if it is as reader friendly as the HTML book, but I'm anxious to find out. If anything, at least I can say learning the basics of HTML and CSS wasn't a chore.

- Joshua

Filed under head first javascript programming book

We performed the transition from OS X Tiger to Leopard yesterday on one of our laptops, and everything went smooth as silk. As with any new OS release, regardless of brand or franchise, some things can be fairly painful or downright broken, and we were prepared for the worst. After roughly three hours of installation and configuration time, the laptop was up and running with zero snags or glitches. Granted, we waited nearly two full months after Leopard was released for Apple to work out the initial bugs, but even this early in the OS's life cycle, it's safe to say we're very pleased so far.

We still have two more computers to upgrade and we're very confident the process will be just as painless. For those of you who aren't familiar with Leopard, we recommend visiting Apple's website to read about the newest features. Spaces and Time Machine by themselves are easily worth the price of admission.

Filed under leopard os apple computer