MacDood: 2009

Friday, December 25, 2009

It's a Scutigera coleoptrata Christmas, everybody! Boing Boing

It's a Scutigera coleoptrata Christmas, everybody!

friendly neighborhood spider santa

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

MClasen Home Page

MAC Musings

My Top Ten Teck List from 2009

10. 10. AppleCare. I have had two, count ‘em, two com- puters replaced by AppleCare in their last months of coverage over the last few years. This year, it turned out there was a conflict with my particular video card and System Updates 10.5.7 and 10.5.8 that caused the video to freeze about once a day. Kind of an annoying problem, dontcha think? In PC land they would just pop in a different video card and voila: problem fixed. But this is not the Apple way. They elected to replace my 24” iMac after 35 of its 36 months of war- ranty had elapsed with a brand new computer. Most Excellent! http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/applecare

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Grom the DVMUG newsletter

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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

So say we all

http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/12/22/iphone-3g-now-the-most-popular-phone-in-the-us/

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The North Face brings iPod controls to the sleeves of two new winter jackets

Cult of Mac
December 22, 2009 7:33 AM
by John Brownlee

The North Face brings iPod controls to the sleeves of two new winter jackets

The iPod is always a tricky thing to manipulate in this chapping, frostbiting weather. In the December wind, the hand freezes quickly in a contorted, blue-skinned claw around the iPod Classic; fingers pressed against the iPhone’s frigid touchscreen tend to break off like icicles at the tips. For iPod manipulation in these hypothermic months, then, [...]

News iPod

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Monday, December 21, 2009

How to survive a shipwreck - Holy Kaw!

Holy Kaw! All the topics that interest us

How to survive a shipwreck

Posted Dec 20th, 2009 at 5:45 PM and seen 3458 times

Aha! Here's another article to tuck under "If only I had read this before I became a pirate." Wired teaches us how to survive at sea. Tips include:

- Remember Titanic - Never let go. Cling to anything floaty, cling as long as you can. Avoid giant, still-spinning propellers

- I don't care if you're a pirate. Stay away from the rum. Alcohol dehydrates you.

- Put down the sea water, too. Unless you have a sore throat (still a dubious choice in these adrift circumstances), saltwater is rather bad for you.

Drift over to Wired to read all the tips.

via holykaw.alltop.com

just in case it DOES happen

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Sunday, December 20, 2009

What I Bought This Year - Pogue’s Posts Blog - NYTimes.com

* Readability. The Web experience has completely changed for me since I installed this free browser add-on. With one click, it re-formats any Web article into what resembles a printed book page or a Kindle page, and it’s glorious. No ads, no blinking, no colored backgrounds, no white-on-black type, no tiny fonts. Read more here.

via pogue.blogs.nytimes.com

Thanks Pogue

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Mail: Status column can display unread count from message threads | Finer Things in Mac

Mail: Status column can display unread count from message threads

16. Dec, 2009 2224051371 Comment2009-12-16+18%3A25%3A12Submission

If you use the threading view in Mail (View > Organize by Thread), you can change the width of the status column to show the number of unread items in a thread. This column also displays other icons next to individual messages to denote when you have replied or forwarded them.

Mail has done this for some time, at least since 10.4 Tiger.

via finerthingsinmac.com

I did not know that

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The 10 Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time « Whatever

A Canadian Christmas with David Cronenberg (1986)

Faced with Canadian content requirements but no new programming, the Canadian Broadcasting Company turned to Canadian director David Cronenberg, hot off his success with Scanners and The Fly, to fill the seasonal gap. In this 90-minute event, Santa (Michael Ironside) makes an emergency landing in the Northwest Territories, where he is exposed to a previously unknown virus after being attacked by a violent moose. The virus causes Santa to develop both a large, tooth-bearing orifice in his belly and a lustful hunger for human flesh, which he sates by graphically devouring Canadian celebrities Bryan Adams, Dan Ackroyd and Gordie Howe on national television. Music by Neil Young.

via whatever.scalzi.com

so sorry I missed this one - LOL

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AMC - Blogs - SciFi Scanner - John Scalzi

John Scalzi

John Scalzi - The Winners and Losers of '00s SciFi Movies

As we continue our look through a decade of science fiction, it becomes evident that in the past ten years there have emerged winners and losers in the field. Who and what are they? Hey! I'm getting to that!

via blogs.amctv.com

I mostly agree - I liked Revenge of the Sith and Resident Evil

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HOWTO make rim-perching adorable tiny gingerbread houses for your cocoa Boing Boing

HOWTO make rim-perching adorable tiny gingerbread houses for your cocoa

Megan from NotMartha.org has created these tiny adorable gingerbread houses designed to perch on the rim of your hot chocolate mug, and she thoughtfully provided a downloadable pattern for making your own.

via boingboing.net

for you crafty types

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Saturday Morning Science Experiment: Science Party Tricks Boing Boing

Saturday Morning Science Experiment: Science Party Tricks

via boingboing.net

try them all

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Thursday, December 17, 2009

Mac Gems of the Year (2009) Review | Software | Mac Gems | Macworld

by Dan Frakes, Macworld.com

‘Tis the season of awards here at Macworld. Earlier this week, we unveiled our 25th annual Editors’ Choice Awards, given to our favorite Mac hardware and software products of the past year. Next week, you’ll see the App Gems, our favorite iPhone apps. So it’s only fitting that I give props to my favorite Mac Gems of the past 12 months.

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These aren’t our all-time favorite Gems (although a few may make our next all-time list), and it’s different from the Gems I’m thankful for (a list of software I personally use every day). Rather, these are the 11 Mac Gems, reviewed between November 1, 2008 and November 1, 2009, that stood out for their usefulness, value, innovation, or overall excellence. A couple were so good that they ended up winning Eddy awards, as well.

Without further ado, the Gems of the Year, in alphabetical order:

Back-In-Time (): Time Machine, Mac OS X’s built-in backup feature, provides peace of mind by automatically backing up your data and, just as important, making it dead-simple to recover lost files or older versions. However, Time Machine’s interface and capabilities are quite limited. Back-In-Time offers an advanced interface for Time Machine, providing many more options for, and much more flexibility when, browsing and recovering files. $29; Tri-Edre.

ClickToFlash (): This must-have Flash-blocking plug-in for Safari makes browsing the Web a much more pleasant experience by letting you decide which Flash content to view on each Website. It can also automatically load the H.264 version of videos on YouTube. We liked ClickToFlash so much, we gave it an Eddy (click for the full writeup). Free; ClickToFlash Team.

Docks (): Utilities for creating and switching between multiple Dock configurations—so you can use different Docks for different groups of tasks, or keep a stock Dock handy for screenshots—have been around for years, but Docks stands out for its ease of use and attractive interface. Alas, the Website of the developer, Thoughtful Tree Software, recently dropped off the ‘net. Hopefully, this is a temporary condition and it will be back online soon. Update: The developer of Docks has told me that the software will be available again by the end of the month. $10; Thoughtful Tree Software.

Growl (): This behind-the-scenes utility provides a systemwide notification service used by many Mac programs and system add-ons. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, more and more of my favorite applications and services take adantage of Growl to provide notifications and updates—I can see when downloads and file transfers have finished, when new messages have arrived, when video conversions have completed, when my laptop’s power cable has been disconnected, and much more. An example of a great use of Growl notifications is HardwareGrowler, which informs you of hardware and network connections and disconnections. Free; Growl Developers.

I Love Stars (): For those who meticulously rate their iTunes media for sorting and for use as criteria in smart playlists, this menubar and keyboard-shortcut utility makes the process simple and convenient—I Love Stars even reminds you, partway through each unrated song, to rate. It's a niche product, but it's useful, intuitive, and elegantly implemented—right down to the way its stars "roll off" the menu bar when iTunes playback stops, and roll back on when playback resumes. Free; Potion Factory.

Layers (): This mind-blowing (at the time of release) screenshot utility creates layered Photoshop images—every onscreen item gets its own layer, letting you tweak, move, or delete any item after the fact. You can also filter particular onscreen elements out of your screenshots at the time of capture. For people who work with screenshots, Layers means no more manually moving and hiding windows and icons in order to get the perfect shot, and no more retaking screen captures because you missed something in your preparations. The Eddy-winning Acorn now includes a similar feature, but Layers continues to offer more features and options. $25; Wuonm.

MondoMouse (): MondoMouse is a bit difficult to explain: It lets you move and resize windows, in any program, without having to grab a thin title bar or tiny resize handle. You just move the cursor over the window you want to modify, press your chosen modifier key(s), and then move the mouse; the window moves or resizes with the cursor. (Still not clear? Check out our Macworld Video on MondoMouse.) It may not sound impressive, but once you’ve used it, you’ll never go back to clicking and dragging windows. $15; Atomic Bird.

RipIt (): It’s wrong to copy DVDs you don’t own, but there are plenty of legitimate reasons for ripping DVDs you’ve purchased. RipIt lets you rip those DVDs with a single click of the mouse; you can watch the resulting VIDEO_TS folder on your laptop using DVD Player or convert it to a format playable on your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. There’s no other Mac software out there that can handle as many different discs as RipIt—including the latest movies that can trip up utilities such as HandBrake and MacTheRipper. Like ClickToFlash, above, RipIt is also an Eddy winner. $20; The Little App Factory.

ScreenSharingMenulet (): The Screen Sharing feature in Leopard and Snow Leopard makes it easy to view or control another Mac. However, making screen-sharing connections can be a hassle. ScreenSharingMenulet gives you a systemwide menu that automatically lists any Mac on your local network available for screen sharing, as well as any remote Macs you connect to; just choose a computer from the menu to instantly start a screen-sharing session. Payment requested; Stefan Klieme.

Shimo (): While Snow Leopard's built-in VPN (virtual private network) client is much better than the one included with older versions of Mac OS X, Shimo is still a big improvement. It supports Cisco and other networks, provides better reliability and more flexibility than the built-in VPN functionality, and offers many automated actions. If you regularly connect to a VPN, you owe it to yourself to give Shimo a try. $21; nexUmoja.

USB Overdrive (): This third-party driver has long provided Mac users with support for otherwise unsupported keyboards, mice, and gaming devices. It also provides additional features for many supported accessories. Version 3 added 64-bit support, a revamped user interface, many new actions and settings, and compatibility with even more devices. $20; Alessandro Levi Montalcini.

Updated 12/11/2009, 9:43am: Updated with information about the availability of Docks.

Want to stay up to date with the latest Gems? Sign up for the Mac Gems newsletter for a weekly e-mail summary of Gems reviews sent directly to your Inbox.

See more like this:

backup,

Time Machine,

system enhancement,

system utilities,

web browsers,

docks,

iTunes,

music utilities,

image editing consumer,

screen capture,

video utilities,

DVD ripping,

input,

keyboards,

mice,

network

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let the lists begin

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about | electric sheep

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kewl screensaver

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The idiot's guide to Google Wave | News | TechRadar UK

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Still trying to figure it out

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Cousin Itt

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Monday, December 14, 2009

Tool-using animals: Now with 100% more invertebrates!

Boing Boing
December 14, 2009 2:51 PM
by Maggie Koerth-Baker

Tool-using animals: Now with 100% more invertebrates!

Warning: This video contains footage of an octopus hiding under a coconut shell that it has carried around just in case it needed to hide from something. Watching this footage may contradict your previous assumptions about animal tool use, and may be too adorable for some viewers.

National Geographic: Octopuses Carry Coconut Shells as Instant Shelters