May 01, 2005

Tiger

So, Tiger has been out for a couple of days. I don't own it -- yet. I will, and the reasons are many.

The technologies behind the new operating system are, simply stated, big moves. Apple has essentially identified really granular things that the OS should be doing and moved them where they belonged. They've finally made APIs available to developers that won't be broken in the next OS release. They've opened up major technologies for easier access by developers. And they have laid the ground work for even more innovative programs and features in future releases.

Apple could spend the next two or three OS release cycles leveraging everything that Tiger is introducing under the hood. And that's why I will spend the money, and recommend anyone else spend the money, on an upgrade. This isn't a small performance boost and it isn't improvements meant to make the OS more stable and more usable (though those are there). This is, conceptually, as big a leap under the skin as was OS 9 to OS 10.

I could go on and on about the changes but, lucky for me, John Siracusa over at Ars Technica already has. In an impressive dissection of Tiger, Siracusa takes you into the guts of the new OS, as well as showing you the new applications and user interfaces. He digs under the hood and provides the reasons for speed improvements and shows all the building blocks that have to go together to make those new technologies work.

I know it is very long, sometimes rather technical and often preachy, but it is worth every minute you spend reading it. The future is there, it has to be harnessed.

Posted by Samer at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2005

Eye Candy

Tiger is coming out soon and this is a really good example of it's power: an RSS reading screen saver. Download the video and watch it. It's really breathtaking.

Posted by Samer at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)

March 04, 2005

Sudden Motion Sensor

In the latest PowerBooks, Apple has added a sudden motion sensor. The idea is if the machine senses that it is falling or moving erratically, it will park the heads of the hard disks so as to prevent damage to your data.

Well, Amit Singh over at Kernel Thread, has taken a long hard look at the software that runs this sensor and has come up with some interesting proof of concept programs to use this information. One of the programs creates a "stable" window that stays aligned properly when you rock your PowerBook back and forth.

He admits that these concepts are just teaching tools, but does posit one very interesting idea for actual use: map the movements to keyboard keys, like the right and left keys. Using something like this, you should be able to rock your laptop and scroll web pages or large images or Google Maps.

Almost makes me want to go get a new PowerBook so I can play with it.

Posted by Samer at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)

February 18, 2005

MacOSX Hint

My first MacOSXHints.com hint has been published. It's the one about the GMAP plug-in for Address Book! Go me!

Update: MacMerc made my hint the top Freeloader Friday item!

Posted by Samer at 09:28 AM | Comments (0)

February 12, 2005

Google Maps Address Book Plug-Ins

So you want to use the great Google Maps with Address Book? Why, just go get and install GMAP and you are off to the races.

GMAP in use in Address Book

It is a collection of two Address Book plug-ins that will give you two new menu items to get maps using Firefox. Since Safari is not yet supported by Google Maps, you must install Firefox for this to work.

In order to get directions, you must have set your own card. To do this, select your card in Address Book, then choose "Make This My Card" from the "Card" menu. The first address in "My Card" will be used.

I was inspired to do this (and used some of the code from) this hint at MacOSXHints.com. If you want to learn a bit about how to make an AppleScript plug-in, just read the code samples from the site and tinker. I added a bunch of comments that try to make clear what's going on where.

Thanks to UnixJunkie and MikeD.

Posted by Samer at 06:01 PM | Comments (0)

February 11, 2005

One by one

For years I've been singing the praises of the Macintosh and of Apple. Mostly no one listens, but when they do they tend to get religion. Recently, my boss (JCA) started listening. He asked a few questions here and there, and then watched the SteveNote from MacWorld. That renowned reality distortion field bit and he bought an iBook for his wife and daughter.

He loves it, as you can tell:

Well, there is nothing I don't like about it. It is the embodiment of
"living right" and the ease with which tasks are performed only
reinforces how idiotic the Windows world is.

There's no good place to start or finish, but I fired up iSync and it
did everything a sync utility should do. The first time. Using
Bluetooth. No questions asked.

For that matter, Bluetooth just works. No negotiating, no setup. It is
no wonder that BT had such a rocky start with 97% of first impressions
being on PCs. I almost gave up myself.

Safari rocks -- is is faster even that FireFox? And within 30 minutes
or so I got the feel of where settings were and how to customize.

The girls just LOVE the profile swapper. And trying that on XP is ...
well I promised myself I wouldn't cry.

There is a lot of junk on my sidewalk right now. It used by be my
Windows network. I'm definitly getting a Mac mini and might let [my daughter]
keep it.

And then I start thinking about me ...

And then I cound the days until Dashboard.

This from a man who was a diehard Windows user and could run circles around most people's daily use of that operating system. Why don't you join the Cult?

Posted by Samer at 08:19 AM | Comments (0)

January 12, 2005

iStampede

I'm as faithful a Mac head as you will ever find, but this Wired story is out of control:

Meanwhile, inside the store, employee Michael Lyen was handing out iPod shuffles as fast as he could pull them out of boxes. Many people were taking two and three at a time. It had the feel of someone handing out freebies on the street. Such is the lure of being one of the first to shell out $100 for a music player that is shorter than a pen.

Stefano Scalia, who was standing in line to buy one, said the whole experience was an exercise in being a part of what he called "Steve Jobs' reality-distortion field."

"Anything he says, everybody buys it," Scalia said. "I just wanted to run out and get one even though I'm on a tight budget.... I'm a die-hard Mac user, and basically, everyone's going to have one. I need to have one."

$300 for Shuffles? Seems the reality distortion field is in full on mode.

Posted by Samer at 09:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Apple is the iPod

And the iPod is Apple.

The SteveNote at MacWorld San Francisco was pretty damn packed with stuff. Jobs, despite having a lot of his thunder stolen the last few days by rumor sites, still managed to wow the audience.

So, the announcements fall into a few categories...

The interesting bit for me in all of this is that the Shuffle, a measly $99 product, was the "headliner". It was the trademarked "one more thing...", not the $500 Mac mini. Why is that? The iPod is the now of Apple. The music sales ($1.25 million a day) and iMac sales are being driven by the iPod. iBook sales are probably getting a boost, too.

The Mac mini isn't being introduced to get current Mac owners to buy another Mac (though, we will). It is being introduced to help move those people who bought iPods to the Mac from the WinTel world. They already have a keyboard and a mouse. And a display, too. Not to mention scanners and printers and cameras and video. Those folks are the future of Apple, and the iPod is what's getting them to the company.

If this works, and I think it will, Jobs could be an even bigger genius that I thought. Or maybe it was Phil Schiller's idea?

Posted by Samer at 12:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 12, 2004

WarDriving

I was headed to meet up with a friend of mine and I wanted to show him something on my laptop, so I took it along for the ride. I decided that since the laptop was driving with me, I'd do a little wardriving, using the MacStumbler program. Some interesting results...

I hacked up a program to take the output and crunch some numbers. Here's what I found:

The difference is pretty striking.

Posted by Samer at 12:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 05, 2004

The Reality Distortion Field

From the Jargon File:

reality-distortion field: n.

An expression used to describe the persuasive ability of managers like Steve Jobs (the term originated at Apple in the 1980s to describe his peculiar charisma). Those close to these managers become passionately committed to possibly insane projects, without regard to the practicality of their implementation or competitive forces in the marketplace.

The feeling you get when you are around Jobs is really a strange one. He's mesmerizing and dominant and, well, makes you seem like a bumbling idiot all the time. Bill Clinton had that effect on people.

These little tidbits from the Audion Story, reminded me of my own encounter with the man. The first comes after Panic's Cable Sasser gets an e-mail from Jobs:

Whoah.

That's Steve.. as in.. Jobs. Steve Jobs. Steven. P. Jobs. The guy.. who did the thing.. with the Apples and... in my INBOX.. Wozniak.. whoah. And he wants to know if WE are interested in throwing in with THEM? The guy who we basically owe our entire professional existence to, who basically created the very platform we want to hug, the computers we want to crush into little pure plump pieces of joy?

As the kids say, upon seeing some awesome frags and/or gibs: OMFG

And later, when they met with him at 1 Infinite Loop:

Anyway, a few moments later, Steve Jobs himself entered the giant Apple boardroom, threw his feet up on the table, and got to the meat of the matter.

To be honest, my memory is a bit compressed here, as the whole experience was nothing less than surreal and difficult to process. To find ourselves — just two nerdy guys who make Mac shareware — sitting on Apple Campus, in a meeting with all of these brilliant bigwigs, pretty much caused our heads to continually and rapidly explode, humbled to say the least.

This is very much in keeping with the one time I got close to him. It was at MacWorld Boston, when it was rumored that Jobs was going to go from iCEO to just plain CEO. I was sent up there to cover the event as a producer, not really having ever produced professionally before. My camera man, a local hire, turned out to be great. He figured that Jobs had not made it to the hall yet, and asked around. The doorman told him to go around back. While the rest of the media was buzzing out front, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, we took a risk and went to the back door.

A few minutes later Jobs came out of a limo that had pulled up to just where we were. I had not really been prepared to meet him, and was still in shock. I blurted out: "Are you going to say anything interesting, today?"

There was a long sickening silence as he walked away and climbed the stairs to the entrance. He then stopped, smiled and said, "I hope so!"

And, much to my shame, he vanished into the hall. Next time, Steve. Next time.

Posted by Samer at 07:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Audion Story

About a week or so ago, Panic put up the story of Audion, their ground breaking MP3 player. They had retired it, and it was time to tell its story. And what a great product story it is. It is a riveting read and, for anyone involved with the Macintosh, a wonderful trip down memory lane.

So, go read the true story of Audion and enjoy a story with as many twists and turns as a thriller.

Posted by Samer at 06:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 14, 2004

Sloooooow

I'm in a hotel that does not seem to understand what it means to do business in the 21st century. I mean, not only do they not have high speed internet in the rooms (WiFi, what's that?), they don't even have access for free in the business center. They charge $3 to set up the connection and 59 cents per minute. To use the internet. In the most wired city in America. Really guys, it might be time to pack it in and see if having something your clients want and use might make them come back.

Luckily I've got plan B. What's that you ask? Well, a GPRS connection over my GSM P800 phone. Enough acronyms? Using Bluetooth, I can make a wireless connection to my wireless phone. The phone has internet connectivity, and the computer can use that. Unless, of course, the stars are not just so.

The problem with this solution is that it is slow. S. L. O. W. That makes blogging pictures a tad difficult. Roundtrip times between me and some servers here and there are all over a second, and most over two. That makes FTPing a picture to the server very difficult, if not impossible.

I am blogging offline (I'm writing this as I wait for a friend to show up so we can go drink), and as soon as I get me some high speed, I'll post. So look for a flurry of stuff on Monday morning.

Posted by Samer at 02:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 10, 2004

Bluetooth posting

I'm sitting outside, using a wireless Bluetooth connection from my Mac to my P800 and surfing the web via the phone's internet connection. Sweet. I'll hopefully be using this to post pictures and blog entries while on the train.

Posted by Samer at 07:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 09, 2004

1001

There's this newish photo hosting service called Flickr, and I've come across a pretty nifty program that uses your Flickr account to get and download some of the latest pictures. It displays the thumbnails and lets you click on them to see the images full size. 1001 also displays a floating window that sits transparently atop all others. You can "flick" through those images when they get downloaded.

I'd requested the author make the floating window have an option to automatically flick through the new images for you, seeing as I'm really lazy and such. Amazingly, just days later, he added that. Thanks!

I never really thought it would be a cool program. It sounded interesting enough, but I couldn't really see how I would use it more than once or twice. I left it running in the background and pretty much became addicted instantly. There's a voyeuristic aspect to this, peeking in on other people's lives by seeing the pictures they choose to share with the world. A lot of pictures are ho-hum, but some are quite compelling. I'm fond of this one, which just flicked on my screen.

And, yes, in case you were wondering, this is the same guy who wrote ecto, which I wrote about recently.

Posted by Samer at 08:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 06, 2004

ecto

I've been blogging a lot, lately, and you might have wondered why. To be honest, it comes down to one thing: ease of use.

Blogging through a web interface can be tiresome: you have to log in, wait for the server to load stuff, etc. And, no matter how nice the tools you use are, like MovableType, the interface is still not all you would like it to be.

Enter ecto. This is a very well thought out and written application that lets you blog on your desktop and does the rest of the stuff in the background. It supports a number of blog publishing tools, it has a very simple and nice interface, it will do linking and images for you, it will let you add your own markup and HTML. I'm sure there's tons more features that I've just not figured out yet.

Ecto's got a free two week trial, so go try it out. I've been using mine for a week or so, since I noticed it on bOINGbOING, and I just paid the $18 for it. This software really rocks. Oh, it it even works on Windows.

Posted by Samer at 10:32 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 30, 2004

iBook is here

I ordered my new iBook and it got here last night. I'm pretty impressed with both the service and the quality of the product. Panther is truly amazing as an OS, and I'm really at a loss as to why I didn't upgrade.

The laptop get here earlier than I expected, so I'm still waiting on my extra RAM, which should be here on Monday.

As part of this update, I decided to try out a new blog authoring tool (well, new to me), called ecto. So far, I like it a lot. I need to try it out with picture posting to see how that goes.

Posted by Samer at 05:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 26, 2004

One Link

I'm going through my logs to see what sort of traffic I've been getting and noticed that I had been linked to from the comments section of a MacNN news story.

One single link has, so far, generated 84 hits from 84 distinct IP addresses. Only three took the time to go looking at the rest of the site. Just an interesting statistic, I thought I would share.

Posted by Samer at 08:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 06, 2004

Snarky Apple Employees

I went to the Apple Store near me tonight to get a pair of the new in-ear headphones. After all, Steve has said they were available today.

The snarky little ass who was at the store, said they did not have them and would not until February. When I told him that Jobs had said they would be there today, he just huffily walked away. Ass.

Posted by Samer at 09:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Garage Band

An interesting MacWorld this time. Not a whole lot of news on the hardware front. No updates to the current line of laptops and desktop, though the Xserve got iPod mini. What the hell are they thinking over there? I like the small form factor, and the fact it holds a hell of a lot more music than other similar sized players, but the damn thing is $250. For $50 more you can get a full iPod. And those colors... What were they thinking?

Don't get me wrong, this thing will sell. Just hoping it does not eat away at the low end iPod sales.

The really interesting thing for me was the new versions of iLife programs. iPhoto is finally going to be able to handle large numbers of pictures. iDVD and GarageBand. Under the silly name is what appears to be a well thought out, well executed program that is going to change the face of amateur music.

The early Macintosh changed the world of desktop publishing, and eventually brought the ability for everyone to be able to create professional looking publications. Now Apple is pushing other formerly professional things onto the home user's desktop. And they are really the only company that can do it right. They can leverage the high quality professional products that they already have (Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack, DVD Studio Pro, Logic and Shake) and put interfaces on them that just about anyone can use.

iMovie and iPhoto have really pushed the envelope in that direction. Now, GarageBand will take that to a more astonishing level. People who have talent can now really create amazing music. It means people who would not have had a chance at being heard can, for a few bucks, make a professional production.

I can't wait to see what some of my talented friends do with it.

Posted by Samer at 09:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 31, 2003

Spam

In just 60 hours, I collected 1062 pieces of spam e-mail messages.

That's just 17.7 an hour.

Thank goodness for SpamAssasin and Panix.

Posted by Samer at 06:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 19, 2003

Crash and Burn

I bought two albums yesterday from iTMS. I got Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced" and Nicola Conte's "Jet Sounds Revisited".

During the download of "Jet Sounds", my computer froze. I restarted, all the while cursing the thought that I might have to spend the next hour on the phone with Apple trying to get my music.

I restarted iTunes and clicked on the shopping cart to see what I had purchased. Sure enough, it showed only the songs that had completed the download. I then selected "Advanced -> Check for Purchased Music" from the menu and it instantly started to download the missing files.

Fantastic work Apple.

Posted by Samer at 03:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

iPod, iTunes and Apple

Apparently hell has frozen over and Apple is writing software for Windows. iTunes is now available for Windows. If you buy music online, and you think all the other online stores suck, well it is time for you to check out iTunes Music Store.

Some new features in the latest version of iTunes include: the ability to import a CD so that when you listen to it in an iPod there are no gaps between the songs; the ability to copy a link to the music store. Those two are enough to get me to upgrade.

The iTMS also has some improvements: playlists of the stars; gift certificates; allowance. They've also added the Dead and some Stones. Overall a very good upgrade.

For the iPod, Apple has introduced some third party hardware that has long been overdue. The new Belkin microphone and card reader might be reason enough for me to sell my old iPod and buy a new one.

The card reader is especially cool as it allows you to dump pictures from your flash memory cards into the iPod so you can reuse them. I think that if past rumors about a color screen iPod coming out in January are true, then this picture feature will be much used.

Posted by Samer at 02:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 29, 2003

Fire

Sometimes you don't know how good you've got it until it breaks.

For months I've been using Fire as my IM chat client. It combines AIM, Y!, IRC and a bunch of others. Yahoo!, bless them, are trying to lock out spammers from their network. But they went and broke all third party clients.

I've been using their client since Thursday. To say their client sucks would be an understatement of huge proportions.

I'm very happy that Fire can now log into Yahoo! again. Happy enough to not complain about how slow and bloated Fire feels...

Posted by Samer at 10:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 25, 2003

WWDC: iSight and iChat AV

Right off the bat, I just want to say that the iSight is probably the worst named product that Apple has ever put out.

OK, got that off my chest. Now listen up people: iSight is another step in Apple's desktop video move. In addition to being DV compliant (or so it seems as it plays well with apps other than iChat), this thing is tiny and light. Perfect for taking with you everywhere.

So is the iPod. Rumor has it that a new iPod will be out in January. Likely new feature is an screen to replace the LCD. Lighter, cheaper, consumes less power, and color to boot. Why would Apple do this? To let you view all those albums' cover art embedded into your music. At first.

My guess is that soon after, Apple will create a connector that will let you plug the iSight into the iPod. The iPod will be able to record the audio or video (or both). And you'll be able to see it all as well. Remember that you heard it here first. Not quite the replacement for a DV camcorder, but pretty cool.

iChat is also new. A public beta of iChat AV is available for download, and it seems pretty rock solid. Sadly, it seems my trusty laptop does not have the horsepower to do video conferencing, but audio would be good too.

I'm always happy with iChat's features, particularly the ability for it to use your picture and your friend's pictures from the Address Book as icons. I like that it uses my friend's names instead of the screen names if I have them entered in Address Book.

I do wish that iChat's notification sounds could be made louder without boosting the system sound. I'm often away from my machine when messages come in and would like to hear them.

I also wish that it had support for other IM servers and allowed multiple screen name logins to the same service.

Posted by Samer at 10:36 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

WWDC: Safari 1.0

Well, Safari 1.0 is finally out. Once again, Apple have done a really good job with it.

Solid, fast, and more standards compliant than most browsers these days. I really wish more sites would do the right thing and design to standards. But that's another rant for another day.

On a related note, Dave Hyatt, one of the developers of Safari, has turned comments off on his Safari blog. This is mostly because people are just rude and can't figure out that he is not the bug database for Safari.

He does say: "About the best we can do from release to release is demonstrate forward progress, and I think it's clear that we have accomplished this." Yes, there has been tremendous progress, and this is a v1 release. Having said that, there are bugs that were squashed in the previous release that seem to be back. One bug on my bank's pages I've reported using the bug reporting menu item, the rest (all minor) I can't figure out if they are Safari bugs or if the site did something new.

Still, a heartfelt thanks to Dave and the rest of the Safari team. Most of the other bugs are gone, most sites render correctly, and did I mention this thing is fast? One of my favorite things is that "check spelling while typing" is now remembered between launches. AND it recognizes HTML markup and does not mark the whole thing as misspelled any more. Good news for bloggers.

Posted by Samer at 10:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 23, 2003

Start Saving People, Start Saving

Apple's done it again. I can't believe the specs for the new G5. This thing rocks.

This is a dream machine in many ways, but there is just too much horsepower there. This is not a normal machine for normal people. This is a computer for those who like to live on the edge: fast, new technologies, up to 8 GB of RAM, etc, etc. The low end starts at $2000 and the top end at $3000. That's a dual processor G5 at 2 GHz.

Also out today is the poorly named iSight. I really don't like the name, though this is one cool looking webcam. Not cheap either -- $149. To be used with iChat AV. More on this in the next few days.

Lastly, and mostly because of when it comes out, is Panther. Another $129 update, and this time it looks like it is worth it.

I'll be posting on the various announcements over the next week. Stay tuned.

Posted by Samer at 11:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 05, 2003

iTunes, Piracy and Apple

I'm a bit late coming to the "iTunes gets crippled" game, but I read two very good articles about why people are just out of their minds for going ballistic on Apple.

To a large extent, I agree that people are over reacting. Hugely so.

For those that don't know: Apple had introduced the ability to stream music from one instance of iTunes to another. This was a wickedly cool service, as I mentioned before. But then they went and released a new version which, while still allowing local network streaming of music, disabled the ability to stream across the whole Internet.

And it was like Apple had taken out a hot poker and shoved it down people's eye sockets.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think Apple blew this one. It just is not as serious or deadly as others make it.

Firstly, it is not so bad because there are a ton of tools you can use to stream your collection across the web. It just is not going to be using iTunes' very nice interface and it is not going to be integrated.

Secondly, Apple was (over-)reacting to a real problem. People had decided to publish their libraries and were allowing everyone to stream them. That's not so bad in and of itself (after all, libraries are meant for sharing -- books, videos, magazines; this is not all that different). But then some folks figured out a way to create local copies of the streamed music. Now that's just theft. Granted, RIAA blow donkeys, but answering their greed by being exceedingly greedy yourself is not going to make matters better.

The problem I have with this change is that the ability to stream over the net is a valuable one. To be able to listen to my music while 3000 miles away in London or at my neighbor's (who happen to be on another network) would be fantastic. Apple blew it by not considering a different way to make this work while plugging the hole.

I think the solution is a simple, two pronged approach. Instead of treating your customers like children, unable to make a reasonable decision, guide them toward a decent and right decision.

Here's how: make sharing a bit more complex. When someone checks off the preference for sharing music, there should be another tick box for streaming across the net. And once you select that, an admin password should be required.

This forces the user to think about the choice they are making. And a record of that choice can be made.

If further restrictions are warranted, then they could easily make it so that you have to authenticate as the user who is running iTunes on the remote machine. Do you want to share your music so much you are willing to give everyone your password?

The best part would be that people who want to listen to their music everywhere could, and everyone who wants to give their music away would have to use something other than iTunes.

Come on Apple: This has got to be a better solution than just saying no, particularly with your record of doing the right thing by your customers.

Posted by Samer at 12:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 31, 2003

G3 Progress

This is an update on the G3 All-In-One I purchased at auction a few weeks ago.

It is now up and running smoothly. It is acting as my primary SMTP server, a Kinecta Subscriber client, an FTP server, a print server, a music server, and a file server.

This is a breakdown of the costs:

All that for the low, low price of $142. $10 less if you take out the excessive scanners. The thing just works.

The only things I still need to get working are the DAT backup drive that I got (it seems to work fine, just can't do anything with it in Mac OS X), and add some video RAM to the system.

I am running this machine, as well as my DSL router and my Ethernet bridge via the APC UPS that I picked up for $22.50.

* Taken from an older computer, thus already paid for.
** From an outfit called BatteriesPlus -- thanks James.
*** I had to buy one 128 MB memory stick, I had the other two.

Posted by Samer at 09:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 22, 2003

Standards Support

Dave Hyatt asks which W3C technology should be next on the implementation list for Safari.

I'm kind of torn between XSLT support and SVG. I really think that if Apple supported SVG in WebCore, which other programs could use, it might give a real boost to a technology that should have taken off by now.

SVG has a lot of potential, particularly since it would be easy to create interesting animated graphics programatically without having to throw money at Macromedia.

As for direct influence on my life, I would like to see XSLT support. I do a lot of work with XML and it would be great if my browser of choice could a) display XML files in a nice fashion (kind of like that beast IE) and b) if it could deal with transforms in style sheets and the like.

My vote is 1) XSLT followed quickly by 2) SVG.

Posted by Samer at 12:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 21, 2003

Music Everywhere

How cool is this: iTunes 4 has a "share music" feature. Basically it sets up a streaming server for your music library.

That G3 I got at auction now has my music collection attached to it via a FireWire drive. I can go anywhere in the world, open up iTunes, enter the server's name and instantly have access to my entire collection.

Right now I am sitting in a different room from the G3. It is ripping a CD and I am listening to those ripped tunes as I type this. Wirelessly.

I had heard about this feature, but it really does not sink in how wonderful this is until you turn it on and look from another machine. It is instantly integrated, in only the way Apple can do, into the iTunes interface and the music streams almost instantly.

Kudos Apple.

Posted by Samer at 11:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 18, 2003

Auctions are Fun!

I've just returned from a Virginia State Surplus Auction. This was at Virginia Tech and had tons of computer and other equipment.

I wound up with a bunch of stuff, including:

So far, the only thing that does not work is the shredder. The G3 is a bit of a bargain, but since I'd known nothing about it (I'd never even known of its existence) I didn't bid on more than one.

Check out the future auctions and let me know if you are going to go.

Posted by Samer at 11:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 05, 2003

Music and the Future of Apple

Apple's new Music Store is, it seems, a big hit. Even the usual suspects like it.

I think, amid the critics and the lovers of this new store, very few people are talking about the direction this could take Apple.

Sure, there has been a lot of talk about the possibilities for music, and with Jobs saying that independent music labels will have a place in the store, things are bound to change.

That's not the revolution I want to talk about tonight: I'm thinking about the direction that this store could take Apple itself.

This C|Net article is really the first inkling of what Apple's long term strategy might be. It is an interesting read, though I tend to take things that "analysts" say with a grain of salt.

Apple has already said that they plan on offering the store for Windows users. If reports are to be believed, it might well be a ported version of iTunes that Windows users will get to buy music with.

I hope this happens for a number of reasons that the C|Net article does point out. More importantly, it keeps Apple on its recent track of supporting standards and open source.

This raises some interesting questions. I've been looking at the way the music store works and based on some of the information online and what I've gleaned from looking at the traffic across my connection, it seems that -- surprise, surprise -- the music store is a WebObjects back end serving up XML. The interesting question: What will Apple do about processing the XML and accessing the web on Windows?

There has been some speculation about how closely the development of iTunes 4 and Safari are tied. I don't think that this is rampant useless debate.

If Safari came about because Apple needed a rendering engine for accessing the web, then what will they do about the Windows version? They are going to need something akin to WebCore or they can use IE's APIs. Ugh.

I suspect that Apple went with KHTML (the open source software that WebCore is based on) in part because they needed something blazingly fast. You really cannot afford to have a user waiting for many tens of seconds inside an application like iTunes. People are used to slow loading web pages, but they won't stand for an application that is slow and pokey.

I think Apple will choose to port WebCore to Windows in order to use it in iTunes on that platform. This should not be that hard, after all there already is a port of KHTML for Windows.

This is where it starts to get interesting.

Apple could, once iTunes is up and running, focus on producing Safari for Windows. There would be very little stopping them. The central parts would already be up and running, put a nice GUI around it and instantly blow past Microsoft's piss poor browser.

Apple is already convinced that Windows users are going to be a part of its future. They are making some inroads in the server market and in the scientific communities (which had almost abandoned Apple). Even my Windows centric company has purchased a number of Xserves.

The Switch campaign, the iPod for Windows, soon iTunes. Why not Safari? Open source code, coupled with standards based files and protocols all wrapped in Apple GUI goodness, technology savvy and marketing wizardry. Imagine the possibilities.

Posted by Samer at 12:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 04, 2003

ITMS Wish List

I want a "wish list" for the iTunes Music Store.

In general I shop in one of two ways:

1) I know what I want: I go to the store, make a beeline for the item I want, and then off to the cashier.

2) I browse: I go to the store with nothing in mind, I walk around, I see things that I want, I might pick them up, maybe make the rounds with them in my basket. Eventually, I'll have more things than I want or can afford. So I got through the basket and return what I don't want and buy the rest.

In ITMS, both experiences are great: I can go there, find what I want and get it. Or I can go there, place things in the shopping cart and then remove what I don't want.

The problem is the difference between shopping online, shopping in an application and shopping in a store. Stores are only open at certain times, and are in physical places. You go in and browse when you have the time and the inclination to go to the physical space.

Online shopping is more of a "if I'm looking for something, then I'll shop online" sort of experience. You don't go to Amazon because you want to walk around looking at the new books. You go to Amazon because you want to buy a book and are not sure what's new.

But when you launch iTunes to play some music, clicking on the music store logo is just too easy. You can just go to browse. No need to launch another application or type in a URL or anything.

And there's my problem: If I see five albums and twenty songs I want, I can click "buy now" and spend about $70 (plus tax -- why the fuck don't they show you the tax amount anyway?). Or I can drop everything into the shopping cart and when I'm ready to check out, I can delete three of the albums and ten of the songs to leave me at a more reasonable $30 (plus tax).

What I'd like is the option to put those three albums and ten songs in an ordered list so that I can remember to buy them later. I don't know about you, but my memory is not so good. I won't remember the name of some obscure song I listened to a preview of two days ago.

Posted by Samer at 09:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

ITMS Buying experience

After playing with the new iTunes Music Store, I finally got around to buying an album online. I got "The Very Best of Sting & The Police" (that link will only work if you have a Mac and iTunes 4).

The process was smooth and easy. I've opted to use the shopping cart so that I can change my mind. Nothing could be easier. Which frightens me a bit.

If Apple go through with adding music by the boat load and start putting on some independent music and the harder to find stuff, this will change the way music is bought and consumed.

Every CD I ever bought has been ripped onto my hard drive. Having the highest fidelity is not what I'm after: I want my music on my iPod. And ITMS makes it painfully easy to do that. A couple of clicks and you are ready to go.

Posted by Samer at 09:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 01, 2003

Rip.Mix.Burn

Why do people thing that "Rip.Mix.Burn" was a big deal? Time magazine talked to Steve Jobs about the new iTunes Music Store in this article.

The Steve's Reality Distortion Field is on full blast, and this time it really is worth it. Some observations about the interview:

On the question of how ITMS will change the digital music world, Jobs says "With the introduction of the new iTunes Music Store we've now built the first real complete ecosystem for the digital music age." And I think he's right. From buying the music to listening to it, Apple owns the whole widget. Everything in line is done in the "Apple Way": clean, well designed, well thought out. It just works.

My iPod works. It is a joy to use. When was the last time you said that about something? When was the last time you wanted to run a piece of software (iTunes) and was happy for it do exactly what you want? When was the last time you spent hours browsing through a store? Online?

Back to the interview -- this is my favorite exchange:

TIME: The Wall Street Journal recently fashioned you as a "digital music  impresario." How do you feel about that?
Jobs: I didn't know what it meant. Does that mean I run a carnival? What we do  at Apple is very simple: we invent stuff. We make the best personal computers  in the world, some of the best software, the best portable MP3/music player,  and now we make the best online music store in the world. We just make stuff.  So I don't know what impresario means. We make stuff, put it out there, and  people use it.
Clearly, we've been leading the revolution. The personal computer is  changing into this digital hub for a digital lifestyle, so  we've been leading that change.   Digital moviemaking, DVD burning, digital photography, and of course, digital  music ? we are in the forefront.

"We just make stuff". The understatement of the (still young) millennium.

Posted by Samer at 10:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack