MacBreak Tech

We’re reminded again of just how amazing the Airport Express is after setting one up last night. from the setup to using it could not be simpler. naming the network was a longer discussion then actually configuring it including turning on internet, music and printing features.

after it was working with the internet we plugged the printer into the USB port on the Express. and about a minute later it was printing from two Macs after adding the printer from the Bonjour list. printing to it appeared no different in performance then when it was directly connected. allowing a Windows machine needed Bonjour for Windows to work. printing commenced after installing it. here’s the directions for adding a printer to XP for an Airport Express.

last we plugged a long cable running to the main stereo into the 3.5mm jack. the demo for that was this:

Open iTunes on your computer.
Okay.
Down on the lower right side there’s a thing that says “computer” click on that.
It’s says “Lily” and “Computer”
Right. That’s your network. Select “Lily” and then play something.
[music plays from main stereo]
DUDE! that’s my music!
ROCK!
ROCK indeed…

one thing that I hadn’t noticed before is a feature called “Global Bonjour” which allows to anyone print to your printer anywhere on the internet if they know the address. must learn more about this potentially way awesome feature.

airport express

if you’ve never read Programmers at Work it’s because it’s been out of print for almost two decades. you can find it used on Amazon but I’ve never seen in a used bookstore. it’s a book that captures a mind set for problem solving in a infectious way. some would say that it’s so old and out of date there’s no useful information in it. but keep in mind these people were making computers do amazing things back in the day with limited resources. remember that Visicalc is just 27K. anyway the book is now online made available by the author. check it out!

programmersatwork.wordpress.com/

That was fast. Hello 2008!

Lots of people say that the “Desktop” is a bad thing but it’s really not. It’s a visual place for things that you are working on right now. Here’s a guy that snapped his work space everyday for the last year and made those images into a movie.Link

Want proof that if you have a problem all you have to do is tell what your problem is and somebody listening on the intercom will solve it for you? I was complaining that maps.google.com didn’t parse a two line address that got pasted into the search field. The first line makes it and the second line is disappeared. An address has to be on one line to get pasting to work. That you have to pre-format makes the experience less like the magic that it could be.Enter the magic: googmappin.com takes your address that is formatted on multiple lines and feeds it to google correctly formatted. So cool. Follow the link then drag the URL to your Bookmarks bar in Safari or Bookmark it (Command-D) to the Bookmarks bar and name it maps. Now when you need a map just click that button and paste the address.

Here’s something that we’ll cover in a future show. It’s a Automator action that allows you to run a Python script just like how you can run AppleScript. Link.

One feature that Leopard killed was rounded corners on the display. Roundyness is a left over from the old days of CRT. Unlike a green phospher 80×24 character the corners of the bezel made the 512×342 bitmap look wrong. Obviously a pointy corner next to a soft curve looks a lot like a circle in a box. Rounded corners made the Mac 128K very stylish. Yet it was an often unnoticed feature. Later when flat screens came in vogue in the middle 90’s the CRT often had a squared bezel. But the Mac didn’t follow that design keeping it like it always was.

It was likely a focus group of Windows notebook users that brought the corners up as a potentionial problem. Like somehow a display that is 1440×900 somehow isn’t really that big because its missing 6 pixels per corner. That some frivolous class action suit would be brought against Apple for falsely advertising screen size. Morons. The corner isn’t used for anything except as a target so who cares.

So this little app called Displaperture brings roundy corners back to Leopard. You’d think, “what’s the big deal about the corners” until you run it and see that yes indeed it fixes a problem that you didn’t even know was a problem until seeing the problem corrected. It’s the little things like roundy corners that make a Mac a Mac. 

Displaperture