Maria’s Guides

Article on Informit.com

My latest article for Informit.com has finally been published there.

From the introduction to “Publish a Video Podcast with WordPress“:

Maria Langer’s helicopter jaunts are too spectacular to be described with mere words; adding video podcasts to her web site would give visitors a taste of the thrill they’d be buying when they signed up for a trip. In this article, Maria takes us on a tour of the software that made it all possible.

I didn’t write that. But I think it’s funny, so I figured I’d quote it.

If you’re interested in using WordPress to publish a video podcast, read the article. Due to copyright agreements with Informit.com, I can’t reproduce it here. But I may turn it into a podcast episode one day soon. Stay tuned.

An Apple technical note that explains and lists Mac OS builds.

You can choose Apple > About this Mac to get basic information about your Macintosh, including the version of System software installed, the model name, and the amount of RAM. But if you click the System software version information, the display changes to indicate a specific build of that system software. You can see this in the screen shot here.

Apple’s support Web site has additional documents that tell you more about build information. From Mac OS X: About This Mac “build” information on :

The build version you see depends on the version of Mac OS X that you have installed. The version changes when you use the Software Update feature to update core system software.

The article lists various versions of Mac OS and corresponding builds and provides helpful links to related documents.

Ah! I’m not the only one using iCal for scheduling, planning, and maintaining a to do list.

Merlin Mann is like me in at least one respect: he’s a Mac user who uses iCal despite the fact that there may be more powerful calendar applications out there.

From 43F Recap: Best of iCal Tips | 43 Folders on 43 Folders:

Yes, friends, I do still spend a lot of my day shaking my hammy fist in impotent rage at iCal’s numerous shortcomings, but I’ve reached a kind of détente with Apple’s stock calendaring app, and along the way I’ve discovered some modest ways to squeeze more drops of Cupertino-y goodness from its moist Jolly Rancher-like pages. Here’s a few of my favorites.

Merlin then goes on to list articles (with links, of course) that he’s written in the past about getting more out of iCal.

I also switched to iCal (and Address Book and Mail) from Entourage. I think it was when either Jaguar or Panther came out. What sold me was the ability to easily synchronize my calendar (and other data) between computers via .Mac. (Say what you want about Apple’s online service, but I look at it as a reliable, universally accessible 1 GB of storage that I can share among my Macs — for the foreseeable future.) iCal does have shortcomings and although I don’t shake a hammy fist at them, I’ll be the first to admit that they’re extremely frustrating. But I think that the new features that will be added to Mail in Leopard, such as to do lists and notes, will help make the trio of Apple-provided PIM software products more useful.

In the meantime, if you use iCal and want to get more out of it, be sure to check out Merlin’s articles.

Technorati Tags: Macintosh, macos, productivity, iCal, tips

Information from Software Update.

This update renews the .Mac certificate required by iChat for encrypting text, audio and video conferences.

For detailed information on this update, visit http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304899.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Macintosh, macos, iChat, software, update

A Dashboard widget for pilots.

I’ve used this widget in the past and really like it. It uses your Internet connection to retrieve official TAF and METAR information for airports you enter into its interface.

From Aviation Weather 1.2.5 on Dashboard widgets:

About Aviation Weather Get current weather conditions as well as weather forecasts with the “Aviation Weather” dashboard widget. The widget shows weather data (METAR and TAF) which is used by pilots for their flight preparations. ”Aviation Weather” lets you choose any airport weather stations from its built-in database by either name or ICAO (4-letter) code. Data will be shown in its original format or translated into easy understandable texts. You can define up to 4 preset stations.

The preset feature is handy. Just program in the four airports you visit most and getting the weather at your destination is as quick as two clicks. Highly recommended for pilots.