Interesting Links, April 2010

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Maria Langer

Here are links I found interesting in April 2010:

The iPad Launch: Can Steve Jobs Do It Again? – Stephen Fry writes about his recent trip to the Apple mothership and the iPad in TIME.
Browsers and Transportation – Comparing Web browsers to various means of transportation. Thanks to @estherschindler for sharing the link.
Can Amazon, Sony, or Google Catch Apple? – I like the “microwave vs. kitchen” analogy in this post. With the release of the iPad, the Kindle and Nook have completely fallen off my list of desirable ebook readers. On TechCrunch. Thanks to @DonPerreault for sharing the link
Why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t, either) – Cory Doctorow says the iPad isn’t going to save publishing and uses that for a reason not to buy one. I think he’s missing the point. On Boing Boing.
You don’t need an iPad. But once you try one, you won’t be able to resist. – Farhad Manjoo says, “You don’t need an iPad; it’s an indulgence.” I bet he’s right. But he’s also zeroed in on the killer feature that I’m most interested in. Read more in Slate Magazine.
iWork Pages for the iPad: Good for Casual Writing but Lacks a Few Essential Features – Objective review of iWorks apps for iPad lists its shortcomings. On ReadWriteWeb.com.
Free Reading Apps – Why buy a Kindle when you can put Kindle books on your computer, smartphone or iPad? On Amazon.com.
File Sharing with an iPad: Ugh! – Ted Landau documents using iWorks apps on an iPad. It isn’t pretty. On The Mac Observer.
Daring Fireball: The iPad – John Gruber reviews the iPad. On Daring Fireball. Thanks to @DonPerreault for the link.
15 iPad Apps You Should Download Today – In case you needed a shopping list for your new iPad. Thanks to @DJGrothe for sharing this link. On Wired.com.
Twitter Has a Plan to Make Money With Ads – Twitter announces plans to earn revenue based on an advertising program. (Like what else is new on the Internet?) You can read more in the New York Times. Thanks to @estherschindler for tweeting the link.
Twitter’s Entire Archive Headed to the Library of Congress – “The U.S. Library of Congress announced this morning via its official Twitter account that it will be acquiring the entire archive of Twitter messages back through March 2006.” Read more on ReadWriteWeb.com. Thanks again to @Slate for tweeting this link.
30 Ways You Can Spot Fake Online Reviews – Good list; makes sense. Be skeptical of all online reviews. On the Consumerist. Thanks to @slate for sharing the link.
How to: Make an iPad Booksafe Case – Detailed, illustrated instructions for creating an iPad case/cover out of a regular book. If you use one of mine for this, please don’t tell me. On CarryPad.com. The piece also includes a link to a YouTube video that’s getting a lot more attention than these instructions.
Mark Fiore can win a Pulitzer Prize, but he can’t get his iPhone cartoon app past Apple’s satire police – To me, this is a clear-cut case of censorship. Apple is censoring what can appear on its mobile devices. Read about it in Neiman Journalism Lab.
Apple Wants to Own You – “Welcome to our velvet prison, say the boys and girls from Cupertino.” Read more on Slate.com. Thanks to @Swoopy for sharing the link on Twitter. This is something I’ve been saying for a while. I don’t own an iPhone primarily because I hate AT&T, but Apple’s control over its mobile computing devices is a definite concern. One of the reasons I’m still sitting on the fence about an iPad — although I’ll likely have to buy one for my work. (Yeah. Poor me.)
The Library of Congress Is Now Following You on Twitter | The American Prospect – “On Wednesday, the Library of Congress announced it had signed an agreement with the microblogging service Twitter to archive all public tweets sent since the service began in 2006.” Read an interview with the LIbrary of Congress about this on The American Prospect. Thanks to @Slate for sharing this link.
Steve Wozniak On Apple Security, Employee Termination, and Gray Powell – The Wired Editor says, “It’s Steve Jobs’ honor code. Like Michael Corleone’s: A mistake can be forgiven, but he would kill his own brother for betraying the family.” This really rings true. Read More on Wired.com
Scott Adams Blog: That Lost 4G Phone 04/26/2010 – For Dilbert fans following the Apple/Gizmodo/4G iPhone debacle. Thanks to @sonorandragon for tweeting the link (sort of).
A month with the iPad: Surprises and disappointments – Another objective review of the iPad, this time from Macworld. I agree with much of this, but not all. I think it’s because I’m a single user, not interested in games, and I’ve never had an iPad.
Steve Jobs Email Reply Generator. – Do you admire Steve Jobs’s ability to create short, concise email replies? We do too! Now you can use this handy tool to practice and hone your own terse skills!” Try it out at GeekCulture.com.
Thoughts on Flash – Steve Jobs shares his reasons why Apple’s iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch do not support Flash. Well thought out. An excellent read. I hope it shakes some sense into Adobe and the developers to continue to develop using this archaic tool.

How to Search Your Mac’s Configuration Files

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Maria Langer

It’s easier than you might think.

As you work with your Mac, installing and using software, it creates a bunch of configuration files that it stores in various places throughout your computer. Most of these files can be found in the various Library folders, tucked inside their own folders. There are hundreds of these files and every time you install and use some software — even trial software that you later delete — these files are created and hidden away in your system.

These unused files bit me this week when, for some reason, my BlackBerrry refused to sync with iCal and Address Book. The week before, I’d downgraded from Mac OS X 10.6.3 to 10.6.2. (Long story why; I don’t recommend doing this.) To make another long story short, it turns out that the BlackBerry Desktop software had lost track of some of its components. Making the matter worse was that I’d used both the Missing Sync and Pocket Mac in the past and their configuration files and extensions were still lurking about in my system, causing BlackBerry Desktop to choke.

While you can use an application like AppZapper (which I recommend) to uninstall software you no longer use, I’ve discovered that even uninstallers leave files behind. The best way to make sure a software program is completely gone is to search for and manually delete any remaining configuration files.

The trouble is, when you use the Finder’s search box to search for a file, it automatically excludes system files. This is actually a good thing for two reasons (that I can think of):

It minimizes search results to match what you’re most likely trying to find (which isn’t usually system files).
It prevents novice users from stumbling upon and possibly deleting or modifying system files that are better left alone.

So what do you do? Easy. You tell Mac OS to search the library folder where you expect to find the files.

Here’s an example. I use the program Fission by Rogue Amoeba to edit audio files. I like it; it’s good. But suppose I decided I wanted to stop using it and remove every trace of it from my computer.

I could search my hard disk for files named Fission. The results might look like this:

But is that all there is? I don’t think so. I’ll open the Library folder in my Home folder and do the same search, but with the Library folder selected. Here are the results:

See the difference? The second search displayed two configuration files and a folder likely containing more related data. (The fourth file in the list is a data file for Yojimbo which I’d likely not want to remove.)

If I were serious about removing all traces of this program from my computer, I’d search not only by the name of the program but all or part of the name of the developer. (Rogue Amoeba is a great example because either word is likely to find just files related to software by that developer.)

You might want to repeat this process for all Library folders — the one on your hard disk’s root directory, the one in the System folder on your hard disk, and the one in any user’s Home folder (if you have access to it).

Performing this exercise for Missing Sync and Pocket Mac files this morning uncovered literally dozens of configuration files scattered all over my hard disk. Deleting them freed up space and prevented the possibility of these files interfering with incompatible software that I currently use.

Need More Information?

You can find more information about searching your Mac in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide. Chapter 5 covers the Spotlight search feature in a great deal of detail.

Photoshop CS3 and Mac OS 10.6.3 Potential Problems

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Maria Langer

Having a problem? This might help.

After updating my Mac to Mac OS 10.6.3, I found that I could not successfully open Photoshop CS3. Although the program would go through what seemed like the entire startup process, it would unexpectedly quit right before it opened a document. There was nothing I could do to prevent this.

Needless to say, I was not a happy camper.

I started troubleshooting with a Google Search. Two pages were particularly helpful:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2382232&tstart=0 This thread on the Apple discussions forum contains 167 answers (so far) to the problem experienced by a user. As with most forums, the posts go off-topic to suggest Photoshop alternatives and attempt to place blame on either Apple or Adobe. If you have the time and patience to wade through the posts, however, you’ll discover several potential fixes.
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/834/cpsid_83499.html This TechNote on Adobe.com gets to the meat of the matter without having to wade through a bunch of off-topic nonsense.

Apparently, the problem concerns all Adobe CS3 products and possibly some other software. It did not affect my copy of InDesign CS4.

Adobe provides three possible solutions. I’ll present them here in the order I think you should tackle them.

Disable Opening with Rosetta

Adobe suggests that you turn off the “Open Using Rosetta” check box in the Info window for Photoshop CS3 (or any other program that might be experiencing the problem. In the Finder, select the application’s icon. Then choose File > Get Info or press Command-I. In the General area of the Info window, turn off the check box labeled Open using Rosetta. Close the Info window. This was not the source of my problem, so I can’t verify whether this will help.

Obtain a New Serial Number

Adobe claims that the problem might have something to do with an invalid serial number registered for the computer. This is most likely to happen if your computer was serviced by Apple, perhaps to replace the logic board or some other major component. Per Adobe:

When launching Adobe CS3 applications on Apple’s Mac OS 10.6.3, the applications crash, or quit unexpectedly. This only occurs on systems where the system serial number is a value with more than 12 characters. This appears to only be the case when the system serial number doesn’t have a valid number, but instead has a value such as “System Serial#”, or “SystemSerialNumb”.

How do you find the serial number registered by your computer? The easiest way is to choose Apple > About This Mac to display the About this Mac window for your computer. Click the Version number info right under where it says Mac OS X twice. The Version number will change to the Build number and then to your serial number as it is registered inside the computer.

When I originally read this and checked it against my serial number, I did not think this was my problem. After all, Adobe says it happens with serial numbers “more than 12 characters” in length. Mine was 11 10. And that was my problem. When I had my logic board replaced about a year and a half ago, the Apple genius entered an invalid serial number for the new logic board. He basically left out one character. Something in the Mac OS X 10.6.3 update triggered a serial number validation routine in CS3 products. When it came up with an invalid serial number, it refused to run Photoshop CS3.

The solution is not one you’ll like if you don’t have an Apple store nearby. This morning, I’ll be driving 50 miles to get the correct serial number entered into my Mac by a “genius.”

Revert to Mac OS X 10.6.2 or Earlier

Adobe suggests this as the first alternative. Downgrading operating system software is never something I recommend as a first option. After all, eventually you’ll have to upgrade again. Why not try to fix the problem if you can?

But if you can’t fix the problem any other way, downgrading to Mac OS X 10.6.2 might be the way to go. You can find instructions for downgrading at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2597.

Are You Having This Problem?

If you’re having this problem, I’d like to hear from you. What software was affected? How did you resolve the problem? Add your comment to this post.

Please limit your comments to this topic. Rants against Apple or Adobe or suggestions on what software is better than Photoshop will not be approved.

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Monthly Archives: April 2010