Category: Technology

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Exploring the open source road

For the longest time, there have been two main programs that I have used when it comes to doing a lot of my web-editing stuff. BBEdit and Fetch have long been staples in my application library, and that’s pretty much the same two tools that I have been using since I was in high school. I’ve tried my hand at other things, but nothing felt right or as good as lines of code across my screen.

Mmmmm… code.

I decided to venture down the Google way and see what else might be out there in the open source world, specifically for the MacOS. Well low and behold, Open Source Mac was the first site to show up on the list and had the answers I was looking for. I went from just checking a few applications out to making the following programs a part of my permanent library of web tools.

Vienna Finding an RSS application, plugin, or whatever makes reading my feeds easier has been a battle. Safari is good, but not great. Firefox has some good plugins, but nothing has made me happy. Vienna is my first experience with using a stand-alone application to monitor RSS feeds. It works well, imported all of my feeds without a hitch, and looks really nice. “Smart Folders” are super handy, and it’s MacOS native.

CyberduckIf the name doesn’t get you, then the application icon will. Cyberduck is a really great concept for an FTP program. It’s got a simple look to it, but I was instantly hooked with it’s ability to do everything that I needed it to. Let’s be honest though, what more do you want from an FTP program? Upload, download, surf directories, change permissions, and so on. I could use some neat, quacking sound effects though, especially when a download is complete or something.

SmultronSmultron. My final verdict is still pending on this one, but it is a huge step in the right direction. I love the single window with the ability to do split screen editing, and you can trade that for tabs instead. Managing so many files with one program is tricky for any code ninja, but the ability to highlight text to apply a tag is a bit lacking(or maybe I just haven’t discovered that element yet). One cool thing is that it recognizes functions, which makes jumping around your CSS super snappy.

There are more applications that I’m curious about trying out, but these were three that were very impressive to me. Those other programs I mentioned cost money. These other three don’t, and I get a little tired of having to pay for those upgrades, especially when you can get open source stuff like this. However, donate to the developers if you can and give them feedback so they can make this stuff better.

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Announcing a new podcast: The Crazy Canucks

A few months ago, Rebecca[miss604] and I brainstormed an idea for a podcast that seemed too good to pass up. With the friends that we have been making in the world of blogging and podcasting, The Crazy Canucks was born.

We’ve brought together Vancouver Canucks Op Ed, the Canucks Hockey Blog, the Canucks Outsider, Miss604, and my adventures with RadioZoom into a podcast that is probably unlike anything you’ve heard before, and nothing like anything I’ve ever been apart of. And you don’t need an iPod to listen!

The Crazy Canucks

[krey-zee, kuh-nuhks]

Local Canuck Bloggers to Host a Weekly Roundtable Podcast this 06/07 NHL Season

Current album art: The Crazy Canucks podcastVANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA (October 2, 2006) – Coming this October is a podcast the likes of which Vancouver has never seen. It will be a collaboration of hockey bloggers and the brainchild of a podcaster who all have one thing in common: The Vancouver Canucks.

The Crazy Canucks will be a weekly podcast about the team, the players, the organization and the league. Our goal is to have a fan’s point of view, since we’re not cable TV and we’re not local sports radio. Agree or disagree, leave us a written or audio comment and tell us how you really feel.

Listen and subscribe to the podcast, which will be available weekly on TheCrazyCanucks.com.

For more information contact: feedback [at] thecrazycanucks.com

Look for the premiere episode to debut this week as the Canucks kick off the regular season on Thursday. Subscribe or listen directly on the website. It doesn’t matter how you hear it as much as it matters that you come be apart of the podcast. Afterall, we’re fans just like you.

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I might be at the Portable Media Expo

My immigration status is still unchanged. That means I cannot go to the Portable Media Expo in California, at least physically. In fact, it’s already started by the time I make this post. The keynote is over and people who claim to know more than you about podcasting are beginning various sessions about different topics, mostly how to make money off this stuff.

Dave Slusher is one of those guys. He speaks for the trees. Er, I mean hobbyists. Amateur podcasters that do it for the love and not the money. He also put out a call for URLs, logos, and a voice comment regarding why you podcast and would you keep doing it if you knew, tomorrow, that you were never going to make a single dime from podcasting. He’ll be using these things in his session with a goal of highlighting those who do this for the love, not the dollar signs.

I gave him all three, and he emailed me to let me know he got it. If it wasn’t for the fact that I listened to Ted’s latest edition of Island Podcasting, I would have never known that he was doing this. My listening to the Evil Genius Chronicles got a little backed up. Even though I emailed him the stuff yesterday, I got in “right under the wire”.

So if you saw or heard of RadioZoom at the PME, be sure to leave a comment and let me know.

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Podcast Ready vs. Apple vs. the telephone game

It’s been interesting to watch this unfold over the past few days. There are some folks that have been waiting for the moment to jump on Apple over everything they are doing within the world of digital media, DRM, copyright, trademarks, and so on. This is no exception.

Apple Computer has slapped Podcast Ready with a “cease and desist” letter, claiming that the terms “Podcast Ready” and “myPodder” infringe Apple’s trademarks, and that they cause confusion among consumers. The company has been cracking down on use of the word “pod” by all sorts of parties, even though its trademark is for the word “iPod.”

Podcast Ready CEO Russel Holliman said he’d consider dropping the name myPodder if he had to, but “Podcast Ready”? If that’s infringement, Apple is claiming that it owns the word “podcast.” Sure, the word originated with the word iPod, but most people now see it as a general term for downloadable audio shows that isn’t affiliated with one brand more than another.

Coincidentally, Apple’s letter arrived the day before Podcast Ready unveiled a new version of its software — one that works with the iPod. [wired]

The full version of this letter to Podcast Ready can be found on their site here. The debate is beginning to subside, and the way it has unfolded opens up a couple of observations.

The majority of folks reporting this took this as Apple making the move to trademark the term “podcast” so that no one can use it without their permission. Upon reading the full text of the letting from Apple’s lawyers, this isn’t exactly what this action is intending to do. However, people jumped on it and began bashing the move without getting the full story. In fact, the words “cease and desist” never appear. That didn’t stop the bloggers and podcasters from slamming Apple’s legal action against Podcast Ready.

Podcast411 released a special, soapbox episode[listen] about this issue, and it digs deep into the issue. In fact, Rob did his research, got a copy of the letter, talked to people at the U.S. Patent Office, and reviews how media organizations poorly reported this news. I had a feeling that there was more to this story, and this appears to be the truth. Adam Curry examined the issue as well on a recent episode of the Daily Source Code[dsc#468] and echoes what Rob said on Podcast 411.

Simply put, Apple is defending their right to what they have legally trademarked. “Podcast” is not under threat, and no one can trademark something that exists in the public doman. That’s like someone trying to get a patent on “television” or “radio”, and there is no way that will happen.

There are some folks that take issue with the word “pod” itself, as Apple claims trademark over it. To that, some say the name for the medium should change. I’m sorry, but “netcasting” is the worst thing I have ever heard. It sounds too similar, in meaning, to streaming. Podcasting is what it has come to be. You’ll be hard pressed to change it now.

The last thing I take issue with is the way that so many reporters took up this story without getting all their facts in check. Wired.com posted a follow up to the story above, with a copy of the letter to Podcast Ready. Not once did they mention anything about getting clarification on the matter by actually seeing a copy of the request from Apple’s legal team. There’s poor journalism going on here.

Regardless, Podcast Ready now has more publicity than it could have ever imagined.

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Taking a look at the Global National Podcasts

Global National PodcastI was originally thinking of making this a W.I.L.T., but the Global National Podcast isn’t something that I’m regularly checking out. I’ve caught enough of their commercials to gather enough interest in seeing what they’re doing.

A basic background to the program, Global National is a half hour news program that is broadcast across Canada. Kevin Newman is the guy behind the desk, and I have to add that the guy is huge. He must workout between commercial breaks.

There are two ways you can get the program in podcast form. The video version makes the most sense because, afterall, this is a television program. If you would rather get your daily dose in audio, you can do that as well. The interesting thought here is that the audio is exactly what you hear on the video version of the podcast. Basically, it’s TV without the pictures.

They promote this podcast with the slogan of, “Missed the Global National newscast on television? Now you can watch or listen to Global National on your portable media player!” This stands to reason because you are getting a carbon copy of what they aired on TV. At the same time, this is a lot of content to be pulling down everyday, and being national news, there is a lot more that you can get from surfing into a couple of websites, like the Globe and Mail or CBC, in the amount of time it takes to download just one of these podcasts.

This is another example of big media trying to get into the realm of what’s new and independent. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but there seems to be poor elements within Global’s effort. Kevin Newman might be pretty to look at on your iPod, but do you want to spend time staring at a head on a screen telling you the news? There are much more effective ways to have this done, but to each their own.

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Skype releases 2.0 Beta for Mac; Video for everyone

I use iChat to video chat with my family back home all the time. That’s a strict, Mac-to-Mac application. Skype 2.0 Beta for the Mac[download] bridges video chatting with PC users of the VoIP/IM client.

System requirements

  • Mac computer with G4 800 Mhz processor or faster
  • Mac OS X v10.3.9 Panther or newer
  • 512 MB RAM
  • 40 MB free disk space on your hard drive
  • Microphone
  • Webcam: Suggested webcams include Apple iSight, Philips SPC900NC, or Logitech QuickCam Pro 400. Drivers for the Philips and Logitech webcams can be downloaded from http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net/.
  • Internet connection (broadband is best, GPRS is not supported for voice calls, and results may vary on a satellite connection).

I have yet to put it through the ranks, but if you wanna talk and see your buddies over long distances, this is worth checking out.

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Vancouver could do Wi-Fi better

I’m surprised that there isn’t city-wide Wi-FI already established in Vancouver. I could stand to never have the need to hunker down in a cafe and avoid people trying to peak over my shoulder. It’s a pity that Toronto will have this before we do on the west coast.

Toronto Hydro rolled out the city’s free Wi-Fi – or wireless Internet access – Wednesday morning. The service will be free for six months – and will allow people wireless access to the World Wide Web throughout the downtown rather than solely at pre-existing Wi-Fi hotspots, generally cafes and restaurants.

The project is the largest of its kind in North America, and Mayor David Miller is enthusiastic it’ll be successful.

The signal will be available from Jarvis St. in the east to Spadina Ave. in the west, and from Front St. to the south, north as far as Bloor St. Customers will also be able to make phone calls over the Internet and, in time, watch video. [citynews]

Being such the tech friendly city that Vancouver is, there is probably talk that I’m not aware of. Still, everything I have experienced up to this point, in terms of the tech community that exists in this city, tells me that a Wi-Fi setup like the one going up in Toronto could be dwarfed by one setup in Vancouver.

A good friend of mine from college, Andy Stoll, was apart of a non-profit group trying to setup something like this in the “technology corridor” of eastern Iowa(the area between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City) I’m not too sure how well the operation is going, but the initative was pretty bold. cFree Wireless Network still exists, but I can’t say anything about the network itself.

With the amount of high rises that populate downtown Vancouver, one would think that this could be easily done. You just have to get past the asethetics police and those that feel the frequencies used to transmit wireless signals don’t cause tumors to grow all over your body.

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Speeding up Firefox

When I used to do I.T. for WSUI, I pushed for people to use Firefox as their default browser on their PC. Fellow tech support monkeys can understand that for obvious reasons.

I just recalled this tip that I caught wind of about a year or so ago. This is a really great way to speed up Firefox, and it doesn’t require you to download anything to do it. This mostly applies to those folks on broadband, so if you’re on dial-up, this isn’t for you.

  1. Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:
    • network.http.pipelining
    • network.http.proxy.pipelining
    • network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
  2. Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.
  3. Alter the entries as follows:
    • Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true“
    • Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true“
    • Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.
  4. Lastly, right-click anywhere and select “New” -> “Integer“.
  5. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0“. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.
  6. Restart Firefox.  You can follow steps 1 through 5 to be sure that your changes saved correctly.
    • Note: You might have to make these settings changes everytime Firefox is updated.

This works for the Mac version, too. Logging into WordPress is a snap, and browsing just got a whole lot faster. Once again, another reason I’m a happy switcher to Firefox.

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Apple makes the call; send back your batteries

What goes around, comes around.  Luckily, I’m not apart of this one.

Apple Computer is following the lead of Dell and recalling 1.8 million laptop batteries supplied by Sony Corp., saying the batteries are a fire hazard.

The move Thursday follows Dell’s recall of 4.1 million batteries two weeks ago. Those batteries were also built by Sony.  […]

The batteries were sold with 12-inch iBook G4, 12-inch PowerBook G4 and 15-inch PowerBook G4 laptop computers from October 2003 through August 2006, according to the safety commission.  [cbc]

Oddly enough, this does not involve any of the new MacBooks, but this is on top of the recall for batteries of the 15″ MacBook Pro.  I’ve read many reports from users noting the amount of heat that MacBooks, the iBooks replacement, produce.  Perhaps the new models haven’t had enough of a run in the market to produce enough complaints or incidents.  Time will tell.

Find more information about the iBook and PowerBook battery recall on Apple’s website.

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Use a bookmark to resize your browser window

I found this tip via Macworld a while ago, but it was meant for use in Safari. However, in making my switch to Firefox, this was a feature that made the jump all the more interesting because it works in this browser as well. Here’s how it breaks down from Macworld.

Launch Safari (or your favorite browser) and create a new bookmark. Most browsers will require that you bookmark a specific site. In Safari, open a site and then choose Bookmarks: Add Bookmark. Give the bookmark a name that will help you remember the screen size, such as 800×600 or 1024×768. Next, edit the address of the bookmark—in Safari, go to Bookmarks: Show All Bookmarks and navigate to your newly created bookmark. Change the Address portion of the bookmark to:

javascript:self .moveTo(0,0);self.resizeTo(800,600);

Open any page in Safari and select the bookmark. You’ll see that page in an 800-by-600-pixel browser window. You can then duplicate this bookmark and create other sizes as needed; just change the name and the relevant code. When you’re done, move your new bookmarks to a convenient location; then click on them when you want to test your pages at different resolutions. [macworld]

I like to have three of these bookmarks in my toolbar. From small, medium, to large, it gets very useful. I’ve even gone as far as making them slightly button-like, naming them “-“, “+”, and “++”. You can minimize and maximize windows all you want, but to make it quick and simple, just hit your bookmark and you’re done.

This might not be too handy for those folks out there that don’t have a lot of real estate on their monitor. If you run a monitor at the screen size of 1024-by-768, then you might not see the advantage. I can’t be sure if this works in the world of PC’s, but it stands to reason that it should. It’s great for previewing how websites you are working on look, but I just like it for the simple reason of keeping everything on my screen in a more controlled state of chaos.