Blogability

alternateorg on November 18, 2003

While searching for KungTunes, an iTunes to web synchronizer, I came across Flexistentialist and was amazed by what I found when clicking the link from Google:

How awesome is that? Especially after doing log analyses yesterday and coming across referrer after referrer, whose sites don’t have archives or searches, and the homepage was listed as the referring page. Many links to Alternate were from 1 day past the threshold. Also, many blogger and MT archive links simply did not work in Safari, as they utilized JavaScript and for some reason kept sending me back to the homepage. Oh well. The cool thing about OpenAlernate is that each post also exists as an index-able page, so most search results and referrers don’t go to the homepage, but to each post’s specific comments/permalink page.

Anyway, just wanted to share in the coolness.

Long-shoe-horn.

alternateorg on November 17, 2003

I find it odd that Microsoft is basically bashing Mac OS X and yet at the same time copying it and taking until 2006 to do it.

Weaksauce.

In addition to the underlying WinFS technology, Microsoft is also adding a new file system concept called Libraries, which will organize like collections of data in Longhorn, regardless of where they are physically stored in the system. For example, a Photos & Movies Library would collect links to every digital photo and digital video on your system.

“I should not care about location when I save,” says Microsoft VP Chris Jones. “Why can’t I just click on my computer and it shows me my documents? It is a computer. It should know what a document is, what I have edited and annotated, what I have searched for before, and what other places I have looked for documents. It is not just documents on my computer I am looking for. It is documents I care about.”

Now, is it just me or do “Libraries” sound like iTunes, iPhoto, iCal, New Finder, Playlists, etc…

Also, the usability/searchability comment is almost word for word what Steve already said a couple years ago.

Netflix Fanatic Hijacked by Apple

alternateorg on November 17, 2003

Tai was always worried about something like this happening to us:

Over the summer, Cricket Media released Netflix Fanatic, a Mac OS X app that extended the features of the popular Netflix online DVD rental service. Netflix Fanatic enabled users to rearrange their movie queue and access a wide range of features without having to log onto the Netflix Web site.

Last month, the developer stopped sales and downloads of Netflix Fanatic. “Due to a dispute with my employer, I will no longer be developing or distributing Netflix Fanatic,” the developer said on his Web site. “If another company or individual takes up the reins or decides to develop a similar product, I will update this page with that information.”

What I wonder about this is whether Apple’s trying to roll this into a Sherlock channel so it can be distributed by them and streamlined into a more Apple-ish UI. Because that would rock ass. Boo-hoo for the developer, right? But the thing is, he signed something saying Apple could do that if it saw fit. Whether this is fair of Apple to do or not, I don’t know, but the guy always knew it was a possibility.

Routing for Spam

alternateorg on November 15, 2003

Uh, ok…

the feature hijacks random HTTP requests every eight hours and redirects users to a page advertising Belkin’s parental control software. There is an opt-out link but that failed to appease Net users who accused Belkin of creating a new mechanism for spam.

In response the negative user feedback, Belkin is to give users the option of disabling the feature.

I can hear the sales pitch now… “I got a good idea…” err. Not.

Free is the Top-est Shelf of All

alternateorg on November 14, 2003

When you think “hip, happenin’ new nightclub,” what do you think? Warehouse district? Downtown? A 100-year old church converted into 4 floors of dancing heaven? No, dummy, you think of a mall, in particular, a mall in the suburbs, nestled in among the movie theaters, chain restaurants and Home Depots.

Yes, friends, a few of us related to Alternate got to go and witness the VIP night before the opening of Avalon, Denver’s – er- Lone Tree’s – newest nightclub.

Well, I guess it’s not that new, as a club used to be there before. And before that I think it was a roller-rink. And before that I seem to remember it being a giant JCrew store.

I think above anything, it was the lure of free wine, beer and well that drew us down there; we were all pretty wary of a 9,000 sq ft nightclub set in a stripmall. And maybe it’s just really easy to impress the Press (haha) and whoever the term VIP represents, but this place was nothing short of very boring. The DJ was awful and played a ridiculous mix of wannabe-hiphop to a crowd of admittedly beautiful but seemingly bored people. By the time the drinks ceased being free, we were headed back to the Big City to find someplace open to eat.

Next time you feel like driving 30 minutes on a freeway that has traffic at all times of night, drive west on 6th and end up at Colorado Mills Mall. I hear they have ice cream there.

Cure 182

alternateorg on November 12, 2003

I understand that both Blink 182 and The Cure are bands that make me a loser. I’m over it, you should be too.

Anyway, the latest Blink album, imaginatively titled “blink 182” includes a bizarre cameo. From Robert Smith:

Partially inspired by lifestyle changes–all three members became fathers recently–and side projects, this new untitled CD sports a spoken word piece, plus guest vocals by The Cure’s Robert Smith on “All of This.” “We don’t have any joke songs or anything like that on the record,” says bassist Hoppus. “On the other albums, we’d have 12 songs on them and two of them would be the joke songs.”

Does this seem just a little odd to anyone else? And I gotta say, the album is pretty good, for pop-punk. Is it Ned’s Atomic Dustbin? No. Is it over-produced? Yes. But the emotion is back, and the songs actually sound different from their other songs, unlike the last album which was basically a re-hashing of old riffs with new lyrics and slicker production.

Anyway, the Robert Smith cameo was one I was not expecting and it’s a relatively welcome clash of two worlds for me. Hits kinda closer to home in couple ways. I wonder if David Proulx is still hanging around them these days…

Doug switched

alternateorg on November 4, 2003

As we have common friends, I read Douglas Bowman’s weblog every few days. I have to say that I’m happy he’s switched back to Mac. As a designer/developer-ish kinda guy, I’m not surprised. MacOS X combines everything you need for most tasks involved in that kind of work in a very nice and fun-to-use package. So in an attempt to offer you some more fair and balanced look at how people move to the Mac and how they feel once they’re there (frustrations and all), check out that link. That’s the kind of post/comment combo I’m happier to see these days (check out my comment here for what I mean.)

Command-Tab Mayhem

alternateorg on October 30, 2003

Wow. Who knew two little keys could create such mayhem in the Mac world, within minutes of Panther’s release?

The latest blathering of spite comes from the normally vanilla Kottke:

Here’s what I propose. Ditch the existing clunky Exposé behavior (perhaps except for the “Show Desktop” keystroke) in favor of a combined Cmd-Tab/Exposé behavior. Hitting Cmd-Tab would bring up a palette of all the open windows (not just applications) and would also Exposé all open windows. Continuing to hold down Cmd and hitting Tab would cycle through each icon in the palette (which would need to be smaller to not overpower the Exposéd windows) but would also highlight the corresponding Exposéd window. When you reach the window you need, you let go of the Cmd key and the window pops open.It’s like they never open the System Preferences and check out what you can actually customize about Exposé. What I’ve found is that the mouse gesture-enabled Exposé is much more easy to use than invoking it via the keyboard. After all, in order to use the default F9-F11 keystrokes, you have to take your hand off of the mouse, which is pretty much an annoying idea.

And if you combine using the bottom-left corner to invoke Exposé with command tab, you end up with something very similar to what Kottke suggests – minus the window-centric Windows idea of having Command-tab show every window instead of every application. That would be problematic and way too Windows-ish for most Mac folks to stand.

And then, if Kottke read MacOSXHints. he’d know that if you:

  1. Invoke Exposé via a mouse gesture
  2. Hit command-tab and
  3. Select an appliction with it, that
  4. Then, you’ll end up with an Exposéd list of every document in that application. Click the window you want.

Sounds complicated, but it really isnt, since it uses mouse gestures (very easy to work into your workflow) and a keybaord shortcut already in use. If you really wanted to get fancy with it, you could use the arrow keys once you have one application’s windows open to select a window, and spacebar to select it. Again, sounds complicated; isn’t.

Is this exactly what Kottke’s whining about? No, but it’s the closest Mac-native implementation he’s going to get. Don’t hold your breath for Apple to dive into a window-centric behavior like the one he’s describing. Exposé’s ‘Show all windows’ feature and this use of it, is the only way for Apple to do it (built into the OS at least) due to their HIG, which states that the MacOS is document and application centric, not window-centric. You use an application to edit documents, not your operating system to edit your windows. I’m not doing a very good explanation of that concept. I’ll see if I can try to find something a little more concise…

Southern California Fires

alternateorg on October 27, 2003

This is right in San Diego. Now, San Diego is huge, but this is in the middle of a populated area, near where my father used to work. Photo from the Union-Tribune. I thought it was strange that my iChat buddy list was so low lately. I’ve called cellphones but have had trouble getting through. I hope you guys are all ok. I bet Scott’s working overtime.

Update: I hear he’s been working since Sunday morning. It is now Monday evening. He doesn’t expect to go home any time soon.