Ultranormal

Category: computing

  • AOL Does Something Cool For OS X

    It’s been a rough ride for Mac AOL users (and employees). Ever since the corrupted online database bug in AOL 2.7, we’ve been stuck in the back seat of the AOL van. No longer! We now have a better Radio client than our Windows brethren!! It’s in beta now, but doesn’t feel beta. And this isn’t because I work for ’em. I only pimp the good stuff. It’s got XM Radio stations, lots of cool independent radio, and other AOL programmed stuff (that’s not bad at all).\
    It’s fun for me to see my company pay attention to Mac stuff, and produce something that I’ll not only use, but is truly cool.

  • Safari, Javascript and Large Numbers

    Let’s say you’re playing with a dashboard widget that deals with some large numbers you might want to compare. For some reason, you’re not getting the result that you thought you would. For some reason really large numbers are breaking your if statements. Well, if you wanted them not to, you might want to wrap those numbers in Number() in the comparison. That seemed to work for me (yes, I really hope you’ll get to see this widget soon – it’s fun).\
    UPDATE: Apparently, I’m on crack because the above bug I mentioned apparently doesn’t exist. I was trying to prove it with some test cases, and I can’t recreate it, even with REALLY large numbers expressed as strings. So… ummm… sorry.

  • Bookmark Now!

    I don’t pretend that I’m a writer, and that’s probably a good thing. Apparently, being a writer is both hard work, and the easiest thing in the world. I just finished Kevin Smokler’s new book, Bookmark Now. A collection of essays about reading and writing in the internet age, it’s a fascinating look into the minds of writers, an interesting examination of modern publishing, and a big sloppy wet kiss to the internet from young(ish) writers from all over.\
    There are some brilliant essays here, and the entire book presents an overriding theme of hope for writing, reading, and all the stuff in the middle. My personal favorites were the pieces by Dan Kennedy, Adam Johnson and Kelley Eskridge and Nicola Griffith (they wrote the crown jewel of that section). They were all from the same section of the book: The Writing Life. Each of them gave a little glimpse into the process of a writer, not only how they see the world, but how they attack writing, how they deal with setbacks and criticism.\
    As someone who’s always toying with the idea of writing a book, this book was a good chunk of inspiration to put towards that goal. If you’re at all interested in reading or writing, you’ll get a kick out of Bookmark Now.

  • Ranchero Software: NetNewsWire

    NetNewsWire 2.0 is golden! Go get it right now. It’s the best feed reader on any platform (although it’s only for OS X), and I’ve been using 2.0 since the earliest betas, and it’s awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome.

  • Must-Have Apps for OS X

    Since Steve just got himself a shiny new Powerbook, and asked for a list of apps he should throw on it, I decided to blog the list. Here is my “must-have” list of apps for OS X (unless otherwise noted, everything is either freeware or open source):

    • Adium – multi-service IM client. Themes, plugins, icon sets – everything you could ever want to customize your IM experience (and it’s faster than AIM).
    • Azureus – Best torrent client for OS X, even if it is Java.
    • BBEdit – If you can’t afford BBEdit, you can download TextWrangler for free. not free
    • BookIt – Keep your bookmarks synced up across all the browsers you’ve got installed on your machine. not free
    • Chicken of the VNC – Nothing else needs to be said. It is the chicken of the VNC world – light on the calories, long on possibilities.
    • Conversation – My favorite IRC client for OS X.
    • Instiki – Best wiki out there, period, especially on OS X.
    • MarsEdit – For to be editing your blog. not free
    • NetNewsWire – Best newsreader on any platform. Pay for it, because it’s friggin’ worth it (and so you can use the beta). not free (although there is NNW Lite)
    • NVu – I use it as a word processor when I don’t feel like writing documentation in HTML or on my wiki (you know, when you have to use an existing template). HTML editing goodness that just keeps getting better.
    • OmniOutliner – Why don’t other platforms have decent outlining software? Before Instiki, I couldn’t live without OmniOutliner. Even now, it’s great for brainstorming, taking notes during meetings, and making lists. not free
    • OnyX – A must-have for Powerbooks; OnyX runs all those BSD maintenance scripts that are supposed to run at 3 A.M., but never do because your laptop is sleeping.
    • SubEthaEdit – The first and best collaborative text editors. Great for taking notes at conferences, in meetings (with other people smart enough to have Powerbooks and bring them to meetings), etc. semi-not free
    • Tigerlaunch – Nice little menu item that has all your applications in it. Great when you don’t have something in your dock, but need to start it up.
    • Transmit – A great FTP Client with right-click editing of text files in your favorite text editor. Very cool. not free (check out Fugu or Cyberduck if you’re a cheap bastard).
    • VLC – For watching all the TV shows you download with Azureus. It plays everything, and plays it well.\
      There you have it (and I can’t believe I kept it alphabetical). I didn’t include stuff that should have come with the machine, like iPhoto (even though it’s amazing) or Safari. Am I missing anything?

  • Whew… We’re Not Evil (well, in this case)

    Slashdot issues retraction. AOL isn’t reading your IM’s. It’s only for publicly available info like message board posts. whew!!\
    See this one too.

  • For Shame

    I’m not sure what’s worse, how much I laughed at this list or how many of these have come out of my mouth in the past three years (I don’t think I’ve done any of them recently, but I’ll leave that for other people to decide – I surely don’t remember).\
    I know I’ve done 1, 6, 17 and the last one. Shame on me…

  • Breaking Through The Walls

    It snowed last night, which meant that I had to scrape the truck down before I could leave. After sitting in the car for a few minutes, waiting for the defroster to do its thing, I decided to pop open the laptop and see if I could get to the wireless network in the basement office. What do you know, it worked! What’s funny to me is that it took me two minutes to even think that my wireless network extended outside the four walls of my house. I think I knew that, because I used to leech off my neighbor’s wi-fi before we got our cable modem – but it was always me reaching out, not my network overflowing.\
    I know, I’m just dumb (and I was tired on top of that). But, it’s an interesting thought, nonetheless. It is to me anyway.\
    I’m off to Boston for a week of nerdy, standards goodness. I’m also going out to dinner with Betsy and her husband on Wednesday. Betsy was one of my favorite people at SXSW, even though we didn’t talk all that much. She’s a fellow search nerd (or was at the time) and we had a good time talking about blogging, searching and our respective Powerbooks. Also, I’ve never met a Nobel prize winner before. Should I curtsey?

  • Designery Problems

    This site, as you see it on 2/22 (happy birthday, dad!), is a mess of two or three half-done redesigns that I just never finished. I can’t stand it, but I don’t really have time to change it. I really want to redo it, but I keep setting my sites too large (I’m thinking CSS Zen Garden here).\
    Maybe I’ll have some time while I’m doing all this traveling to spend an evening or two working on a redesign. I don’t think the markup would need to change a whole lot, maybe just to change/remove the existing logo.\
    I was feeling a little blue, so I decided to go back to the Zen Garden to try to get inspired, and I started making a list of my favorite designs. This isn’t the exhaustive list, but it’s a start:

  • The Big Thing With Results

    So, AOL Search relaunched today for members (will launch for everyone else soon) with a ton of new features, a totally redesigned and rebuilt UI, and lots of “me” in it. The powers that be have given me the OK to link to the “in-client” view, which means that some stuff won’t work for you like it would for an AOL Member, especially Recent Searches. When it launches on the outside view next week, everything should work.\
    It’s probably the last major search product I’ll work on, since I’m moving to a new role (they say I’ll have a bigger soapbox, but I’m hoping for a bigger stick) after I get back from Dublin (or maybe while I’m in Dublin… who knows?). So far, the reviews for AOL Search have been really great, better than any review I’ve seen in the five years I’ve been working on the product (yes, five years).\
    Here’s a selection:

    • CNet
    • SearchEngineWatch
    • John Battelle
    • Financial Times
    • Charlene Li\
      What am I most proud of? It’s really, really accessible. I made a special effort with this version to make sure that I did everything I could to make it a good example of accessibility on the web. There is unique alt text for all elements that need it, semantic markup (each result is a list item, and there are h3’s for each result type heading, making it easy to navigate with a screen reader), and some really interesting “tricks” with the CSS to make things accessible in IE without hamstringing me in “good” browsers.\
      So, check it out. If you have suggestions for improving its accessibility, please post a comment. I can’t promise all will be implemented, but I’ll make sure they get to the right people (because after tomorrow, I won’t be the right people anymore).