Ultranormal

Category: development

  • 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?

  • Taggy Goodness

    If you’ve got a keen eye, you may notice some changes around here. I’ve started playing with making my MT categories tag-like, and then using rel=”tag” on the categories to make them all Technorati friendly.\
    Why? I think it’s cool, which is the only reason to ever do anything on a blog.\
    My only issue now is getting Marsedit to create categories for me.

  • S5 + Instiki = Happy Geek

    [Warning:]{style=”color:#900;”} I’ve only tested this on 0.9.2 on OS X. This may not work at all on .10. Since .9.2 is working fine for me, and there isn’t a disk image for .10, I haven’t upgraded yet. When I do, I’ll see about posting instructions for it. Until then, you’re on your own.\
    I use instiki all the time. I have it installed on my Powerbook and use it for note-taking, documentation writing, presentations, brainstorming and keeping info I would normally keep in a saved e-mail somewhere. It’s great. I love it.\
    As I said, I’ve been using it for presentations. I’ll jot down the sections as h1’s, then go back and fill in bullet points. When I’ve got what I want to say, I’ll go in and add the s5 divs, then tweak, massage, correct and add until I’m happy with it. Once that’s all done, I cut and paste into a new copy of s5 and I’m good to go. Well, I’m fine as long as I don’t want to change it. Once I change it, I have to save, cut and paste all over again. Why bother?\
    So, I had an idea. It shouldn’t be all that hard to create a new “print-like” view in Instiki that’s just s5. You know, it wasn’t! In about fifteen minutes, I had a link at the bottom of all my wiki pages that said “Presentation”. I clicked on it, and kaboom, I had a lovely presentation ready to go. It was scary simple. Here’s how i did it (I use OS X, but most of these instructions apply to any install of it, just don’t do the stuff that doesn’t apply):

    # Make sure you have Instiki 0.9.2 and S5 (download the zip file)

    # Go to Applications, right click on Instiki, and choose “Show Package Contents”

    # Go to Contents, then Resources, then rb_src (on every other platforms, you should have an rb_src inside your instiki directory).

    # Now, go to the app directory, then controllers and open up wiki.rb.

    # You should see a line that says “def print” (in mine, it’s line 189). Above that line, put in:

    <code>def preso
@page = wiki.read_page(web_address, page_name)
end</code>

    # Save that file and close it.

    # Now, go back to the app directory, then to views.

    # I went ahead and put my preso file up, so you can snag it.

    # Drop preso.html into the views directory.

    # Now, we need to create our link to the Presentation view, so in the views directory, open up page.rhtml, and search for “| Views:” – that should put you in the right place. Now, add the following:

    <code> | Presentation</code>

    # Save that file, and close it.

    # Now, we have to make some decisions, mostly because I suck. I couldn’t figure out (in the fifteen minutes it took me to do this) where to drop the s5 stuff (the ui directory in the s5 zip file) to get it to get served out by WeBRICK (the webserver instiki runs), so I just dropped them in my local copy of Apache, which is always running anyway. I suggest you do the same, then change the urls at the top of preso.rhtml (for the CSS and JS files) to match that. Once you’ve done that, you’re almost done!

    # Bounce Instiki.

    # Now, try it! Isn’t that cool?\
    All you need to do to create an s5-able wiki entry is enclose the stuff you want in a slide in (the spaces are important, so Textile doesn’t do something stupid with the HTML):

    <code><div class="slide">
stuff
</div></code>

    There you have it… s5 + Instiki = happy geek\
    And some tags: and

  • SXSW In A Wiki

    It’s totally not the same as being here, because the best thing about SXSW is the interaction with people who are just as weird, creative and passionate as you are, but we’ve been taking a lot of notes on the wiki, and I thought I’d share some of my personal favorites:

  • 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).

  • Nerd Jokes

    I spent too much time yesterday at OMG Clothing perusing and rating t-shirt slogans. Then, I found the “Submit your slogan” button, and had to throw in some of my own.\
    My favorites, which they didn’t accept (probably because of all the funny characters), were extremely nerdy. They were so nerdy that when I sent them to my nerd friends, they called me a nerd. They were so nerdy that only nerds who are nerdy about CSS would get them. So, for your nerding pleasure, I give you my first two CSS jokes:

    <code>#me + #you { margin:0; }</code>

<code>#town { color:#f00; background:#f00; }</code>

    Oh, but the nerdiness didn’t stop there! I also submitted some search nerd slogans:

    • Google told me you suck.
    • Your PageRank blows.\
      I know… I’m hopeless. I am now hopelessly nerdy. I don’t think there’s any going back. I used to be just geeky, and proud of it. I’m afraid I breached nerd a while ago and didn’t notice until it was too late. I apologize to my family and friends… I didn’t mean to be a nerd. It just kind of happened.