apps + files organized by job/workshop
example: music making workshop has music creation apps + users personal (and other’s shared?) music files
different users have same apps (tools) but their own files (works)
different jobs/workshops may use same tools ie music making and music listening workshop may both need some listening tools
***finder:
yay, finally can save default view settings, including column width and sort column, to be applied to all folders. this is huge for me
quickview thing awesome. been wanting something like that for a long time.
-plays movies and sounds
–movies pop up fairly small, must press full screen button to see big
-text documents readable, probably much better for just reading them than using textedit
-excel spreadsheets even viewable, though formatting severely messed up at times, sometimes unreadable, very slow to open
-ichat logs even viewable
-easy, just hit space to open, space to close again.
-can navigate to other images in same folder with arrow keys
-can put in full screen via button, no apparent keyboard method. in full screen, hit unintuitive tab or shift tab to move to next or previous items in same folder. arrow keys do nothing, why not use them just as they were used in regular quicklook
slideshows seem to have disappeared completely. can view images, one at a time only, in full screen
icon set nicer, easier on eyes
coverflow somewhat interesting for image folders, though probably won’t use it.
-makes windows bigger if smaller than certain minimum size
-movies get first frame view, sounds get nothing special
sidebar thing too wide, can’t go by just icons anymore.
-search thing seems interesting, but doesn’t provide very useful results, as they don’t appear in a normal find type dialog where you can refine the results or group items. crashed the finder once
feels a bit more solid and streamlined
trash – finally one can view items in the trash. they cannot be opened, but previewed by icon or in quickview
can turn off warning when changing file extension, a very annoying thing unalterable in previous versions
-also, finder highlights all of name but extension (except via second click) when editing name
***spotlight
must reindex upon install, index manages to miss some things such as iphotos
new search results windows finally part of an application, the finder, so they no longer get lost
new search results window not nearly as nice, no arrangements by kind whatsoever, results all bungled together in one of standard finder views (except columns). no simple buttons for limiting search either.
-image results not nearly as nice, must type “kind:image” after query to limit to images, then use standard finder view
***System
guest user accounts, been wanting that for a long time too. just concerned about it deleting the guest account every time, may limit its usefulness: if let people login as guest to create a project, they’ll need to put it somewhere special so it won’t get deleted, as I understand it.
can finally work with groups without downloading server utilities. is in accounts pane. seems quite easy to create a group and assign users (from GUI users only) to them
all preference panes more streamlined, often fitting on one screen now. except that a lot of the functionality for some things, like network settings, must be accessed in a seperate “advanced” screen
***Network
not sure about new placement of firewall settings, hopefully the appropriate firewall activates when related port opened in Networks
***Textedit
autosave feature nice, but defaults to every 30 seconds. Items on desktop then refresh their icon every 30 seconds.
search highlighting is nifty, caches eye quite well. should highlight all occurrences and keep highlight on for a while so you can see them while perusing document
***spotlight
must reindex everything
***install
takes forever, much longer than it should. the dvd media verification really took forever in itself, though I figured I should run it through for the first go. xcode install takes quite forever itself, not done through normal installer.
preserved many, though not all, of my preferences that have corresponding preferences in the new system
***Safari
so slow. pages take noticably longer to load. app itself slow. has improved greatly after several uses
some pages functionality broken. my online banking doesn’t work
bookmarks menu – submenu items pop into awful places, sometimes covering up the items below the parent so you can’t continue to the rest of menu, can’t access items it covers without closing entire menu and starting over
return doesn’t allow editing of bookmark names as it does items in finder, elsewhere
find much nicer, inline bar at top doesn’t open popup, highlights items brightly, highlights all occurrences, should highlight all brightly (only does one at a time)
javascript seems much faster, at least to select all comments for deletion in wordpress
***iCal
noticeable problem, info pane seems to have been removed. get info by double clicking which brings up small popup near item. not as readable.
-not nearly as quick for people like me who leave the info pane open.I have virtually no reason to click on an item unless I want info on it.
-opens in view mode first, must click edit button to edit or Command E
-is somewhat more concise though, leaving out extra info for items without it
must now hit return to edit name instead of double clicking. more consistent with finder behavior, but slower
***Terminal
ls: colors no longer automatically provided with color output
>console: still works, font seems weirder, perhaps harder to read
-often has some error messages near top when first entering
-still no multiple screens
less: new less much slower, does weirrd scrolling thing
***etc
quicksilver dock icon appears now
drop shadow seems more significant, makes things look further behind current window
computer runs hotter it seems
computer runs noticably slower overall.
inconsistencies continue in command keys used in different applications, often unintuitive and arbitrary. Command L in AddressBook and Command E in iCal edit entries.
I don’t know why I didn’t write this before. Perhaps I’ve just lost interest in this site because of the lack of people viewing it. Anyway, I have finally gotten new doors on my car. I came home from my trip to New York late July to find my Uncle Al had replaced the doors for me. $130 and he did the hard part for me. I am very happy with the results, and thank him for the surprise. I owe him one.
For those of you who hadn’t seen my car before, both front doors were in awful shape. The mirrors were missing on both sides, making backing up and lane changing more of a pain. The cops didn’t like the lack either, and they contributed to my getting pulled over at least thrice. The passenger side door wouldn’t open at all (in fact, Uncle Al had to cut it to get it off). The drivers side door wouldn’t close as it was supposed to. I had to tie it closed to the column to prevent it from swinging open, thus making both it and the door behind it for all intents and purposes unopenable as well. So I had to climb through the passenger side rear door. It was quite a pain, especially when driving other people. And finally, both doors were very rusted out at the bottom, and the metal was bending upwards, looking rather unsightly.
I am very happy that I can back up my car and view behind me much more easily now. Not having to climb into the car is a lot easier as well. A lot. I’m much less reluctant to drive others places now as well.
I had said of this summer that I’d get new doors or a new car. I’m glad the cheaper option worked out. I hope this car can last till I can find a diesel or electric car to replace it.
Well, this semester I started taking some classes again. I’m just taking three at Tri-C. I’m obviously doing nothing with my Hospitality Management degree, and have kinda lost interest in that, at least for now. So I’m considering getting some sort of web development / design degree.
Web design is loaded with freelancers, so I could potentially work without being tied down to a job, or make some extra money on the side. I could move around at will without worrying so much whether I could get a job where I’m going, though restaurants are pretty much everywhere as well. I could even potentially live on a sailboat, sail around, and do some freelance jobs whenever I need to at the nearest port.
I know many people learn web design on their own, but I need something to pull me into the industry. I’m hoping that Tri-C will have some sort of job placement program to help me find a job. I could work there a while to get experience that would help get me freelance work later. I’m also not capable enough in my web development / design after all the time I have spent on it myself. I think the classes will help fill in some gaps.
So anyway, I’m taking one web related class and two in other areas in which I have interest. The one is a Database Applications, which uses Access. I have learned a good bit about how to do stuff in Access. Hopefully I’ll be able to apply that to MySQL and PHP. The other two are an intro to psychology and songwriting. I’ve always been very interested in psychology and have read a lot on the subject, I’ve just never taken any classes on it. The class is filling in some basic stuff that helps me understand some of the stuff I’ve been reading. The songwriting: I’ve always been interested in music. I’ve been messing around on the piano for a while now, writing out short bits that sound cool, but they are nowhere near being songs. I’d like to be able to turn them into something more usable.
So hopefully the semester will go alright. So far it’s been going well, and I’ve gotten decent or good grades on everything so far. I’m trying to concentrate more on the material than the grades now: I can only remember bits and pieces from my previous education. I have to miss one week of classes to visit my brother in Seattle.
And I still have to talk to a counseler or someone to help me determine if I want to continue on.
I got an understeering short wheel based recumbent, a Jet-Stream two from Actionbent. I had a lot of difficulty even starting on the thing at first. I found it difficult to balance in that position and push forward on those high pedals. But I’ve since gotten better. I’ve found it requires a good push to get up to speed quickly. I’m still not good enough at it that I feel comfortable doing it regularly, especially on rough terrain, tight areas, and among other vehicles.
I had a lot of trouble steering the thing as well. My cousin Paul rode it for a bit one night, and pointed out that it has very noticable counter steering. On the upright bicycle, I’m quite used to the movements needed to make this work, so I don’t even notice it. The recumbent has me positioned very differently relative to the wheels, so it’s much different. On the upright I can easily lean to affect the steering. I’ve found that if I lean my back forward off the seat so I can tilt it, turning is much easier and I can take some quite tight turns. I couldn’t even do a U-turn in a two lane road at first, but I might be able to do it in one lane now.
I still have trouble staying straight on this bike. The handlebars don’t seem to be as easy to hold straight as on an upright bike. I still have to rest my arms on them as in a normal bike, but if I make small movements in my arms, it will wobble the bike a bit. This may seem as if it’s the same as on an upright, but I find I really have to put some effort into holding my arms steady. This can tire out my arms quickly. I’m going to have to experiment with different things, such as different handlebar positions and ways of holding the bars.
Recumbents are supposed to be faster than upright bikes in general because of better aerodynamics. Thus far, mine seems a lot slower than my upright. They say these bikes use different muscles. It certainly seems to hurt the tendons on the front of my knees if I try to push. Hopefully this is what’s making me go slow, and once I develop the recumbent muscles I should be able to go faster. I have seemed to be able to accelerate pretty quickly, which is good.
I’m not comfortable enough to ride the bike in traffic or for long distances yet. I’ll keep on doing short trips here and there, and hopefully I’ll soon get as comfortable on it as on my normal bike, perhaps even more so.
Last month I purchased myself a recumbent Actionbent bicycle. It took a good while to get here. I had purchased it at the end of June with the hopes of having it ready for a trip to New York near the end of July, and it cut pretty close. It was a little confusing to assemble, since the instructions provided consisted mainly of small low quality pictures and very few words. I had to look at several different pictures and pages on the website to figure it out.
Unfortunately for me, I still was not able to get it finished for the trip: The seat they sent was missing a bracket to connect it to the frame. I thus could not attach the seat at all as it was supposed to be. I also was having trouble at that point with getting the rear derailler to work, but that simply required connecting the cable a little differently. I emailed the Actionbent guy. He gave no reply, but promptly sent something to me. It arrived while I was in New York. I was hopeful to ride the bike, but unfortunately, when I got back, I discovered he had sent the wrong parts. He sent to pieces that I already had. I sent him another email, but he neither replied nor sent anything this time. I guess I’ll let it slide: it’s a small two person business which as far as I know only has two employees. So for now I have tied the seat at the one point with a rope. I could probably fashion something similar to the bracket out of two properly sized right angle brackets, but I haven’t gotten around to that.
I had ordered a rear rack and a bag from Actionbent as well. I was a little leary about the bag, as only a brief description was given. It was one of those trunk kinds, but the description said it had zipout panniers. I didn’t figure they’d be very big, but I thought they’d be good enough for day trips. When I recieved it, though, there were no zipout panniers at all. Only regular pockets. I’ve since discovered that it’s a Sunlite Top Loader 1, while the Top Loader 2 and greater have the panniers. They sent me another pack when the sent me the new brackets, but it was the exact same pack. I got two packs from this, so I guess I can’t complain too much. Plus the panniers would only gain me about 100 cubic inches for the 2.
I guess I forgot to mention it, but my server is back to running the mac os, and it has been for a good while now. My brother had sent the install DVD finally. I erased the old partition and installed the OS cleanly, then copied over my files from backup, which I’m glad I’ve finally been doing. Of course, I could have backed them all up before wiping the drive in this instance, but it could have been worse, and there may have been some file corruption of some sort.
Unfortunately, I forgot to backup some of the files that weren’t in my home folder. Mainly game related stuff. I lost nearly my entire collection of video game ROMs, which I’ve been having trouble finding now. I also lost some game saves, including some EVN ones that I had spent some time setting up. This has led me to start doing an occasional backup of the entire boot drive. This was made possible by my purchase of a 120GB drive.
I have recently purchased a new computer for use for myself. This one will become server only. I may take it back to linux once again for less overhead and what not. The new computer is just an updated version of my iBook G3, an iBook G4. It will be nice to again be able to take my computer elsewhere without taking down the server.
Here are several ideas about money relating to the president and congressmen. They are not all directly releted, and some may negate others.
– these officials are paid the average salary of the people in the territory they represent. This will give them more reasonable wages. It will give them much more insentive to produce economic results.
– Alternativily, they are all paid the average salary of the entire United States. This would prevent them from supporting items that only benifit the area they represent.
– They are paid a fixed multiple of this average salary. Thus, they will still make a lot of money, but will also have the economic insentive to improve the economy
– they are paid no salary. They are already wealthy, and almost always have income coming in from elsewhere. It is government money that could be put to better use elsewhere.
– they may recieve no campaign funds. campaigns are set up and run in a fixed format for all candidates, payed for with tax dollars. Additional campaigning is up to them, or perhaps not allowed except for travelling and meeting people. This reduces peoples ability to influence the candidates with money.
– no one may give financial or other gifts to these people whatsoever. They may endorse them only. They may not run media adverts about them, but may be mentioned as endorsers by the candidates themselves.
A few weeks ago, I came home and my iBook crashed. One app after another gave me the spinning beachball of death, until I could do nothing but move the beachball. I restarted, and no startup disk was recognized. I restarted several times to no avail. Finally I shut down and then started it up. It booted, but then all the apps quickly started crashing again.
I booted using a Techtool 4.0.1 disk. It was ridiculously slow. The volume structes test took 8 hours, and told me I had a problem and needed to rebuild the structures. I told it to do its thing. It took another 8 hours. Rebooting after that, my disk was no longer found again. I gave up on the problem then, and decided to install linux so I could get my server up and running as quickly as possible (see below).
Later, I got a new version of Techtool from my mom that was on a thumb drive. It allowed me to do much more, such as run disk utility and a terminal window. Disk utility could not fix the disk though and I couldn’t access it with terminal. I ran its test of the volume structures. It was crazily faster than the other one, taking perhaps 10 minutes for the test. It went so fast I felt hopeful it could fix it. It said there was a problem. I fixed it and ran the test again, but unfortunately it said there was the same problem as before, a directory node missing or something like that. I tried fixing and retesting a couple more times, but it gave the same problem every time.
I can access the files from linux, but have had no luck writing to the drive. I imagine the old version of Techtool, as it was from the early days of OS X, did not know how to properly handle the current volume structures, so it messed them up. I think I will need to reformat the drive and reinstall everything. Luckily, after my previous drive problems, I have been backing up most everything weekly. I shouldn’t lose anything, though I do want to look through the drive before I erase it just to make sure. I also want to try to find a way to only reformat the partition affected, so I don’t lose my linux setup or any of its data. I’m not sure how to do that for HFS+ without buying another utility.
I had burned a Gentoo and Ubuntu CD a couple of years back to mess around with. I never got either installed then, but this time it was more necessary. I tried installing the Gentoo. The installation is not directly guided at all; I had to open up a webpage (luckily the internet was no problem to get working) in one terminal window (no gui) and carry out the steps from the instructions in another. I was going along alright, but some of the choices were a little confusing. I came to the point where I had to compile my kernel, and decided I was spending too much time with Gentoo. Ubuntu was supposed to be quick and easy to install, and this was only to be temporary anyway.
Ubuntu provided a guided, GUI install that was fairly easy. The only problem I had was choosing the (prebuilt) kernel, as the default one didn’t work. I got that up and running, and it started up easily with a GUI and the internet working just fine. It was the desktop version, though, so no server stuff was installed. I was able to install apache2 with the package manager, but could not find php 5. I had converted all of my site stuff to mysqli, so I needed php 5: I certainly wasn’t going to go through my files and change all the pertinent lines for a temporary server. Searching the web, I found php 5 available for the Edgy and some other versions of Ubuntu. I was confused as to what those different versions were, at first thinking each one was of a progressively more unstable branch. I changed my repositories that I was getting packages from to one that had php 5, after figuring out how to do that. It wouldn’t let me install because it said there were some dependency problems. By this time I figured the different word versions of the OS were actually newer and newer revisions, like Jaguar and Tiger for OS X. So I figured if I installed the entire new version with the package manager, then all the dependencies should be met. It took quite some time to download and install all those files, and it gave some errors before completing. At that point, things like the GUI started breaking. I tried hard to fix the problem, including manually removing some package files, but it kept giving me errors.
I got the GUI back up and running just so I could burn another CD of a new version of the OS. I figured that then all the dependencies should be met no problem. I downloaded not quite the newest version though, as the newest couple of versions didn’t seem to mention the need mysqli in their depository (I now think mysqli is installed automatically with the mysql php extension in these versions). I downloaded the server version so that I could hopefully have a server running right from install. It took me some time to find a program that would let me burn a CD, but I finally got it burned.
Installing was about as easy as with the Desktop version, save for one screen where I had to manually select to install the web server, which I skipped the first two times through. To my delight, after the install, not only was an apache 2 server up and running, but so was a MySQL server, and PHP 5 with mysqli was already installed. After figuring out how to mount UFS (that took some time as well), I copied my site files over to the linux partition and easily got my site running.
Unfortunately, the server version wasn’t set up out of the box for my own regular use. It had no GUI at all. I used the package manager to install KDE, as KDE seems to have more applications that come with it. It took a good bit of time to set that up so it would actually work. It didn’t just work like it had when the desktop version was installed; it took some messing around with configuration files. When I finally got that working, it still was not working fully properly; I still have a desktop that is bigger than my actual screen, so I have to drag the mouse to the sides and move it to see the rest. This is very annoying to work with. I also have no sound. Other than that, though, it works just fine.
Linux seems to work quite nicely. It has plenty of good applications available, of course for free. I was able to work with all my important Excel files in OpenOffice with the only problem being that if I made changes, I had to save them in the OpenOffice format. I was surprised that the Control-enter functions worked. After downloading several extensions, I’ve been able to get firefox to work mostly the way I want for browsing. Safari still works better in some ways as I had it set up, but there are a lot of cool things that can be done with firefox extensions that can’t be done in Safari. Kate is a very nice text editor, though unfortunately I’ve not been able to find anything with live PHP previews like Taco Edit. It of course has desktop paging, which I never got working nicely in OS X. App launching has been a problem though. I’m used to Butler. Linux has Katapult, but it is not nearly as good and is very slow. File browsing is quite nice for the most part. The image browsing capabilities of Konquerer far exceed those of the Finder. I miss the Next-like columns view though.
For a long time I had wanted to be able to manage the groups on my *nix OS so that I could better manage access to files. The functionality is very limited in the OS X gui, and I couldn’t find command line stuff that worked. Finally, I found out that some of Apple’s server utilities are available for download for free, and work with a regular install of OS X. One of the utilities is called workgroup manager. It allows you to create groups and add users to them. So I can now create groups for specific projects or purposes, add the users involved to the related group, and make all related files owned by that group so the users have proper access to those files.