08.06.07
Celestia
As a kid I was very amazed by the outer space. I even read a book about the solar system even though I hated reading. I was a bit of a dyslectic . I wish I had a software like Celestia back then. You can view so many stars, planets, moons, asteroids, space stations… amazing. This would be a perfect tool for school. I had to learn all the planets in our solar system which was not a problem for me, but what a joy whould it have been to use Celestia and see them moving around the sun! This is just a little example. The possibilities are uncountable. I know that not every school can afford computers for students. But maybe they should think about it.
VMware Fusion again
I just tried it out and am surprised in a positive way. I never used Parallels, so I can’t compare to that. An assistant helps to install Windows XP. You just give your informations to it and it will set usernames, passwords, the serial key… Folder sharing just works. The mouse is smooth with contrast to VirtualBox. The display resolution can be pretty high. I don’t want to say that VirtualBox is bad, virtualization is not easy to do. The VMware guys have some experience with this kind of software.
Now I wonder how fast the 3d integration will come. In believe VMware and Parallels will support it pretty well in a while.
08.05.07
VMware Fusion
Well, I’m not too happy with VirtualBox. There are several little things that are not really working as I would like them to work. In addition I had some other little problems with shared folders. Maybe this could be solved with a bit more patience. Anyway, VMware Fusion is just going to be released. Today if I’m right. But as long as it is not, you can get it for 40 Dollars. After it’s release the price will go up to 80. That’s why I just purchased it. Let’s see how it works out…
08.04.07
Windows on the Mac
I just installed Windows XP on my Mac. The virtualisation software I use is VirtualBox. There are two versions, one is open source. The other not, but has some additional features. I chose the second one. My first approach failed. It said the installation CD was kind of broken… then I changed some disk image settings and tried again, this time it worked. It is quite an experience to have an other OS in a window of OS X.
Why would anyone do this? I’m sure there are various reasons. I need it for the integration in the network of my University for applied science. That’s what they said in the info-letter. Strange, but in case they are serious I am steeled now.
ID3 tags are dead
Well, they’re not yet. Which is sad. Even if I’m the only one, I hope they will not be used in two years. Did you notice how restrictive the management of music with ID3 tags is? You have these predefined categories like artist, genre, album. When you want to browse through your library you have to stick to these categories. What if you want to sort your music by quality? This is the stuff I listen when I need to relax and these songs I listen on the go… What if you want to have other categories? I have stuff I don’t listen anymore very often but want to keep them as a memory or whatever. One day a friend loan me her iPod for an irrelevant reason. I put a bit of my music collection on it and it was hard to find in there between all the stuff of my friend. There are numberless reasons to want to have individual structures.
What I do is just use a folder structure. Some players support this out of the box, others run Rockbox. It works very well for me. I just drag and drop the folder if I want to get an album from the “trial” place to the “yeah, great” place. Editing ID3 tags is a mess.
This will not be the solution since tags are very common. And they have some serious advantages. What I have in mind is an easily configurable tagging system. You still have the ID3 stuff but can modify it. Out of the box it may work just like ID3. But you can change it, create new categories and change them in several ways. Of course the players also had to be more flexible.
This is my little vision of the future of music browsing. If it doesn’t happen I will just stick to my folders as long as possible.
08.03.07
AudioXplorer
There is a nice application called AudioXplorer. It’s an oscilloscope which uses the sound input as source. You can also tell it to use the microphone, but this makes no sense for an oscilloscope. Since sound is stereo you have two channels. As mentioned here the sound output is not the best in the world. However I didn’t test the input. For simple usage scenarios it could be sufficient. The spectrum of course is limitted too. For handicraft enthusiasts it may be a nice solution.
08.02.07
MacBook Pro and Sound
I have this amazing new MacBook Pro. One thing about it is very annoying. I know it before, but didn’t expect it to be so bad. It’s the 3.5mm sound output. It makes noisy and beeping sounds. And it’s too loud. I talked about this problem with a few people and most of them can hear it too. The only solutions seems to be a attenuation. Since the noise is independant of the system sound intensity you can increase the volume and pull everything down again. I use the attenutator which came with my Ultimate Ears Super.Fi 5 Pro earphones. These earphones may support the problem because they are pretty good. They transmit fine sounds quite well. That’s good but works also with unwanted sounds like the MacBook Pro noises. Anyway, I’ll never go back to crappy earphones. Once I started using this kind of earphones the models went up in quality and price. I started with ER-6 from Etymotic Research. Not much of low frequencies but very clear. I believe they were the clearest phones I used ever. But since I believe in change the next ones were the E3c from Shure. There were the basses again. Just when they broke I was lucky enough to win the Super.Fi 5 Pro. They have two sound converters in each phone. However the difference to the Shure was not as big as I expected. But they are still the most pleasing phones I ever had.
08.01.07
PathFinder as a MacUpdate Promo
I just purchased PathFinder as a MacUpdate Promo for 20 Dollars. There are a bit more than 9 hours left. A really good offer. There are many representation and navigation options. I have to try it all out but I’m sure I will not regret this decision.
OmniOutliner to folder structure
An other useless AppleScript. OmniOutliner seems to be bundled with all new Apple computers. My idea is: Create a hierarchical structure in OO related to some kind of a project and export this to a folder structure in the filesystem to fill it with any kind of information.
The script exports a OPML file from OO to home/scriptfiles/ and reads the XML information out of it. It asks you for a folder to export the sub- and sub-sub… folders there. The OPML file stays, the script could be told to delete it. I like to stay.
I want to thank Skeeve who helped me with the handler which creates the folders. Just in case he reads this…..
on run
set inbetween to POSIX path of (path to home folder) & "scriptfiles/"
tell application "Finder"
try
make new folder at ((home as text)) with properties {name:"scriptfiles"}
end try
end tell
tell application "OmniOutliner"
export document 1 to inbetween & "oo.opml" as "OOOPMLDocumentType"
set selected_path to (choose folder) as string
set destination to POSIX path of selected_path
end tell
tell application "System Events"
set XMLfile to XML file (inbetween & "oo.opml")
set root to XML element 1 of XMLfile
set body to XML element "body" of root
my make_structure(body, destination)
end tell
end run
to make_structure(parent, current_path)
set done to false
tell application "System Events"
repeat with elt in (every XML element of parent whose name is "outline")
my make_structure(elt, current_path & (value of XML attribute "text" of elt) & "/")
set done to true
end repeat
end tell
if not done then
do shell script "mkdir -p " & quoted form of current_path
end if
end make_structure
Update on the Bookmarking thing
There was a bug in this script. It took the wrong URL when multiple pages were opened. Never trust code from some stranger, I tell you. There is still a flaw, sometimes it changes the active Safari window for some or no reason. Buuut: Now there is a list of the acronyms and what’s their meaning. And the input works a bit different: type the acronym followed by a space and then the description. Page creation or direct addressing by pagename does not work anymore.
Here is the code. I edited it also in the previous post.
Edit: Ok, I hope I killed the flaw now. Script is updated again.
on run
tell application "Safari" to set new_bm_url to URL of document 1 of window 1
activate
set acronyms to {"s", "a", "g", "o", "d", "l"}
set pagenames to {"bm Science", "bm Apple", "bm Games", "bm Other", "bm Software Dev", "bm Read Later"}
set d_l to ""
repeat with x from 1 to number of items of acronyms
set d_l to d_l & item x of acronyms & " - " & item x of pagenames & return
end repeat
display dialog d_l as text default answer ""
set text_result to text returned of result
set acronym to first character of text_result
set bookmark_note to characters 3 thru (number of characters of text_result) of text_result as text
tell application "VoodooPad"
repeat with x from 1 to number of items of acronyms
if item x of acronyms is acronym then
set itemnumber to x
end if
end repeat
set pagename to item itemnumber of pagenames
append text bookmark_note & return & new_bm_url & return to page pagename of document 1
end tell
end run
