NetNewsWire is now free January 10, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Mac, tools , add a commentNetNewsWire Lite is a great client RSS reader for the Mac but there was also a “pro” version called NetNewsWire for a small registration charge.
Now the full version is free as well.
http://inessential.com/2008/01/09.php
( via Tom Morris )
So will I switch from Google Reader? Well no, not completely but I’ll use this as an opportunity to start afresh with a new list of RSS subscriptions grouped into folders. Then again, I had intended to do that with Vienna the open source reader which languishes unused in my applications folder.
Vista is New Coke September 29, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : marketing, Mac , add a comment“Vista is New Coke” Nick Gogerty pronounces rather boldly:
That steaming pile known as vista is now allowing people to pay for the privilege of downgrading to XP. OEM’s are selling XP for at least 5 more months, oh and office has bad learning curve and excel can’t do math….MSFT=$20/share in 12 months.
Let’s sum it up, shall we..Vista is New Coke.
For younger readers, or those in countries untouched by the coca cola brand ( um…?) New Coke was the name of a changed formulation introduced in 1985 by The Coca-Cola Company to replace its flagship soft drink product, Coca-Cola or Coke.
Although blind tastings in the research stage had indicated a positive public reaction, the reality of the change was devastating, and new coke quickly entered marketing history as one of the all time biggest mistakes. The subsequent reintroduction of Coke’s original formula, temporarily named Coke Classic, led to a significant regaining of sales and the eventual withdrawal of New Coke competely
binary code inflation August 7, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Mac, tools , 3commentsI just gave in to some nagware and agreed to download a newer version of Fetch. It’s a necessary tool, because sometimes Dreamweaver is not sufficient or carries too much overhead. You just want a simple FTP program to move a file from one computer to another, and Fetch is one of the best options for Mac. Being a cautious sort of person I didn’t just copy the new version on top of the other, I renamed the old one first. Through this I noticed a huge differences in the file sizes.
- Fetch 5.0.4 = 13.7 Mb
- Fetch 5.2.1 = 56.3 Mb
What on earth could be going on here?
In theory, later versions of a simple piece of utility software like an FTP program should get slightly smaller as more efficient code is introduced, not over four times bigger!
Now that computer memory comes in chunks of 1Gb are we going to see the world’s first 500Mb text editor?
Compact Cassette tapes replaced by mp3 playlists May 8, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Mac, Music , 2comments
Just when I finally got around to finding a way to connect up a cassette player to my computer, the medium is declared obsolete:
Currys gives cassettes the boot - blaming the “MP3 generation”
That icon of music discovery, the audio cassette, looking to be heading off the shelves for good. High street retailer Currys is selling off its existing stock, with no intention of replenishment. The reason? We’ve all gone digital.
The vital pice of equipment was a phono lead, connecting the headphones output socket on the portable CD/tape player to the microphone input socket on the soundcard device, in this case a griphin iMic. Adjust the volumes, boot up Audacity and save each side as a huge wave file or export sections as mp3. Simple. I don’t think I’ll be going through my entire colection of old tapes though, the albums, Bhangra and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan tapes from Green Street market, concerts, compilations and “last night’s John Peel”
But it will enable me to futureproof and edit a couple of old tapes I recorded in 1981 of a load of old songs I wrote as a young person n the 70’s and then upload them as back catalogue to last.fm , ( when it’s working for upload )
How to fill and edit awkward documents and forms attachments March 20, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Mac, Pajamanation , add a commentIt’s always so much easier when you know how.
Do you ever get stressed out by being sent a form to fill in which is in some version of microsoft word you can’t open or else as a read-only pdf?
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the only solution is to try and translate the document into something which is editable right?
Wrong.
I asked on the pajamanation Flickr group then another solution came up afterwards from WHV who explains a solution using Omnigraffle, but the central idea is so simple it’s stupid.
All you have to do is think in terms of layers. Having grasped this concept there is clearly no such thing as a non-editable pdf. Open any vector graphics drawing package, import an image of the pdf and then write on top of it in a new layer. When finished, save, flatten and export or print to pdf again.
You could use Photoshop, Appleworks Draw, Macromedia Fireworks, The Gimp or soon probably one of the online image editors that are starting to appear.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
