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Things you’d rather not see in the backyard

wasp image

We were out in the yard about four days ago, and if this thing was there, I sure didn't see it--and it's hard to miss, hanging out in the open about 10' from our kids' play structure. And no, I have no dreams of YouTube infamy, so I won't be attempting any creative destruction methods tonight. Instead, I'll call the experts tomorrow and let them take care of it. The nest is at least a foot across, if not closer to two.

I'm really not sure what they are, though I think they're members of the wasp family. If anyone wants to hazard a guess, here's a closeup of the critters.

Ugh. Bees and wasps. Two of my least favorite things, at least in mass concentrations in my own backyard!



Ten of my favorite iPhone things

Macworld logoEver since the first time I saw (but couldn't touch) the iPhone, I've sort of become Macworld's resident iPhone curmudgeon. Long before it was ever released, I came up with a list of shortcomings. Then, at the Worldwide Developers Conference last month, I was unhappy with the announced support for third-party web pages, er, apps. And finally, once the iPhone was out and I'd had the chance to use it, I put together a list of 10 iPhone apps—real apps—that I would find most useful on my iPhone.

If you were to simply look at my body of iPhone work, you might conclude I hate the iPhone, and would rather be dropped in the midst of a swarm of Africanized honey bees than be forced to use the thing. Surprisingly, perhaps as much to me as to you, that's not the case. For all the things it's lacking, the iPhone really does get quite a few things right—and it's the things it does oh so well that keep me coming back to it, despite its shortcomings.

Read my Macworld blog entry, Ten of my favorite iPhone things, for the rest of the story...



This enhancement is not so transparent

Macworld logoWhen Steve Jobs demoed Leopard at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, one of the new features included in the revised Desktop is a semi-transparent menu bar. It's clearly visible in the streaming video of the keynote, and in many of the screenshots on Apple's Leopard pages.

Now, I'm all for fancy effects, at least where it makes sense and might actually help the user. But in this case, I don't think it makes sense—look at many of Apple's own screenshots, and you'll see that certain entries in the menu bar are quite hard to read, owing to the bad mix of black text, a semi-transparent background, and a dark background image. Instead of being useful, it seems to me that—based on what's been shown, at least—the semi-transparent menu bar will do nothing but annoy me when I try to find a menu item against a non-cooperative background image. Of course, I won't know for sure until October when Leopard ships and I can test (and discuss) how well it does or doesn't work.

Read my Macworld blog entry, This enhancement is not so transparent, for the rest of the story...



More bad pictures

It was my birthday last Sunday, and my wife gave me a free pass to go out and about for a good chunk of the day while she watched the girls. So I packed up my new camera, and headed out to the Columbia River Gorge via the back roads. I drove a really big loop--about 250 miles total--up the Washington side of the Gorge on highway 14, then up highway 141 to Trout Lake. I followed 141 until the pavement turned into gravel, then turned around--my little MR2 is quite fun to drive, but "good ground clearance" is not on its list of attributes. Along the way, I stopped occasionally to snap some landscape photos.

Route 141 ends pretty much directly across from Hood River, and just down the road a touch is one of the more popular launching spots for Gorge windsurfers--as you can see by the number of vehicles in this Google Maps overhead view. So I took my camera and went and sat near the water's edge for a while, taking pictures of the action with the 300mm zoom. The Gorge is one of the most popular windsurfing spots in the country, and the wind was howling on Sunday morning--there must've been close to 100 windsurfers out on the water. I was hoping to see more freestyle wave jumpers, but alas, I only caught one shot of anyone in the air.

As you can tell by the images, I'm still pretty bad at this DSLR stuff. I'm having fun learning, but I just haven't had enough time to get out and shoot pictures while experimenting with the many modes the camera offers. At least we have some wonderful scenery around here that prevents the pictures from being completely terrible. (And next time, I'll remember to set the camera in RAW mode, so I can do more post-shot image correction when I get home!)



What computer should I buy?

Macworld logoJoe: I'm in the market for a new computer. Any suggestions?

Jane: Buy a Mac.

Joe: But wait; I haven't told you anything about my requirements!

Jane: Ah, yes, you're right. Sorry about that. Are you a hard-core gamer who needs the absolute latest in system and video card hardware?

Joe: No, not at all.

Jane: OK. Do you enjoy building your own computers, taking them apart, putting them together, replacing parts, and that kind of thing?

Joe: No, not at all.

Jane: OK, do you use any software or hardware has any sort of strange hardware requirements, like an ancient serial port security dongle, for instance?

Joe: No, not at all.

Jane: OK. Buy a Mac.

Read my Macworld blog entry, What computer should I buy?, for the rest of the story...



How to upgrade the Apple TV’s hard drive

Back in March, I purchased one of the original 40GB Apple TV units, and put it to use in our living room on the big screen TV. It worked fine, but 40GB was just too confining--between music and photos, I had over 40GB of data, not even counting movies or other video stuff. As a result, if I wanted access to everything from the Apple TV, I had to make sure the Mac Pro was awake to stream more content to the Apple TV. This got old fast, so I finally forced myself to upgrade the hard drive in the Apple TV today.

Overall, the process was relatively simple. I'm going to document the steps here, just in case the article I relied upon vanishes in the future. If you're going to undertake this project yourself, you'll need the following:

  • Towel: to place the top side of the Apple TV onto after you've opened it.
  • Torx screwdrivers: sizes 8 and 10, needed to open the case and release the hard drive.
  • 2.5" ATA laptop hard drive: Make sure it's not a SATA drive; I went with this 120GB Fujitsu, though I bought mine at Fry's.
  • 2.5" external drive enclosure: I bought this unit at the local PC Club store. I wanted a FireWire case, not just USB2, as I've never been impressed with USB2 speeds on OS X. Now that I'm done with the project, the Apple TV's old 40GB drive is living in the enclosure.

The rest of the process is documented below; read on and modify at your own risk!
[continue reading…]



iPhone, therefore iTap and tap and…

Macworld logoAh, morning—time to check the overnight e-mail that came in over the iPhone. Let's get to work!

Press the iPhone's power button. Tap the screen (that's screen tap #1) and drag the unlock slider. Press the Home button to get back to the main screen from whatever app I was using last on the iPhone. Tap (#2) the Mail icon. Oops, I left the iPhone reading a message the last time I was in Mail. Tap three times (#3, #4, #5) to get back to the list of accounts.

It's on this screen where you'll notice a big change from OS X's Mail program. In OS X's Mail application, the top-level folder is the global Inbox, and then within that folder, each of your accounts is listed separately, letting you easily view all of your new e-mail at once by just selecting the top level Inbox folder. On the iPhone, however, there is no global Inbox. Instead, the main Mail screen just shows a list of your accounts. You have to open each account to see the Inbox (and Trash and any other folders associated with that account).

Read my Macworld blog entry, iPhone, therefore iTap and tap and..., for the rest of the story...



Ten future iPhone apps

Macworld logoI've lamented on the lack of third-party access to the iPhone, and now, with quite a few actual usage hours on my belt, my lament has become a plea: please, Apple, if you're not going to do some of these things yourself, let third parties provide real solutions! Exactly what am I talking about? Well, here's a list I've been building of the Top 10 Missing iPhone Apps. I think third parties could do a great job at providing some or all of these solutions. (If Apple wants to do it, that'd be great, too, but I'd really like someone to make them available, and sooner rather than later.)

So here, in increasing order of importance, are the 10 applications that I think would be a perfect fit with the iPhone and its current application suite.

Read my Macworld blog entry, Ten future iPhone apps, for the rest of the story...



An odd thing happened today…

Macworld logoAnd that odd thing is this: I'm now an iPhone owner. As of yesterday, I had no plans to be anywhere near an Apple or AT&T store today. But that all changed when Macworld asked me to stand in line, buy a phone, and then mail to the corporate office--they wanted to make sure they had several phones in hand for review next week.

iphoneI detailed my camp-out experiences in this blog entry on macworld.com, along with this afternoon update.

Shortly after that last update was published is when my day got really surprising: Macworld asked me to buy two phones, but just send one in their direction--I was to keep one and use it myself, replacing my Treo. Wow. I was quite surprised, to say the least. You see, I didn't even really want a first-generation iPhone; it's missing many things that I'm used to on the Treo. But I guess now I get to see if that's really true, and to write about just how well, or not well, the iPhone works for me. As I have time with the iPhone, my write ups--covering the good and bad of the experience--will appear on Macworld's new iPhone Central pages (and probably on macworld.com, too).

The iPhone is now activated, and it's busy synching all my content. I'll post links here to anything that winds up on Macworld, in case you're contemplating an iPhone of your own.



Free time at San Francisco International

747 approachingMy Friday flight home from WWDC (San Francisco [SFO] to Portland [PDX]) wasn't set to depart until 9:15pm, probably putting me in the door around midnight. In an effort to get home somewhat sooner, I headed to the airport around 5pm, as there was a 6:15ish flight to PDX, and I thought maybe I could get on that one instead.

However, when I reached their gate, the departure board indicated "delayed," and the estimated new departure time was 9:40pm--well after my booked flight's departure. With no pressing requirements for the next four hours, I made my way to the end of the C concourse, where I had a good view of the planes taxiing by--as well as a view, though quite far away, of landings on runways 28L and 28R.

Thinking simply "I wonder if someone will come question me about this," I got out the Nikon, attached the 70/300mm zoom, and started snapping pix. Amazingly, over the course of an hour's worth of picture taking, I was completely ignored by Homeland Security. (The first few images were snapped from a café near the international terminal, outside the concourse proper.)

The pictures may only be of interest if you're a true aviation nut; most aren't even that good. I do like, however, the nose-on shot of the China Airlines 747, which was snapped as it maneuvered on the taxiways just outside the concourse. It makes a most impressive desktop image when cropped to fit 1920x1200! (As always, if you ever want a full-size version of any image, just ask.)