NSLog();

Funny, isn't it, how the "see who searched for you" ad on the right side of about 1/4 of the Facebook pages I look at always shows some 19-year old semi-trampy looking chick with cleavage and minimal clothing, isn't it?

C'mon, Facebook. Are people that dumb?

Please don't answer that.

I'm really interested in one or the other of the Spider Holster or Cotton Carrier. Their individual pages are at CottonCarrier.com and SpiderHolster.com. They're both very similar systems. Here's a video of the Spider Holster:

This is broken. It used to work. Script Editor complains about a missing value…

tell application "Safari"
    set myJS to "self.moveTo(8,8);self.resizeTo(1100,1000);"
    repeat with thisWin in every document
        do JavaScript myJS in thisWin
    end repeat
end tell

Any ideas? This type of script comes in handy when a site resizes your browser window. I hate that…

I'm going to be using my Canon 5D Mark II to build first YouTube videos and eventually a DVD. As such, I found this quick tip to create droplets to convert to Apple's 422 format enlightening.

I should probably pick up (rather, have the client pick up) an external hard drive to store all the video I'll be creating. Even with H.264 from the 5D Mark II a 2:00 video was over 700 MB.

The YouTube videos will require a good deal less editing, so I may not even bother with the conversion so long as iMovie or Final Cut Pro doesn't crash.

Some other good links: Apple docs here and here.

Next up: figuring out how to animate the pieces of an EPS file. I think Motion can do it but who knows…

I never encountered any of the problems he's had - though I have had instances where my images get thumbnails from an entirely different image - but my library is small compared to his (12,500), and I agree with him about "existing bugs that never get fixed." I think camera support has gotten better and faster, but the rest of his issues remain:

• Ridiculously slow update cycle
• Long wait for new camera support
• Small bugs left unfixed for years
• Adjustments not improved in dot version upgrades
• Previews unusable in practice (must be disabled for reasonable performance)
• No XMP sidecar support (adjustments and keywords trapped in Aperture forever)
• SQL Lite database is terribly slow and can take Aperture down
• Frequent database corruption

Today Vinay Venkatesh lost control of his motorcycle after he hit a rut. He was airlifted to Stanford hospital and died in surgery a short while later.

I hadn't talked to Vinay much in the past few years. He was very busy (and very in demand) at VMWare. I came to the Mac development scene shortly after Vinay well over a decade ago, and he was one of the first Mac devs I called a friend despite the fact that we hung out only a few times.

Please take a moment to consider your friends. Tell them the next time you talk to them how much you appreciate having them in your life. Hug them if it's appropriate. I think Vinay would appreciate it if his last act, of sorts, would be to make people appreciate each other a little more.

Vinay, you will be missed.

Of the first 50 of 100 things on this list, I particularly like the following ((All of the ones dealing with wine never come into play with me - I'm not much of a drinker.)):

7. Do not announce your name. No jokes, no flirting, no cuteness.

8. Do not interrupt a conversation. For any reason. Especially not to recite specials. Wait for the right moment.

10. Do not inject your personal favorites when explaining the specials.

15. Never say "I don't know" to any question without following with, "I'll find out."

18. Know before approaching a table who has ordered what. Do not ask, "Who's having the shrimp?"

20. Never refuse to substitute one vegetable for another.

32. Never touch a customer. No excuses. Do not do it. Do not brush them, move them, wipe them or dust them.

34. Do not have a personal conversation with another server within earshot of customers.

41. Saying, "No problem" is a problem. It has a tone of insincerity or sarcasm. "My pleasure" or "You're welcome" will do.

43. Never mention what your favorite dessert is. It's irrelevant.

48. Do not ask what someone is eating or drinking when they ask for more; remember or consult the order.

JPG is back (Issue 20 is now available). They're going all digital with print-on-demand for an extra fee.

The stupid site now lists me as a "Subscriber since October 2009," which isn't right at all, but I don't care enough to bother their support people to have it corrected.

I took advantage of a special to buy a year (now four issues) for $6 with four issues added free, but I was already paid up through issue 31. Fortunately, my account status says I have 20 issues left, so that seems to be right.

I gave a gift subscription to someone - I hope he got it as well.

I still haven't uploaded any photos since I removed them all when they supposedly went out of business. I didn't want my rights potentially sold to another company. That said, I still plan to take my time uploading photos and considering their "Plus" option.

I read the other day that Obama has played as much golf in eight months in office as George W. Bush played in eight years.

Remember how Bush was forced to give up the game by the media because there was a war going on and it looked silly to play "so much" golf?

And now what do we hear? How great it is to have a President who enjoys staying active?

Hypocrisy much?

It's bad enough that the QuickTime X player is crap, but there's a work-around: use QuickTime Player 7 when you don't want to deal with QuickTime X.

Unfortunately, on the Web, there's no such choice. You can't advance frame by frame, you can't control the volume, and there's a useless "rewind 30 seconds" button where more useful controls belong.

And you can't replace that plugin with a more useful one.

Grrr!

I've heard good things about AppleTV 3.0 software.

Something I need to do: check to see if an AppleTV can share its Internet connection with, say, a DirecTV receiver (via ethernet).

If so, I'll strongly consider getting one for the bedroom. The living room TV has the Xbox 360 (with Rivet), so I don't need an AppleTV there. The bedroom TV has only a DirecTV receiver that's currently using an old domed (snow) AirPort Extreme Base Station.

If I can replace the Base Station with an AppleTV, I may be buying. If not, then I still have no need for an AppleTV.

Page to check eventually: http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html ((I'm not blogging from my desktop computer or I'd just check it now.)).

• Palmer course has fairways that are too narrow with elevation changes that are too severe.
• How does water not drain off these slopes? It doesn't.
• Got sick and tired of swinging at golf balls at belt or knee level.
• Jones course has dumb greens starting at about the eighth hole. At least SOME of the holes are flatter.
• Then again some, like the fifth, feature a 45° NASCAR style fairway.
• The rooms are nice enough.
• Only one dining option is lame.
• They're already preparing for Christmas.

At least I scored reasonably well.

Is it normal for the Kindle edition of a book to be pricier than the hardcover version? That doesn't make any sense.

I'd pre-order, but I don't want to spend more to get a DRMed book. I imagine this will be fixed, but November 12 is soon.

If you like to check your WordPress stats from your iPhone, you may like Statistics for WordPress, an iPhone app by Ben Barnett.

He sent a copy to me for free. I added this blog quickly and then waited for the stats to download. They did, and they proved interesting, with a few different views of data I hadn't really seen before.

Only two problems. First, the thing was slow. I'm not sure what the holdup was, but it took about a minute for stats to load (on WiFi). Second, the app crashes on me now while it's trying to get the newest data. Every time.

It's $2.99 if you'd like to give it a try yourself… but I'd hold off for a version that's faster and doesn't crash. Then again, maybe it's just me. My site does have a (); in the title. 🙂

On a day when I hear that Aperture 3 will not ship until May, 2010 ((Don't believe it - it's just the far-in-the-distance date of an Aperture book, and not even soft proof of anything except a slip-up or a guess by someone at Amazon.com.)), Adobe offers up Lightroom 3.0 Public Beta. The download is here.

Features:

• Redesigned Importing - I like Aperture just fine here, and particularly like how it manages my images.
• Drag and Drop Publishing to the Web - I can do this too, but it might be nice on occasion to have it be simpler than relying on plugins (as with Aperture).
• Pro-Level Noise Reduction - Depending on how it works, either "eh" or "yes, please!"
• Built-in Film Grain Feature - Cuz you'll use this feature, what, twice, ever?
• Better Vignetting - "Eh."
• Export a Slideshow with Music - "Eh deux."
• Real Watermarking - Aperture's watermarking always leaves me guessing so much I simply opt not to watermark, so this might be good.
• Create Print Layouts Everywhere - I don't print.
• Change Background Color for Prints - I still don't print.
• Collections Panel is now in Develop Module - I'm still not entirely sure I like the idea of having "modules" to begin with.

I'll download it, but I'm not even sure I'll install it.

What are your thoughts?

Oh, and where the heck is Aperture 3.0? Or even any chatter about it? Why can't Apple do something public like this ((And before anyone responds to this part, I know why, and I still think it's a stupid reason.))?

P.S. 68.1 MB for Mac OS X, 120 MB for Windows, both as .zip files?