NSLog();

I removed a few OSAX and several contextual menu items in Snow Leopard because they were either a) spewing messages in the console, or b) simply not working/loading.

My list is:

• 24U Appearance OSAX.osax
• CopyPath.plugin
• dppCMPlugIn.plugin
• DropboxPlugin.plugin
• ParallelsCM.plugin
• Satimage.osax
• XML Tools.osax
• Renamer4Mac.plugin

Parallels will likely update itself at some point in the future (or not - I don't really think I care). Same with the Dropbox one - which already has. The rest, well, goodbye, I guess? Are they being updated? Can I delete 'em? Current plan is to keep them until I'm certain I can just delete them… but that might not be more than about a week away.

defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableXRayFolders 1

Genius!

Near middle Peach Street here in Erie/Millcreek, someone is selling pumpkins for Halloween. Unfortunately, "pumpkins" has two "p"s while every one of their signs has only one. 🙁

For a few years now we've had a 19" TV hooked up to an old TiVo (a Hughes unit) in the bedroom. This has worked "okay" as a second source for television programming the few times we had conflicts.

With hockey season coming up, I decided now was as good a time as any to replace the 19" TV and the TiVo with something more suitable. HDTV prices aren't high anymore - particularly for the off-brand stuff that may not have the absolute best picture.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 304); »

Lightroom is pulling farther ahead of Aperture.

This comment captures a lot of the reasons why:

Five bucks says Aperture 3 — if there even is an Aperture 3 — will be the last major update. Apple's refusal to communicate or fix longstanding bugs is driving away its professional customers. There's no life left in the Aperture community. It's almost as if the Aperture team doesn't exist at all anymore and that the only users left are the sad hopeful few camped out in the official Apple support forums begging for scraps of information which never comes.

I hope for my sake that one of two things happens: a) the commenter is wrong and Apple does a mini-about-face on Aperture development, community, etc., b) Lightroom 3.0 easily imports my Aperture library. 😛

P.S. Derrick Story thinks Aperture 3.0 will ship soon, and he has a list of features he'd like to see. The fact that he's completely in the dark is a result of Apple's poor decisions in this area.

P.P.S. My wishlist? More speed (if that's via 64-bit support, fine, though that might kill some plugins I still rely on), more non-destructive editing, and a few more editing options like some masking/local adjustments, gradients, and a few of the little things Lightroom's got.

I ordered a wireless mic set from B&H on August 26. See? After a few days, they sent me a small "quick start guide" ((Think "business card" size after being folded twice.)) to the version 2.0 of the 3.0 product that I'd ordered.

I called today to find out what's going on, since I was told the items would ship "in a few weeks" and was told that they now estimate a mid-November ship date.

I asked if they'd charged my card, and they had. Not because they "sent" something (the little guide), but because "we always charge your card when you order."

I've seen been told I was wrong, but for awhile I thought it was marginally or entirely illegal to charge someone way, way in advance of shipping product. When I pre-order from Amazon my cards aren't charged until the item ships. Same for Apple - within a day or two.

Even if it's not illegal, it's kind of crappy. I never agreed to loan B&H $x - I agreed to pay $x for certain products. And it can't be all peachy on their end. If I cancel, they have the added overhead of crediting my card back and losing out on the transaction fees they will have incurred.

I love B&H overall, but this kind of stinks. It limits the amount of pre-ordering I'll do with them in the future, too.

I love a good ripping. I love swimming against the tide of "popularity," particularly when most of those gliding down-river are doing so without any particular thought as to why they're doing so. Because it's easy? Because everyone else is doing it?

The first article is here and the second is here. And yes, they're by the same author, which does diminish my glee.

I read a few of Friedman's books and found them entirely unmemorable (save for the fact that I read them - that much I do remember). Not quite trash, but when Freakonomics has you beat, it's not good.

Then there's Dan Brown. I just bought his latest book for my Kindle because they lack the pompousness of Friedman (or his current-gliders). They're not as serious - it's pure escapist bullshit literature, so I cut Brown some slack and perhaps even find a little humor in how badly he writes. If you're particularly bored or you feel about Brown as I do about Friedman, here, here, and here. That'll keep you busy.

I seem to recall that I really enjoyed a Roger Ebert review of Ben Stein's movie. And, lo, here it is. That's probably the best of the bunch.

Took only 30 minutes. This one, unlike the first-gen one in my VW Touareg, shows the album and artist name. Or the title. But never all three together, bizarrely. But hey, at least it can change shuffle settings, navigate playlists, artists, and albums, and a few other things.

Still, a step up. And I'll read the brief manual later.

P.S. I'm still looking for an older iPod. If you have one you could sell me, please read this.

I voted no, because the very act of taking a photo crops everything else that's visible from the vantage point of the photographer in that instance. If cropping is lying, so too would zooming and virtually everything else done to capture a portion of a 3D world on a 2D sensor or piece of film.

P.S. Via kottke.

Does anyone out there have an older iPod in good shape? We're looking for one (even 8 GB should do), specifically one of the ones in this image. They're listed as supported iPods on this page.

The wife's iPhone works, but it asks to be put into airplane mode every time you plug it in and it doesn't charge. Plus she's looking for something she can leave in the car for the most part. That's the main reason we don't really want a new nano - why pay for a camera you don't need?

So, anyone got one they could sell? Contact me or, as a last resort, leave a comment (with a valid email address).

Update: Someone has an iPod that works and is mailing it to me. If I was worried about the charging, this solution appears it would have worked.

USB Overdrive is now available in a Snow Leopard/64-bit version. Yippee! I'm waiting for a DVD to finish encoding before I restart.

Compare this with CaddieSync, the application you need to use to synchronize your "SkyCaddie" ((A golf GPS device that tells you how far away a green, a bunker, a pond, etc. is.)) - which still is not available for Snow Leopard. I emailed support and was basically told "Apple just released Snow Leopard and our engineers have only spent two weeks with it."

I replied and pointed out that, as one of two main operating systems that they support, you'd think they'd have used the developer seeds or something. Their reply can be summed up as "uhhhhhh." And the last time I tried to run their installer, it asked me for Rosetta ((I have no plans to install Rosetta. Ever.)). C'mon, people. They've rendered my SkyCaddie useless as I can't change it for courses I'm traveling to - which is the only time I use the thing anyway.

It turns out that removing four bicuspids when I was a kid is now considered a mildly "controversial" tactic that's not used much anymore, and due to the relatively small size of my mouth and the fact that even the dentists can't easily clean my rear wisdom teeth, I'm having them removed.

Just the uppers. They've been erupted - a term which sounds bad which is actually good - since I was about nine ((Which, yes, is quite early.)), and now they're coming out.

I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but seeing as how they're not impacted and they've been erupted, apparently it won't be too bad. I'm still planning to get nitrous (which isn't "fully asleep" mode, just "stoned" mode), but I hear the soreness from having your mouth stretched and pulled at is the worst thing, along with copious amounts of blood immediately post-surgery.

Whoopeeeeeeee.

I'd like to have a Scrabble night at our house. It's a good game on a number of levels. Perhaps every other Saturday or something - weekly would be overkill. Maybe we can play different games on the odd weeks ((Or would they be the even weeks? :-D)).

Rivet 2.2.4 is now available. Originally the plan was to release Rivet 2.2.2, but a few problems necessitated a few more updates. 🙂

This update is free and it fixes the Snow Leopard issue where a thumbnail was not always generated. It also fixes the issue with streaming MP4 video files to the PS3. They should now play correctly.

Again, http://cynicalpeak.com/rivet/ has a free update as well as a free demo. Rivet works with your PS3 and your Xbox 360.

Consider this an open place to share your thoughts on 9/11, eight years after the events occurred.

The memory that sticks out most for me is that my office-mate Alison, who had family in NYC, was desperately trying to call her family and our boss came in and said "My family's fine, so yours is too. Get back to work." We were kept at work until our normal quitting time of 5:00 despite the fact that none of the other businesses with which we worked kept remained open that day.

September 11, 2001 was a Tuesday. We went to work the rest of the week. Our pay periods ran through the 15th, so I spent most of my time cleaning up a few loose ends. I didn't return to that place of work the next week, or ever again. The way our boss treated us on September 11, 2001 was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.

And yes, I feel rather fortunate that something so silly is my strongest memory, and that my strongest memory isn't the loss of a loved one or even the loss of a loved one's loved one. Heck, I'm not even sure I personally know anyone who lost someone.