NSLog();

Question: What's the longest car trip you've ever taken? How about straight through (without stopping to sleep)?

My Answer: 17 hours when I drove from Florida to PA (and vice versa) and today - 11 hours from Erie to Myrtle Beach.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Here we go… right to the bottom of the AFC. Brilliant play, guys. I can't even blame Bill Cowher this week: Ben sucked (again), the O-Line sucked (again), the playcalling sucked (again), the defense sucked in the second half (again - but see the previous three notes). Every aspect of the Steelers sucked.

Still, 10-2 to finish the year and the Steelers are 11-5. 9-3 and they're 10-6 (which, in the AFC, probably won't get you jack squat). So I'm rooting for 10-2 to finish the year. Outside of that, pfffft.

Sad that the guy who was 27-4 is now 27-7. Yeah, that's still 80 (79.4)%, but it's going in the wrong direction fast.

Question: What's your BBColors scheme?

My Answer: Mine's in the extended entry.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

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I use Preview to view and read PDFs. Lately they've been texts like Agile Web Development with Rails and Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby. Though Preview will happily remember the last page I was viewing, it cannot remember the zoom level. I prefer 140-150%, which I can view comfortably on my 23" display, yet Preview insists on either 100% or, for the latter book, 253%, depending on which of the viewing preferences I've set.

Because I concentrate my learning to short gaps several times throughout the day, resetting the zoom level frustrates me to no end.

If Preview is going to remember the last page I was viewing, it should remember the zoom level I had set, too.

Brad and I are maintaining a very small blog at CynicalPeakLog documenting some of the software we're working on. Currently released, of course, is Scorecard, a golf statistics app I helped define.

If you're interested in what we're up to, subscribe to the feed.

Next week I'll be spending 14, 4, and 10 hours in a car. I'd like some audio book recommendations (ideally from iTunes, of course). Lay 'em on me!

TrackBack may be dead to a lot of people, but I think it still has value. For example, at The Sand Trap, we use TrackBacks to link related articles to each other. That's what TrackBacks are, after all.

However, even at The Sand Trap it's a bit of a hack. Currently, I have the following in my mt-config.cgi:

OneDayMaxPings  200
OneHourMaxPings 1

I change it to "100" when I'm about to publish an article, then change it back. Still, a TrackBack spam or two occasionally slip in. Here at NSLog();, I've simply renamed the mt-tb.cgi script. When I need to ping another of my entries, I rename it temporarily.

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For some reason, while installing Final Cut Pro Studio 5.1 (I finally got it today), my Finder began deleting files on my main boot disk (the one I was using) as soon as I'd throw them out. It even deleted two podcasts I deleted from within iTunes immediately.

In fact, it behaved essentially the same as if the disk was being shared across the network in regards to the "deleted immediately" capacity. Unusual… A reboot cleared all symptoms.

P.S. Soundtrack Pro is now much faster. I also got Aperture yesterday, but haven't played with it much.

Ah, yes, the flammable Wil Shipley - the not-so-delicious monster of Mac development. Wil publishes a long rant on the tired old topic of Carbon vs. Cocoa, some folks resond, and Wil goes off. Hasn't this happened before?

Wil's latest article contains a number of errors and silly comments, including his disparaging of FSRefs, his ignorance re: the relative age of Carbon and Cocoa, etc., yet when taken to task on his opinion, Wil calls people names and shifts goalposts.

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A friend of mine gave me the PDF version of the Agile Web Development book I've been reading (I own the full verison, but it's easier to view a PDF when you're writing code than to go back and forth from book to screen), and one question keeps popping up: why, if '' takes less to process than "", do the authors keep using "" when it's not needed?

<%= error_messages_for("order") %>

Perhaps I'm being silly, or I'm over-optimizing, but wouldn't that be at least a little better as:

<%= error_messages_for('order') %>

Most of the PHP I've ever written only dips into double quotes when necessary - string replacement, etc. The same capability exists in Ruby, and likewise at the cost of processing. So, over-optimizing or just being silly?

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Question: Do you buy extended warranties?

My Answer: This question comes from Gizmodo. I answered "Rarely" because my wife and I bought the expensive extended warranty on our rear-projection LCD TV (60"). It has two bulbs that dim over time and will be replaced under the warranty. Shortly before the warranty expires, I'll call Circuit City and say "the picture is dimmer now, please replace the bulbs" and they will.

But for an iPod? My Mac Pro? My phones, my car, my pool table, my dishwasher, my clothes dryer, etc.? No, no thanks. If it's going to break, it's going to do so very quickly or very late. Almost no electronics products "wear down" and break somewhere outside of a year but inside of five.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Funny. To say I'm "missing" my G5 would be a bit of an understatement. I'm really loving this Mac Pro. I've put off my "what I think" post, but will likely post my thoughts on it tomorrow. I should have my copy of Final Cut Pro Studio 5.1 within the week. It was delayed by a missing expiration date, but a fax took care of that.

Today, I'll be spending most of my time working through the Ruby on Rails book I've got.

I followed these instructions for setting up these apps on Tiger and am all set. A few of the software packages had small revisions/updates, so I installed those. Now I think I'm set.

P.S. Not all set. This readline issue has popped up and I have ben unable to eliminate it so far. I've posted here in the hopes of getting some assistance. Help?

I've spent the past hour playing with my licensed copy of Billable and I've come away impressed. Despite the fact that I'm (currently) out of the "invoice a bunch of smaller clients" mode (long-term contract work is so much smoother), I can see how Billable will pay for itself within minutes. Freelancers charge by the hour, and at $19.95 (or $24.95), it's easy to figure out how little time Billable must save you before it has paid itself off.

My own "billing" system used to be a hodgepodge of lame Word templates and time accounting kept in various text files, emails, and all sorts of things. Now I can consolidate my messy accounting practices and create professional, attractive invoices, all with a few clicks.

Author Mike Zornek's use of an introductory movie is delightful, and the care he's shown in exposing a fair amount of functionality while keeping the interface simple is incredible. Good work.

Billable's slogan is "Simple service and invoice tracking." While "invoicing" isn't very sexy, saving money and time is, and Billable will help you do that in spades. Kudos, Mike, on your first large step into indie Mac development.

I typically shy away from bashing unreleased stuff, particularly from Microsoft, because if I've learned one thing, it's that Microsoft has enough money to overcome any problem. If I've learned two things, the second is that people don't always exhibit great taste. The prevalence of Windows in the 90s is proof enough of that.

So, I've stayed away from commenting on the Zune. Heck, part of me hoped it would start off reasonably well and help push iPod prices down and feature lists up - Apple has not had much serious competition yet.

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