NSLog();

Question: What words spring to mind when you see this image?

My Answer: This was just an excuse to post that image. Ha ha ha ha. If you've been on the Web for a year or more, you've no doubt seen this. FWIW, my answer is the image's alt tag.

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

I found this interview interesting. It reminded me to check my logs. Apparently I'm doing pretty well for myself with MT-Blacklist. In the past 30 days, I've had some 25,000 spamments blocked. I've had to manually delete only 7 spamments.

My blacklist makes liberal use of URL Patterns like "\bdebt\b" and "\bhold-em\b" and it's been working well. They catch nearly all of the comment spam. Some others - "phentermine" and "vioxx" and "cialis" (which, admittedly, will trip up people who spell "specialize" with an "s" instead of a "z") - act as good catch-alls.

Update: I've updated my blacklist message with to list the affected word, so if you've commented here before and been blocked, the message should be more helpful now. ("Your __SUBMTYPE__ was denied for questionable content. The item matched was __ITEM__ (from the text __TEXT__). Please rework your comment so that it doesn't include the inappropriate items.")

Question: What do you think of the new PowerBooks?

My Answer: Great. The trackpad bit is nice. The Sudden Motion thing is nice. Anyone thinking these would be G5s was simply out of their gourd. Bluetooth 2.0? Who'da thunk it? Built-in wireless is a good thing. And 17 inches for $2699? When these things were introduced - had they actually been available on time - they sold like hotcakes at $3499.

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

Question: On average, how much "free time" do you have in an average day? Free time is defined as time with no obligations to work, significant others, or friends, and unless we're talking about luxurious baths, it doesn't include time for showering, bathing, dressing, cleaning, etc.

My Answer: About 30 minutes. Startling.

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

One of the things I wanted in the redesign of The Sand Trap was to further promote the golf forum. One of the ways in which this was done was with a small image at the top and some bolder, colored text. I also wanted to put "Hot Forum Topics" in the sidebar.

vBulletin offers JavaScript, RSS, and XML content via its "external data providers" feature. The feed is easily parsed with MagpieRSS, even if it doesn't validate, and within minutes I had a working side bar with links to the thread and the creator's name. Then I found some problems - namely, that the feed didn't update very frequently. It showed only the most recent 15 threads by creation date, not activity. vBulletin offers no method of changing the RSS template, so it's quite "take it or leave it."

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 479); »

If anyone with some CSS skills and access to a PC would like a free copy of Rock Star, iWipe, and Booklet (or any other single FSS product), I have a challenge.

Have a look at http://thesandtrap.com/test.php. On the Mac, with the font one cmd-+ larger than I'd normally view the page, the menu looks great. It still looks good another size larger.

On the PC, the link on the left seems to occupy the entire row, forcing the item count down a row. It looks silly. I'd like to avoid having that problem, but attempts to solve it (happens in both IE and FireFox, but not on every PC) have only caused more problems.

Solve the problem (without using a TABLE), win some software. I'm stumped (and far too brain-tired at the moment to really give it much effort).

Update: Seems we have a winner. It was indeed something simple. 😛

Looks like it took me two to get out of the bunker. I wasn't happy with the first design at The Sand Trap, so it was re-designed.

Now if only the darn site could move up in Google's and Yahoo's rankings a little. Previous entries from this blog show up ahead of that one. Oh well, that's a waiting game really, and the site is still pretty new. Regardless, I think it's quickly become the best golf blog out there. 😉

Question: When was the last time you were romantic? What did you do?

My Answer: I'm posting this question not because I have something in mind, but because I'm spurring myself on. It's been too long for me. So, I'm backing out of my own question, yes, but I'll gladly hear your answers. 🙂

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

It just occurred to me today that 50% of the original staff of Cocoa Dev Central (Me, Jeff, Jason, Andy, Brad, Brian) worked or works for Apple. Andy's in Austria and hasn't applied, Brad is enjoying his role in life and hasn't applied, and Brian is quite young still (and has not applied). Nifty!

Question: What do you like most about Pages? Dislike most?

My Answer: It seems to export its styles in a format Word can understand. We may just be able to use it for the book after all. I wish the styles sidebar had a way of hiding unused styles. Keep them available for when I need to apply one the first time, but otherwise keep them out of my sight. I might never use some, and trying to find the 5 I use in a big long list is tedious. Can't say I've used it enough at this point to render a decision on the "dislike most" portion, but the icon could sure be better. 😉

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

Pages needs to not put the damn cursor in a new spot when I click on a document window from another application. Just leave it where it is, dammit.

In the past five minutes, I've begun typing in the wrong place about ten times because I'm switching between Interface Builder and Pages. I realize I could use cmd-tab, but when I'm moving the mouse around in IB it's faster to click the big ol' Pages window.

Question: What is the biggest limitation of the Model-View-Controller paradigm?

My Answer: I just wanted to use the word "paradigm." 🙂 No, not really. The largest issue I have with it is that it's somewhat complicated by some classes in Cocoa, and sometimes it just feels so easy to do something "M" in the "V" or to do something "C" in the "M." So you cheat once. Then again. Then again. Eventually, well, your app is more "MVMMCCMMCMMCMMCMCMCMMMCVVMVMVC" than "MVC." 😛

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

Question: Ignoring things that are cached, how much do you download in an average day?

My Answer: Counting email (mainly the attachments), around 125 MB. Most of my downloading is done via Safari or FTPeel, of course, and there's an occasional odd day where I download a Tiger seed or something (what, 3.2 GB or so right?). Most days it's just movies and demo apps, CVS, email attachments, that sort of thing.

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

So it turns out that the problem I was having with the shift key in 10.3.6 are actually tied to, of all things, Terminal!

Yes, with Terminal running, the shift key in Photoshop doesn't work properly. Nor does non-proportional resizing in QuickTime Player.

I have absolutely no idea why this is the case, but it is. I'll see what I can find out, but preliminary tests are as follows:

• Renaming my .tcshrc file didn't change anything.
• Removing the com.apple.Terminal.plist prefs fixes it.
• It's something in the bottom of the prefs file. I'll post an update when I find it.

Update: "Secure Keyboard Entry" (see "File" menu in Terminal) seems to be at fault here. Enabled, QuickTime Player can't non-proportionally resize with the shift key held down. Disabled, it works beautifully.

Are you a college student? If so, Freshly Squeezed Software may have some work for you. Over the next five months, we would like to hire a college student to craft and sell an FSS product. College students will have the support of our entire library of code, our help, our promotion, etc. Pay will be in the form of a (significant) percentage of sales.

Incidentally, I say "college students" merely because I'm looking for someone who wishes to build a résumé. If that applies to you, kindly ignore the "college" part.

Please contact me via AIM, state your purpose, and don't ask for too many details about the inner workings of FSS - we'll want to see if you're remotely qualified and capable first, thank you. 🙂