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Every time I forget how much I love good photography, or powerful photography, The Big Picture pulls me back in.

That link is "Autumn Around the World 2013" and the first picture may be one of my favorites. It's tough to choose, though, as they're all always good.

Just a few posts on the new iWork suite of apps that came out with Mavericks:

• Pages 5: An unmitigated disaster
• Why does Apple get rid of so many useful features in new Pages (Apple Support Communities)
• Pages 5 features checklist (Apple Support Communities)
• Whither iWork?
• Michael Tsai - Blog - Numbers ’13 Performance
• With iWork, Apple Walks It Back Before Moving Forward
• Exploring the New iWork for Mac File Formats — Pixel Envy

The phrase "the same file format for both Mac and iOS" is used on the pages for all three products. It was highlighted in Apple's keynote. It's important.

Without all versions of iWork using the same data format, true interoperability is impossible. In the previous versions of iWork you would lose some formatting & data when moving from Mac to iOS.

Then…

The fact that iWork on the Mac has lost functionality isn't because Apple is blind to power users. It's because they're willing to make a short-term sacrifice in functionality so that they can create a foundation that is equal across the Mac, iOS, and web versions. It will take time to bring these new versions of iWork up to parity with what the Mac used to have. In the meantime all platforms have to live with the lowest common denominator.

Lots of folks are getting all worked up about iWork being “dumbed down,” but it feels like a reset to me. I can see this playing out pretty much like Apple’s recent Final Cut Pro X re-thinking. That app was introduced in a radically simplified and streamlined form that caused immediate outcry. Over time, Apple has steadily added back features that were missing from the early dramatic redesign of the pro video-editing suite. A handful of mishandled decisions like pulling the old version of FCP too soon caused unnecessary friction there, but recent updates to FCPX have made it a very viable choice for professionals again.

Here's to hoping…

Signing and Mavericks:

Very simply put, you can no longer sign a bundle (like your .app) if any nested bundle in that package is unsigned. These nested bundles are things like helper executables, embedded frameworks, plug-ins and XPC services.

The result is that you'll need to update your Xcode projects as soon as you start building on 10.9. It's taken me several days to understand what these changes are, and with the help of Perry Kiehtreiber on the developer forums, I'd like to share what I've learned.

I'm still working on the problems explained in this post: Safari 7.0 in Mavericks Cannot Load iBooks Store, Twitter.com, PayPal.com.

I created a new admin account called "Test" that works fine. When I say "fine" I mean I can do these things, which I cannot do on my account:

• Load both PayPal.com and Twitter.com in Safari
• Load the iBooks Store
• Click on the magnifying glass to show a Safari download in the Finder

If there was an easy way to move my files to the new user while keeping everything (username, user ID, etc.) as I like it, I'd do so.

Currently, I plan to use the new account as a test. First I'll boot to another drive, rename my ~/Library, and copy the Test user's Library into my account, then boot into it. If that works, I'll slowly pull things across to see when/where the "breakage" occurs.

P.S. Happy Birthday to my wife. She's now in her "late 30s." 😀

I know now what I'll be doing for the next few hours.

There are far, far too many reasons to list here, but suffice to say I'm very glad Apple doesn't delete iMovie 9.0.9.

Whoever built iMovie 10.0 and thought it was good deserves to be kicked in the SD card slot.

These two articles came in handy today:

• OS X: Reset Accessibility Access List
• OS X: GUI Scripting - Accessibility Access Controls

After upgrading, I was having an issue wherein FastScripts was not functioning with my Mail scripts. I have some scripts to change the account from which I'm sending an email, and they rely on GUI scripting to select items in the popup menu. The scripts in the first article were all I needed to get things back on track.

P.S. How dumb is it that you can't delete individual items from the Privacy/Accessibility list in the preferences? Unchecking items is NOT good enough.

P.P.S. This is the pane in which you'll want to add TypeIt4Me as well. I continue to love how simply and quickly TI4M works, and greatly prefer it over TextExpander.

So I've got this unusual problem. Safari on my Mac Pro will not load twitter.com (or twitter.com/iacas, or any other twitter.com URL).

• It's not the computer (and a messed up Hosts file or something), because other browsers work.
• It's not the installation of Safari or the OS, because a guest user account can access twitter.com.
• It's not the contents of ~/Library/Safari/ because I deleted it and Safari still couldn't visit the site.
• I also fully "Reset" Safari, repaired permissions, and restarted the computer.
• My keychains are fine. Keychain First Aid" is fine.

What can I try next?

2013-10-24 Update: I also cannot load PayPal or, seemingly, any secure site. I've moved the contents of my ~/.ssh folder. I've deleted com.apple.security* from my ~/Library/Preferences/. I've turned on and off the Firewall. Other browsers and other users on the same machine continue to work fine. I can access my online banking, which uses https of course.

• Changing the MTU didn't work (I don't have Rapport).
• Parental controls are not enabled. I've chown -R iacas my ~/Library folder.
• Safari in Recovery mode (cmd-R at boot up) works fine.
• Trashing my entire ~/Library does NOT fix the problem (I did so on a duplicate startup drive). I even logged out and back in when trying this.

An important half, mind you!

We argued with Steve a bunch [about putting iTunes on Windows], and he said no. Finally, Phil Schiller and I said 'we're going to do it.' And Steve said, 'Fuck you guys, do whatever you want. You're responsible.' And he stormed out of the room." - Jon Rubinstein

Steve wasn't always right.

So apparently you can now (or soon) send an email to send cash? I like Square, and use it for golf students (among other things), but how is this going to be secure? Can't someone simply spoof an email from you to send themselves money?

CloudPaint!

I'll agree with him on his Touch ID opinion - mine has a success rate of about 66% or so, with the 33% including a high number of two or more failed attempts.

AmEx patented those little numbers on your credit card, and then for the good of the industry and consumer protection donated the patent to a non-profit, who promised not to enforce the patent against banks… and then proceeded to sell the patent to Intellectual Ventures who is now suing banks over it.

:facepalm: