I upgraded to Leopard. While I had planned to wait a while longer, I barely made it the first update (10.5.1). The buzz in the mac user community about the upgrade was positive enough to give me the confidence that it would be safe. And it was. The upgrade was very smooth, and I have to say that I am more pleased with Leopard than I expected to be. I used the 'Archive and Install' method, which has never failed for me. This method ensures that any problems I might have in my previous OS installation are not carried forth into the new installation. Archive and Install simply means that the new operating system is installed after the previous OS system files are erased. The old OS system files are archived in folder labeled 'Previous System' on your mac (so they're not really erased). If you choose Archive and Install you will want to choose "Preserve Users and Network Settings" so that your existing user accounts and network settings are also copied over. I plan to keep my 'Previous System' folder for another few weeks before deleting it, just a precaution. Then I'll delete it. Oh, and before you upgrade, don't forget to BACKUP YOUR DATA!

A few tips to help you with the upgrade:

 

• Use Archive and Install - I guess 'archive and install' is the preferred method for Apple, too ... check out this Apple Support thread
• Uninstall or upgrade APE before you upgrade (if you have it installed). I do. My Logitech MX Revolution mouse uses APE (Application Enhancer), as does my installation of Audio Hijack Pro. You can find it at Your Computer Name/Library/Preference Panes/Application Enhancer.prefPane. I deleted APE, installed Leopard, then reinstalled the latest version.
• Tidbits offers a good overview of all known issues. If you don't subscribe to Tidbits, I highly recommend this weekly mac newsletter.
• If you haven't upgraded to Leopard yet, MacFixIt has a great article to help you avoid problems that you should read first.

If you're like me and enjoy reading about operating systems in painstaking detail, I recommend the review posted over on ArsTechnica. A lighter review is available at MacWorld. Most of the complaints in the mac community about Leopard seem to be focused on the 3D dock (e.g. it's eye candy, it's hard to see, it's horrible), the new Firewall (there are no user settings anymore as there were on Tiger, it's dumbed down too much, it is turned off by default after the Leopard installation), Stacks (many people just don't think the fan and grid views are very user-friendly), and the menu bar (like the 3D dock, it is partly transparent so you can see the desktop picture through it - again, not very good from a accessibility standpoint - if you have poor eyesight, it can be hard to see what you're looking for). These issues are well documented, so I won't rehash them here. I expect that many of these annoyances will be fixed in future Apple updates. Fortunately, the mac user community are a talented bunch and many tricks and fixes are already out there to patch up many of things that may annoy you in Leopard. I'll leave you with a few links for some of the more fun ones I've seen so far:

 

Modify your Leopard

 

• Improve Stacks with some beautifully designed icons from a mac user in Japan 
• Change the Dock with DockChanger (shareware) or Palette (shareware) or ... do it yourself for free!
• Use Terminal to change Leopard hidden settings.

 

Software Updates

The last topic I want to talk about concerns Apple software updates. If you use 'Software Update' (from the Apple menu, choose 'Software Update') to upgrade from 10.5 to 10.5.1, you should know that the update you are receiving is a patch. If you are experiencing quirky problems after this maintenance update, try downloading the full update installer and run it again. The full update is a much larger file. Instead of patching files, it completely replaces them with updated versions. I've found that this is generally the best way to install Apple OS updates. It's not as convenient as the built-in Software Update, but it may help prevent problems down the road. Full versions of updates are available on the Apple downloads site.

Interesting <a href=“http://lit-n-lat.blogspot.com/2010/02/ipad-and-mac-development.html" target=''_blank”>commentary from the developer of <a href=“http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html" target=''_blank”>Scrivener, one of my all-time favorite apps. What does the iPad mean for small indie developers?

The resulting implication is this: either you build an iPhone/iPad
version of your application, or you miss out on all the users that
wanted a netbook and so bought the iPad—because the iPad is Apple’s
answer to the netbook.

I’m not saying it’s a bad direction, but I do wonder where that will
leave those of us still tied to traditional platforms such as OS X in
five years time.

Dropbox to ferry files around using the public folder, don't miss this time-saving Services add-on.

Once installed, right-click on any file on your Mac, select the 'Services' menu, then choose either 'Move' or 'Copy to Dropbox.' That's it. Your file is moved (or copied), and the public link to the file is copied to your clipboard, ready to send.

Many more useful services are available at Mac OSX Automation.

If you attempted the temporary fix to get your wireless working correctly on your MacBook after the recent Mac OS 10.5.8 update, check out this MacFixIt post before you try to install the patch issued by Apple earlier today.

I reinstalled the 10.5.8 Combo Update, then applied the Airport patch, and all is now working well.

If you are one of the many people experiencing AirPort connectivity problems after upgrading to 10.5.8, here’s a solution that worked for me, found on the Apple Discussions forums from user SpacePirate.

This solution allows you to revert to the 10.5.7 AirPort kernel extension (kext file) without reverting the entire OS back to 10.5.7. It appears that Apple is aware of the problem, so hopefully we’ll see an update soon that fixes this bug.

It’s worth emphasizing that you should not do this unless you are comfortable modifying system files. Ensure you have a good backup. Proceed at your own risk.

- Download the 10.5.7 Combo Update.

- Download and install Pacifist, a handy tool that allows you to extract specific files from an Apple package (i.e. the Combo Update is a .pkg file).

[Pacifist is $20 shareware. You can use it in trial mode to accomplish this task, but if you think it’s something you might use from time to time, consider buying it. It’s helpful for repairing damaged files without reinstalling the entire OS, verifying installations, and finding missing or altered files.]

- Turn off your AirPort.

- Delete /System/Library/Extensions/AppleAirport.kext.

- Delete /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext.

- Extract /System/Library/Extensions/AppleAirport.kext from the 10.5.7 package using Pacifist and copy this file to the /System/Library/Extensions/ folder on your Mac.

[Open the 10.5.7 package with Pacifist, find the AppleAirport.kext file in the /System/Library/Extensions/ directory of the package, and extract this file to your /System/Library/Extensions/ folder on your Mac, or copy the file to the desktop, then drag it to the /System/Library/Extensions/ folder on your Mac. Don’t try taking these files from a Time Machine backup unless you know how to properly set permissions for the copied files. If you use Pacifist, the app will set the correct permissions for you.]

- Extract /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext from the 10.5.7 package with Pacifist using the method described in the previous step.

- Delete the /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kernelcaches/ folder.

- Delete /System/Library/Extensions.mkext.

- Empty your trash. Reboot.

- Turn the AirPort back on.

Just came across an interesting article on MacWorld. Here’s an excerpt:

Two well-known Mac hackers are updating a widely used hacking toolkit, making it easier to take control of a Macintosh computer…Although there are still many more exploits available for Windows software than for Macs, the new payload code means there is now “more or less the same functionality if you want to target a Mac box or a Windows box.”

No need to get too worried here, but it’s a good reminder that we are not immune from the problems that plague Windows users. And, as this article suggests, it may be only a matter of time before we face similar problems.

There’s a lot of brouhaha over the necessity of installing Mac antivirus software. I didn’t run AV software on the Mac for a long, long time, but now I do. Why? It doesn’t cost me anything. It only slows down system performance a tiny bit. And it makes me feel better. Here’s a full rundown of the steps I take to ensure a basic level of security:

I’ve used ClamXav (free) in the past and just started using iAntiVirus (free for noncommercial use) in the hopes that it’s a bit speedier. It’s not a bad idea to run an AV package, if only to prevent transmission of viruses to colleagues on Windows.

I think a good password vault is essential. The excellent 1Password is my choice. It generates complex passwords, ‘remembers’ them, and protects against phishing and keylogging.

I also use LittleSnitch to control and monitor outbound network traffic. I use this in the interest of privacy, but it will alert me if any unknown malware on my machine tries to phone home.

Next, I’ve set up my Linksys router with a kick-ass password and have set it to only accept connections from known MAC addresses that I’ve manually added (household Macs, my iPhone, my wife’s iPod Touch).

Finally, I use Apple’s built-in Firewall protection. It’s a good idea to make sure it’s turned on (go to System Preferences > Security > Firewall. Choose ‘Set access for specific services and applications.’ Also, I have both boxes checked in the ‘Advanced…’ preferences to enable logging and stealth mode). I also use NoobProof. Taken together, this establishes application and network firewall protection. See this article for more background on that.

If anyone has an alternative or better set-up, please share.

As an aside, if you use FinalCut Studio and keep getting an annoying prompt to allow incoming net traffic from ‘qmasterd’ every time you boot (even though you’ve already added it to the ‘allowed’ list), try adding /Applications/Utilities/Batch Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/Batch Monitor to your list of applications that allow incoming connections. To do this, command+shift+g to paste in the file location.

1. Dvorak-Qwerty redux

I decided to test out Tweetdeck, a new Twitter application in Beta developed on the Adobe Air platform. I like it. But when I attempted to hide the app with the shortcut ?-H ... it didn't work. Then it hit me. It's an Adobe app. Of course it doesn't work. That's because I type using a keyboard layout called Dvorak.

It's a common enough layout that it's included as an international keyboard option for both the Mac and PC. The Mac also has a unique keyboard layout called 'Dvorak-Qwerty,' which I use. This allows one to type using the Dvorak layout, but use Qwerty key combos. It's a thoughtful tip of the hat to Dvorak users who know and rely on standard Qwerty keyboard shortcuts.

Most of the applications on my Mac respect this convention and work very well with the D-Q layout. The glaring exceptions are Microsoft Office and Adobe products. I've given up on Microsoft ever fixing this problem, seeing as the OS still doesn't include a D-Q option (and likely never will). But Adobe? Come on. I can't imagine that fixing this little glitch would take much time. Correct me if I'm wrong, Adobe.

I've written about this on Adobe forums, I've sent in suggestions, I've posted on this topic here and on other blogs. Nothing has changed. While I'm sure that there are not many Dvorak typists using Adobe creative suites who rely on Qwerty key combos, I'm surely not the only one! And, hey, we're paying customers. And those suites are expensive.

Someday, I hope that Adobe will fix this relatively simple thing. Adobe: take heed that Smile on my Mac fixed this same problem with TextExpander with one simple update. I wrote to them about the problem. And it was fixed with their next update a few weeks later. Now that's service.

2. This Dvorak post rocks

So, I got an email a while back from Francis Siefken from the Netherlands, a fellow Dvorak user. He put forward a convincing case that switching the U and the I on the Dvorak keyboard would lead to even greater efficiencies. I love this kind of analysis.

Check out his post even if you don't use Dvorak, if only to appreciate the time and thought he clearly put into this. It seems that his blog may have went into hiatus after this one post (something that I can certainly appreciate!), but it's worth the read nonetheless. As is how he named his son, which also appears on this page. I hope we'll see more posts on his blog someday soon.

My view: why not switch the U and I keys? The point is that the keyboard—our primary interface to the digital realm—must continue to evolve. Dvorak, while imperfect, is arguably an evolutionary leap forward from Qwerty. But why stop there? I say let's continue to perfect the layout of keys to meet our needs.

Note that Siefken emphasizes that the primary benefit of Dvorak isn't necessarily speed. It's comfort. If you're someone who types a lot (as in all day, every day) it may be worth your time to learn Dvorak if you're not already heavily invested in Qwerty. Let the keyboard evolve, and let repetitive stress be damned!

The careful reader might now ask why I don't use Dvorak keyboard shortcuts, preferring instead to keep using Qwerty shortcuts. The answer? The most-used shortcut keys are largely grouped down by the ? key, so it's easier and faster. D-Q is a great combo.

3. On the evolution of the keyboard

And speaking of the evolution of keyboards, check out the Optimus Maximus. It's expensive as hell, but wow. It's the future of keyboards.

And what's Apple doing on this front? Perhaps making an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) keyboard of their own. Will it be cheaper than the Optimus Maximus? Probably. Will Art.Lebedev Studios, creator of the Optimus and other wonderful and expensive design goodies, sue Apple? This might be a story we hear more about next year.

I’ve convinced many people to buy a Mac over the years, but there’s one person I cannot convert. My mother refuses to go Mac. To put this in proper context, you should know that she is not a computer novice. She has no problem fixing driver problems or troubleshooting a PC. She runs several web sites. You should also know that she is not hostile to the idea of using a Mac.

So, she’s computer-saavy and open minded about trying the Mac OS. So why doesn’t she buy one?

I have to admit that I was disappointed when she recently purchased an HP Pavilion DV740US laptop for $1149. This model came with a 1.67GHz Centrino Core Duo processor, 3GB DDR2 RAM, Windows Vista Premium, a DVD±RW/CD-RW drive with Blu-Ray read support, a 5-in-1 digital media reader, a 320GB hard drive, a TV tuner and a 17-inch screen. It has a built-in camera and wireless capability. In short, it’s designed to be an full-featured entertainment center. It weights in at 7.7 pounds.

She did take a look at the Mac options, but only considered the MacBook Pro — the 17-inch screen was a minimum requirement. But at a starting price of $1,999, the MacBook Pro was just too expensive. It also didn’t have as many features. For her, the HP model was the obvious choice. The primary user of this machine, my father, is happy with it. What’s he doing with it? Primarily surfing the web and checking emails. While he might not use a lot of the power and features of the HP, he gets a zippy machine with a big keyboard and large screen. And when he’s not using it, my mother has access to a powerful second computer in the house (her primary is a Gateway desktop).

I’ve tried to convince her to buy a Mac for years. My main points on why I feel the Mac is the best choice will be familiar to most readers of this site:

You may pay more upfront for a Mac but it’ll generally last longer. I think that most low-cost PCs are designed to be disposable, and they are generally made with cheap components. My second generation iBook G3, though, is seven years old and still going strong. Macs are generally well-crafted machines. Also note that Windows may be much more expensive than the Mac OS in the long run.

I also believe that the Mac user experience is superior thanks to the OS and the aesthetics of the hardware design (and apparently just thinking about Apple makes one more creative, which is kind of scary).

Next, I say that the extra bells and whistles of entertainment machines like the HP DV740US don’t add up to much. I think the Mac excels at honing in on the essentials that people need while steadfastly avoiding feature bloat. This is just my personal choice, but I’m wary of everything-and-the-kitchen sink PCs. In my experience, the base capabilities may appear to be great, but in reality they just don’t work that well. And they generally don’t work well together. We Mac users like to say that our machines ‘just work.’ Well, that’s because Macs just work.

Security is generally considered to be much stronger on the Mac. The main counter-argument I hear on this point is ‘Sure, but just wait until the Mac gets more popular.’ Actually, I think that’s a valid point. We shouldn’t take our relative security for granted. The Mac OS is fairly secure, but it’s far from perfect. It is, however, vastly more secure than a machine on Windows. I don’t see this changing anytime soon.

I also think that Mac software (both Apple and third-party software) is vastly superior in terms of quality, user experience, and OS integration to what you can get on a PC. This is subjective, I know. But it’s true!

Finally, the Mac is the only platform today that can (legally) run the Mac OS along with Windows and most other operating systems. And Macs Run Windows Vista Better Than PCs according to just-released Popular Mechanics test.

In the end, my arguments lost out. Here were the main points behind her HP decision:

1. She would love to try out the Mac OS, but she is quite content with Vista
2. The 17-inch screen is a must — and the Mac only offers costly options in this category
3. The HP offers many more features for much less money

I have to say that I understand the decision to go with HP, but I think the cost benefit of the cheaper HP will decline over time. I think you get what you pay for. However, I have nothing but anecdotal evidence to back this up. Perhaps the HP will stand the test of time just as well as a Mac, or perhaps it doesn’t matter because it’s cheap enough to be replaced without much concern in two or three years.

Despite the fact that I still haven’t persuaded her to switch, she remains very interested in the Mac OS. She noted that she would like the option to install the Mac OS on a Windows machine so she could test it out. She’s not the only one. This happens to be a current hot topic in the Mac community. For more on this, see the April 17 Macworld article, Frankenmac! What’s in a Mac clone?.

Personally, I would love to have the option to legally install Mac OS X on a PC. In fact, I would be tempted to build my own PC tower if I could run Mac OS X on it. Will Apple ever license the Mac OS to run on non-Apple computers? I doubt it, but then again I never thought I’d see Apple switch to Intel. While I’m interested in installing Mac OS X on non-Apple machines, I fear what this might do to the the OS over time. Apple’s decision to lock the Mac OS to Apple computers no doubt helps to maintain control, security and compatibility.

Of course, Apple could also add more products to their line to compete with low and mid-range PC desktops and laptops. While this would surely increase market share, would this be the beginning of the end of Apple’s distinctive quality? I think it might: these cheaper machines would logically need to integrate cheaper components to get the price down, right?

At any rate, Macs today cost a bit more. And they are not as fully-loaded as many PC offerings out on the market. For your money, you get higher-quality, well-integrated components. You get the only machine that (legally) runs the Mac OS. You get more security. You get better software. And, most importantly, you get the Mac user experience — it’s hard to explain this to PC users, but it’s an experience that is worth the price of admission.

I’ve convinced many people to buy a Mac over the years, but there’s one person I cannot convert. My mother refuses to go Mac. To put this in proper context, you should know that she is not a computer novice. She has no problem fixing driver problems or troubleshooting a PC. She runs several web sites. You should also know that she is not hostile to the idea of using a Mac.

So, she’s computer-saavy and open minded about trying the Mac OS. So why doesn’t she buy one?

I have to admit that I was disappointed when she recently purchased an HP Pavilion DV740US laptop for $1149. This model came with a 1.67GHz Centrino Core Duo processor, 3GB DDR2 RAM, Windows Vista Premium, a DVD±RW/CD-RW drive with Blu-Ray read support, a 5-in-1 digital media reader, a 320GB hard drive, a TV tuner and a 17-inch screen. It has a built-in camera and wireless capability. In short, it’s designed to be an full-featured entertainment center. It weights in at 7.7 pounds.

She did take a look at the Mac options, but only considered the MacBook Pro — the 17-inch screen was a minimum requirement. But at a starting price of $1,999, the MacBook Pro was just too expensive. It also didn’t have as many features. For her, the HP model was the obvious choice. The primary user of this machine, my father, is happy with it. What’s he doing with it? Primarily surfing the web and checking emails. While he might not use a lot of the power and features of the HP, he gets a zippy machine with a big keyboard and large screen. And when he’s not using it, my mother has access to a powerful second computer in the house (her primary is a Gateway desktop).

I’ve tried to convince her to buy a Mac for years. My main points on why I feel the Mac is the best choice will be familiar to most readers of this site:

You may pay more upfront for a Mac but it’ll generally last longer. I think that most low-cost PCs are designed to be disposable, and they are generally made with cheap components. My second generation iBook G3, though, is seven years old and still going strong. Macs are generally well-crafted machines. Also note that Windows may be much more expensive than the Mac OS in the long run.

I also believe that the Mac user experience is superior thanks to the OS and the aesthetics of the hardware design (and apparently just thinking about Apple makes one more creative, which is kind of scary).

Next, I say that the extra bells and whistles of entertainment machines like the HP DV740US don’t add up to much. I think the Mac excels at honing in on the essentials that people need while steadfastly avoiding feature bloat. This is just my personal choice, but I’m wary of everything-and-the-kitchen sink PCs. In my experience, the base capabilities may appear to be great, but in reality they just don’t work that well. And they generally don’t work well together. We Mac users like to say that our machines ‘just work.’ Well, that’s because Macs just work.

Security is generally considered to be much stronger on the Mac. The main counter-argument I hear on this point is ‘Sure, but just wait until the Mac gets more popular.’ Actually, I think that’s a valid point. We shouldn’t take our relative security for granted. The Mac OS is fairly secure, but it’s far from perfect. It is, however, vastly more secure than a machine on Windows. I don’t see this changing anytime soon.

I also think that Mac software (both Apple and third-party software) is vastly superior in terms of quality, user experience, and OS integration to what you can get on a PC. This is subjective, I know. But it’s true!

Finally, the Mac is the only platform today that can (legally) run the Mac OS along with Windows and most other operating systems. And Macs Run Windows Vista Better Than PCs according to just-released Popular Mechanics test.

In the end, my arguments lost out. Here were the main points behind her HP decision:

1. She would love to try out the Mac OS, but she is quite content with Vista
2. The 17-inch screen is a must — and the Mac only offers costly options in this category
3. The HP offers many more features for much less money

I have to say that I understand the decision to go with HP, but I think the cost benefit of the cheaper HP will decline over time. I think you get what you pay for. However, I have nothing but anecdotal evidence to back this up. Perhaps the HP will stand the test of time just as well as a Mac, or perhaps it doesn’t matter because it’s cheap enough to be replaced without much concern in two or three years.

Despite the fact that I still haven’t persuaded her to switch, she remains very interested in the Mac OS. She noted that she would like the option to install the Mac OS on a Windows machine so she could test it out. She’s not the only one. This happens to be a current hot topic in the Mac community. For more on this, see the April 17 Macworld article, Frankenmac! What’s in a Mac clone?.

Personally, I would love to have the option to legally install Mac OS X on a PC. In fact, I would be tempted to build my own PC tower if I could run Mac OS X on it. Will Apple ever license the Mac OS to run on non-Apple computers? I doubt it, but then again I never thought I’d see Apple switch to Intel. While I’m interested in installing Mac OS X on non-Apple machines, I fear what this might do to the the OS over time. Apple’s decision to lock the Mac OS to Apple computers no doubt helps to maintain control, security and compatibility.

Of course, Apple could also add more products to their line to compete with low and mid-range PC desktops and laptops. While this would surely increase market share, would this be the beginning of the end of Apple’s distinctive quality? I think it might: these cheaper machines would logically need to integrate cheaper components to get the price down, right?

At any rate, Macs today cost a bit more. And they are not as fully-loaded as many PC offerings out on the market. For your money, you get higher-quality, well-integrated components. You get the only machine that (legally) runs the Mac OS. You get more security. You get better software. And, most importantly, you get the Mac user experience — it’s hard to explain this to PC users, but it’s an experience that is worth the price of admission.

A few posts back I described my experience trying to create a workflow to automate the process of exporting my Delicious Library (DL) catalog toLibraryThing (LT).

Here is the Automator workflow I created: open up Delicious Library, export the book catalog (an XML file) to my desktop, copy the location path of this newly created document to the clipboard, open my browser (Firefox) to the LibraryThing import page, tab to the appropriate form field (I used tabs so it was not relative to browser window location), paste the path from the clipboard into the ‘Upload File’ field on the LT import page, then use tabs and returns to activate the form and upload the file. Finally, move the exported DeliciousLibrary file to the Trash. Once that’s all complete, I threw in a Growl notification to let me know it was done.

And here is the Mac 101 tutorial for starters. Here are a few sources for more automator workflow actions, tips and tutorials:

1. Automator.us: This site has some good tutorials and a great variety of downloadable actions
2. AutomatorWorld.com: Look for more advanced Automator stuff here
3. Apple.com Automator Actions downloads: check out the most popular downloads

Delicious Library (DL) and LibraryThing (LT) book catalogs. It’s really not ‘synching:’ LibraryThing can ‘synch’ only in the sense that it can compare a DL book catalog (desktop app) with the LT book catalog (web-based app) so that only new entries are imported. In other words, you can add new DL books to your LT account, but I’m not aware of a way to synch your new LT books back to your DL database. I should note that LibraryThing accepts more than just Delicious Library info. It can import from a wide variety of other web-based and desktop apps.

All things considered, I have to say that LibraryThing serves up a pretty good universal import tool (they call it, appropriately, the ‘Universal Import').

In order to save some time, I think it would be nice to automate this process. I started down this road after reader brab asked if synching between the two services was possible. I originally responded that it wasn’t possible, only to discover that LibraryThing can, in fact, import with gusto. I should have read the manual!

Then it dawned on me that this is an ideal Automator scenario: create a workflow to expedite the process of exporting Delicious Library book catalog to LibraryThing. LibraryThing accepts DL exported data, so it should be easy, right? Two hours later, and I am ready to punch the little Automator robot.

While I used Automator quite often in Tiger, this was my first use in Leopard. I don’t know if I was just tired (and I’ll try again later to see if it was me) but I did not have a pleasant experience. Automator was very quirky: the steps I created in the process worked great, at first. Then, when I saved my workflow as an application, it suddenly did not work at all.

So, I opened up the automator process as a workflow again to troubleshoot, only to discover that my workflow no longer worked. My main problem: I exported a .txt file from Delicious Library to the desktop. Then I moved that file to my /Documents folder. Then I copied that path. Then I opened up the browser to the LibraryThings import page to paste that copied path. The problem is that Automator insisted that there was an error with copying my file from the desktop to the new location. And Automator had issues with deleting the file from the /Documents folder once I was done with it. I encountered these errors even though the process worked just fine an hour earlier, and despite the fact that I had changed nothing. I was (and am) pulling my hair out. I checked the permissions of this folder, and they are correct.

I then re-created the entire workflow from scratch; still, I could not get it to work again. Sigh. This is just a simple script to export an text file from DL, copy the file name, and paste the file path into the LT web form for import. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

To recap, here is the workflow in a nutshell: open DL, export the book catalog to a desired location (my desktop), move that file to new location (my /Documents folder), copy the new location path to the clipboard, open my browser to the LT import page, tab to the appropriate form field (I used tabs so it was not relative to browser window location), paste the path from the clipboard into the ‘Upload File’ field on the LT import page, then use tabs and returns to activate the form and upload the file. For the last step, I deleted the exported DL file from /Documents.

Pretty simple, or so I thought. But Automator does not like my workflow. I’ll have to try again when I have time…chances are that it’s human error. Still, I’m struck by the fact that I had a working automation an hour ago. Now, an hour later, the same workflow is broken. It’s very odd. My conclusion: Automator is billed as a tool to bring automation to ‘the rest of us.’ In general, I think it hits this target: it’s easy to use and powerful. Yet, I would like to see better hints when an error occurs. For my problem, all I am told is that there is an error with a step in the process. I don’t see any logging information to help me pinpoint why or where that error is occurring.

At any rate, once I get a working Automator workflow I’ll post it in case anyone would like to modify it for his/her use. If I can’t get it to work, I plan to find some Automator user forums to post my workflow. Perhaps then I’ll locate the problem.

So, here’s my latest Dvorak-Qwerty keyboard support rant.

I received a very odd ‘personal’ response from an Adobe customer support representative regarding my request for Dvorak-Qwerty support for Adobe’s Creative Suite applications.

My complaint: Dvorak-Qwerty does not properly work with Adobe products.

(See my previous post for background on DQ if you have no idea what I’m talking about)

Here’s a snippet from what I wrote to Adobe about this annoying problem:

I must toggle to the QWERTY layout to use my shortcuts, then toggle back to Dvorak when I need to type. This is very annoying. Would Adobe consider posting a relatively minor update to address those users who rely on the Dvorak-Qwerty keyboard layout in Mac OS X?

They wrote back to me today (within 24 hours, as promised on their website):

I understand that you would like Adobe to post a minor update for Macintosh users who rely on Dvorak-Qwerty keyboard, as you have to continually toggle between these two keyboards in order to use it to type text and use short cut keys respectively.

I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.

We need to inform you that Adobe® Systems continually develops new applications and improves existing products, but cannot comment on unreleased products until a press release is posted. When new releases become available, the details regarding new features and purchasing information will be posted on the Adobe Web site at the following URL: www.adobe.com

Ok. So they seem to grasp the issue, but then again … the response mimicked the phrases from my complaint so closely that it left me with the distinct impression that some sort of AI compiled and regurgitated a customized automated response based on my input. The part that annoys me most is that the automated response tries too hard to appear like it came from a real human. Or perhaps what annoys me is that it doesn’t seem like it came from a real human, but Adobe would like me to feel as if it did.

I can’t say that I expect to see a software update from Adobe that addresses my issue anytime soon. I’m guessing there aren’t too many users out there who suffer from lousy DQ support (and it’s not just Adobe products that lack DQ support), and I’m assuming that the Adobe user base is so massive and the number of suggestions to improve their software are so many that my little complaint may be backlogged until Adobe CS 10.

It’s nice that Adobe has a system in place to so quickly respond to a customer input. I bet a lot of R&D went into this auto-rapid-super-friendly-personalized response system. Still, it raises a larger philosophical question about automated, rapid customer support. Is a quick reply better than a delayed reply (or no reply at all) if it is canned and impersonal? Is it actually worse if it’s canned and impersonal and it attempts to be personalized in a very fake way?

In addition to the mimicry of my original complaint, the ‘personal’ message also included my name at awkward intervals throughout the response. Here’s an example:

Troy, also, please visit the following URL on the Adobe Web site for the latest customer service and technical information: [www.adobe.com](http://www.adobe.com)/support/main.html

And later on in the (relatively short) message:

Troy, the Web Support Portal Representatives are available from Monday to Friday.

I'm convinced that a human would not reference my first name repeatedly in such an awkward manner.

The Adobe response was signed by ‘Victor M.’ of Adobe Customer Service. I’m sure that Victor M. exists, but he surely would not have typed out such a weird response to a customer. I really wouldn’t expect a human to type out a detailed response within 24 hours from such a massive company. It had to be a generated response. So what’s my point? If Adobe is committed to a personalized, rapid customer response, I would rather receive a message that said:

'Hi Troy, we get a bazillion comments and suggestions every week. We got your message. A real human will read it. We will consider your input.'

A week or two later, perhaps I would get a message that said:

'Hey Troy, We read your input. We understand that you've submitted a feature request about our support for Dvorak-Qwerty. It may be part of a future Adobe release, but we can't make any promises. We'll do our best. We're considering it. Really. Please understand that we have a bazillion other feature requests already in the queue, so your input will be addressed in the order it was received since we've determined that it's not a critical application error.'

Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather see a response like that. To be fair, perhaps the response I received wasn't automated. Perhaps Victor M. used creative cut-n-paste to respond to my query. Still, it seemed disingenuous; it seemed like a cookie-cutter response cloaked in a 'personalized' message. It seemed, in other words, automated in the worst way.

If any of you reading this are Dvorak typists who use QWERTY shortcuts (and use Adobe apps), please consider dropping them a note. Maybe all ten of us will get them to consider updating their software…

This is my first post in a new category I’m calling ‘back to basics.’ With all the new Mac users out there, I’ve decided to periodically post some tips aimed at this crowd — a group that includes many of my friends who’ve crossed over from the PC. To get the ball rolling, I’ve compiled a list of nine tips for new Mac users. If you have a tip to share, leave a comment to round off this list at an even ten.

9. Buy a book.

Macs are supposed to be easy to use, right? So why should you need a manual? The truth is that the Mac operating system may not be overly intuitive for longtime Windows users.

It’s about more than learning the differences between a ‘Dock’ and a ‘Start’ menu, or ‘System Preferences’ and the ‘Control Panel’ — understanding Mac OS X is about changing the way you think about using your computer. While built-in Mac OS X ‘help files’ are available to answer basic questions, it’s hard for new users to get the big picture through help files alone. This documentation tends to be short and is often devoid of context.

For those new to the Mac, I think it’s worth the money and effort to buy a third-party manual to keep at hand for quick and easy reference. A book offers depth, context, and examples in a package that won’t get in your way while you’re working on your Mac. Sure, you can find just about anything you want to know through an online search or user forums, but a well-written book will help you break your PC habits and more quickly adapt to the Mac environment. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I think it’s generally easier to learn from a book. You can prop it open to a dog-eared page, highlight it, tab it with stickies, and generally abuse it. Most importantly, you don’t need to navigate away from what your doing to get some help.

I recommend David Pogue’s Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual. I also like TidBIT’s TakeControl Ebooks, a series of downloadable PDF booklets that are cheap and full of great info (you can print them out or view them online). If you are a more visual type of person and want to learn how to use your Mac (and many great applications) by watching videos, be sure to check out ScreenCastsOnline.

Apple also offers some good online resources. Be sure to check out Apple’s online help files: Switch 101, Mac 101, and ‘Find Out How.’

8. Explore Mac third-party software.

When one of my friends gets a new Mac, I'm quick to point out a few 'must have' free apps that they should consider loading up right away as they get started on the new OS. Here are a few: QuickSilver or Butler * to launch applications and handily complete routine tasks , Perian to view just about anything with the QuickTime player, VLC to view anything else, Onyx to maintain the Mac, Handbrake to convert your DVDs to different formats.

However, I’ve discovered that many ex-PC users fret about downloading software from third-party sites because they fear viruses, trojans, spyware, and other nasty stuff. All I can say is that Mac apps are generally very safe (by ‘generally’ I mean that there have been no viruses, trojans, spyware, etc. thus far embedded in third-party Mac software that I am aware of, but it won’t necessarily stay that way)… and users who ignore third-party Mac apps are arguably missing out on the best part of the Mac experience. The key is to only use trusted sources as you seek out new apps. A few trusted sources I use are: MacUpdate, versiontracker, and iusethis. Need a way to keep your applications up to date? Try MetaQuark’s AppFresh.

*(I personally use Launchbar but it isn’t free)

7. Learn how to install/uninstall applications and delete stuff

So, you just downloaded a Mac application. Now what? While some Mac apps include installers that function similar to Windows installation packages, most do not. When you download Mac software, what you're likely to get is 'Disk Image.' Think of a disk image as a 'virtual disk.' What you need to do is click on the disk image to open it up (it will likely open up automatically after you download it — don't panic). The disk image is now 'mounted' and will appear on your desktop. If you don't see a disk image, chances are the application is zipped up in another compression format and the disk image is contained within that zipped up file. Why? Developers like to distribute their software with small file sizes. The way to do that is to tightly compress them. Here are some basic instructions regarding the vaunted .dmg file. To many Mac users, this tip may seem too obvious. But I maintain that it's not obvious at all if you've never done it before.

By way of example, a friend of mine downloaded Handbrake one night based on my recommendation to format/convert some of his DVDs to use on his new iPhone. The next day, he complained that the app was extremely slow and created a ‘blank’ file that didn’t open up in any application. The problem? He was running Handbrake from within the disk image. He didn’t realize he needed to drag it to his applications folder prior to using it. It’s easy for long-time Mac users to laugh at this mistake, but consider it from my friend’s perspective. How would he know?

But what about deleting? If you don’t want an application anymore, drag it the trash. That’s it. You’re done. Use the same method to delete files. Want to delete things even faster? Try this key combo: ?-delete. If you want to keep you Mac as tidy as possible, consider the free AppDelete or the shareware AppZapper. These apps clean out additional items that are left behind when you drag apps to the trash. Not that these additional items will hurt anything if you leave them — it generally doesn’t really matter much. Still, it’s a good practice to delete all the associated bits and scraps of a program when you’re done with it. Down the road, you’ll be glad you did.

6. Take the time to understand Permissions

'Get Info' is like Windows 'Properties.' You access it by rig ht-clicking on any file, folder, or application. You'll find a lot of useful information here, including metadata like size, creation date, when the file/folder/app was last modified or last opened, where it's located, and a preview of the icon associated with the folder/file (tip: you can change the icon for any item via the 'Get Info' pane, which is fun).

Most importantly, ‘Get Info’ is where you’ll find permissions that govern who can do what with your files (you decide who can Read, Write, and Execute). Need a tutorial? Check out this Macworld article and this Apple documentation.

5. Learn some shortcut keys

Sure, there are shortcut keys for Windows (generally, you substitute the CTRL key for Apple's ?). But in my experience most Windows users turn to the mouse (right-click menu) or the Menu Bar to access basic commands like copy, paste, save, etc. Sure, you can do this on a Mac, too.

But there’s a better way. Longtime Mac users tend to be oddly fanatical about shortcut keys, and Mac applications reflect this: each Mac application you install will have a seemingly endless list of shortcuts. Why bother learning key-combo shortcuts? Speed and efficiency are clear benefits, but shortcuts also help you avoid repetitive stress from using the Mouse.

Here are a just a few you shortcuts you should consider learning right away:

? -tab (tab through open applications) ? -A/C/V (select all, copy, paste) ? -W (close the current window in an application) ? -Q (quit application) ? -S (save)

Here's a cheat sheet for standard Apple shortcuts. It's important to point out that shortcuts are also built-in to all of the applications on your Mac. Some apps may have literally dozens of key-combinations to help you work faster. If the thought of learning so many shortcuts makes your head hurt, consider Ergonis KeyCue. This handy little app is a bit expensive, but it's a clever way to learn new key combinations. Once KeyCue is installed, every time you hit the ? key, a menu pops up that displays all available shortcuts for your current application. Soon, you'll wonder how you ever got along without complex combos like Adobe PhotoShop's shift-option-?-S (which opens up the 'Save for Web & Devices' dialogue box, if you're curious).

4. Learn new ways to navigate

Mac navigation is different from PC navigation. One thing PC users will notice right away is that Mac application windows float on the desktop in self-contained little boxes that can be moved around at will. While I know that this may be unnerving for some Windows users, trust me: in time it becomes liberating. What I hate to see is ex-Windows users dragging windows out of the way to 'peek' behind to other windows in the background.

With Mac OS X, there are easier ways to navigate. Try the Expose keys. Try ?-tab (tab through open applications). Try Spaces. Try some of the great Mac application launchers (see #8 above). Use Spotlight. The last one I’ll point out here is a little freeware preference pane to toggle between open windows within one application with ease — it’s called Witch and it’s made by the same guy who created Butler.

3. Understand how to take care of your Mac

Many new Mac users express shock and dismay the first time something goes wrong. The truth is that the Mac OS requires a little TLC. While I have never experienced the level of frustration, rage, and resignation I felt as a Windows user (I used to consider it normal to wipe out my hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch once or twice a year), that is not to say that the Mac OS is perfect. Far from it. That's why it's a good idea to learn some basic steps to keep your machine humming.

Check out Apple’s Mac Maintenance Quick Assist, how to manually initiate maintenance tasks, and Macworld’s dated but still very relevant article on preventing Mac disasters. You may also want to consider investing in Cocktail. It’s not free, but it’s cheap, simple to use, helpful, and is an excellent maintenance Mac app. New Mac users should also consider the expensive but essential DiskWarrior. You may not need it often, but when you do need it … you really need it.

My last point: reboot every now and then. My father-in-law recently visited with his Macbook in tow. He complained that some of his OmniWeb * links were no longer working and his machine was generally acting strange. When I opened up his laptop, it whirred to life. When I say ‘whirred,’ I mean it was really noisy. Fans were blowing hard. Hard drive was cranking. My solution? I rebooted. Everything worked fine after that. It was silent once more. It turned out he had the computer in sleep mode for over half a year — since his last visit he had never rebooted. A system reboot at least once a month is a good way to clear out any weird or corrupt processes that may be running.

*(stay tuned for a future post on why I bought OmniWeb for my father-in-law)

2. Don't be afraid to customize

I've found that many Mac users never change anything when it comes to their Mac's appearance or layout. My opinion? Have fun with it. Make your Mac fit your lifestyle and workflow. Add apps to your Dock, drag Apps you don't use off your Dock, add Finder shortcuts, change your Desktop picture...trust me, you can tweak just about everything and anything in the Mac OS.

How far you take it depends on how adventurous you are, but even the most conservative of users should try out a bit of customization. It’s your Mac, after all.

Here’s one small example. Here’s another. Here’s yet another. A good starting point to see how fun and useful this can be is the free Tinkertool from Marcel Bresink. The list is endless - explore forums, Mac sites, etc. and enjoy. Be careful though. It can be addicting.

1. Set up your Mac with security in mind.

So, you pull your new Mac out of the box, plug it in and start using it within a few minutes. You're excited. You want to start having fun. Before you jump in, consider your account structure. One potential problem of the Mac OS is that the first account you create on your new Mac is always an administrator account. You won't have a choice here. The problem is that many new users don't know that it's not a good practice to use an Admin account for day-to-day use. So here's what you do: immediately create a new user account in 'System Preferences' with full Admin privileges. Then, log in with this account and go back to 'System Preferences' and change the first account you created to a 'Standard' account. Finally, log out of the Admin account and log in to the first account.

This first account is the one to use on a daily basis. With your Standard account, you will be prompted to enter your Admin account name and password every time you install new software, change system preferences, etc. It’s a bit of a pain, but it’s a lot more secure. For Leopard users, be sure to check out the ‘Sharing Only’ account (great choice when you have relatives visiting who want to use your Mac) and ‘Managed with Parental Controls’ (great choice, of course, for kids). Oh, and make a note to ensure that your Mac Firewall is turned on (System Preferences > Security > Firewall)…inexplicably, the Firewall is turned off by default for users who upgrade from Tiger to Leopard.

And what if you forget your Admin password? Fortunately, there is an easy fix. All you need to do is stick your OS X installation disk in your CD/DVD drive, restart your computer, and hold down ‘C’ key as it restarts ( remember this with C = CD-ROM). You can let go of the ‘C’ when you hear your CD/DVD drive whir to life. In time, a window will appear that asks you to select a user language. Then, as the next window pops open, you’ll notice that there are now some menu options up in the Apple menu bar (top of the screen). Choose ‘Utilities’ (if you are running 10.4 Tiger or 10.5 Leopard) or ‘Installer’ (for earlier versions of the Mac OS). Then choose ‘Reset Password.’ Follow the simple instructions to choose a new password for the account of your choice, then quit the installation process (from the ‘Installer’ menu in the Menu Bar) and restart your computer without holding down ‘C.’ That’s it.

While it’s great that it’s so easy to reset an admin password, it’s also kind of scary. What it means is that anyone with an installation disc and access to your machine can quite easily reset your admin password and access your files. The moral: if you have data that you don’t want anyone to see under any circumstances, you will want to explore ways to encrypt this data and protect your mac. The other important point to make here: ensure you have a backup before doing this, just in case.

That’s it for now. Have a tip to share?

Here’s a tip for working with text on your Mac. Have you ever needed to copy over the text of an email from, say, Apple Mail to another application (like your blog?). I need to do this all the time.

Here’s the problem. Sometimes I use my lunch break at work to begin typing out a post for this blog (using Microsoft Outlook — I use Windows at work). I then send this Outlook email home. Later that night, I fire up Apple Mail, copy the text of the email, and then paste the text into MarsEdit to form a starting point for a new post.

The problem is that the email text is riddled with annoying line endings. It doesn’t wrap correctly. Here’s an example from an earlier post to illustrate the point. I typed up the following text in Outlook and then sent it to Apple Mail several weeks ago. When I cut and paste this text, it looks like this:

A friend wrote me last night to ask if I had tried 'Things' from Cultured Code. I have, and this is one of the GTD-based task management applications I will review in the coming weeks.

So far, I’ve written about iGTD and OmniFocus, both excellent applications. The ‘Getting Things Done’ task manager series is taking more time than I anticipated, mainly because it takes a while to really grasp each of these applications.

As you can see, the line endings make this block of text look awful. I want the text to wrap naturally so it fits the width of whatever box I place it in. I want it to look like this:

A friend wrote me last night to ask if I had tried 'Things' from Cultured Code. I have, and this is one of the GTD-based task management applications I will review in the coming weeks.

So far, I’ve written about iGTD and OmniFocus, both excellent applications. The ‘Getting Things Done’ task manager series is taking more time than I anticipated, mainly because it takes a while to really grasp each of these applications.

I won’t get into the technical reasons behind this formatting problem. Instead, I’ll just show you how to fix it quickly and easily. I trim my line endings with ease using DevonThink’s free WordService tool. Download this tiny package, copy the folder over to your Services folder (User Account>Library>Services) and you’re in business.

All you need to do is select the text after you paste it into the app of your choice, select ‘Format’ from your Services menu, and then select ‘Reformat.’ There it is.

All line endings are removed — and your paragraph structure stays in tact. This is just one of 34 handy tools included in the WordService package. Give it a try (be sure to peruse the included ‘ReadMe’ text to get a feel for what the different tools do).

Many of the applications you use on your Mac include Services options. Most of them are worth checking out. The nice thing about this Apple tool is that you can invoke an application’s ‘service’ tools even if that application isn’t open. For example, suppose you’re surfing the web and you find some text or a URL you want to add to Yojimbo, an application I like to use for storing and organizing notes. Simply select some text or a URL, then choose Yojimbo’s Import option from the Services menu. Presto, Yojimbo launches and the new text or URL is instantly added.

Services, by the way, is mainly designed as a way to work with selections of text. If you want to see a couple of the more interesting things you can do with it, select a bunch of text and try out the ‘summarize’ and ‘speech’ tools. I’m a big Services fan. It’s probably one of the least used tools on Mac OS X — and it can be quite useful.

If the skies are clear where you live tomorrow night (or tonight, depending on your time zone), don’t miss your chance to witness the last lunar eclipse until Dec. 2010.

Here in Hawaii, I’ll be heading out to the beach around 11 p.m. While I won’t be bringing my Mac with me, this event marks a great occasion to highlight a few of the astronomy programs available for OS X. These tools are excellent teaching aids and are just plain enjoyable. If you don’t have a Mac, no worries: each of these apps run on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

If you go outside to watch for the eclipse, keep an eye out for Saturn (if you have a telescope the rings will be visible) and Regulus (the 22nd brightest star in the night sky, in the Leo constellation).

Saturn and Regulus will be the brightest points in the sky nearest to the eclipsed moon. Exactly where they will appear relative to you, of course, will depend on your location and the time you go outside to have a look — but they will appear to be close to the moon.

Cloudy out? View the solar system on your Mac

1. Stellarium — Free. This planetarium application specializes on views of the sky from an earthly perspective. Enter your coordinates to see what's going on in your sky on a given night. This is my app of choice for casual desktop sky-gazing; it's also a great learning aid. I enjoy setting the program to fast-forward so I can watch the sky come to life in quicktime. There are many user-contributed scripts available to enhance your Stellarium experience which make an already interesting program even more engaging. This is a great program to keep on your Mac for those times when you want to quickly identify a star or constellation.

2. Google Earth — Free. It isn’t just for earth-browsing any more. Check out the ‘Sky’ view mode for a full-featured astronomy package chock full of user-contributed goodness. I’ve lost many hours engrossed in the ‘Sky’ view; this Google Earth expansion is still a pretty new feature, but it keeps getting better and better.

3. Celestia — Free. Celestia doesn’t confine you to viewing stars from an earth-bound perspective. You are free to fly around the visible universe in dizzying three dimensions. There are many, many expansions available for Celestia that make it even more fun and valuable as a learning tool. The one thing about Celestia is that it’s not quite as easy to use as the other programs; still, it’s an amazing tool with a dedicated user base and it’s a joy to use.

4. Starry Night — Expensive. I own an old Mac OS 9 version of Starry Night Pro and I still use it on my old iBook G4 in Classic mode (note that Classic only runs on Tiger and earlier versions of Mac OS X). It’s come a long way since then and is worth checking out if you really enjoy astronomy and want a feature-rich package with many great animations and photo-realistic imagery. Even the old version of Starry Night that I own is visually very beautiful. It’s a great teaching aid to view the solar system in motion from any perspective, watch eclipses, find satellites, view the earth from distant planets, and more. If you go for the Pro package, you can hook up your Mac to your telescope to track distant objects. My only problem with Starry Night is that it seems to have gone overboard a bit with commercialization — there are now at least six SN packages to choose from, and all of them are pricey.

My favorite experience with Starry Night? Heading out in a canoe late at night with my old iBook back in my home state of Maine on Nicatous Lake (far, far away from any light pollution), turning on Starry Night’s ‘night vision mode’ and spending a few hours looking up at the sky. Note that this is only enjoyable in the summer while doused with about one gallon of bug spray to keep the mosquitos away.

More Mac astronomy links

If Mac astronomy software interests you, check out Pure Mac's comprehensive list of astronomy apps for more ideas. Hope the skies are clear wherever you may live.

There’s an ongoing struggle in my household. I don’t want to use any names…but if it weren’t for my tireless, unrelenting efforts to keep my iMac (which is shared by one other person) free of desktop clutter, there would now be a virtual sea of files cluttering our desktop. You might never guess I was an organized person if you happened to open my sock drawer, but I keep the Mac lean and clean. The only icons I prefer to see on my desktop are mounted drives. To be fair, I drive my wife crazy (ok it’s my wife, but I won’t use her name) with some of my user habits because I can’t leave the Mac alone. I’m always installing things, deleting things, moving things, changing things … above all, I like to test out third party mac software.

So, you may ask, why on earth do we share one user account on our primary Mac? It’s not the recommended way to do business. The preferred solution is to create separate user accounts; this is more secure and it gives you the freedom to organize your own workspace just how you want it. But I maintain there is at least one scenario when a shared account makes sense — when you have a Mac that always stays at home and you and one other person you completely trust are using it to share the same pool of data.

We share the same music library, the same iPhoto library … we share pretty much all of our data. For several years, we managed seperate accounts, but I grew weary of constantly dropping and dragging files and folders back and forth. We had iPhoto and iTunes set up for sharing, but this requires one to be logged in to both accounts to access the others shared photo/music content. Much of the mail we receive is for both of us. It just seemed easier to combine the two.

Would I recommend this arrangement? Again, and this is critical: only if you completely trust that one other person and you can live with different user habits on one account. For me and my wife, life is just easier using one account, despite our different organizational styles. I’d venture to guess that no one would really recommend this set up, but it’s good for us. Here are a few of the ways we make it work. Even if you don’t share an account, this list may provide you with some fresh ideas.

 

1. Admin or Standard account?

We set up our shared account up with 'Standard' user privileges and then created a separate Admin account. This is a good practice, even if you don't share an account. If you want to learn more about user accounts, check out this affordable E-book from TidBITS.

2. IC-Switch and DeliBar

We prefer to use different browsers and news readers, so we use IC-Switch. This free little Menu Bar application allows us to quickly toggle between default internet applications. I also use a Menu Bar application called DeliBar that allows me to view my stored online bookmarks (via my del.icio.us account) right in my Menu Bar. I like managing and storing my bookmarks online because it enables me to access my favorites in any browser, and in any location. If you like Menu Bar items, by the way, check out this list.

3. Documents folder

We created three main subfolders within our Documents folder: one for me, one for my wife, and one for shared items such as our finances. We did the same for our Pictures folder (for those images that we do not want to manage from within iPhoto). We use color labels to easily identify our folders at a glance e— my folders are labeled with red, my wife's are purple, and folders with shared documents are gray.

4. Alternate keyboard languages

Things are a bit more complicated for us because I use the Dvorak keyboard layout and my wife uses Qwerty. Solution? We set up our Mac with both languages via the 'International' system preference (System Preferences > International > Input Menu). We then checked the option to 'Show the Input Menu in menu bar' so we have a nice visual way to see what language is currently active. Finally, we established a key combination to quickly toggle between the two input languages (this option is also available in the Input Menu).

5. The Dock

I don't really use the Dock, but my wife does. She also uses Spotlight, and I never do. I use Launchbar to launch applications and navigate around the Mac (a free alternative is QuickSilver); DragThing is my preferred 'Dock replacement.'

6. Finder

My wife uses Finder and I use PathFinder. This works out well — she can set up Finder just how she likes it and I can set up PathFinder with my personal preferences. If you've never tried PathFinder, by the way, give it a spin. I couldn't live without it. Some people say, though, that it has too many features and options.

7. Web browsing

I use Firefox when I'm doing webwork and OmniWeb when I'm just having fun. My wife prefers Safari.

That’s about it. One final note: I recently downloaded the trial for a program called Hazel from NoodleSoft. This little program automates file organization, manages trash, monitors and organizes folders, and more. It’s very clever and quite easy to use. I think this may be a great new tool to help me and my wife manage our shared account.

This is a quick note about an experience I recently had with customer support from Agile Web Solutions, the creators of 1Password.

I’m not going to review this application — there are already hundreds of available online comments and reviews. Suffice it to say that I’ve come to depend on 1Password so much that I recently decided to upgrade my family license (good for three Macs) to the Small Business package (good for five Macs).

I emailed the company with my request and received a response within the hour. I was naturally pleased to get such a rapid reply. I was doubly surprised because I sent the request late in the evening from my home in Hawaii; I’m accustomed to waiting until the next business day (when North America is awake) for customer service. But that’s not the amazing part.

Here’s a clip from the message I received from a man named James in Australia, identified as a ‘passionate 1Password user:’

“Since the upgrade is not automatic, I have gone ahead and updated your license to a Small Business license and sent it in a separate email. I trust you will make the payment, so I don’t want to make you wait."

I then received my license moments later.

This struck me as a particularly generous and trusting thing to do in this day and age, and it was much appreciated. So, I want to thank the 1Password team for the stellar service. This transaction served as a fresh reminder of why I feel like I am part of a community as a Mac user.

In case you missed it, Alsoft DiskWarrior is ready to go for Mac OS X Leopard. Soon, existing owners of Disk Warrior 4 will be able to download this update and burn a new disk to run the program. DiskWarrior is an essential tool. It’s a little pricey ($100), but it’s worth it. It just might save the day if your hard drive starts to head south and you need to recover your data.

ShirtPockets SuperDuper! version 2.5 also came out today after a long, long wait. It is now ready for Leopard, and it’s a free update for all licensed users. Nine out of 10 Mac users agree: this is the best disk cloning backup software available. If you don’t think you need to clone your data since you now use Apple’s Time Machine, see my previous post on the topic.

I recently read an article about potential future growth in the iPod market centered around the Wi-Fi mobile platform introduced with the iPod Touch. Now that I have experienced Wi-Fi access in this great little handheld device, I could never go back. This is surely the future of handhelds.

I’m on week three with my new Touch, and I have to say I love it. The addition of the Mail, Notes, Maps, and Safari browser is fantastic. It’s utterly transformed how I use my iPod. I can’t wait to see what the independent Mac software community comes up with to make this even a better device once Apple releases the software development kit later this month.

However, there is one thing that really bugs me about my new iPod: the lack of tactile controls to play, pause, and change songs. With my old 3G iPod, I could plug it into my car stereo and change songs on the fly without looking at it. This isn’t possible now, and I’m told the iPod remote (with the built-in FM transmitter) doesn’t work with the Touch.

I’ve read that the iPod Nano Remote Control will work with the iPod Touch, but I mail-ordered a similar low-end remote before for my old iPod and it was cheap and flimsy. In fact, I ended up sending it back because it failed within a week. I need a good remote!

Now, following Apple’s announcement today, there is one more thing that bugs me about my Touch. I patiently waited for Macworld before I bought my iPod Touch explicitly to ensure Apple wasn’t about to launch an updated version with more memory. I have over 20GB of music alone. Alas, they didn’t announce anything new for the iPod line during the Expo, so I happily bought a 16GB model … confident that the next iPod Touch update would be far in the future (or at least several months away).

Now, less than three weeks after I buy my 16GB model, they announce a 32GB version for $100 more. Apple is surely aware that many people wait for Macworld before plunking down money on a new piece of Mac gear. Couldn’t they have announced this a few weeks ago during their biggest consumer show of the year? Perhaps this was a tactic to reduce their 8 and 16GB reserves. Geez. I could really use that extra space. Anyone want to buy a slightly used 16GB iPod Touch?

Apple launched a new site yesterday featuring text and video help for new Mac users. It’s got me thinking about the many, many Mac-centric sites out there — the bulk of indie sites (like this one) tend to be geared towards fellow Mac geeks or, at least, those readers who are more tech-inclined.

As people migrate to the Mac platform in larger and larger numbers, there is surely a need for more basic ‘how to’ content. To this end, I’ll be exploring adding some content geared towards newer Mac users in the future.

I’m also going to get back to my long-neglected Rapid Weaver and Wordpress comparison after I complete the series on GTD-based task managers. Thanks to Google Analytics, I’ve discovered that many people are seeking out more information on this topic.

I’ve been using Omnigroup’s OmniFocus for several weeks now to prepare for my evaluation of this task management application (part of a series). It’s quite an impressive tool. I’m ready to put my thoughts together — look for it by the end of the weekend. Meanwhile, I want to comment on the iPod Touch.

I’m going to retire my battle-worn third generation iPod this weekend. Now that the iPod Touch offers much of the same functionality as the iPhone, I’m ready to ugrade. You might wonder why I’m not going to spring for the iPhone. The main reason is cost — not the cost of the iPhone, but the cost of the AT&T service plan. The cheapest plan equates to over $700 per year. Since I don’t talk on the phone that much (and my current employer provides me with a cell phone), I’ve decided the Touch is my best bet.

The only thing I think I’ll miss is the iPhone’s ability to surf the web and check email via the AT&T EDGE network when one is not near a WiFi source. But I’m confident that WiFi access points will continue to proliferate to a degree that will make it easier and easier to connect wherever I am. If I can’t connect in some locations, no big deal. I don’t really want to be connected in all places at all times anyway! When I’m on a business trip, however, it will be a particularly nice feature to be able to browse the web, get directions, and check my mail from my hotel room or at a nearby coffee shop.

The Infamous $20 Fee

Some iPod Touch owners are expressing outrage at Apple's decision to charge $20 for a major software upgrade of the device. This upgrade, announced this week at the Macworld Expo, adds five applications (mail, notes, maps, weather, stocks) to the iPod Touch — features that have been on the iPhone from the start. For those who buy a new iPod Touch as of last Tuesday, the additional apps will be included for free.

I have mixed feelings about this. I can understand why some early adopters feel like they are getting ripped off and, in effect, penalized just for being early adopters. However, early adopters bought the Touch with full knowledge that it did not have all the software features of the iPhone. Apple never said that these features would eventually be added, although many hoped for this.

It’s not surprising that Apple opted to charge a nominal fee. The real question, I think, is if $20 is “nominal”. I’ve read that a fee of some sort is legally necessary because of the Sarbannes-Oxley Act. This Act apparently states that you can’t add new features to something that you offer at a one-time fee without charging for the additional features. The iPhone is exempt from this because users pay running fees per month for this device. But what about the Apple TV? You don’t need to pay a monthly fee for this appliance, right? Yet Apple rolled out a major software upgrade for this at Macworld as well…and they’re offering it free to all, including existing Apple TV owners. Apple should better explain their rationale for the fee decisions they have made.

Still, I think it’s not that bad of a thing. If you buy a new Mac, you get Leopard and the latest version of iLife pre-installed. But if you already owned an iMac when these updates shipped, you have to buy these upgrades. I don’t see much of a difference between this and the situation with the iPod Touch. I suppose that’s easy for me to say since I’m going to get these additional apps for free.

So the question really comes down to this: why $20? Why not $5 (or whatever the minimum is to meet business/legal requirements). Twenty dollars seems a bit inflated. One thing is clear: this is a black eye for Apple. They have not offered a clear explanation to justify the upgrade cost for the iPod Touch, so people are drawing their own conclusions and forming unfavorable opinions. The impression Apple is leaving is that they may be getting a tad greedy…and they don’t care much about early adopters (faithful consumers that Apple should want to take care of very well).

Perhaps all the bad press will lead Apple to offer a discount of some sort to those who must pay this fee, as they did for the early adopters who bought the first iPhones only to see the price of the phone drop a whopping two hundred dollars just a few weeks later. Or perhaps they will simply ignore the grumbling of a few iPod Touch owners and press on.

As Apple’s market share continues to expand, I hope they don’t lose sight of what makes them special. I’d hate to see them become more like, er, that other company that sells PC operating systems.

Dvorak users of the world scored a little victory this week. The TextExpander team at SmileOnMyMac fixed the problem with the Mac OS Dvorak-Qwerty keyboard layout, detailed in an earlier View from the Dock post.

A recap of this bug: when using the Mac OS Dvorak-Qwerty option, TextExpander did not previously work. Now it does. How did this come to pass? Me and at least one other user asked that it be fixed. And it was fixed, very promptly. I’d like to thank SmileOnMyMac for listening. I am a very satisfied customer. And here’s more unsolicited praise for TextExpander — it saves me an amazing amount of time (I just used it to add the previous Em dash). My wife is a devoted user, too. She uses TextExpander to save keystrokes on her website.

Now I am going to try to get Adobe to fix their Creative Suite. Unfortunately, I must still switch to the QWERTY keyboard layout when I’m using PhotoShop and the other Adobe apps, and I shouldn’t have to do this. Maybe it will be fixed if Apple buys Adobe!

If you do your typing on a Mac and you use Dvorak, I want to ensure you know that you can quickly toggle between Qwerty and Dvorak (or Dvorak-Qwerty, or other languages). Once you enable these option in the International Preference Pane (found under Apple’s System Preferences), you can choose to show this input menu in the Apple Menu Bar. You may then quickly toggle between the different keyboard layouts using a keyboard shortcut of your choice (I use option-command-space).

A quick reminder: if you use Windows, check out SkyEnergy’s HotKeyz. This little freeware program allows you to easily remap shortcut keys (paste, save, copy, etc.) to match the QWERTY key positions while using the Dvorak layout. It works quite well.

Finally, I want to point out a new development that is full of potential for those of us who use alternative typing layouts. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to look down at my keyboard and actually see the Dvorak layout. I may be able to do just that in the not-to-distant future. Check out this ArsTechnica report about a recent Apple patent for a dynamically controlled keyboard.

Imagine a keyboard with organic LEDs on each key. If you’re curious about the possibilities, see Art Lebedev’s Optimus Maximus (it’s available now, if you can afford it). I imagine a future Apple keyboard that displays the Dvorak keys, then dynamically displays QWERTY keys when I press a command-key combination. And I envision my keyboard dynamically changing to display game-specific commands or key combinations for shortcut-intensive programs like Photoshop or Final Cut Studio. This is surely the keyboard of the future, and I can’t wait to get one.

I've decided to get better organized in 2008, so I've been trying out task management solutions for the Mac.

What I'm looking for is a well-designed application with powerful features that cleanly integrate with the Mac operating system. I want to be able to group my varied tasks into project groups that are easy to view and are logically organized. I want tag my list items so they are easy to find and search. I want one central place where I can quickly see what I have to do today and what I have to do next. I want a central place to store everything in my head. Above all, I want to enjoy using this application. No, more ... I want an application that makes me want to use it. A tall order, perhaps, but this is what the Mac user experience is all about.

Seeking Alternatives to Apple's Mail/iCal

Unfortunately, I think Apple missed the mark with their improved Mail/iCal 'to do' management introduced with Mac OS X Leopard. Granted, it's better than what existed in Mac OS X Tiger and all other previous OS X versions (which, essentially, was nothing). But it's still not there. I tried using the 'Apple option' for a couple of weeks before I abandoned it. While the Mail/iCal solution is simple and well-integrated and may be enough for many people, it's just not working out for me. It doesn't feel right. I don't like the overly simplistic to-do list in Mail. I can't group items into bigger categories or projects. I can't tag items. I can't easily archive completed items. I don't like how it integrates with iCal. As for iCal, the to do list view is fine is you just have a few items, but it quickly becomes unwieldy and hard to read as more are added. I could go on. Suffice it to say that Apple's offerings seemed underpowered to me, so I moved on.

The good news is that there are an overwhelming number of third-party task management applications out there for the Mac user (there are also a number of plug-ins available to enhance Mail and iCal task management and a host of web-based solutions to help manage your life). That's the great thing about the Mac - the third-party developers who make applications for Mac OS X are unmatched on any platform. I truly believe that.

 

The bad news is that it's hard to know where to start because there are so many choices. My solution? I chose to focus on a peculiar subset of task management applications based on a system called Getting Things Done. Why? Because many geeky mac users that I respect are oddly enthusiastic about this model, and have been for quite some time.

Getting Things Done on the Mac

If you follow the mac community buzz, you may have heard of David Allen's 'Getting Things Done' framework for, well, getting things done. Over the course of the past year, it seemed I couldn't escape the chatter about this revolutionary way to manage one's daily and long-term tasks. Intrigued by the noise, I checked out an audiobook of 'Getting Things Done' from the library. Allen's ideas are indeed innovative and clever.

In essence, GTD is a systematic way to organize your thoughts that begins with dumping out the contents of your brain in an 'inbox,' then organizing those things along the lines of when you plan to get to them (e.g. today, next week, someday), in what context you will do these things (e.g. at the computer, at work, on the road), and how you group these things (into different projects). GTD is way of capturing all these little bits of 'things I want to do' and 'things I need to do' so you don't have to worry about remembering them all. Once you get all those thoughts down, GTD offers up a nifty way to organize it in a meaningful way over time.

At some point, Mac developers who adhered to the GTD model began creating clever applications and scripts to capture this process. While I haven't closely followed the evolution of this development, I noticed that it seemed to really get going in mid-2006 ... and this most certainly had something to do with organization guru Merlin Mann of 43 Folders, whose tireless efforts helped to popularize this system, particularly on the Mac platform.

Over the course of 2007, I came to associate GTD with Mac task management as more and more applications based on this model began to appear. Over time, I've watched as available mac-based GTD programs evolved from the relatively simple (see kinklessGTD) to the increasingly sophisticated (see OmniFocus, iGTD).

The 2008 showdown

As the options continue to evolve and refine, I think we're heading for a final shake out in 2008. My prediction: this will be the year for the Killer Task Management Application for the Mac, and that application is going to be based on the GTD model.

This will be the year when a small handful of really great Mac-based task managers vie for the mainstream — you may never have heard of GTD, but if these task managers are successful, you won't need to know anything at all about David Allen's system. All you'll have to do is pick your favorite and start getting organized.

Here are the applications that I will compare: iGTD, Cultured Code Things, Midnight Inbox, coalmarch Park and OmniFocus from OmniGroup.

As the dust settles over the next year, I think that one application will stand out above the rest. I've made my choice, but I'll save my opinion for the end of this series.

How I will review these apps

To keep things simple, I evaluated these power organization apps with a few questions in mind:

 

• Could I figure out how to use the application with minimal fuss (preferably without referring to documentation)?
• Was I still enthusiastic about using the application after a week of use? 
• How well does the app integrate into the Mac OS? 
• How well could I manage all of my tasks (work, home, play, etc.) 
• How did the program 'feel?' How 'mac-like' is it?

 

This last point may need a little clarification. You may have heard or read that a particular program is 'mac-like.' What this means is this: Apple software is generally renowned for simplicity, consistency, lack of clutter, and a great user interface. A 'mac-like' application, then, exemplifies these qualities. I also consider a program to be 'mac-like' if the interface is instantly familiar and obvious because it's similar to other Apple programs I use, such as the Finder or iTunes. Last but not least, a good mac application should integrate seamlessly with the rest of the Mac OS.

In the next post, I'll begin the comparison.

I encountered yet another Dvorak bug today. For the benefit of those (ok, probably all of you) who do not know what Dvorak is, it’s an alternative keyboard layout. It’s generally considered faster and more efficient than the standard QWERTY layout.

I can certainly type quite fast and, since the Dvorak keys are not in the same place as the QWERTY keys, I learned to type without ever looking down … it wouldn’t help anyways. Never needing to look down is a plus in my book. Anyhow, it turns out that TextExpander does not support the Dvorak-Qwerty keyboard layout. Dvorak-Qwerty is a Mac OS option (available via the International/Input Menu preference pane) that allows one to type in Dvorak but still access the command shortcut keys in their designated QWERTY positions. That means that I can type in Dvorak, but still use the QWERTY Command-C/V/Q etc. The tech support guy (who responded to my query very quickly, I should add) said that the add this support to the feature request list, although he was not authorized to say if it would or would not be fixed to add this support.

So what’s the bug? When the keyboard setting is DQ (that’s short for Dvorak-Qwerty), TextExpander cannot expand text. You type in the short cut, and your shortcut is replaced by … nothing. You just get an empty string where your expanded text should go. This is frustrating. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only Dvorak user out there, though I’m sure I am not. A great feature of the Mac OS is the built in Dvorak support with QWERTY command keys. While Windows supports Dvorak as an option, it does not (and apparently will never) support the QWERTY command function.

Even though I use this alternate layout, I am a slave to Mac keyboard shortcuts (the QWERTY style shortcuts). The Mac OS has long supported this, recognizing the need amongst mac users to have command-C map to the ‘C’ character printed on the physical keyboard, even though it’s not the ‘C’ character in the Dvorak layout is located where the I character is printed. Make sense? Windows does not have this. I was using a freeware program called Hotkeyz on my Windows (work) machine to remap my keys. This solved the PC problem beautifully. But, alas, my IT staff made me take it off because of my workplace ‘no shareware or freeware policy.’ Blah.

Anyhow, most mac programs work fairly well with Dvorak-Qwerty. Except for TextExpander, and except for Adobe CS3 (actually, I don’t believe Adobe products have ever supported Dvorak-Qwerty … and except for Mac MS Office (which I don’t use - iWork handles Dvorak quite well). What this means for me is that I have to turn Qwerty on when using Photoshop, because Command-C otherwise does not work. I could re-learn the shortcuts for the remapped Dvorak keys, but I don’t want to. I like the shortcut keys mapped to what’s printed on the keyboard. Besides, I’m so conditioned to type the Command key shortcuts that it would take major reconditioning to learn the alternate locations. The bottom line for me is this: I know there aren’t many of us out there, but there are people out there that rely on Dvorak-Qwerty. The combo, exclusive to the mac, is one of those little things that makes my mac experience better than my work-a-day PC experience. I can’t imagine it would take much of a code fix to support this feature … it is built in to the OS, after all. So, Adobe and Smile on My Mac … please support the DQ keyboard layout!!

By the way, I found this nice little freeware app that fixes one annoying DQ layout problem - the inability to use command+shift in DQ