Scrivener Ninja

Posted on 28 December 2011 by Terry Chay

I recommend Scrivener as the application for doing long-form writing. But since I’m no longer in academia and I don’t write creatively, I don’t often use the program—unless my blog articles run away from me. (Besides, my vim keybinding addiction is enabled by QuickCursor). Even when I do, it is pretty much limited to its MultiMarkdown export to HTML for notetaking.

The other day, I noticed they added a tutorial document to the application itself. I decided to go through it.

This screenshot shows both normal and “smart” collections, split screens with audio dictation handling, custom templates with custom icons, and that I love my boo

Very cool. I learned a lot that I didn’t get (not) slogging through the complete(ly boring) user manual.

Now if only if I can figure out some reason to actually use the program…

The Thunderscan story

Posted on 20 November 2011 by Terry Chay

I’m surprised I never got around to mentioned this, when [I promised I would][nans second story]. Since it’s been years, go back and read it, and come back. I’ll wait.

…

In high school, I owned a [Thunderscan][Thunderscan]. For those of you too lazy to click on the link, this was a device that would digitize photos by replacing the ink cartridge of your ImageWriter, [a dot-matrix printer][dot-matrix printer], popular with Macintosh computers of the era.

(For those of you too young to remember what a dot-matrix printer is: in the old days, our printers were slow enough that you could watch an episode of [Cheers][Cheers] waiting for it to print out an article or “graphics” —the latter of which was whatever came out of [Print Shop][theprintshop]. And they were so loud, that a popular accessory was huge muffled box to place the printer in, in order to contain what can only be described as the primal periodical scream of the then nascent personal computer, “Why the f*&k do I have to be tasked for the next half our printing up a sinfully ugly banner for [your terrible P.T.A Yard Sale][review the print shop]?”)

Now imagine something that did the reverse (put print into the computer) by scanning it line by line. And realize that a typical “line” of text back then was actually 24 “lines” to this scanner.

This was a Thunderscan.

Continue reading The Thunderscan story after the jump→

Why Siri

Posted on 20 October 2011 by Terry Chay

From The iPhone Blog:

Equally interesting is what [Siri] portents for Apple. Just like the App Store began the intermediation and exclusion of Google by offering users a better experience interacting with data in apps than via a web search, Siri continues it by theoretically making it easier and more enjoyable to engage in query/response with Siri than with Google. In typical fashion, Apple isn’t building a search engine to compete with Google, they’re building something to obsolete the current conception of search engines. And they’re not doing it by becoming a walled garden — there’s no profit in that. They’re doing it by becoming a walled gate with a multi-directional toll system.

Great observation. Reminds me also of how Apple got out from under the Microsoft Office Sword of Damocles with Safari and iWork.

I like FaceTime (and headphones)

Posted on 19 October 2011 by Terry Chay

I like FaceTime The Richmond, San Francisco, California iMac screencapture View at 100% to see me

As there becomes more integration into the iOS and the Mac, I will be using this more.

Continue reading about headphones after the jump

MacPorts vs. HomeBrew

Posted on 26 July 2011 by Terry Chay

A friend asks whether they should use MacPorts or Homebrew.

What these are, are ways of installing Unix (Linux or BSD) software on your Macintosh in a way that they get updated. This is useful if you need to customize your (L)AMP stack, or process a document in LaTeX, or do graphing visualization or -code optimization… there are a lot of uses and having a consistent Linux-like or BSD-like tree of libraries and applications is usually the best option.

I use MacPorts and I’ve used Fink in the past. I never tried Homebrew

Continue reading more ignorant comparisons between Fink, MacPorts and Homebrew after the jump→

How Apple rolls (for newbies)

Posted on 23 July 2011 by Terry Chay

I read this old comment about recently-released Mac OS X Lion:

…but really it’s the lack of Rosetta that has me most annoyed. I admin 120 users who still use Office 2004 on G5s. This just pushed up the cost of upgrading them by $200 each.

Actually, no. The cost of that particular upgrade is zero because you can’t. Apple dropped operating support on the G5 in Snow Leopard. So you can’t even install Lion on this computer, you must leave the computer on Leopard. He would have an issue if he has Intel-based Macintoshes that are still using Office 2004 (or earlier-Office 2008 introduced in 2008) or Adobe Creative Suite 2 (or earlier—Adobe CS3 introduced in 2007). But he should leave those people with Snow Leopard, just as he left the G5′ers a few years back with Leopard.

This is just another indicator of how Apple rolls when they want to introduce something new:

Apple and the Motorola 68000 processor:

1984 68k Macs introduced with 68k processor
1994 first PowerPC Macintosh introduced with “System 7″ (specifically 7.1). Applications fork into three categories: 68k applications, PowerPC-only, or “Fat binaries” (which run on but 68k and PowerPC Macs). PowerPC Macs can run 68k-only applications via emulation.
1998 MacOS 8.5 drops support of 68k computers.
2006 Intel-computers cannot run 68k applications.
2007 Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) drops Classic-mode, and with it, all support for 68k applications.

Continue reading about Apple and backward compatibility after the jump (or just to watch their Infomercial)→

Swackett

Posted on 19 January 2011 by Terry Chay

I remember reading about this sort of site a while back, but I never realized how convenient and cool it is until I downloaded it from the AppStore.

Swackett basically gives you an idea of if you should be wearing a sweater, jacket, or coat (and sunglasses or a hat). In the drastic inconsistency of San Francisco weather, that means yesterday it was suggesting a jacket, and today, it says I should be dressed as a trekkie:

swackett® :: San Francisco :: might I need a sweater, jacket or coat?

Nothing fancy, just usable. You don’t have to even register unless you want to manage multiple locations.

This would make a great iPhone/iPad app also. Download swackett from the Mac AppStore

I can’t wait!

Posted on 23 December 2010 by Terry Chay

Tekrat tests the computer controlled vinyl cutter.

Tekrat wrote me today:

So TechShop SF is finally open so that means I can finish up a lot of projects I’ve been meaning to do. One on the list was this graphic I wanted to print up a while ago. Unfortunately the one I tried on my laptop was the only one that came out right today Is the Macbook Air have the same as the Macbook Pro? As soon as I get my new blades I can cut another…

Unfortunately, the answer is no.

iPhone 4, iPad, MacBook Air 13″, MacBook Pro 15″, MacBook Pro 17″

Must. Be. Patient.

The first lines outside Apple Store

Posted on 6 October 2010 by Terry Chay

You may have forgotten by now, but the first lines outside Apple Store were for the openings…

My graduate school friend, Dave, called me that morning and mentioned that an Apple Store was opening up in the area and we should check it out. We casually showed up just before noon and were totally blown away by the lines.

The line for Apple Store Apple Store, Palo Alto, California Olympus C-2500L (3 exposures, 1/200-1/400sec, f/2.9), iso100, 11.8mm (47mm) I took this photo nine years ago today (October 6, 2001) outside Apple Store Palo Alto. It was the ninth Apple Store opening, and the first street-level Apple Store. The sign reads: “5 down, 95 to go.” It is a reference to the fact that Apple has only 5% market share and the retail store concept was trying to reach the other 95%.

Apple modeled the store after the Gap. The anticipation buildup was stolen from the first lines for Microsoft Windows 95 six years earlier. Apple’s nearest competitor, Gateway Country Stores failed three years later in 2004. Microsoft would copy this idea eight years later in 2009—with impending failure?

I’d say the retail store idea worked better than Apple could have ever imagined.

…

Discouraged by the lines that morning, we had lunch across the street at Pluto’s. When we finished, there was no line and we walked right in. They still had some free t-shirts when we left.

That was a good day.

…

Update: Apple and Microsoft go head-to-head with Microsoft’s fifth store-to-be.

Thoughts on “Thoughts”

Posted on 4 May 2010 by Terry Chay

Now that this site has been down for a month (Thank you, SARSxSW), I tried to see restart this blog with a deep thought.

I couldn’t come up with anything.

So instead, I’ll talk about the tech news. Recently a lot has been going on about Steve Jobs latest missive: “Thoughts on Flash” to which, Adobe’s CEO quickly responded to in the Wall Street Journal.

Instead of rushing to Apple’s defense here, I thought I’d provide some thoughts on these “thoughts.”

Continue reading about three thoughts after the jump. →