Tag Archives: Apple

Every other browser renders correctly

Yesterday Firefox 2.0 was released. I think it is a moment to celebrate the take over Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Even if it is a way to make Microsoft update IE in a “satisfying” way.

With IE 7.0 out, it is going to be harder to make people appreciate the other browsers.

 

Within the last week, two new browsers have been released. The good news is that both browsers have seen some significant enhancements in three key areas: user experience, security and web standards. The bad news is that one browser still has better features and standards support than the other.

(Wired News: A Tale of Two Web Browsers)

It is so hard to transform a netuser who just surfs. Most people just use the software that comes with their PC/Mac. For Mac its OK. Safari is a great companion.

But IE… I just hate Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. For web-designer it’s the worst thing that could ever happened. Nothing works correctly with it while with all the other browsers the design will work just fine. Most people don’t know the behind the scenes of creating web pages. It’s a big headache – esspecially when you need to twick the design to fit the different browsers.

“Every other browser renders correctly”

(Stopdesign | The IE Factor)

So true. This is a detailed story from a designer’s perspective.

 

With my website, for the moment, I don’t care about Microsoft, IE, or their users. I will recommend to Transform! My website will look nicer on Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc. and your satisfaction will be priceless…

 

Modding my Mac (and yours too)

Almost as long as I remember myself Apple Macintosh were part of my household.
It started when my mum got a computer for her graphics works back in 1988: Mac SE, stacked with 8″ monochrome screen, internal HD and 4mb RAM.

Later I received my own first computer with the 1st generation Power PC (PPC 7200 with system 7.0). At that point I started learning about modding my Mac. SuperClock! was the first addition (back then the OS didn’t come with a built in clock). Kaleidoscope was the second, a utility panel to change the looks of the Finder.

I don’t remember the rest of the stuff that I installed (it was more then 10 years ago), but even now, when I’m working on PowerBook With OS X Tiger on it, I still like to mod my mac.

For the benefit of other Mac users, I’m writing about the plugins I likes the most, and of which, I think most of the users should look at.

First, we’ll look at the Menu Extras and some other Finder helpers.

Objectpark’s MenuCalendarClock is a replacement for the clock originally resides in the Finder. It adds a date and a pop-up calendar and is compatible with your iCal or Entourage. It makes life a lot easier, and checking the date doesn’t involve pressing on the clock and there are a lot more features to it. (Advanced features $18.95, basic features for free).


MenuMeters, created by Alex Harper, is a control panel for those of you who like to be in control of what your Mac is up to. It adds a CPU, memory, disk, and network monitoring tools to the menu. It helps to see if your network is online or if you are using all of your memory. (Free / Donation).

Colin Henein’s SlimBatteryMonitor is a replacement menu item for the normal Apple laptops battery menu. It gives the option to control the look and color of the different symbol (charged, charging, battery power, etc.) and can take less space on the menu. It is great for those who have too many items in the menu. (Free / Donation).

Ejector is a small menu item that adds an ejector button to the menu bar. You can eject any disk (e.g. iPod, external hard drive, .dmg or CDs/DVDs). (Free / Donation).

Quicksilver is an amazing application and you can do a lot with it. You can call any application with just a press on a key, or control iTunes with the keyboard from any application. You can check for a contact’s phone number, search the web, you can trigger any application to do anything. It is the best companion for the Finder and the Dock, and it can even replace them altogether. (Free / Donation).

Growl is becoming a standard notification system for the OS X. With Growl you don’t have to go to the Mail app in order to see the new mail. Growl will notify from whom the new mail has arrived with a short description. It also works with Quicksilver, Skype, Adium and iChat (with Chax). (Free / Donation).

More apps and handy plugins, later this week.



On my menu bar I have (from left to right): Quicksilver, Ejector, Amua, Menuet, ShuttleXpress, Salling Clicker, SlimBatteryMonitor, MenuMeters (Network, Disk, Memory, CPU), Airport, Bluetooth, Langauge, MenuCalendarClock, Spotlight.


Stop DRM – another right is lost!

From Wikipedia:

Digital Rights Management (generally abbreviated to DRM) is any of several technologies used by publishers (or copyright owners) to control access to and usage of digital data (such as software, music, movies) and hardware, handling usage restrictions associated with a specific instance of a digital work.

The producers of films and music are trying to keep the rights to their own. Slowly government rules are taking place, forbidding the right to copy digital work, even if its for personal purposes.
Lately, a bill has passed in France, known as DADVSI (in English: “law on authors’ rights and related rights in the information society”).

Most of the bill focuses on the repression of the exchange of copyrighted works over peer-to-peer networks and the criminalizing of the circumvention of DRM protection measures. The law… could significantly hamper free software, and also may significantly restrict the right to make copies of copyrighted works for private use.

StopDRM, (translated, original page here), a group of French activists are calling against the law.

After the adoption of law DADVSI by the government, greatest confusion reigns: the users of peer-to-peer received the insurance of the Minister for the culture which justice will be lenient, but the members of the StopDRM Collective worry for the consumers, who “do not pirate” but buy the music and films: what will arrive to them, now that the law was promulgated, if they circumvent the DRM for the legitimate use of works? And if they say it and inform the population? Are they assured them also any leniency?

3 members of the group have stepped forward. They went to the police to get arrested under the slogan “A lawsuit is wanted“.

The three have bought the original work of either music from iTunes or DVDs and transferred them to their portable media players by circumventing the code, thus breaking the law. One of them even have created a page Internet explaining how to remove the DRM of a protected bought work so that everyone can transfer its pieces on its portable player. While waiting for the response of the legal authorities, this page is accessible to all and is on http://drm.mediaarea.net.
The third, for its part, used a free software to read a DVD under GNU/Linux.

All of the three are about to face charges. The police officer was thinking that they are kidding with him, but at some point he discovered that they are right – this is illegal.

They most probably are facing sanctions of 3.750 euros fine for deliberated use with technical measurements realized by a Net surfer by his own means, six months of imprisonment and 30.000 euros fine for the provider of means of skirting, which acts in a deliberated way.

The problem is not the fact that you can do it at home, and nobody will know, but the fact that it is illegal to do so. A similar law is already applied in the US, and sooner or later, will take place in most of the countries in the world.
Ripping a DVD that I bought in order to save a copy of it at home or to be able to transfer it to a portable device and breaking the DRM of a song I bought from iTunes in order to play it on a non Apple device are my rights.

Lately, microsoft have released their own portable player, Zune, which is applying DRM to every song and video which is transferred to it, even if the title is under a GNU or a Creative Commons licence (of which, its against the licence to apply DRM).

The fight has only just begun.

The geek in me: Spot the Leopard

The rumors have started to come out about the future of Mac OS X, which will be seen in the next version, 10.5, aka Leopard.

It is said that Leopard will make extensive use of Spotlight, which was introduced in OS X Tiger (10.4). Apple is said to redesign the whole Finder and bring it much closer to the iTunes and iPhoto interfaces.

The large hard drives that most of us have, and the amount of files that we carry on them, make the task of finding files more and more difficult. On the other hand, Spotlight, a searching tool with journaling method and fast searching ability, provides an easier way to find lost files. The idea behind the redesign of the Finder is to make file searching faster than it is today, when one has to go through all the folders in order to find a specific file.

On the interface design, Leopard will probably incorporate the look of the new iLife ‘06 and iTunes 6, with their smooth merge of Aqua and Brushed Metal. It is possible that Apple will come back to unified menus, as was in the Classic systems.

Leopard is scheduled for end of 2006 or early 2007, but Tiger, and its current version, 10.4.4, is a great in between and a vast improvement to 10.3 Jaguar, if only due to the use of Spotlight.

It is true that Tiger had some problems, and few of Jaguar users decided to stick with it for that reason, but since its recent updates, Tiger’s overall operation runs smooth and fast.
I believe that in order to get used to the changes which are about to occur to the Finder in the next big release, an upgrade to the Tiger environment is needed.