Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The Mac Trash Bin

I hate to admit it, but Windows actually has one advantage over OS X, and that's the handling ofdeleted files.  Sure, on both systems you can always undo the last operation (well, not always... I'm not going to make that blanket statement).  However, Windows Recycle Bin has a few big advantages:

images.jpg


Windows Recycle Bin remembers where each file came from.
Just right click an item and choose restore, and it will go back to the right place.  Very important for those deleted preference files that need to end up in some arcane location in your Documents and Settings. In OS X, good luck placing stuff back in to the right folder. Strange that OS X is all about metadata but doesn't keep track of this.

You can selectively remove items from the trash
As opposed to OS X's all-or-nothing "Empty Trash" option.

When you're copying a folder and another of that same name already exists in the destination, Mac only gives you an option to Replace.
This deletes the existing folder then copies the new one in it's place (see common Finder gripes: "Replace vs Merge").  Something deleted in this way doesn't go to the Trash. This is insult to injury: Not only are you surprised to find that you just accidently did a delete and replace instead of the far more common and expected merge, but then you're double-screwed because Apple decided to disable Undo for this most destructive of actions.  It's pretty evil.

And to all the Mac users out there: all the other OS's do merge, or will at least give the option for it.  I'd at *least* like Finder to present this choice, especially since the Merge operation is a lot harder for a user to replicate on their own, than a Replace.  By the way, it's not perfect, but you can reclaim some of your lost Merge with MergetoFinder applescript

Control Junk Mail

Annoying credit card/insurance offers got you down?  Get out of them: OptOutPreScreen.com.  It's even endorced by the Federal Trade Commission.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

But at the Market, isn't it Spelled "McIntosh"?

I now has a Macbook. w3rd!
To anyone who has tried them both:  I ask whether you prefer Word 2008 or iWork's Pages '08?  Same goes, to a lesser extent, for the other Office vs iWorks components.

Leopard rocks, so much so that it is a worthy point of procrastination to mention it at midnight when I still have a paper left to write....

Addendum:


After using Pages (iWork’s wordprocessor) some more, I have to say, it’s nice, but because it uses it’s own format, I find myself still saving in .DOC format a lot in order to port my files between systems, and saving to other formats sucks.

If you save as a Word .DOC…

  1. It’s not just another possible format to select in the save dialog… oh no. You’re not saving the file, apparently, you’re exporting it. Different rules apply, and you can’t just hit option-S.

  2. I don’t think it does autosaves to DOC format.

  3. Even when you haven’t modified the file, it say that the file has changed, and ask you to save it again. Gets very annoying when you just saved it. This is another reason I think it doesn’t autosave.


So basically it treats DOC as an alien format, and different rules apply. Very similar to Photoshop’s “Save a Copy” option.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Survey: Silent Discos

Would you ever go to one?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/Rxr-FSRhEjc&]

Adultswim Videos

Wordpress won't let me embed the videos dammit:

Aqua Teen Hunger Force:
http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a25c392145e74420114604d869b0022
http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a25c39216e887be0116ea2f0139000a

Robot Chicken: Star Wars
http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a25c392132b05a201132b0f8750001c
http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a25c392132b05a201132b9e01d5006e

Adulterated Cookies

A friend was telling me yesterday that nowadays, in an effort to be more responsible, they've gone and bastardized the Sesame Street that we all grew up with. The worst case of this is that now Cookie Monster doesn't wolf down his favorite snack like he used to. Now he sings "Cookies are a Sometimes Food"

Sometimes is now!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4432415.stm

98+

I was watching an old Daily Show and came across this and thought it was worth repeating.

"We share 98.5 percent of our DNA with chimps.
The other 1.5% ? Well, that's why we kill each other."

However, I have to point out that the exact percentage of common DNA is debated, especially when you take introns and 'junk' DNA into account. Oh, and chimps can be pretty mean, cannibalistic little buggers, so there's that as well.