Ric Ford has posted the results of his totally informal poll on the best Apple products for 2003. The iPod/iTunes combo takes overall best product. You can check out the other winners on the poll page.
Personally, I would have voted for Michael’s SpamSieve as the best software product, but the poll was for Apple-only items. I can’t tell you what a time saver SpamSieve has become for me, and even though I have little to no day-to-day interaction with the app, I am addicted to its usage. (Which is the way I’m beginning to feel about LaunchBar…)
Month: December 2003
Unlike Lee, I don’t think I’d appreciate this new trend of non-verbal, can-I-listen-to-your-iPod-for-a-moment “communication” with perfect strangers. With someone I know, even on an acquaintance level, I’d feel much more generous. I’ve known my new boss less than two weeks, and we’ve already listened in to one another’s iPods. But we’re the only two people in our department, both total Mac heads, both love our iPods, he’s a major music geek, etc., etc. We have a lot of stuff in common outside of our work relationship. But I would likely balk if someone just walked up to me on the street and wanted to plug in…
The folks at iSkin have rolled out a new keyboard protector for current PowerBooks and iBooks. I reviewed an older version of the iSkin Keyboard Protector earlier this year, and recommend the product.
I have to wonder at the prospect of paying for a professional paint job for one’s iPod or PowerBook. Granted, the iPod job only costs fifty bucks, but how many different colored skins could you buy for your iPod for fifty bucks? And the skins are removable, plus generally offer other features (non-skid, for example).
I know it’s not a full-blown paint job, but you can get cover panels for your PowerBook. Not to mention that having your iPod or ‘Book painted will void your AppleCare warranty. (via MacMinute)
A good interview with Steve Jobs over on RollingStone.com. Having had discussions about the music biz with folks who have worked in it, including my new boss, I have to say that I think Steve’s remedy for the music biz to increase its profits is dead-on.
If you’ve actually been hitting the site over the past couple of days rather than reading posts via RSS feeds, you will have noticed the new look. To go along with the new look is something of a new mandate I gave myself.
Retrophisch refocuses its coverage on the Mac world and technology in general, with a few bits of personal fun, like my observations on college football (Geaux Tigers!) and hockey, thrown in. From this point forward, I’m shifting the following topics to respective blogs:
- God and faith (what some would term “religion”): Godblog
- Politics: Ludichris
- Firearms: Forty Caliber
All sites carry a common layout that identifies them as the Retrophisch Family of Blogs™, and all of the above sites link to the others. There may be some crossover posting, going on, as religious liberties might well be discussed on both Godblog and Ludichris, just as firearms freedoms could be discussed on both Ludichris and Forty Caliber. But for the most part, each will remain distinct from the others.
I wanted to do this both for myself and those of you kind enough to frequent my site. I have felt that perhaps I was trying to cover too much in one site, and, heck, I’ve had the domains just sitting around waiting to be used.
I must send out major thanks to Raena for her invaluable assistance in getting the backend code tweaked and the CSS working right. Thanks also to Jon, Lee, Michael, and anyone else I may have bugged over the past few months about taking a look and helping me with items that were wrong. Errors in the content are purely my own.
I’m still working on code for some of the auxiliary pages, so, yes, I know the Photos and Read pages don’t share the same layout. I likely won’t touch the Photo albums until the Trotts & Co. release Movable Type Pro, which will feature photo album creation. (Yes, I know about Gallery and myriad other such products, but I’ve issues with trying to get them to work, and I can only guess how well the whole album thing will work in MT Pro, so I’m content to wait.)
Comments on the new look are welcome and appreciated, as are any bug reports readers may feel necessary.
Michael released version 2.1 of SpamSieve today. This version adds more support to Apple Mail that was begun in version 2.0.2, as well as numerous other improvements. There’s a new Training Tip window that offers advice on how to improve the app’s accuracy. The Entourage address book can now be used as a white list, something that will come in handy for me at my new job.
And I swear this thing just keeps getting faster. With its tight integration with Mailsmith, I hardly know it’s running at all, though I most certainly know that it’s working. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve gotten two false positives–relatives who had never emailed me before–and a few false negatives from new spam that was swiftly added to the corpus and now flow in to the Trash.
SpamSieve 2.1 requires Mac OS X 10.2.6 or later, and is the best $25 a Mac user can spend.
Poll running right now on ESPN’s College Football page: which team least deserves to play for the national championship? Oklahoma leads by a wide margin, with over 7,700 total voters thus far. The team with the fewest votes–meaning they most deserve to play for the title? My alma mater, of course.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: the BCS is a bunch of hooey. It happens to be the best the NCAA can do right now, even if their best isn’t good enough. I find it hard to believe that LSU and USC aren’t playing in the Sugar Bowl. I thought that my reasons for LSU being #2 sort of hinted at why Oklahoma shouldn’t be going to the Sugar Bowl. Over twelve thousand voters on an ESPN.com poll agreed; they all wanted to see a USC-LSU match-up, one I believe would have favored LSU greatly.
Granted, I think OU-LSU will be much more entertaining football game, and that Michigan is going to crush USC. So all you Trojan fans can just get those thoughts of a split championship out of your pretty little heads.
GEAUX TIGERS!!
LSU should play in the national championship game as the #2, maybe even the #1 team in the country. Here’s why:
1. Oklahoma lost to Kansas State tonight, and lost quite convincingly. They lose to an opponent ranked 14 spots below them, and do not emerge as the Big 12 Conference champs.
2. LSU has beaten more Top 25 teams than OU or USC. With the win tonight over Georgia in the SEC Championship, the Tigers have now beaten a ranked team four times, versus only two wins each over ranked opponents by the Sooners and Trojans. Sure, LSU beat Georgia twice, but if you want to use the BCS’s own rankings against it, the Bulldogs were a better team the second time around and the Tigers crushed them.
3. LSU and OU had to play one more game this year than USC. Both the SEC and the Big 12 have a championship game, while the PAC 10 does not. OU lost its championship game; LSU won theirs–over a Top 5 opponent. USC annihilated an unranked team in yet another gimme game. Both LSU and OU will end up with one more win than USC. Hello, BCS geniuses…having to win more games counts for something.
4. You can take USC’s “strength of schedule” and go bury it in the backyard. Going back to winning against ranked teams, LSU has a 2-0 lead over the Trojans. Not to mention that Syracuse helped LSU out today with a win over the Fighting Irish (who lost to USC), and at the time of this posting, Boise State was winning against Hawaii (who lost to USC). Suddenly, USC’s schedule isn’t looking too impressive.
UPDATE, 9:45 AM: Boise State crushed Hawaii, 45-28.
Of course, it’s all left up the subjectivity of the pollsters, since the NCAA refuses to institute a playoff system in college football to determine the national champion. With the way the Tigers have been playing since the Auburn game and that convincing win, I’d put them up against anyone in the country right now.
GEAUX TIGERS!!