I’ve been using GmailStatus to alert me when I get new mail to my Gmail account (anyone [want an account](mailto:retrophisch@retrophisch.com?subject=Gmail account request)?). On my 12-inch PowerBook, however, menu bar space is precious, and if I can eliminate a menu bar widget, I will.
This may come as old news to some, but Gmail has added Atom feeds. It was really as simple as the article states: I dropped the link in to my NetNewsWire subscriptions, it asked for my login and password to the Gmail account, and that was it. I sent a test message to my Gmail account, and a couple of minutes later, when the feed refreshed, there it was. Aces!
NetNewsWire is one of the applications I always have open, so it makes sense for my usage patterns to keep track of my Gmail account this way. I don’t use Gmail as a primary e-mail account, so there’s no reason for me to keep it open in a browser window, and I’ve yet to get its POP access working with Mailsmith. If anyone’s been able to do this, [please let me know](mailto:retrophisch@retrophisch.com?subject=Gmail on Mailsmith).
Tag: tech
I’ve been futzing around with OSXvnc on my Cube and Chicken of the VNC on my PowerBook, and I cannot get the latter to connect to the former. Is anyone out there using this combination, and can offer guidance? Or recommend a different VNC client?
For those of you with a Hipster PDA like mine, you can now have a docking station.
[Via the 43 Folders del.icio.us page.]
Steven Frank is going to have me lusting after the Treo 650 again.
If you’re not subscribing to MDJ or MWJ, you’re missing out on what is the very best and most comprehensive coverage of the ongoing Apple trade secret lawsuits. Matt Deatherage has worked to the point of failing health to deliver a knock-out of an issue this past Sunday that features the most intensive news of the cases I’ve seen. Matt & Co. deliver brilliant point after brilliant point, with so many good ones, I’d have to reprint the entire article to get them all in.
There is one example on why these cases are important for businesses, and why this is not about the political right to free speech as set forth in the First Amendment.
How many people would have looked twice at the original iMac if its Bondi Blue design had leaked out two months in advance, and competitors had already released similar-looking PCs? Apple actually introduced the machine at an event that everyone thought was for some of O’Grady’s long-rumored PowerBooks, and it was – plus “one more thing.” It’s said that only about 30 people within Apple knew what the machine looked like or that it would be announced that May day in 1998, and the press coverage conveyed the shock at Apple’s bold move.
The iMac’s design influenced everything from rival PCs to peripherals to pencil sharpeners, but because Apple kept its work secret until it was ready, all those products were rightly seen as iMac copycats. If Think Secret had leaked the iMac like it did the Mac Mini, would the world have seen those products are iMac knock-offs – or seen the iMac, the original idea that was stolen and released prematurely, as “just part of a trend?”
That sums it up. If the latter had happened, would Apple have recovered as quickly from its doldrums as it did? Would it have recovered at all? One could make the argument that the success of the iMac fueled the development of iTunes, the iTunes Music Store, and the iPod. Without the runaway success of the iMac, Apple as we know it today might not exist at all. That success could have been placed in serious jeopardy with rumors of the new machine leaking out.
If you could spend your money on only one Macintosh publication, I would recommend MDJ or MWJ. (I have no affiliation with these publications, or their parent company, GCSF, Inc., other than as a satisfied subsriber.)
Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard has an intriguing look at the politics of Silicon Valley. Hint: incumbents are despised, “disrupters” are loved.
Earlier in the week, we received a post card-based customer satisfaction survey from Comcast. We get ultra-basic cable and our high-speed Internet access from Comcast. I was looking forward to letting them have it, as we have been very displeased with their level of service the past few months.
First, bad Comcast, bad! for not having a way to complete the survey online. This would undoubtedly have led to my being able to write more than I was able to on your flimsy little post card.
Second, out of the four scores–Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor–Comcast failed to rate the top spot in any category, got a Good for it’s Field Tech experience, and rated a Poor when it comes to overall Customer Service experience.
My comment:
A way to speak to knowledgeable techs on the phone would be nice, since some of us know way more about how our high-speed Internet access works than the customer service reps. This would lead to faster problem resolution. Also, outages every other week are likely not winning Comcast many fans.
That’s all I was able to get on the card, because Comcast decided it needed to put its logo in the bottom right quarter of the card, eating up valuable writing real estate.
I have gotten to the point where I start out any phone conversation with a customer service rep with something like this: “Our high-speed Internet access is down. I’ve reset the cable modem multiple times. The cable television is much fuzzier than normal. It’s not a problem with the lines in my house, you have an outage.”
To which the customer service rep still insists I reset the cable modem again. Which I don’t, even though I tell them I do, since I’ve already done it, as I stated “multiple times.” In the past, well, ever, every time our access has been lost, it has been due to an area-wide outage. It has never been due to the lines in or connecting directly to our house. One would think this sort of thing would be noted in account notes. Then the customer service rep could see the outage history and reasonably conclude that I know what the hell I’m talking about when I call.
We have some new neighbors just down the block who reported that they signed up with Verizon for local phone and fiber optic, which VZ has been laying all over town. Many of us in the neighborhood have been waiting for some sort of notification from Verizon that they were ready to offer us high-speed access via fiber, so we could dump Comcast. Where’s that number?
I have joined the Flickr bandwagon. You can see my first set, from February of last year, “Winter Wonderland 2004“.
I am in the process of looking for a permanent residence on the web for my digital photos. I’m a little tired of the do-it-yourself routine I’ve been experimenting with, and I’m not looking forward to having to oversee yet another software backend, such as Gallery.
The photo set you can see at Flickr took me about five minutes to create. Granted, most of the hard work was already done in iPhoto (photo titles and captions). I used FlickrExport by Fraser Speirs to upload directly from iPhoto to my Flickr account. I uploaded the full-sized images, so my free Flickr account is currently full.
I had been looking at SmugMug, but now am having second thoughts, and am seriously considering upgrading to a Pro account with Flickr. More to come…
Yes, really. Free tech support.
[Via hackaday.]
Maybe I’ve just been watching too much Battlestar Galactica, but does anyone else think that VKB’s Bluetooth Virtual Keyboard looks like some kind of Cylon infiltration unit?