is Roberto Mateu’s geeky blog.
The recent parting of my Mom with her MacBook thanks to some S.O.B.’s that came into the house, reminded me stop postponing updating my MacBooks Air’s security settings.
Make no mistake, the steps below are less about having a hacker-proof system and more about making it a pain to an average user (or a scum-of-the-earth thief) to get to your information if your Mac is stolen1.
Anyways, my checklist:
Arik Hesseldah on BusinessWeek:
Released in 1984 with the Mac, it is fondly remembered not only by those who used it, but also by computer scientists for numerous first-of-a-kind innovations.
Source code as history. I love this era.
AppleJack Now Works With Snow Leopard →
My favorite Mac troubleshutting tool now works with Mac OS X 10.6:
AppleJack is a user friendly troubleshooting assistant for Mac OS X. With AppleJack you can troubleshoot a computer even if you can’t load the GUI, or don’t have a startup CD handy.
It’s a command line tool, but it always works great when my Mac is acting up for whatever reason.
Dan Gillmor Is Moving From Mac to Linux →
Dan Gillmor on Salon.com gives some pretty convoluted reasoning fro moving to Linux.
He starts out saying:
I’m not religious about technology. My strategy is to use what works best, period.
Yet, a paragraph later states (emphasis mine):
So why am I about to migrate to Linux (aka GNU/Linux)? Because Apple is pushing me away, and because I value some principles, perhaps almost religiously, that affect other decisions.
I agree with that Apple’s unclear policies for developers on the AppStore are a mistake. Yet this has nothing to do with the Mac. Other than being much more bitchy about the programming environment you can develop in, Mac’s are as open today as it was five years ago.
However, he goes on to say he bought a great new laptop –ThinkPad X201– which doesn’t yet work perfectly with the latest Ubuntu Linux. So he’s switching slowly, how? by using Linux on a virtual machine on his Mac.
I’m all for switching to Linux because of its merits, or leaving the iOS platform for its restrictions.
But to say you’re leaving the Mac because Apple is becoming too controlling is not accurate, and feels more like a linkbait article than his normal well-thought posts.
Postbox Express 1.0 is a simple, yet powerful, new email application for Windows and Mac. It’s based on the same platform as our premium version of Postbox, but contains a lighter-weight feature set that’s perfect for home use.
New free version of their paid email client. Features are very good and it looks nice, it just feels a bit on the slow side on my Mac.
Still a good option for someone looking for a email client alternative.
After everybody went home, Apple released Safari 5. From the Press Release:
[…] featuring the new Safari Reader for reading articles on the web without distraction, a 30 percent performance increase over Safari 4,* and the ability to choose Google, Yahoo! or Bing as the search service powering Safari’s search field.
Nothing too exciting. Safari reader basically brings the Readability and Instapaper bookmarklets to the masses.
However, buried at the bottom of the PR and the product page you find the most notable feature, extensions:
Safari 5 introduces Safari Extensions, a new way for developers to enhance and customize the browsing experience. Create buttons for the toolbar or make your own extension bar. Change the way web content appears. Add controls to web pages.
Not surprising, they’re signed and sandboxed, with an eventual curated extension gallery.
In any case, I’m excited about extensions, and some people are already working on some cool ones.
Update: While the official Apple extension gallery is not up, the Safari Extensions blog seems to be the best place to find out about experimental extensions for the time being.
PeepOpen File Navigation For Text Editors →
PeepOpen is a file navigation application that works with TextMate, Coda, MacVim, and Emacs […] Search on both paths and filenames, and easily open the file in your text editor with a single keypress. Useful metadata helps you quickly choose the file you’re looking for.
If you live in a text editor, this seems like a must have.
With a price of $9 and no trial, they know exactly who they want using it.
From the MOApp blog:
It’s all about a fast publishing a pic, a link, a quote or a small text. Thats what myTumblr is designed for. Nothing more and nothing less.
Really does look simple and to the point. Two deal-breakers for me though:
However, it’s still in beta, so I hope these get implemented.
It does look like a great way to post when you want something faster than the default tumblr bookmarklet, but not as full featured as MarsEdit.