It seems that Michael has the same [things on his mind] that I do. Saving is the stupidest paradigm in human-computer interaction. You want me to translate that? Saving is stupid. In more than 20 years of personal computing we haven't gotten past that. If I don't "save" my work, it's as good as gone? It never happened? Why didn't we get rid of this saving sillyness a long time ago?
[Nisus Writer Express] (which I am writing this in right now) has a pretty good autosaving feature. Rarely do I have to consciously save something. What it does lack is rollback or version control. If I could pop a given document back to a previous revision, well, that could save my ass a few times a week right there.
This is something I'm working on a functional demo for, though not (unfortunately) at the filesystem level yet. If I were to write an operating system today, it wouldn't encourage "saving". [ 1/24/2004 08:22:11 PM ] [ ]
Burning the night away
The fire dancing classes are progressing well. We're working on some new stuff, and this weekend we're going to be lighting up and getting comfortable with fire for the first time. Since I came into the class late, there are still a few foundation moves I either don't know or don't "get" yet, but some of the more advanced stuff has come easily to me. Some of the moves are harder for a guy to get - in some cases your hips are wider, which makes it harder, in others your joints have a natural tendancy to "lock" when a girl's might not (blame contact sports like lacrosse).
For those that are interested in exactly what kind of fire dancing I'm doing, everything you could ever want to know can be found [here]. Fire eating and staff are next on my list of things to learn.... maybe. [ 1/24/2004 03:27:12 AM ] [ ]
P5 Glove hackage
Since before it was even announced - when rumors of a new PowerGlove were floating around - I've wanted a [P5 Glove] to play with. As news of it's development trickled out, it seemed that this was a company that understood it's potential. At one point, they pre-announced a MacOS X SDK for it... which still hasn't surfaced. Oddly enough, their developer webpage states:
Fully USB compliant, the premier edition of the P5 is compatible with the PC as well as Mac OS 9 and below, though no Mac game software is currently available. Future editions of the P5 will be compatible with popular game consoles such as PS2 and Xbox.
They do have a linux SDK, with some source, but unfortunately the important parts are distributed as a binary library. If someone got me one, like, now, since they're available for $20 less from [Computer Geeks], I could certainly figure out how to make it work.... and write a killer app for it. [ 1/24/2004 03:20:53 AM ] [ ]
Friday, January 23, 2004
imapfs.kext?
I'm looking at the [webdavfs module] to see if I can go about creating a MacOS X virtual filesystem driver for accessing IMAP. So far the webdavfs code is way too complicated to understand structurally at first glance, and the thought of just doing development by crashing with a kernel module isn't too much of a turn on.
Sure, it would be a lot simpler to write a daemon that runs in userspace that does pretty much everything needed to dump out IMAP messages into the user's filesystem, but wouldn't accessing the IMAP account directly as a filesystem be much more interesting? Being able to mount your .mac IMAP account just like you would an AppleShare server directory and editing it directly in the finder makes more sense t [ 1/23/2004 11:06:28 PM ] [ ]
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Sidewinder Dual Strike on 10.3
While cleaning over the weekend I turned up one of my [Sidewinder Dual Strike] controllers. A long time ago the design had intrigued me - it had obvious potential as a 3D controller. When I had the opportunity I managed to get two of them for a closeout price.
Under MacOS 8.6 it showed up as a generic human interface device - as a mouse would. The center ball joint needs an actual driver, otherwise it tells the computer it's always turning (this is an oversimplification, but accurate anyway). Previous versions of MacOS X didn't recognize it - but 10.3 apparently has a driver built in and recognizes it.
It turns out that after a little getting used to, the Dual Strike is the ultimate [Wipeout 2097] controller! Very cool! [ 1/22/2004 10:33:02 PM ] [ ]
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
iPod notes for workouts
Cut & paste the instructions for your workouts into text files and drop them into the "Notes" folder on your iPod. Apple has a few AppleScripts that make this a painless process [here]. A good resource for exercise instructions is this set of pages [here]. You can create notes that serve as a reference at the gym, which can be handy - you don't want to spend 20 minutes doing an exercise not quite right and end up feeling it the next day! Another handy use for the iPod's Notes features is you can take webpages, email, or eBooks with you to the gym to read while you're on a treadmill or bike. [ 1/20/2004 05:15:10 PM ] [ ]
Monday, January 19, 2004
NewtSync quick fix for iCal 1.5.2
Today's [iCal] update to version 1.5.2 is confusing [NewtSync]. NewtSync wants a version of 1.5.1 or higher, though when it asks iCal for it's version number the "1.5.2" is gets seems to not pass whatever test NewtSync is running on it. Hey, version numbers are tricky.
Here's a quick fix.
Drill down into NewtSync.app/Contents/PlugIns/SyncDates.bundle/Contents/Resources/. Open up GetiCalVersion.applescript, it should open in Apple's Script Editor application. Change it like so:
-- GetiCalVersion.applescript -- nSync
-- Created by John Anderson on Sat Jan 11 2003. -- Copyright (c) 2001 everchanging. All rights reserved.
--tell application "iCal" to return version return "1.5.1" as text
That comments out the version check and will always think that iCal is the correct version "1.5.1". It will work until a new version of NewtSync is released to handle the new iCal. [ 1/19/2004 09:03:00 PM ] [ ]
