I’ve recently found myself needing to use Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Client for a project I’m working on, and because the ThinkPad seems to hate me, I set it up in the Parallels WinXP install running on my MacBook Pro. Lifehacker wrote about two Mac RDC clients today, CORD and the Microsoft client itself. (Apparently the MS client is still PPC which means it runs slowly under emulation.) Caveat Emptor.
Build a location photography laptop case. I could have used this in Bimini, but I was too scared to carry my main production laptop on a 20′ boat bobbing in the Atlantic Ocean. (via)
I’ve been using a MacAlly two-button mouse for, well, as long as I’ve used a USB Mac—ever since I pinched it borrowed it from my dot-com in 2000. It’s a good mouse, even though it’s not laser-based and it doesn’t have a scroll wheel, but it does have green blinky lights that flash when the buttons are clicked. OOOOHH, BLINKY LIGHTS. The clicking action is easy and it tracks very well for a roller-ball mouse, even if I have to clean the ball every evening. Which leads me to my first complaint: the disgusting gunk that magically collects on the bottom of the mouse. I don’t know which camp you fall in, dear readers, but I am that guy who needs to have a clean mouse. Some people are able to design whole magazines and create buildings and write novels with the contents of a landfill stuck to the bottom of their mouse; Mine must be spotless. I’ve pulled entire animals from the trackball of some mice because the hair kept jittering the cursor. This drives me insane. But I lived with my blinky mouse because, at heart, I’m cheap, and I couldn’t justify $50 for a new one, which they used to give us for free with a new computer in the olden days.
All was fine with my mousing world until I graduated to a big-boy laptop, and the short cord of the mouse failed to reach the two USB ports on the left side of the machine. Instead I had to use the right-side port, which meant I was constantly bumping the front of the mouse into the cord and the plug base. This was, to me, about as annoying as having a monkey following me around repeatedly poking me with a cattle prod: My primary interface with the computer needs to be as seamless as possible, hence my anal-retentive cleaning habits and hatred of desktop obstacles.
The idea of the wireless desk appeals to me, so I tried an early Apple bluetooth mouse a few years ago which drove me insane in two minutes: the action was jittery and laggy, and I felt like I was working during the middle of an epileptic fit. I’ve tried several laser-based PC mice, which the MacBook Pro immediately made friends with, but I couldn’t find one that felt right in my hand or didn’t cramp my wrist. Then, I tried a Kensington bluetooth mouse a consulting client had, and I was smitten immediately. It was smooth, the mouse had good weight (manufacturers, listen: a heavy mouse feels good) and the action was very snappy. I looked at the local Computer Superstore (the one laying off 1/3 its workforce) and found entire pallets of mice that had cords, looked painful, were painted with fanboy FPS graphics, or defined ‘wireless’ as ‘dependent on a USB dongle’, which is just stupid. Browsing the the local Apple Store, I didn’t find full-size Kensington mice, but they did have another brand which I bought and tried out.
The Logitech V270 looks and feels nice, but I found it hard to press the buttons without use of a sledgehammer: within five minutes my carpal tunnel was vibrating all the way up my arm and down the back of the chair. The scroll wheel was big and felt good under my thumb, but the action was just like scrolling through text in MS Word: Select something and begin to drag it slowly, and suddenly the cursor is five pages below where it started. I boxed it back up after three hours and talked Dave into going to the Apple Store with me Wednesday night to return it.
I was happy to walk out with a refund and empty hands until the helpful Apple Specialist showed me the new Mighty Mouse, which I’m led to believe is an improvement over the old version. Right and left clicking that doesn’t require years of weightlifting, a scroll button that doesn’t leave me in the dust, and a great feel for my wrist. I’m a day into it so far, and I like what I have. It’s not quite as precise as a rollerball or a wired mouse, but it’s pretty damn close. And I don’t have to battle any cords other than the ones that lead to all the other crap on my desk, which is a nice change.
Complete Mac Backups free. I’ve been looking at rsync for a while, and having a clone of my current system is a fantastic idea. Time for another fat hard drive?
On my way home from the bookstore this evening, I decided to pull into the driveway backwards so that the Jeep would be facing outward, something I do whenever I get the chance. This evening I spied something unusual in my headlights, low to the ground and skulking, running across Frederick Road: a red fox, plain as day, watching me warily over its shoulder as it padded over to the opposite side of the street. Due to the arc of my turn, I put the Jeep in reverse and followed it easily with my headlights as it ran across lawns to the lawn of the church, then did a circuit of the pine tree there before disappearing into its foliage.
We’ve known we have a fox for a neighbor for some time now—we saw one repeatedly last year out the kitchen window and assumed it was living under our neighbor’s porch. We’ve also seen tracks that are too big for a cat and too small for a dog in fresh morning snow through the backyard, so it’s no surprise this one is around. Something told me, though, that this was something I was meant to see, so I did a little research. This site has a lot of good information on foxes, including the observation that they’re great for hunting varmints, something our yard has in abundance. This is also prime birthing season, which means I may have seen a parent out hunting for dinner (sorry, the garbage cans are empty, pal, but I’d be happy to introduce you to the chipmunks digging condos under the maple in the backyard.)
The idea of totems is relatively new to me, and something I don’t usually consider much. The last couple of weeks have me looking for some higher meanings, though—a recent influx of work has me considering my karma, and a current project is testing my patience, professionalism, and good judgement. A cursory search in Google brings up lots of crunchy new-age babblings about spirits and raibows and faeries; yeah, OK, whatever.
The general consensus seems to be that it’s a powerful totem and one that is clever and crafty. If I could get some clever and crafty to rub off on me right now, that would be great, because I’m not feeling so sharp lately. I’ve had a few things happen this week that are making me question my own intelligence, but I’ve been able to recover without bringing shame upon my dojo. So maybe this is a sign that I’ve got to tap a little more of my clever and crafty for the future. The Internets also say the fox teaches one how to slip out of unpleasant situations quietly. This talent would normally be be fine, but I’m having some problems with accountability right now, so I figure it’s telling me not to fade out, but step up to the plate more consistently. Which means I have a dreaded phone call to make tomorrow morning.
Cleverness, discretion, cunning, quick wit, camouflage: I could have used some of these things for a 1½ phone conversation this afternoon…where were you then, my little friend? Oh, that’s right, I was looking out the window, waiting for someone to make a 10-minute point, and I saw a woodpecker. Woodpecker? Sensitivity, protection, devotion…How does that help me with this stuff? Mother Earth, what the hell are you trying to tell me?
After pulling the last of the photos off the two cameras I brought to California, I’m afraid to say my abilities as a photographer are in a steady decline. Waaaaaay back in the early days I had a Kodak DC-3400, an absolute clunker of a camera, and I somehow made it take very good pictures. After graduation to the Canon, I had a long string of lucky shots until I started reading the stupid manual and finding other excellent features I hadn’t noticed before, and then it all went to hell. For this trip, I took the D-70 and a little Canon PowerShot, and I got about five good pictures out of a hundred taken or so. All the D-70’s shots were too contrasty or overexposed, and the point-and-click Canon made everyone in the shot look like disciples of Satan, even though it was set on redeye flash.
At this point I don’t know whether to be worried or pissed; I threw the little Canon in a drawer and reset the D-70 back to factory specs. It’s going to take even more reading of the cryptic Nikon manual to learn about metering shots properly and learning where the sweet spots are, but I’m getting the hang of the camera slowly. I’m going to try and post as many pictures as I can now that the weather is warming up and the flowers are blooming, and hopefully find some of my mojo again.
So while I was in San Francisco tippity-tapping away for the Man, Jen took advantage of our three-month extended NetFlix promotional and ordered the first three Deadwood DVDs to watch. She got all the way to Episode Seven before I got home, and we took some time out on Saturday to pop the next disc in. Already, I’m hooked, and that’s only three episodes. Great writing, production values, and characters (not to mention the acting.) Yet another series we’re coming in late on.
While I was in the S-F and staying with my friend Nick, Apple finally shipped the Apple TV, which required a trip to the Apple Store downtown to pick one up. He got it home and hooked it up to his plasma, and within about two minutes had music streaming from his laptop. The quality of the downloads available from iTunes was a little disappointing, to my eye—the encoding was pixellated and blocky. Not satisfied with the standard configuration, Nick devoured all twenty-two pages of forum postings by the Apple TV hackers, and during the course of the next evening I watched him dissect his box, load a few files via a FireWire enclosure, and reassemble it so that he had SSH and the ability to modify the system. From there, he encoded and uploaded several movies that weren’t offered through iTunes, and they looked much better. He was still perfecting his process when I had to leave, so I’m not sure how much success he’s had since then. My opinion of it is that it’s a nice toy, but for $300 I’d rather buy a used Mini and build my own streaming video server to stick under the TV. It’s not robust enough yet to warrant the cost or the limitations. Besides, we need a TIVO and a TV that has more than just a coaxial input first.
Finally, I had the opportunity to play with Aperture a little bit before I got too busy. My first reaction was WHOA. This application looks and feels like no other Apple product I’ve used. As I get further into it, I’ll post results here.