Description:
the perpetual newbie
Contents:
Stuff I should have known about a mac
Having a fun, snappy little Mac at home like my Macbook has lead me to a rediscovery of the Macintosh experience. I work with Macs all day in a pre-press environment, and I am seeing that my narrow focus there has made me a bit myopic about some things
Today I was looking for a security product somewhat like Windows equivalents that I know of. I wanted a secure place to store certain items to keep them from casual snoops. It's not that people intend to snoop. but a Macbook is like a cute puppy dog, and people just want to touch it. On Windows, DriveCrypt and Steganos Safe provide strongly encrypted, password protected containers for your sensistive material. I wondered if there were similar products for the Mac.
Then it clicked - you already have that functionality. No, not FileVault, that's a bit overblown, not quite what I need, and it's a problem if your drive is frying to recover anything from a FileVault.
It's much simpler than that. Use Disk Utility to create a sparse disk image, encrypted, and tell it to NOT remember your password (otherwise anyone can mount the image if you happen to be logged in but away from your desk). Voila, a safe place for your unmentionables.
Then, I was a little miffed while web surfing that when you find an image you want to save to disk the context menu only gives you the options of saving to Downloads or to your iPhoto Library. What if I want to save it to my aforementioned secure disk image? Well, this is so simple, I'm sure a 12 year old would have just assumed this, but you just drag it from the web page into your disk or folder.
Macs just do it the way it should be done. Simple.
Quark Trapping Gotcha - new video
After a lengthy hiatus after my first video, I've produced another demonstrating an odd trapping anomaly that occurs by default in QuarkXpress up to and including versions 6.5. Maybe you could put this effect to some creative use, but to prepress people it's just another pain in the ass to watch out for. Go see it now here:
Quark Trapping Gotcha
I bought a MacBook
Microsoft was having this 'Wow' ad campaign about Vista, and I have vista, and have yet to say wow. Instead I curse that infuriating UAC, and am continuosly disappointed by software incompatibilities and other such annoyances. Vista insn't ready for prime time.
I bought a Macbook a few days ago, with some trepidation - I have been following them for a long time, reading reports of optical drive problems, heat, defective batteries, and a few others. It would so disappointing to bring home an expensive toy like this (two thousand and change CDN), and find any of these issues. I didn't. I was hopefully that this third generation model would have the kinks ironed out, and so far I haven't been disappointed.
The MacBook defines cool in a laptop. Sure, it aint a pro model, but then again, it ends about about a thousand less in price, and its still cool.
It works like the Apple ads say - it just works. Plug it in, turn it on, it finds my wireless (and a few neighbours) no problem. Of we go, surfing and mailing, installing software from CD and DVD no issue. No heat issues at all. Battery life good (I seem to get about 4 hours). The keyboard is, well, fun. The trackpad is pretty neat, like most people I prefer a mouse, but if you need the trackpad its very useable
The display is very sharp (I have the gloss screen). I was a little concerned about the 13 inche size, but it seems very comfortable. No doubt soon I will try it in a dual monitor configuration, but I feel no compelling need for it so far.
It's fast. Very fast. I have a G4 at home, it got dusty quite some time ago, it really was too slow to be fun anymore. I have G5's at work, a few years old now, that I don't think will keep up with this sexy little puppy.
Everybody should get one. Its sooo cool. If you have one, it will make you cool too.
Where is Jesus when you need him?
I think I should look into it. The worlds going to hell, and I dont want to be on that ride. I found this picture of what pretty much everything will look like soon...
Wow?
I bought a new laptop, a Toshiba Satellite, it's OK, comes with Vista Home Premium. Contrary to Microsoft's current ad campaign, I didn't say 'Wow' once. 'Kinda cool' might be a more accurate slogan.
PDF Version Core Javascript Guide
I 've uploaded a PDF verison of the Netscape Core Javascript Guide that you can download from my Projects area. I don't think there is a PDF version officially available, but I finally found an HTML version that I converted in Acrobat using 'Create PDF form web page...'. The formatting isn't perfect, but it's is organized, bookmarks work, and of course, it's easily searchable. Have fun.
Where did my Reader Rights go?
So I've been trying out Acrobat Professional 8. I'm especially interested in the new ability to give Reader users the ability to save filled-out forms. "Woo hoo", I thought, "We don't have to give formrouter.com $150 per form for something so friggin basic!". So I eagerly went to "Enable Usage Rights in Adobe Reader...", saved it, uploaded it, and to my horror, on another machine with only Reader 7 (where it should work), I get this cryptic message:"This document contained certain rights to enable special features in Adobe Reader. The document has been changed since it was created and the rights are no longer valid. Please contact the author for the original version of this document."Hmmm. I didn't change anything. Maybe I'll read the Help. Not very helpful. Try again. And again. What could it be? Not only were the save rights gone, but the rights to do anything were gone - fields were no longer fillable. My form was without form. So I watched the Simpsons.Then something occured to me. The clock on the machine I was testing on has always been flaky (useful if you don't want to activate your copy of Windows, your machine starts up in 1904, so you always have '30 days left to activate...'). Indeed the time was earlier than the time the PDF had been created. Sooo, I fixed the time, and all is well. It works. Woo Hoo. I've been wondering what the catch is, will my PDF self-destruct after 500 uses, as per the EULA? I dunno. We'll see.If you want to see my wonderful form, click on 'Contact'. It has cool buttons and javscripty stuff in it.
Pay for the toilet paper
I haven't had too much to say lately, so here's an entry just for the blog of it.So, I'm working on this PDF forms project, and there's stuff that I know, but didn't know it would smack me in the face. The client needs to be able to save the filled out form, regardless of the Acrobat version used. Sounds simple, eh? If somebody goes to all the trouble of filling out a form, of course they should be able to save it.Well, no. Adobe says you can't if you use the free Acrobat Reader. And I sort of see their point. It's 'reader', not a writer, therefore you shouldn't be able to save filled out forms. Thing is, PDF forms have become so ubiquitous, that I think Adobe should give a little, and let the Reader version save the filled out form (without hassles - there are workarounds, but nobody likes to think too hard about things anymore).So, after exploring my options and learning about Acrobat Reader Extensions, and how much it would cost to enable this seemingly necessary functionality, I got to thinking that this is like Adobe opening up a public washroom, but asking us to pay for the toilet paper.I hear Microsoft has a PDF killer app around the corner, maybe Bill will let me save filled out forms?
Gordon Wilfred Halstead 1918-2006
My father passed away today at the age of 88.
In his later years, there wasn't a lot left to say. The last time I saw him, he was healthy and still the 'adventerous character' that I would like to remember him as, and from all accounts, he was still a charmer till near the end of his journey here.
This photo was taken in 1944. I know he was proud of his contribution, however small, to the world we know today. Once upon a time, wars were about right and wrong.
He's off now to his next adventure, and some day, I'll catch up with him on the other side. I'm sure he'll have some stories.
RGB Aint CMYK - Awesome new tutorial
Hear me speak! See me do stuff! I have just posted my first of many video tutorials in the series I have titled 'Prepress for Designers'. In my first video, I discuss the differences between RGB and CMYK color, and show why RGB is not desirable in pieces designed for print. It's totally FREE and it will amaze you!
Check it out in my Projects - Prepress area...
pPod, peePod, pooPod
I'm on vacation this week and have too much time on my hands. I was reading about Apples's increased, perhaps over zealous, vigilance in protecting the iPod trademark, so I whipped this up. As I would later learn, there is a pPod, my pPod is a little less functionally related than the iPod, although the iPod and pPod are complimentary, if you think about it (kinda like talking on the phone while your taking a dump).You can see the full page add at www.bryancentral.com
Weird beige rottweiller
All three of those words violate the 'i before e except after c' rule.
Prepress File Submission Guidelines
It's been a while since I've updated this site, so here I am, back again. I've added a new section ,under projects, called 'prepress'. Should you be so inclined, you might find some useful inforamtion there. I authored a PDF file that I have titled File Submission Guidelines for Prepress. Originaly an exercise for an Adobe certification exam, it turned to be fairly useful and informative. so check it out if you have trouble getting to sleep.
The Joy of Pain
I strained my back, again, yesterday, and as long as I don't move, it doesn't hurt a bit. The wonder of intense, acute pain, it is that helps you forget all the other trivial little things that I perceive as problems...with pain, there is nothing else that matters. Oh joy...
Safari div problem solved
So here I am killing the better part of a Saturday, playing around with ajax, trying to slap together a little web app with an autosuggest drop down, all the rage these days. There's plenty of resources out there, not so hard to do, but I really need this to work in Safari. Most of these techniques use a div or a ul and I just can't seem to get this looking and working right in Safari. Life is too short...Then inspiration strikes! So simple...don't use Safari. Firefox to the rescue. See ya Safari, don't need you anymore. Never did like those un-stylable input buttons anyway.Did stumble across some pretty good tutorials on autosuggest, try www.nczonline.net or www.dynamicajax.com. capxous.com has a nifty widget (also doesn't work in Safari), and of course there's Yahoo's develper site developer.yahoo.com (haven't tested this in Safari yet)
Dead Cats, Dead Dogs
I haven't really had much to say lately so I thought I would put up a picture of my cat and dog, both now dearly departed. It also helps add some keyword variety to my blog, possible attracting more traffic, and increasing my ad impressions, helping me reach the elusive 2 cent level with AdSense. Yep, after two months, I'm just a couple hundred impressions away from reaching 2 cents in Adsense revenue. So words like cat, dog, kitty, doggy, etc can't hurt.
Ad cents
So I put these google ads on my site, expecting an avalanche of money to come in. After about a month, I finally made my first penny. Yep, a penny. One cent. That's US currency, so in Canadian pennies, thats worth about 1.2 cents. To celebrate, I did this spiffy little photo of a penny. Took me about an hour, including the PhotoShop time. So, I'm working for about a penny an hour. Woo Hoo!I couldn't help notice that nobody has clicked the 'Make A Donation' button. It's at the left, hard to miss. Click it, whip out a credit card, and contribute according to your means. It will give you a warm fuzzy feeling knowing you did the right thing.
Here I am, but still not mobile...
Now that I can include pictures in my blog posts, y'all get to see a picture of me. So here I am, click on me to see me in all my full size glory. This actually started a few days ago when I had a burning desire to post to my blog from my cell phone, with an image taken with my cell phone camera. Didn't think it would be a big deal, until I learned more about micro browsers and what they can and can't do. The concept was simple, a little web page that I could browse to on my phone, select an image with a standard type="file" input element on a form, type in some text, submit to a form processor on my server to stick it in the blog. It would actually be doable if I had a Nokia phone, most of them have a browser that supports the type="file" input element, but such is not the case with Motorola phones (I have a v635), so there's no apparent way to browse the cell phones file system to select an image. I explored the option of somehow emailing the image from my phone, but my lame ass provider insists that emailed images go their own lame-ass 'MyPictures' web server and will only email a link to the page to the recipient. So here I am back at plan B, which requires a good old desktop browser. If somebody knows how I can make a Motorola phone upload to a web server, I'd love to hear about it. At least I can post pics, now I have to get creative about it...
Picture this...
I've been killing an entire Sunday getting my blog to have pictures. It took a long time. If I was a professional php scripter charging by the hour, I would make a lot of money, because I'm really, really slow at it. Now I have to figure out why this image isn't displaying in Firefox, and fix the full size pop-up, that should kill the rest of my SUnday. It's raining so I don't care. (later)So the pop-up works now and Firefox is OK, now does this wrap under the image? Or is some friggin css thing needing more research? No, that seems to work OK too.I can't remember what happens when I put a br tag in here...Oh yeah, I get a line break. Funny.
Stop pissing off the cows
Mad cow disease is a growing problem, and that is all that you and I can do to help.
sicko...
I'm wondering about the depraved mind that designed the monitor cable. I'll admit it serves it's intended purpose, but it's so good at snagging every other cable behind my desk, wreaking mayhem and havoc, that I'm sure there was some evil intent in it's design.
Font management myths
Companies like Extensis would have us believe that you absolutely have to have font management software. Suitcase has never worked very well with OS X, unless you download the seemingly weekly Suitcase updates. OS X has a remarkably effective and totally free solution - it's called the Fonts folder. Organize a folder full of the the fonts for a particular project, slip it into /Username/Library/Fonts, and voila, for apps like Quark and Indesign, they are active immediately. Illustrator will need to be relaunched. In a pre-press environment, I use this method to handle 15-20 jobs a day.I stopped using Suitcase about 6 months ago, and my life has improved dramatically. I think my hair is growing back.
Everything is a-sku
We've all seen the term 'SKU' around, but who knows what it means? I do now, it means 'Stocking Keeping Unit'. I learned something today. woo hoo. So, if YOU didn't know that already, that's probably five bucks worth of info, so click the 'Make a donation' button. It's worth it. Trust me.
say what I do
Some people talk about doing things but don't do anything, and some people do things but don't talk about it. I think we need a little of both.
Cell phone crap
The best way to make the phone ring when you're expecting a call is to sit on the toilet and get ready for a good dump. But it's considered rude to take a call while thusly pre-disposed. What would you do?
This being
This being a blog and all, I should say something periodically. It's f**king cold out and I've had enough of winter. I'm getting a new car soon, a Honda Civic, can you smell the new car smell? BFD, it's just another monthly expense for a thing that has no intrinsic spiritual value, another debt dragging me down, ensuring poverty in my golden years. I'm studying JavaScript in an obsessed way lately. Acrobat is boring. That's about all for now. Send me money.
Adobe Certified Expert, Illustrator CS2
Passed another exam Friday. Send me money and I'll answer all your questions :-) Really, the more I get to know Adobe apps, the more I realize how little I know.
So long, Quark...
I think Quark is done. I also have worked with Quark since 1990, in a prepress context. While I will necessarily continue to use Quark in that context, InDesign has become my fave, and I see customers moving over every day, once they find that those certain quirks in Quark that they've been working around for years simply are not an issue in CS.
I have tried out the 7 beta, it's too little too late. The performance of 7 beta absolutely blows, and I have too little time to wait for a simple dialog to open, so I haven't spent alot of time with it. The interface looks like a crude rip-off of the InDesign palette system. The collaboration functionality is useless to people like me. And, after all these years, they still can't include a simple pre-flight functionality. It's probably a safe bet that the software won't be fully useable until v7.5.
Sometimes we have to let an errant friend go...
IE7 strikes
It's mucked up my blog :- (
Canadian Elections
The problem with the election process is that it is based on a majority vote, and the truth is that the majority of people are stupid. The best way to elect a leader would be to simply ask me.
Another one of those stale blogs..
Is that what this is becoming? Could be, but if nobody is reading this it's like talking to myself anyway. So, to catch up, I've caught and relocated (gently) 4 squirrels and one bastard is stil in my attic, so I've called in the pros, I'm actively studying for my Illustrator certification, shooting for February, I got kind of side tracked with JavaScripting Adobe apps, thats kinda cool, and also along the way with SVG, maybe you can view this site on your cell phone soon, and this is a run on sentence so I'm stopping now.
Theory of Erectivity
Amongst my many thousands of received spam emails, a recent one for male sexual enhancement has my head spinning - "An erection is like the Theory of Relativity, the more you think about,
it, the harder it gets." - I'd like to stop thinking about that one, I think...
tittle-ating
So, the dot above an 'i' is called a tittle. Everything I know I learned on the Tony Danza Show.
Squirrels must die
As I write this, there is a squirrel above my head, a half inch of drywall is all that separates him from me. Tommorrow my mission is to find the least humane way of trapping and killing that son of a bitch. Check my links page for more information on why the scourge of squirrels must end.
I'm certified!
I passed my first exam as a Adobe Certified Expert for InDesign CS2 yesterday. That was interesting, haven't embarked on anything like that for a few years. I've worked with CS for quite a while in a pre-press environment, but to a large extent we just press Control-P in that setting. I think with CS2, Adobe has finally got everything closer to 'right' than it ever has, and I felt it was worthwhile getting a more rounded out training on the produt. Over the next few months I plan to attain status as an Adobe Certified Print Specialist. And hopefully sometime in between get back in gear with PHP. And I need more javascript too... so many things in such a small brain...
As the wind blows
The leaves are finally falling here, and there's a very strong wind blowing them all into my neighbours yard. Sometimes things just work out...
Demon Spawn
Racoons are another species the urban jungle could do without. I have one if these mutant-bears terrorizing my roof top - despite my best efforts, he still finds a way to get up there, and he's doing his best to get into my attic. I keep a super-soaker type water gun handy, when I hear him up there, usually around 2am, I fill it with a solution of ammonia and water, and spray it up on the roof. Seems to piss him off at least for that night, and he runs off. I'm hoping to see him as an asphalt stain some day soon.
Condom commercial, translated...
"It's possible that my semen carries life-threatening viruses, so hold on while I encase my erect penis with this latex prophylactic prior to inserting it in one of your body orifices"
UPS sucks too...
UPS knoes how to kill on online shopping experience. When we make that order for a shiny new toy, we hope and expect to receive it in a timely fashion. Starting Thursday, a week after my order, I finally get a 'first attempt' notice. I dutifully filled out the 'leave without signature' authorization and stuck it back on the door where it says I should. I arrive home Friday, no package, noone had looked at the form apparently. but their online tracking claims a second attempt was made. I'd bet some fat ass driver never even got out of the truck, else he(she) would have found the note. Finding the location of a pickup location seems to be out the question, they seem to go out of their way to not disclose those locations. After a phone call inviting me to 'stay on the line for assistance' their system hung up me. Tommorrow is Saturday, wonder if they work at all Saturday. Then there's Sunday, forget it, and I won't be home Monday either, and that's Halloween so I won't be asking anyone to leave something between the doors. So what to do? Had I know the sender was using UPS, I wouldn't have placed the order at all. Just did a google on 'UPS sucks', apparently a lot of people agree.
Home
|
