OS X

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Google Chrome Review @ 5 Minutes in

I've just been playing with Google Chrome from the Dev Channel site. After 5 minutes, I've got some things I hate.

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Backups

I've recently had to think about the mechanics of making idiot-proof backups on Linux and OSX. The specific machine I'm backing up is a Linux host with a 40GB drive. Historically only about 10% of the drive has been used, and the user has an IMAP mailbox, so all the mail is safe already.

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What it might look like if I used Twitter

Almost exactly half my music collection contains "the". Of 15,137 tracks, 7578 have "the" in the Artist, album or track name. So I'm 19 off.

The reason this came to my attention is that I was searching my collection for The The. iTunes doesn't seem to like that search much and only hits on one "the". Quotes mean nothing to this application. Thanks again Apple.

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What "Apple Tax"?

Why I gladly pay the Apple "Luxury Tax"

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Converting Visio Stencils to OmniGraffle

Someday, we'll live in The Future, I swear it.

Last year I bought OmniGraffle 4 Pro, I really, really like that app, and it makes using Visio seem like self torture. Now only if the formats were open all the way around...

Mail.app and IMAP Folders

For some time, I've been annoyed by Mail.app not checking all folders every time it checks mail. My situation is that I have an IMAP server at a colo, a Mac Pro at home usually with Mail.app running and more importantly, running its filters, and a MacBook running Mail.app that I take with me to work or wherever.

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OSX vs OpenSuSE

[music | Leaether Strip - What If (Beats on classic mix)]

The Amarok discussion usually comes as a result of a wider discussion/flamewar about the "little things" that bug the shit out of me a year after dropping SuSE for OSX as my home desktop. I used Linux as my desktop for about 8 years, and before that for more "traditional" server type applications. I've had a Linux desktop since Redhat 4.1, but it didn't replace Windows completely until about 1999. That gives me a different perspective on how a computer Should Just Work. My definition of that is skewed by things like uptime and standards compliance. I have no idea what the Standard Uptime is for a Windows desktop machine. My Windows desktops have always stayed up for months and months, because they do nothing except run Outlook and specialty business software that I couldn't get to work under Wine.

So from that perspective, OSX is not particularly stable. The only time I ever rebooted my linux machines was when either the power went out or I was upgrading SuSE. Aside from that, they Just Worked. I don't count things like upgrading KDE as a reboot, because it was just an X11 restart, ctrl-alt-backspace, new DE starts, no reboot. Leopard is more stable for me than Tiger was, especially in terms of returning from standby on the laptop. However in terms of applications "beachballing" and having to force-quit things, well that kind of thing rarely happened to me in SuSE. I'd probably kill Firefox every couple of weeks because something screws up or its footprint was too huge. I have to force-quit Safari every day or two (no SIMBL or other wackiness anymore until I figure out why this is).

Here's a quick list with some detail about what really bugs me, and what I really like in OSX:

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Amarok vs iTunes

I get asked a lot why I hate iTunes and what's so much better about Amarok. This is about Amarok 1.4.7, since there is no good way to run Amarok 2 yet. When I can get any copy of Amarok 2 to load a track and play it, either via the KDE4 Live CDs or from RangerRick's KDE on OSX native project, I'll give it a spin.

Here's a quick list of beefs with iTunes:

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Tools and Hacky Stuff

Here are some tools I've written which could be of use to other folks. It's going to be mostly Cisco related, some of which is still being formatted before I upload it, more to come.

CSSManager is a tool to simplify suspending and activating services in a Cisco CSS load balancer. It adds a couple of features like the ability to "lock out" a server and to add comments to a suspended machine to give context for its suspension. More features to come.

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Leopard Love/Hate

[music | Bauhaus - Exquisite Corpse]

Mostly hate, but there are some things to like here:

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