Joseph Hinkle at MyITForum.com

There have been a large number of things that I've been trying to track, but I don't have a good way to keep track of random things like download locations for applets that I find useful. I blog some of them, so that works to an extent. I still miss things though.

Enter Del.icio.us, the social bookmarking site. I'm more interested in the bookmarking part than the social part, but I'm sure it will be fun. My bookmarks are here, in case you are also a member, or just happen to care.

Slacker Manager: The Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.us Users:
Though there aren't many reasons not to set up an account, the biggest reason recently went away: Yahoo! acquired del.icio.us, thereby assuring at least the medium-term longevity of the site. That said, many of the best parts of del.icio.us don't require you to get an account. So if you doubt you'll sign up, continue reading--there's probably something here for you.

I ran across this somewhere in all of the news about the Norton Antivirus vulnerability today. It looks interesting. Is anyone here using it?

ClamXav - The FREE Virus Scanner for Mac OS X:
Back in the days before OS X, the number of viruses which attacked Macintosh users totalled somewhere between about 60 and 80. Today, the number of viruses actively attacking OS X users is...NONE! However, this doesn't mean we should get complacent about checking incoming email attachments or web downloads,

This list is excellent. I suggest all of the applications be considered if that function is needed.

10 Apps Every New Mac User Should Download at PaulStamatiou.com:
These applications should help new Mac users get off the ground and running with OS X. We tried our best to narrow the list down to the most essential applications. Of course, this list could never include all the great applications available on the market, but these are 10 that we could not live without.

Google added a trends feature to the search history function of Google accounts. I haven't searched enough to get a feel for it yet, so I'll try to remember to keep an eye on it.

BetaNews | Google Personal Search Gets Trendy:
“I'm pretty addicted to looking at my search history for interesting patterns,” said Google software engineer Yu Chen. “So I decided to go a step further and write a script to pull together some stats about how I was searching. We thought other people might like to see this sort of thing too, so today we launched a Trends feature that gives you a look at a list of your top searches and clicks and other info about your search activity.”

Capture is a very flexible free screen capture tool for MacOS Tiger. It is definitely on my must-have list.

Download of The Day, part 3: Capture Dashboard Widget - Lifehacker:
You’ve got just about every major filetype, the ability to choose export location, scaling and a good selection tool. Of course you can also eliminate the Dashboard layer. This one is free and for Mac 10.4 or up.

Technorati Tags: MacOS, Dashboard, Tiger, Widgets

Darwin at work.

Engadget:
Funny: Driving several times past a line of people waiting to buy an Xbox 360 as you tauntingly dangle your brand new 'box out the window.

Sorry for the lack of line breaks in my last few posts. I didn't realize I needed to change the Automatically convert line breaks to HTML setting in Ecto. The posts have been fixed.

MacNN | Security issue in Apple's Safari?:
Security Protocols, which rates the flaw with 'medium' severity', reveals that “denial of service vulnerability exists within the KHTMLParser on Mac OS X 10.4.3 and all prior versions which allows for an attacker to cause the application which uses this class to crash, and or execute arbitrary code on the targeted host.” The report says that when running a specially crafted .html file, the “khtml::RenderTableSection::ensureRows” inproperly parsers the data and causes the crash.

I have little respect for Symantec as a company. I have even less for their products. That said, why would I want antivirus software on a Mac anyway? My company requires it, that's why. It doesn't really matter that it doesn't have anything to protect me from, except itself apparently.

MacNN | Symantec NAV makes Macs less secure:
Symantec has admitted that all versions of Norton Anti-Virus (NAV), including the version for Mac OS X, contain the security vulnerability and has yet to issue a patch to fix the issue; however it has updated its scanning signatures to look for applications that try to exploit the vulnerability, according to the report.

I've been using MarsEdit for a long time now, but I'm very tempted to switch to Ecto. I'm trying it out now, so I'll decide in a few days. Or maybe a few hours.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW):
If you're unfamiliar with Ecto, check out our previous posts on this fantastic, full-featured blogging app or just head straight to the horse's mouth. For a quick run-down: Ecto is a robust blogging client with support for boatloads of blog systems. I think one of the app's main shining strengths is its customizability and media functionality. Ecto can pull images from iPhoto, song titles from iTunes, and you can easily enter affiliate information for link and revenue programs like Amazon's Associates system. Definitely go check it out if you've been looking for a better way to blog.

I downloaded the new version of Google Desktop yesterday. To my surprise, there was an additional UI mode called, originally enough, “sidebar”. I was almost excited when I fired it up the first time. It does a ton: indexes GMail, shows you weather, RSS feeds, current news, what's new on the web, and a bunch more. It also adds a scratchpad and task list.

The way the news applet works is kind of interesting. It uses its index of web pages that have been visited to determine what news items to show. If you visit ESPN, it will show sports headlines. If you visit a general purpose news site, it shows you general headlines. The problem with this is two-fold. One, if you just visited ESPN, you don't want to see the same headlines you just read. It gets redundant, especially if alerts are turned on. Second, there isn't a good way to force topics in or out of the rotation. It would be nice to be able to eliminate a category. I use RSS to keep up with my news, so I removed it from the sidebar.

There is also a Web Clips, or RSS, applet that pulls in RSS feeds from visited pages and notifies the user when there is activity. Again, I have an RSS reader that I use religiously, so this is a moot point. Also, I don't want software to automatically subscribe me to anything. Please ask.
Weather was good. There are also weather alerts, which generate a notification if there is a notable weather event coming. It was kept.

The GMail integration is good. I really like the idea of being able to index my email in my GMail account and search it from my desktop. For the record, I have no objections to webmail, unlike others in our group. Well done.

The tasks and notes applets are nice. Notes allows the user to save them to a text file. I use Outlook for these functions though, so it isn't that useful to me. I can see the usefulness though.

All things considered, it is a decent addition with plenty of features, but most of them are things I already have other tools for. Since those other tools are so embedded in my life and the Google tool doesn't integrate with any of them, I don't see any reason to continue to use it. I'm sure Google will continue to refine the features, so I'll keep an eye open for improvements on my complaints.

Has anyone else out there tried it? If so, what did you think?

For those of you still looking. I abandoned ship and got a 5G iPod. I love it by the way. I'll be posting about my experience converting a movie for play on it. Should be fun.

Addicted to Digital Media - HowTo: Score an Xbox 360 online: “”

Mythbusters is one of my all-time favorite shows. If you haven't seen it, two special effects guys try to prove if some of the most popular myths are either possible or not possible. The show is quite educational and very fun to watch.

Slashdot did a very lengthy interview with the shows hosts, Adam and Jamie.
Slashdot | The Mythbusters Answer Your Questions: “Almost exactly a month ago we asked you for questions to put to the Mythbusters, hosts of the Discovery show that explores urban myth and legend. The response was huge, with dozens of worthwhile questions posted to the story. Today, we have answers back from Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage.”
(Via .)

I haven’t seen the plethora of functionality either.  It’s just a Blackberry.  It does have a better web browser than my AT&T 7290 did and I always liked the classic form factor better than that of the 7100 series.  If you like the Blackberry, there is a lot to like.  The battery life is a little lacking, but other than that, its solid.  Don’t expect it to change your perception of the Blackberry though.  

Anyone seen the 8700c Blackberry?

Has anyone seen this device yet? I have. I have a test unit. What “plethora of functionality”??? Seriously. It’s a Blackberry. It looks almost identical to other Blackberry’s (7200 series), no additional apps are loaded or included, it’s only running the 4.x client, so what plethora of functionality?

I got my alumni code and the green light to register, so its off to San Diego for me.  I’m a little surprised at the price increase.  Was the change of venue that expensive or am I remembering the pricing from last year incorrectly? 

Either way, I’m excited to be going again!

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