Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. (c) Ruffin Bailey 2001-2021

Charles Moore recently commented on Alexis Kayhill's top 10 freeware apps on OS X. Of his, I found PTHPasteboard interesting enough to check out:

How often have you copied something only to find that you need it a few minutes later but you've already copied another item over it on the Mac Clipboard? PTHPasteboard watches you while you work and keeps a copy of any items that you have copied to your Clipboard (you can specify how many entries are cached) and also saves the clipboard through restarts. I keep it configured as a default startup item.

Honestly, that happens to me all the freakin' time. This is worth a look.

So here are the two lists, now with my idiotic commentary. First, Kayhill's.

* NeoOffice:
* Flip4Mac: (Windows Media Player alternative)
* TextWrangler (serious text editor)
* Firefox & Thunderbird
* CyberDuck (FTP and SFTP client)
* Adium: (multi-service chat client)
* ImageTricks (sue with OS X Tiger's Core Image filters)
* MAMP (server software)
* iBackup (free backup software)
* Vienna (RSS and Atom reader)

And a few more Moore adds, though he doesn't exactly say what to remove.

* ToyViewer Image Viewer/Editor
* PTHPasteboard Multiple Clipboard Utility
* SpotInside Spotlight Search Enhancer
* OnyX System Maintenance and Cleaning Utility
* TigerLaunch Application Launcher
* Seashore Cocoa Open Source Graphics Program for OS X

The bottom line seems to be you can't pick a top 10 without a bit more requirements stated beforehand. That is, I tend to program a bit on the Mac, so MacVIm, Netbeans, and Eclipse are all very high on my list.

I can't say much for SeaShore (a neat idea not yet ready for prime time) or Cyberduck (bad enough I re-registered Transmit). Adium's okay, Thunderbird's okay, Firefox is okay, but v3 RC 1 does awfully on my iBook. Very buggy. None of these are good enough to get rid of their commercial counterparts, including those that come with OS X, on a permanent basis. Firefox comes closest, especially b/c of its ability to navigate pages by typing. Still, occasionally in my experience it's buggy and I go back to using Safari for a week or two before trying another build.

Instead of going through all I can think of, here's the freeware that currently lives on my Dock.

* Eclipse
* iTerm
* TextWrangler
* Stella (an Atari 2600 emulator)
* AbiWord (a decent, smallish Word replacement that translates Word and WordPerfect fairly well)
* vMac (68k MacOS emu)
* MacVIm

Add to that WhatSize, which was free at one point, and which I use for spring cleaning the hard drive. You might as well add GraphicConverter, which, as I've said recently, isn't smart enough to force you to register and, in fact, encourages you to treat it as free software. I'll spare you the gushing recommendations for each.

Labels: browsers, F/free, graphicConverter, office, os x, vim

From Microsoft's press release about Office for Mac:

The group also is providing a glimpse at the road map of Office for Mac by announcing the return of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in the next version.

You've got to be kidding me. After all the crap that went up on the MacBU blog about how vba was dead and the requisite flaming from the Littles that vba was make or break, it's the MacBU that caves. I'm so confused.

* Why take the PR hit by saying vba was gone?
* Why bother with replacing vba with AppleScript in the most recently released version of Office for Mac?
* Why not just have updated the old Office for Mac with new Office formats and saved the brand new AWESOMEO 3000 engine for when vba was ready?

(You know, I never really understood why it was so impossible to port vba to this new Office for Mac. Isn't the whole point of .NET that it's easily deployable on new platforms? .NET is, in many ways, Java for Windows, with interpreted code running in a sort of Virtual Machine. And if M$ is eating their dog food, shouldn't much of the vba engine for Windows be written in .NET? Borrow the Mono project's compiler and off you go... It should be easier to port a vba engine from scratch now than ever before, right?)

Right choice or no, this is a cluster. I'd argue this seems emblematic of Microsoft in general since they decided to go Vista. They're chasing cash now more often than making smart decisions.

Labels: .NET, business, microsoft, office, vista

title: Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude.	descrip: One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001.
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Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Microsoft Word is a OneDrive commercial Remember Joel Spolsky's "Let Me Go Back" letter? I do. Microsoft, specifically Microsoft Office, doesn't. I'm obviously trying to save the file to my local drive. And I obviously would prefer not to have to navigate that horrendous UI Word has now to move from OneDrive to my drive. For an app that still impressively honors old keystroke recipes -- like alt-I, B (alt-insert, break) to insert a page break -- this really offends me (haha) as a user. They are actively preventing you from saving to your drive. (This is not new. This is simply the first time I got aggravated enough to post.) This is not progress. This is a commercial for OneDrive. Okay, as you might expect, this is almost fixable. And this is heavenly by comparison... ... but... It's not discoverable, and... Let's not pretend it's an actual fix that recreates the old behavior. The new dialog remains objectively worse: Fewer keystrokes is better! Let me go back! Labels: cloud, hats of money, microsoft, microsoft fail, office, UI, usability, users posted by ruffin at 1/27/2021 10:05:00 AM

Monday, May 19, 2008
Top 10 Freeware apps on Mac; another schmoe blogs Charles Moore recently commented on Alexis Kayhill's top 10 freeware apps on OS X. Of his, I found PTHPasteboard interesting enough to check out: How often have you copied something only to find that you need it a few minutes later but you've already copied another item over it on the Mac Clipboard? PTHPasteboard watches you while you work and keeps a copy of any items that you have copied to your Clipboard (you can specify how many entries are cached) and also saves the clipboard through restarts. I keep it configured as a default startup item. Honestly, that happens to me all the freakin' time. This is worth a look. So here are the two lists, now with my idiotic commentary. First, Kayhill's. * NeoOffice: * Flip4Mac: (Windows Media Player alternative) * TextWrangler (serious text editor) * Firefox & Thunderbird * CyberDuck (FTP and SFTP client) * Adium: (multi-service chat client) * ImageTricks (sue with OS X Tiger's Core Image filters) * MAMP (server software) * iBackup (free backup software) * Vienna (RSS and Atom reader) And a few more Moore adds, though he doesn't exactly say what to remove. * ToyViewer Image Viewer/Editor * PTHPasteboard Multiple Clipboard Utility * SpotInside Spotlight Search Enhancer * OnyX System Maintenance and Cleaning Utility * TigerLaunch Application Launcher * Seashore Cocoa Open Source Graphics Program for OS X The bottom line seems to be you can't pick a top 10 without a bit more requirements stated beforehand. That is, I tend to program a bit on the Mac, so MacVIm, Netbeans, and Eclipse are all very high on my list. I can't say much for SeaShore (a neat idea not yet ready for prime time) or Cyberduck (bad enough I re-registered Transmit). Adium's okay, Thunderbird's okay, Firefox is okay, but v3 RC 1 does awfully on my iBook. Very buggy. None of these are good enough to get rid of their commercial counterparts, including those that come with OS X, on a permanent basis. Firefox comes closest, especially b/c of its ability to navigate pages by typing. Still, occasionally in my experience it's buggy and I go back to using Safari for a week or two before trying another build. Instead of going through all I can think of, here's the freeware that currently lives on my Dock. * Eclipse * iTerm * TextWrangler * Stella (an Atari 2600 emulator) * AbiWord (a decent, smallish Word replacement that translates Word and WordPerfect fairly well) * vMac (68k MacOS emu) * MacVIm Add to that WhatSize, which was free at one point, and which I use for spring cleaning the hard drive. You might as well add GraphicConverter, which, as I've said recently, isn't smart enough to force you to register and, in fact, encourages you to treat it as free software. I'll spare you the gushing recommendations for each. Labels: browsers, F/free, graphicConverter, office, os x, vim posted by ruffin at 5/19/2008 03:23:00 PM

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
VBA back for Mac Microsoft Office From Microsoft's press release about Office for Mac: The group also is providing a glimpse at the road map of Office for Mac by announcing the return of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in the next version. You've got to be kidding me. After all the crap that went up on the MacBU blog about how vba was dead and the requisite flaming from the Littles that vba was make or break, it's the MacBU that caves. I'm so confused. * Why take the PR hit by saying vba was gone? * Why bother with replacing vba with AppleScript in the most recently released version of Office for Mac? * Why not just have updated the old Office for Mac with new Office formats and saved the brand new AWESOMEO 3000 engine for when vba was ready? (You know, I never really understood why it was so impossible to port vba to this new Office for Mac. Isn't the whole point of .NET that it's easily deployable on new platforms? .NET is, in many ways, Java for Windows, with interpreted code running in a sort of Virtual Machine. And if M$ is eating their dog food, shouldn't much of the vba engine for Windows be written in .NET? Borrow the Mono project's compiler and off you go... It should be easier to port a vba engine from scratch now than ever before, right?) Right choice or no, this is a cluster. I'd argue this seems emblematic of Microsoft in general since they decided to go Vista. They're chasing cash now more often than making smart decisions. Labels: .NET, business, microsoft, office, vista posted by ruffin at 5/14/2008 11:27:00 AM

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