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
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Well, I'm impressed you can get a dual 1.8 GHz G4 upgrade for your PowerMac G4 tower for $500. As I've said over and over, my 1.2 GHz G4 iBook is plenty of Mac. For doing high end video editing jive with Mac-specific hardware, the barrier to entry just got a lot lower.
posted by ruffin
at 3/22/2006 12:06:00 PM
I think I'll be able to hold off on moving to an Intel Mac almost indefinitely (my AMD tower is incredibly fast at home and my iBook G4 does just fine with Mac apps so far -- more interested in a cheap Origami device right now, actually), but this report from Macworld is incredibly encouraging.
As you can see, the mini was remarkably quicker than both the PowerPC Macs, and by a wide margin. This new Universal Finder, finally, feels incredibly fast and responsive. There's only one downside to all this speed: when I switch back to the G5 now, I'm astounded by how slow the Finder feels!
That a mini -- a dual core, sure, but a consumer computer -- runs the OS, so to speak, more quickly than your old-style professional model really is pretty impressive. I wonder if OS X on Intel has been getting more performance tuning than the PPC side recently. Makes sense if your product line is headed toward Intel (and, obviously, with Apple it is); I'm guessing Intel first, PPC second.
It's an awkward time to be a Mac-using professional who can't quite yet leave the dual G5 set up for Photoshop, but the mini performance seems to indicate a very good future for OS X.
posted by ruffin
at 3/13/2006 07:13:00 PM
Congrats to Writely for using .NET to get acquired by Google
Congrats to the team who made Writely for getting acquired by Google. They built it in .NET. It used to be uncool to startup a company with Microsoft technologies, but Iโve seen more and more .NET stuff being done in the Valley. Whoโs next?
... or does he? What were those start-ups using before, anyhow? Most of the wannabe millionaires I've seen on the consulting and shareware circuit (at least those not pandering specifically to Mac users, which is a circle I frequent, well, 'frequent occasionally'), seem to use a lot of VB.
posted by ruffin
at 3/11/2006 03:48:00 PM
Seashore is an open source image editor for Cocoa. It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. It is based around the GIMP's technology and uses the same native file format.
Still obviously in its early stages, but so far so very good. I've had some issues with Gimp for OS X -- locked up on me once and after trashing it & some pref files I'm still having trouble -- so finding this is a real life saver. That its OS X native and not dependent on X11 is another plus.
Anyhow, if there's one thing Windows has all over Macintosh, it's the Paint application. VERY simple program, but also incredibly useful. Sure, I've got The Gimp on my Windows box and it runs very well, but there are still times Paint is a much more efficient application, and much easier to learn to use as well.
I hope Apple sees Seashore and considers including it with the OS after a few updates. A very useful application.
posted by ruffin
at 3/07/2006 11:30:00 AM
Well, be danged if somebody didn't put the the first book from the 1910 translation of Frederich Nietzsche's La Gaya Scienza online today! Here it is. This is an ASCII text file of the Thomas Common translation of Nietzsche's La Gaya Scienza. Common translates the title as The Joyful Wisdom, but this is the same book William Kaufman later translates as The Gay Science. It is here that Nietzsche first claims the death of God, and this is, I assume, the version Joyce read, etc.
That's right, you can download an English translation of Nietzsche's La Gaya Scienza, otherwise known as The Joyful Wisdom or The Gay Science from here, right now. Yes, I'm Google mining (seeding?). Download The Joyful Wisdom by Nietzsche here, now. Right now only the first book is up, poorly (as in "not") edited. Download it now, from here or here. Nietzsche. Free as in beer. From here. Download. Nietzsche. Here. Yes, I realize that including more copies of the link doesn't help my Google rank, but it is funny, to me at least, for some reason.
Yes, I'm shamelessly using my blog on "computer science" to ensure Google finds this text. It is an etext, after all. Please note that it's only one step into the ASCII-ifying process, as I've just run scans once through an OCR program without any edits. I notice, for example, the number "11" coming out as "ii", etc. Lots of fun issues, but cruddy Nietzsche is better than no Nietzsche. Check back for updates over the common years.
posted by ruffin
at 3/05/2006 08:22:00 PM
Occasionally it is necessary to convert a file from Windows to Unix line breaks and vice versa. With the aid of flip, Platypus and CocoaDialog I have built a small application on which you can drop files and which asks you how to convert these files. The application is downloadable for free as ConvertNewlines.
Doesn't recurse through directories, which stinks, but ain't too bad for quick converts. Most command-line lovers will probably prefer flip, the command-line program mentioned as one of ConvertNewlines' sources, above.
posted by ruffin
at 3/05/2006 03:53:00 PM
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