Month: January 2004

Categories
Apple

Interesting show

Interesting show. Not sure I like the iPod Mini’s to much. Seem to childish, yet still pricey. You can get so much more for an extra $50. If your spending that much already. I just can’t see how someone can justify not getting an iPod, and end up with an iPod Mini. Colors are a bit childish looking IMHO.

The Xserve G5 is to die for, though don’t expect this blog to be hosted on one, anytime soon. That price is also to die for (literally).

The Xgrid technology seems really great. I’m sure that will help push Xserve sales.

There will soon be over 10,000,000 Mac OS X Users… We will be in the pool, in the clubhouse, were taking over!

Categories
MacVillage.net

The last Macworld for the OLD MacVillage.net

I anticipate this to truly be the last MacWorld for the old MacVillage.net. The new system is nearly complete, and most likely reliable enough for this, but I didn’t feel comfortable enough with it to speed up the process and roll out last night. I made the decision about Dec 26. So I will keep the News site idle, and just handle Mac PR as usual.

So far the QuickTime stream is pretty very crappy. Things better shape up!

More later.

Categories
Apple

Apple should cobrand iTunes

Lets look at iTunes, and what it offers right now:

  • MP3/ACC Player
  • Media Organizer
  • Media Player (it comes with QuickTime)
  • Music Store
  • It also comes in at aprox. 19MB’s, free from Apple’s iTunes website.

I’ll call it “a rather robust application”. Sounds fair?

Now here’s my theory:
People like Music. People like simplicity. People like easy to use programs. iTunes is all of these. The one thing that’s a drag is that dreaded curse word amongst average computer users “Installing”. That means downloading, over a slow 56k modem, and putting unkempt software on your computer, especially after all the geeks talk about “Spyware“, and “Viruses“. Some are just to afraid to install.

Solution?
Cobrand iTunes. Allow OEM’s such as IBM, Compaq/HP, Gateway, and even Dell, to include iTunes for low/no cost to them on their computers, Branded/themed with “Powered by Apple iTunes“.

Why?
This ensures, everyone who buys a computer, gets a chance to try iTunes. Perhaps even allow the OEM’s a method to throw in a few free downloads. To let the user try, at no obligation, iTunes. Cheap, legal music, without downloading/installing.

What does Apple get?
Giant Audience, free advertising from the OEM’s, getting QuickTime on systems from the factory.

What do OEM’s Get?
All OEM’s today market computers towards home users, in particular as “media” systems. “Play CD’s, DVD’s”, “Games”, “Graphics”, “Music”. All keywords used to sell computers. What would make sense than to contain a built in method to purchase music? Play it with your brand new upgraded speakers on your fancy Computer Make/Model Here

What Users Get?
Chance to try iTunes without wasting time/effort downloading, a few free songs perhaps, and a good media player pre-installed.

Hear me out Apple, I had a point before (look at date on article).

Categories
Programming

Late night changes

Lots of changes to mention, all small but cool:

  1. Cut layout html down by about 1k. Same with stylesheet
  2. Fixed a few small rendering issues in IE/Windows
  3. Feeds all organized on homepage in the new “Feeds Box”, which succeeds “Subscription Information”, as I think this is more useful.
  4. New Atom Feed
  5. New RSS 2.0 Feed
  6. Category icon now links to new category pages
  7. Category RSS feeds available as per Feeds Box info on the homepage (NEW URL)
  8. Ever so slight layout tweaks

A couple of new toys coming soon as well. Including a dump of some more quotes to the quotes database that powers those random quotes on the top of every page.

And AFAIK, all pages validate with the W3C validator right now. Notice something different, send me an email.

Categories
Programming

SpamAssassin and xbl blacklist

There’s a new blacklist in town.

Patch for SpamAssassin bug 2889:

===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/spamassassin/spamassassin/rules/20_dnsbl_tests.cf,v
retrieving revision 1.38
diff -r1.38 20_dnsbl_tests.cf
148a149,153
> # XBL is the Spamhaus Block List: http://www.spamhaus.org/xbl/
> header RCVD_IN_SBL		eval:check_rbl_txt('xbl', 'xbl.spamhaus.org.')
> describe RCVD_IN_SBL		Received via an exploit in Spamhaus Block List
> tflags RCVD_IN_SBL		net
>

Go Me! Simple enhancement, should provide better spam filtering for all.

Categories
Personal

New Years Resolution

Not to make one

Why? Because I won’t keep it. Who really does? “Loose weight?” Everyone says it, does it for a week, then eats. I’ll try to just live life. At least I can hold to that.

Categories
Personal

Do people know me?

Asa (as usual), seems to be creepy, and talk about things that I’ve been thinking about as well (as if he can read my mind).

So here’s what I got from NameStatistics.com:

Robert is the #3 most common male name. 3.143% of men in the US are named Robert. Around 3850175 US men are named Robert!

Robert is the #996 most common female name. 0.008% of females in the US are named Robert. Around 10200 US females are named Robert!

Robert is the #2533 most common last name. 0.005% of last names in the US are Robert. Around 12500 US last names are Robert!

That’s interesting. But look what I found perhaps 2 hours before reading his post… Google knows me enough to correct people who butcher my name:
Robert Acettura
Robert Acetura
Robert Accetura
Even the Humorous

I dominate when searching for Accettura

Robert, Mozilla I’m a little deeper

Categories
Mozilla

I didn’t go with Bugzilla

I was looking for a good bug tracking system, for my personal use. Of course the first thing I turned to was Bugzilla. But I decided instead to go with Mantis. Here’s what I was looking for:

  • Streamlined UI, fast quick bug posting
  • Simplicity
  • Good Sorting
  • Good Control over data

Mantis has by far the better UI at this point. It’s a bit more intuitive than Bugzilla. But then again, bugzilla was designed by/for the developer. The pretty good use of HTML/CSS allows for me to get people to report issues with Mantis without me walking them through it, or tons of mistakes.

Simplicity. Bugzilla is much more complex (both good and bad, as I’ll get to in a moment). Mantis was simple.

Good Sorting. Bugzilla had a bit of an edge there, but the UI in Mantis made it easier to access than Bugzilla. Bugzilla has the better sorting, but Mantis has enough for me… for now.

Good Control over data. I think Bugzilla gets this one as well. But both are good.

In the end I went with Mantis. Since I primary use it as a way to organize/index issues with MacVillage.net, and other online activities, I’m the main person using it. A few people will on occasion be using it to provide some feedback on something, but it’s mostly myself. It’s my online organizer in a sense. I find it much more effective than a text based todo list.

So what do I recommend as a bug tracking system?

For open source projects, or medium to large projects, hands down bugzilla. It’s more robust, powerful, and flexible. It’s a great product, despite looking a bit ugly and unimpressive at first. There’s so much there. I’m sure eventually someone will come around and rework that UI a bit, to make it intuitive, and bring all the features to the surface. And it has gotten better in that regard over the years.

But for a small bugtracking instance, I have to recommend Mantis. While it seems like it would be capable of larger things (custom fields, LDAP integration, multiple projects etc.), I just don’t see something like Mantis managing something as large as Mozilla’s Bug database… but then again, it’s sub 1.0.

Is Bugzilla bad? No, just not perfect for all jobs. I think it’s the perfect tool for Mozilla, SpamAssasin has a nice instance of it as well. So does Apache. Great for them. But for a shareware developer, or some other small time gig. I’d have to push Mantis at this time. It’s lighter, and better designed for such instances. No need for Bugzilla’s super powers, and Mantis’s UI allows for complete control over available facilities with ease.