Ölbaum’s Delirium

via zepitt

→ Visit site

# Posted by Ölbaum, mid-morning | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Advertisment, Humour, Video

David Pogue proves that Windows Vista is not a rip-off of Mac OS X. Hilarious.

→ Visit site

# Posted by Ölbaum, late morning | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Apple, Chess, Dashboard, Mac OS X, Microsoft, Spotlight, Tiger, Widget, Windows, Windows Vista

An interesting and thorough analysis, with screenshots, in searching of the best codec to use for animated screen captures.

Preferring quality, the winner is Animation, 16-bit color, High quality. Although it exhibits artifacts, H.264 Medium is pretty good too, considering it has a tenth of the file size.

→ Visit site

# Posted by Ölbaum, late at night | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Animation, Codec, H.264, QuickTime, Screencast, Video

Apple Knowledge Base article on how to queue up package installations in the Mac OS X Installer. The claimed goal is to avoid multiple “Optimize System Performance,” but we all know that the real reason is to group all tasks that require user interaction in order to have time to go get a coffee.

This article has a funny tone too:

Tip: Even if Installer is already chugging away at some cool software for you (or even uncool software, Installer doesn’t care), you can double-click even more package files and Installer will add them to the same queue. Installer still won’t optimize until after the very last package is installed, and then just once.

and

This feature doesn’t apply to third-party installer applications that don’t use Software Update or the Mac OS X Installer. Typically such installers run only once, are for very large applications, and are on removable media (CDs, DVDs, and so forth). Such installers might entertain you with screenshots of the software in action, or tips about how to get the most out of the product, while installing and optimizing in the background.

→ Visit site

# Posted by Ölbaum, late at night | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Apple, Coffee, Documentation, Installer, Mac OS X, Package

I never got around to checking it in details but it was linked by John Gruber, so it must be good.

→ Visit site

# Posted by Ölbaum, late at night | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CSS, Design, HTML, Open Source, Web Design

How to prevent Adobe Reader 8 from reinstalling its junk on every launch after you cleaned it up:

• Open the file Adobe Reader.app/Contents/MacOS/SHInit.xml in a text editor or in Property List Editor;

• Comment out or delete the following line:

  <key>selfhealingfilename</key><string>RdrENU80SelfHeal.xml</string>
  

• Save the file;

• Optional but highly recommended: show Adobe a sign of your triumph.

# Posted by Ölbaum, late morning | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (1)

Adobe, Adobe Reader

I just installed Adobe Reader 8 on my mac mini. It was an even more convoluted process than I thought it would be, and I was not optimistic.

1. Adobe Reader 8 is not a Universal Binary. You have to select PowerPC or Intel when downloading;

2. The indicated file size is 22.9 MB but the downloaded file is actually 412 kB. This is because…

3. the download is neither Adobe Reader, nor an installer for it;

4. It is a disk image that contains an Installer package that installs Adobe Reader Download Manager in the Utilities folder;

5. The download manager downloads a second disk image, to your Desktop (not to your Download folder.) This is the 22.9 MB file mentioned on the web site;

6. Since Adobe Reader 8 is not a Universal Binary, the download manager should automatically choose the appropriate version between PowerPC and Intel, instead of having the user tell what version of the download manager they need. It doesn’t.

7. The download manager is not removed from the Utilities folder after it has done its (silly) job and is not needed anymore;

8. The disk image does not contain Adobe Reader 8 but another installer;

9. The installer starts installing as soon as it is launched;

10. It doesn’t let you choose the install location. An Adobe Reader 8 folder containing Adobe Reader and a Read Me is created in /Applications;

11. It apparently doesn’t install anything else than the Adobe Reader 8 application (in particular, in doesn’t install the Internet plug-in), therefore there was no need for an installer;

12. I say apparently because it doesn’t leave an installation log;

13. It launches Adobe Reader after installing it;

14. Adobe Reader asks whether it should install its Internet plug-in, when that was the job of the installer;

15. To install the plug-in, it needs to quit Safari;

And that’s only for the installation.

Some advice to Adobe

• Make Universal Binaries¹;
• Don’t make an installer when none is needed;
• Don’t make two installers when none is needed;
• Clean up after yourself, don’t litter your users’ hard disk with useless downloads and software;
• Don’t install anything before the user says so. Launching an installer is not saying so;
• Don’t automatically launch an application after installing it. The purpose of an installer is to install software. Otherwise, name it “Adobe Reader Installer and Launcher”;
• Don’t require Safari to quit to install a plug-in;

Updates

• John C. Welsh also notes that declining the license doesn’t cancel the installation, since the license agreement appears after the software was installed, and Jeff posts links to the direct downloads:

  • FTP site
  • Mac PowerPC
  • Mac Intel
  • Windows

• John Gruber notes that an install log is written in ~/Library/Receipts/ com.adobe.Reader/install.log. It’s a very bad location, but at least there is a log and it shows how Adobe litters your hard disk with useless stuff all over the place:

  • Utilities/Adobe Utilities.localized/Adobe Updater5/Adobe Updater.app
  • /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Help/en_US/Adobe Reader/8.0
  • /Applications/Adobe Help Viewer 1.0.app
  • Stuff in /Library/Application Support/Adobe/
  • /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin/

  As a reminder, from the pre-installations, we have:

  • AdbeRdr80_DLM_en_US_i386.dmg in the Download folder;
  • Adobe Reader Download Manager.app in /Applications;
  • AdbeRdr80_en_US_i386.dmg on the Desktop;

  POS! some cleaning is needed (but make sure you first disable Self Heal):

  • Adobe Reader is going out of its useless folder. The Read Me is already gone;
  • I don’t need no stinkin’ updater. Having tried its previous incarnation, I’m better off downloading the full version from the FTP server every time;
  • The help viewer is going too. Since it will certainly not work if I move it elsewhere, better trash it now;
  • I had forgotten to trash Adobe Reader Download Manager.

# Posted by Ölbaum, mid-afternoon | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Adobe, Adobe Reader, Installer, Universal Binary

Why not RAID 5?

→ Visit site

# Posted by Ölbaum, mid-afternoon | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Floppy, Mac OS X, RAID

• Open source Atmel AVR microcontroller kits

• Arduino stamp
  Open source physical computing platform.

• NEUROS OSD - Open Source Linux embedded media center
  Records video from any analog video source and links your PC.

• Open source firmware + wireless router
  Buffalo: dd-wrt
  Linksys: OpenWrt

• Rockbox firmware for mp3 players
  Apple: iPod 4th gen (grayscale and color), 5th gen (Video), 1st gen Nano and Mini 1st/2nd gen (Nano 2nd gen and Video 5.5th gen are not supported)
  Archos: Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio
  iriver: H100, H300 and H10 series
  iAudio: X5 (including X5V and X5L)

• Open source web based home automation Written in Perl with a Web interface.

• Open source embedded ethernet

• LEGO Mindstorms NXT

→ Visit site

# Posted by Ölbaum, mid-afternoon | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ethernet, Home Automation, Lego, MP3 Player, Media Center, Microcontroller, Open Source, Router, Wi-Fi, iPod

I am definitely going to regret this when I wake up in five hours to ‘exercise,’ but if I don’t blog about it now, I never will. Moreover, it’s the perfect opportunity to apply both of Stephanie’s nice and mean solutions to the blog that doesn’t write itself up:

I have something to say (although not remotely interesting) and I am taking the time to say it:

I finally got around to going to the Bloggy Friday.

Now for the proof:

Good night.

Bookmarks:

• Nicolas
• Pierre whose name I know I will remember tomorrow, because it’s already tomorrow.
• Stéphane

# Posted by Ölbaum, the wee hours | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Blog, Bloggy Friday