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"The Better to See You with, My Dear" NEW! Exclusive photo-free edition! Pots
and kettles Yep, today was great. I was even in the middle of an operating system naming mini-controversy, woo-hoo. More on that in a minute. First I have to mention this Associated Press article about a speech the President gave in Miami, Florida, no less, about how we're going to tighten the screws on Cuba until Castro allows "free and fair elections and begins to adopt meaningful economic reform." Wow. Whoever wrote that must moonlight cranking out Microsoft legal briefs. Anyway, I'm glad we're cracking down: "No more '51 Chevys for you!" In other news, Apple gave its iBook line some meaningful extra grunt today. The newest portables have faster processors, bigger hard drives, more RAM and of course I want one. I also heard a few days back that Apple has improved AirPort reception on the latest metal-clad PowerBook G4s, but no one will tell me how. If you missed this item, don't feel bad: it's kind of a secret. I sure am curious about the RF transmission alchemy, though. But the latest portables from Apple, both big and small, are better in every way, and how many things can you say that about? Meow
wars These days Jaguar is owned by Ford, something no one wants to talk about much, but another reason Cupertino ought to keep the focus on cats and not get picky. Weary of being held accountable for my own ignorance, I wrote an item for Applelinks today declaring my intention to call it "Spots," hohoho. Something tells me this isn't going to catch on, so maybe I'll relent, and Jaguar really is a cool name. Personally, I'd much rather Apple stuck with the code names and left the numerical designations to the engineers. Then we could have things like "Son of Jaguar" or "Quetzalcoatl's Revenge." Think of the metaphors! You know those itty bitty flint needles the Aztec kings used to pierce their, um... well, the latest "cutting edge" technology would rate one helluva graphic, I'd say. Take it away, Apple! Buy
this book The interesting thing about a professional manuscript submission is that publishing people expect certain conventions, like having the title, your last name, and the page number at the top corners of each and every page. So imagine you have 150+ pages of double-spaced material packed into place with that one line of information at the top of every page. This thing is like a ten-foot column of Jello, but it's done, you think, and then you spot something really awful that has to be changed. Oops. Take something out or put something in and your formatting wiggles into oblivion. Fixing this can drive you mad, especially if the man wants an RTF file and all you have is (gulp) Word.** I don't know how it happened, but at one point my top-of-the-page bits ended up buried a third of the way down on a number of pages. Trying to put it all back together was like teaching frogs to dance in vats of boiling mud. I finally got it into shape, I think, but parts of it are overdone and all the rest are really pissed. Just do the routine once, guys, that's all I ask. (And a-one, and a-two...) Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr has no business staying up all night, so please visit JHFarr.com, Fotofeed, or maybe the Zoozone and see if you can figure out why. * This is all so freaking silly. "Spots," or Jaguar, or Freddy, or whatever it is, does indeed have a version number that's readily visible to developers with the CD. But their non-disclosure agreements prevent them from saying anything. Oh please. Anyway, here's what someone else just sent us: "If it helps, I can tell you that it's called 10.2 in the About window in this developer release, and I am not under NDA." ** What I meant was that the only app I have that saves as RTFs is Word. As far as my formatting difficulties are concerned, this is my ignorance showing. I've never had to deal with documents like book manuscripts before and have never bothered to learn all the wondrous things that a capable word processing program can do. Word is totally professional in what it can do. It's also an abomination and I hate it. I even hate admitting that I have it, and using it makes me feel like I have to go take a shower. Geez.
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