November 2010
19 posts
These never get old
pairpearpierre:
Google have made some tremendous enhancements to the search results page in the last couple of weeks.
I recently noticed the arrow on the left side of the results. What this means is keyboard navigation. This is so satisfying to use. Up and down on the arrow keys to go up and down, of course. Right arrow to bring up the lovely page preview, which is great for peeking when you’re not quite...
Why does this need to be scrollable?
I feel that iTunes is unloved.
Automatic State Saving in Lion
Sorry, this post is about a month later than it ought to have been.
Chris Clark at Release Candidate One:
I let out the biggest “finally!” today during the Lion preview event, when Steve Jobs said one of the things Apple has learned from iOS apps that they are intent on bringing to Mac OS X apps is stateful pause and resume.
…
Well-behaved apps do this already, as there’s nothing...
Fake Finder
Ben Brooks, in A Lions Prey which is well worth reading:
One thing that I hope to see completely revamped in Lion is the save dialog box that is native to OS X – it is, in its current form, nothing short of terrible.
Here’s Ben’s screen shot of the expanded save dialogue box:
What about that is easy?
He’s right: it’s difficult, and messy.
I call this the Fake Finder. I almost...
Eject
The MacBook Air keyboard. The eject key is curious. While it can be used to eject an external disc drive, I find it strange that a key used so infrequently would be included when software alternatives are available.
Some speculative, alternative actions for the eject key were discussed on Gizmodo at the time of the first generation Air.
The eject key is also used for some power related...
Compare Many Photos in iPhoto
I’ve been using iPhoto for almost three years, but I recently found something new!
I knew you could use the compare button in full screen to view two photos at once. The other day, I found that if you select multiple photos then go to full screen, iPhoto shows all the selected photos together. Up to eight can be compared at a time. Photographs can be removed from the view one at a time; this is...
“There is a reason Hermione seems much more intelligent than Ron Weasley. It’s...”
– Samuel Arbesman
US Navy Sea Water Antenna System →
SSC Pacific has developed a technology that uses the magnetic induction properties of sodium chloride (salt) in sea water to create a VHF antenna.
Looks very clever. It utilises the resources available.
An 80-foot-high stream could transmit and receive from 2 to 400 mHz with a relatively small footprint.
Have to assume they mean MHz. It’s only a factor of a billion...
WatchSpeed of Returning to the Home Screen on iPhone 3G and iPhone 4
Something I noticed when first using the iPhone 4 was that returning to the home screen felt slow. I assumed that because everything else was faster, this aspect had simple stayed at the same speed compared to iPhone 3G.
When I went back to the 3G, I found the device seemed extremely responsive to presses of the home button. A...
The Macalope Weekly: Gates! (Macworld) →
Then again, people complained about Command-N changing from making a new folder in OS 9 to making a new Finder window in OS X and look where that got them.
The Macalope is a funny read once in a while.
I wouldn’t mind command-N for new folders. I’ve never used Mac OS 9 (I’d like to try it) but I’m a full subscriber to the spatial Finder way of doing things.
(The...
iPhone 4
An iPhone 4 arrived in the post about two weeks ago. It is very good. Spectacular, even. I hope to write more about it at some point, but things are busy in term time, as always.
There were two very attractive reasons for upgrading from an iPhone 3G: more speed and a better camera. I am more than pleased with both.
Simplenote is a shining example — just one example — of an app transformed on...
View PDFs in Chrome | Mac OS X Hints | Macworld →
Reading PDFs in your browser, instead of downloading them and reading them in an app like Preview, is a nice convenience.
I disagree. What is convenient is clicking a link to a PDF and then having it appear in a good environment for reading.
Safari is a decent environment, but Preview would be better providing we still have one click access.
You can create a setup like this in Opera.
Camera doesn't Task Complete
Oh, no!
The iPhone Camera app does not use task completion when saving high dynamic range photographs. If you leave the app while it is saving, the HDR is lost. (Although the regular, non-HDR photo will be saved if enabled in Settings.)
What a shame.
(This isn’t supposed to be totally serious. I’m sure I’ll get by with what I have and be thankful for it.)
Lawsuit: Apple turned iPhone 3Gs into “iBricks” to... →
Someone has decided to make a fuss about the poor performance of iOS 4.0 on older hardware, such as the iPhone 3G. (I assume it was the weaker iPod Touches as well as the 3G, although I haven’t heard any reports on this.)
Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica:
According to Wofford’s complaint, Apple knew that the update from iOS 3.x would turn her iPhone 3G into a “device with little more use...
