Macintosh

I upgraded to 10.2.2 a few hours ago & no problems so far except for one weird thing. The system preferences window now shows Keyboard twice, under hardware & other.

A feature request for Apple and Microsoft, and other OS developers. A way for an app to subscribe to a folder. I give you a callback and a folder. If a file is added, deleted, renamed or edited in the folder, call me with a path to the file. [Scripting News]

I would write a daemon that you would tell to monitor one or more folders with an action to take if anything changes in that folder. It would use unix-style configuration files (similar to crontab) with a command-line action. Since you can run an AppleScript from the command line using the ‘osascript’ command, this gives you the flexibility to do pretty much anything.

I’ve been using Chimera 0.6 for a few days and it’s been very stable. Since I installed the new Flash plug-in, it hasn’t crashed once.

I ordered a 7 port USB hub from Dr. Bott last week, since my FriendlyNet hub has been giving me problems. I got the package today, and although the packing slip listed the correct item, they sent a 4 port hub instead.

I called them & they were very helpful. The 7 port hub is on the way now (I just got an email confirmation that it shipped). Once I get it, I can ship back the incorrect item with the enclosed return label.

According to this story at Think Secret, new iBooks will be released next week, running at 700 & 800 MHz for $200 less than the current models. I’d really like to see a G4-based iBook. I like the smaller form factor, better airport range, and more rugged case of the iBook, but I would really like the speed of a G4.

I just checked Canon’s site… the drivers for my scanner which formerly said “Available October 2002” now say “Available November 2002”

I just noticed that Jaguar has a built-in VPN client in the Internet Connect application. I was able to connect to the VPN network I use on the ThinkPad, although I wasn’t able to browse the Windows network after I connected.

Freenet available for Mac OS X. Freenet is free software designed to ensure true freedom of communication over the Internet. It allows anybody to publish and read information with complete anonymity. Nobody controls Freenet, not even its creators, meaning that the system is not vulnerable to manipulation or shutdown. [MacMegasite]

MacNewz.com: Making money on other people’s dime. MacNewz.com is a relatively new Mac news site that repackages content from this Web site and others, then displays it alongside a wealth of ads to make money on other people’s content. Blood sucking sites like this are one of the major reasons MNJ is about the switch to be a headlines-only site, with all original content on individual pages and out of reach of the scripts run by predatory sites. [Mac Net Journal]

That site is nothing more than a news aggregator.

I’m now trying out Mozilla 1.2b. It feels a bit faster than 1.1 and doesn’t have the annoying problem where I could out-type it.

I find that Chimera crashes fairly often on sites that use plug-ins. Even worse, after it crashes, when I re-launch it, it will usually freeze as soon as I try to do anything.