UPDATE: my import problem turned out to be a version incompatibility issue with php and libxml2, and was a general problem with the xmlrpc API as well… Upgrading to latest versions seems to have fixed it.
At long last, I have finished migrating Terminus Est from blogspot to my own WordPress install. My old site now redirects here, please make note ofthe new address. My feed address has not changed.
The migration did not go as smoothly as one should, despite there being an importer that is supposed to handle things for you.
For one thing, the importer doesnt handle images hosted on blogger. It seems there is a plugin which might take care of it, but I didnt know that until it was too late. Fortunately most of the images in my blog are actually hosted on Flickr, so that was actually not so terrible.
The real issue, however, was that every post had its angle brackets stripped out, necessitating a manual correction, very annoying. Also for some reason it converted all of bloggers tags to WordPress categories, which is mystifying, and required manual correction as well.
At last!
Since the release of MobileMe, the “automatic” setting for sync preferences has been a bit of a farce — at most, it would sync your data up to the cloud once every 15 minutes. With the release of OS X 10.5.6, finally you can rely on your desktop updates being propagated within a minute very handy for those of us who like to make a calendar entry, put our macs to sleep, and walk out of the house without stopping to worry about manually running a sync to make sure our iPhones get our updates.
From their release notes:
Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks on a Mac automatically sync within a minute of the change being made on the computer, another device, or the web at me.com.
Oh iCal. Is there no end to your sucking?
Here’s the latest example of breakage. At my company some of my co-workers use a hosted exchange server for calendaring. I use iCal and MobileMe. Sometimes we invite each other to events, and often the invites are even successfully transmitted to each othe via email.
Then I started being an hour late to meetings. Why? Well, see if you can pick out the bug in the below screencap…
That’s right. In the info panel, the time of the event is displayed as noon, while in the graphical calendar view, the event starts at 1pm. Once again the iCal team earns my Harsh Glare of Ultimate Derision.
It’s so obvious, really. Apple should bundle with the iPhone a typing tutor application. I didn’t need one, and I can type like blazes on an iPhone, but I’ve now encountered several people who are pretty fumbley They are all making one simple and understandable mistake: they are trying to keep their eyes on the letter they are typing, and so they try to put a sliver of their finger on the lower edge of the key they are going for. But I digress.
The point is that some people are for whatever not getting it by intuition, but they get it when you tell them. So how about these things:
- A tutor mode for the keyboard that learns how big your finger surface tends to be by sampling, then prompts you to enter particular letters while giving you a blob transparently overlaid on the keyboard, of where your finger should land. There could be other feedback mechanisms, that’s just off the top of my head.
- iPhone should come with tutorial videos already loaded. Or iTunes should detect a new iPhone and offer to subscribe you to a vodcast of said videos.
If my Jawbone headset were a song I’d give it five stars. If it were a woman I’d ask it to marry me.
Yesterday I did my first load of laundry in the basement if my new apartment building. As I put the load in the washer, I set a timer on my phone. As I did so I noticed that my phone was actively paired with a headset, although I thought I’d left it upstairs. I should have checked my pockets – had I done so, I’d have noticed that it was not there.
Over the next hour I realized that I could not find my headset. As I moved my laundry to the drier, I went through the pockets of my garments… Sure enough, in one pocket was a lighter, and BOTH my iPhone headphones (with he sweet clicky-button microphone), an my Jawbone.
“Oh, noooooo, critical laundry fumble!” I thought. And yet by some amazing fortune, the headphones worked, unlike the last pair of apple headphones I laundered. The Jawbone I didn’t even try to turn on. I mean, the first-gen Jawbone I had died by immersion in nothing more than a rainstorm. How did this one stand a chance?
Well, I left it to sit overnight and this morning plugged it in, and was astounded to see its little charging LED come on! So I let it charge for 10 minutes and turned it on — it worked!
A bluetooth headset that functions after being put through the wash goes so far above the call of duty I’m not sure I can find the words to express my amazement, so I’m hoping that quantity will make up for lack of quality here.
Update…
From Aleph: “Thank you very much for taking the time to write to us – we love hearing how Jawbone is making life a little better for our customers!
Though we don’t recommend putting Jawbones through the wash its great to hear that your is fine.”
So take note! YMMV.
I was talking with Crash about the last phone I had that ran Symbian. I exaggerated, claiming 2 years. Him:
“2 years ago? That’s like 14 in phone years!”
It’s no secret that I love Apple and am generally unsatisfied with Microsoft. I can get into a novel of caveats as to why I’m not a straight-up Microsoft-basher, but that’s for another time. This post’s topic is one of the genes in Microsoft’s DNA — the gene that codes for the product design/documentation divide.
To continue with the corporate DNA metaphor, this gene, like all genes, is exclusive of any other genes which could occupy that area of the genome. You can’t have both the gene for blue eyes and the gene for green eyes.
The Apple gene for the design/documentation divide is starkly reductionist. If you can’t understand it by looking at it, you FAIL. Which is not to say that Apple doesn’t concede losses in this area consistently, rather, the default action, rather than to document, is to redesign.
 How to open our box Not so with Microsoft. I applaud their documentation team — they did a bang-up job clearly illustrating how to open up the Vista box and get the disc out. They are some kind of ancient documentation ninja clan, and I’m sure that if the situation required it, they would rappel out of choppers with high-res digicams, tablet PCs with integrated cellular internet connecting them to their docs CMS, and document the hell out of whatever they needed to.
They do an amazing job… much better than Apple does. They need to. Because Microsoft’s gene for the design/documentation divide codes for heavy documentation, which means that lack of intuitive design isn’t a FAIL.
You could scour Apple’s help site, and you would never in a million years find an article explaining how to open the box in which OS X is sold. By omission, it is an expression of confidence in the intuitiveness of their design. Of the box their software comes in.
Meanwhile, here’s Microsoft, with the vote of no confidence. Our box is so complex, you need instructions to open it. What does that say about their software? Decidedly NOT “Vista, even before you put the disc in your drive, is intuitive and needs no explanation.”
Via Nerdifer (who didn’t blog this, but sent it to me).
Straight up awesome:
wildsoda sent me this photoset of a man unboxing an Apple //c. That sent me to the Wikipedia article on the Apple ][. Where I read this caption under the picture of the Apple IIGS:
“The Apple IIGS, the most powerful Apple II, featuring a true 16-bit CPU, 4096 colors, Ensoniq synthesizer, a Mac-like GUI and a mouse.”
Ah, the most powerful Apple II. Like the tallest tree in a bonsai forest.
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I love fine distinctions. Like the one between prejudice and bigotry, or the one between clever and stupid.
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