RSS readers: What I like.

After a long break I am back on the blog. This time I will speak about my favorite RSS readers. To start off I will just explain what is RSS. RSS stands for real Simple Syndicate. And it is what the name suggests. A simple way to get all the news. It is a small link that you add to your news aggregator (more on that shortly) and whenever there is a new story or update on the site you visited it will notify you. What is the advantage? Well no more manual reloading and updating of the websites to see if the

re is something new. Safari since the introduction of Leopard has this feature build in. It is not as convenient though. That 's why there are other programs that compete and win Safari. What I usually look for in these programs are simple:

• Ability to group the RSS feeds in categories
• Ability to do smart folders
• Simplicity
• A nice notification system for new available news.

I used to use the News Fire. It is a neat, small app with very little processor and memo

ry usage. It does what it is supposed to do and nothing extra. It supports folders to group your RSS feeds (eg fun, computers, news, etc) and smart searches that can find and group based on keywords. It utilizes great the Growl and makes it super easy to see the news at glance. It used to be shareware and the demo version allowed only 20 RSS feeds. Recently in a surprising move (well it is about a year ago) the developer decided to give it for free. Since then only a few tweaks have been done to the newer versions usually bug fixes. There is not really much to improve. Small powerful, effect. Al you need. The only issue I had was the inability to sync my two computers. I had the iMac that I use at home and I ready the news late at night and the weekends and the MacBook Pro that I use at work.

Recently (a few days ago) a new kid showed up. Well not really new kid. Just an old friend repackaged. The NetNewsWire. It was a much more powerful RSS program that NewsFire, but as expected it was also much more complicated to use. The biggest difference was the ability to sync through a server newsgator to sync across multiple macs, and even only reading. Although it was a pretty awesome concept the overall need for yet one more separate account made the whole thing less attractive. But now it is syncing through Google Reader. That is awesome too...

See Google could not stay back in the game of readers and aggregators, so they came up with the on-line version of a reader. You add your links and you read them. With NetNewsWire this becomes even easier now, and the best part is that it syncs back and forth, so if you read something on NetNewsWire it is marked as read in google too.

For now I keep both programs. NewsFire I am using it for ages. I cannot leave it. NetNewsWire is the new kid on the block and sure looks pretty. We shall see!

A new hard drive... and now what?

Recently I followed some instructions on line and I upgraded my MacBook Pro hard drive. I had an old 120 GB that can fill up only by the Apps. So in order to upgrade I needed to open the MacBook Pro, replace the hard drive close it up (without any screws left behind), format and install. I run however in so many problems which most of them were unique. Before we continue, please read the section I had in the previous on Disk Formatting.

Attempt 1: Open the hard drive, rebooting and installing the MacOS 10.5.6. Well there we go to the first problem. The DVD that I had was not working. And now what? Open again put back the old hard drive until we have a working DVD drive.

Attempt 2: My next door neighbor had a spare DVD drive from a MacBook that he spilled coke on. The DVD (hopefully works). So second attempt opening the Macbook and the MacBook Pro and this time transplanting the DVD from one computer to the other. Plus installing the Hard Drive. This time the drive was working and the operation was success. Now I just needed to install the OS. The first thing that I was asked was to format the Hard Drive to host the MacOSX. I selected the MacOS Journaled (case sensitive).

And that brings us to the next and final attempt... Yes I needed one more attempt. Why? Well first of all I just needed to install the the OS. The reason? Apple is fully supporting the case sensitive format, but not all other companies. So after the time that it took to install the OS and recover the data from the old hard drive, I had to do that all over again.

So the moral of the day. Do not use the case sensitive. Even time machine drive is not working with that format. You will need a new time machine, that is also case sensitive format.

iPhoto 09 reputation reinstalled

Okay so before I speak again about anything I will do a depth analysis or investigation. I stated in the first review of the iPhoto that it does not convert the places to the GPS EXIF data. Well it doesn't or at least it doesn 't directly. Meaning that it will keep the location in the database but will not imprinted it in the picture. So in case that you want to export the pictures and sent them to a friend the location is not there. So if you select the images and drag them to the Desktop and open the image, then the exif info do not include location.

Well... Think again! There is this option and almost in every export option. So for example let 's take the case where you export the pictures. So select File>Export and select the first option.

You will see this screen. Select the JPEG option and there is there the option of saving the "location inormation". A nice feature is the image renaiming. You can either save them with the title or even better with a prefix and an increasing number.

In this option we have the sequential image with the name "IMAGE_". And the fun does not stop there either. In the preferences at the Web publishing tab there is an option there to include the location information for published photos.
So after all the iPhoto 09 has a great incorporation of the Places. It still an issue that after the first instalation the Photos are not imported with their location.

iPhoto setting the record straight

In the previous post, I stated that the new iPhoto is amazing with the facebook, but there is no point in doing so since the names are not clickable on facebook. Well, it turns out that, this was not true. The names are clickable and behave as normal facebook links. The key there is to add the email that corresponds to the name and have the name (full name) just as it appears on facebook (not super sure about this last one).

So at the info tab for all the faces, just click the "i" button and just add the name there. And guess what the name can be anything that you want. Most of my life in Greece my friends were calling me Webby, so I pick this as a nickname, I add my full name as is on facebook, and I add the email I use for facebook. That 's it, now! The picture will be uploaded to the facebook and the name is clickable. See the example below with the very fashionable hair and helmet.

The nickname appears, the name is correct and the facebook is clickable.

iPhoto 09

I got a copy of iLife and although I used the iWeb and iMovie, I am amazed by the iPhoto, the flagship application. There are three main features, that can amaze you as they did me.

• Faces
• Places
• Facebook

Faces: This was one of the wow things on the past (and last, unfortunately) Macworld Keynote presentation. It utilizes the best face recognition software to locate the features of the face, and immediately puts a square around it. Once done it will ask you to name the face and thereafter it will do it itself. Although a first attempt this works pretty well, it is still not perfect. It will pick many random people among your pictures as suggestions. However, I see certain pattern repeated. I see for instance that suggests as my my mother and my father, that I look like anyway. It can be an alternative for a DNA test... I have to say, however, that Although over the years I lost 20 lbs it could still recognize me.

Places: This is the very long awaiting feature. Many sites like flickr already implemented it in their features. I was using a combination of programs to do it in my library for a bout a year now. I was doing with Geottager a Applescript software and Google earth. You center the location on Google Eaths and then you drag and drop the image on the geotagger app and includes in the exif data the latitude and longitude. Exif data is an small text file that is saved along side the image file and stores information as, the camera model, the lens, the aperture size and speed, etc. Now it can store GPS information. However, when I started the new iPhoto it did not import this information. I looked around and I did find many users reporting this as major issue. A work around is to re-import the pictures, which will force iPhoto to read this information. It is not practical though. So I just used the build in geotagging tool that is ok. Not the greatest, but pretty good. And then one more bummer... The iPhoto does not save the location as exif data but only in its internal database... Meaning? You cannot have the pictures exported with the GPS data included.
Facebook: Being a big facebook fan, I loved this feature until I realized that it is not very functional. So I tag people here, then I upload the pictures, but the names are not actual tags. You cannot click on them to see the friends profile. So you have to retag the pictures, which is a bummer and on top of that, when the iPhoto syncs the info, will re-import the new names on top of the previous... It just becomes a mess.

So the new iPhoto has some great features, that need some work to become even greater. The face recognition is great, and honestly I could not ask for more. The Places has two major bummers; does not read the GPS info of the pictures in the library and if you geotag pictures in does not translate the information to GPS exif data.

Happy Birthday Macintosh

It is been 25 years since the first mac was born. 25 years ago a much healthier Steve Jobs was standing in front of a stud audience that was waiting the anouncement of the first mac. Back then, the mac computer was the first computer with multiple fonts, 3D graphics, excellent graphics, music reproduction (not teet teet teet... real music) and speech capabilitys.

Since then the comptuer with the smartest name (mac) when through the darkest of hours and the best of its days. In he 80s a fallout between Steve Jobs and the Apple CEO brought him out of the company he had created. That was a turning point for Apple. Things went downhill since then. Many wrong moves and a unnecessary large number of machines, brought apple to the edge of destruction. In 1997 the first right move in many years from the apple leadership, brought Steve Jobs back to the steering of apple. For me this was a move that not only changed the history of apple but the history of digital industry for ever.

Just watch the fist few minutes of the clip.

As you can see our own "father" Steve Jobs was almost brought to tears, upon the very warm welcome from apple faithful fans that have had hope that Apple can become strong again. Steve faced out all the computers and focused one four main computers: a high- and a low-end laptop and a high- and low-end desktop. The low end desktop was the first iMac and sold more than 20 millions in one year. The fast-selling computer to this day. A colored translucent cover that contains the computer and the screen.

That was the beginning of the reborn. Following the iMac was the iBook, the Power book and Power Mac. Although those computers were great, the major boost to apple came in 2001 with the introduction of the iPod. The little device that can play 5000 songs. The simplicity of the iPod made many people switch to the apple computers looking for the same simplicity.

The lineup of the same computers have not changed untill recently were again the iBoo kjust became MacBook and the PowerBook MacBook Pro.

The pride of a mac user is beond everything. It is not random that mac users have great communtities very cohesive. Their stand in ground strong for the quality of their product and the quality of their OS. The apple platform is summarized in one phrase. The computer is bicycle for the mind.

Apple fans everywhere. Be proud and be happy. We are the few, but we are the great.

Apple In Ear Headphones with Mic

I got today (really early in the morning) the, so long waited for, headphones with remote and mic. To make it clear I did not buy them for their superb audio quality that supposedly have ,but for the fact that the in-ear headphones stay on my ears, rather than falling of as is evident by their name.

In 2005 when the whole new iPod (G5) was introduced, Steve Jobs said that they will be giving all newly redesigned headphones. They allegedly tested thousands of ears and ear canals to deliver a headphone design with an even better fitting. So far all good. Those headphones are those that you can now find in all iPods and iPhones. Sames designed that is the product of study of many different ears. Well they did not study my ears... I could never get those headphones stay in my ears for more than 2 minutes. If the cable rubs against anything, that tiny force is enough to drop them of my ears! It is freaking annoying. For the iPod I go the Apple in-ear headphones and they worked well. I went through two pairs, mostly due to my misuse/abuse.

When I got the iPhone, I was able to use them as well, but I had to actually disconnect them to talk on the phone since they lack of microphone. So for the iPhone I had to stick with the regular iPhone headphones which as I said keep falling off. So I was more than ecstatic when they announced these headphones back in September. I was waiting and waiting and what was expected to be available in late October took all the way to December. And even then they were shipping in 10-12 days... To make a long story short I got them today.

Finally the headphones were actually staying in my ear. I could move without them just falling off. Success. Success. Success... With a small weird and strange problem. All morning today I was listening to a ticking sound. Sharp ticking sound. I thought it was from the music, but then I start getting it on the phone calls as well. What was it?

Well, simply it was just static. Strange and bizarre static. It is a cold day and I am waring a scarf that is made 100% from wool. While my head moves around it rubs against the scarf and charges me. Those headphones have a feature that, has been praised a lot. A metal mesh and metal ring to make them more durable and more resistant to wear. You can get a close look on the bottom picture.

This metal part is just discharging my head and leads to this loud ticking sound. Here is Florida, it is never that cold... well... maybe, not always that cold, is more appropriate expression, so it is ok to use them. Especially with the humidity that is high almost year around this should not be a problem but, it is especially annoying for people in the Northern states such is NY etc. If you leave there you need to thing it again. Especially if you think that all the charge will end to your iPhone/iPod Touch.

Overall however I have to agree with the critics. I am not the most knowledgeable critic ever, but I like them. They fit snugly in your ear, they sound great, they insulate you from the surrounding, they microphone is amazing and the control over your iPhone is great. Of course the volum controls are not working, but it is not that important. You cannot cry over something you never had!

Well done Apple...

Any image to icon - img2icns

Many time you feel like jazzing up your desktop. How? Change the desktop image, change the size of the dock, and change the various MacOS X icons. There are some great sites with collections, forums where users share icons, and many other other resources that can help you on that. However, many times you cannot find what you are looking for. A google image search will find the image you are looking for. A simple way to make it an icon is to save the image, open it in Preview, sellect the image (⌘-A), and copy/paste it on the folder or object you want. In Leopard, however this does not behave properly. Although the image is there you cannot select the item bu clicking the image.

Looking around for a work-around I found what is probably the most precious Mac OS X application. It is called img2icns and it is almost free! Almost meaning has a nice free version and a $12.90 Pro version. mg2icns is an application to create icons from images or images from icons, keeping them organized for future use. Creating an icon is as simple as dropping one or more images into Img2icns and choosing an export format. Creating icons on Mac OS X was never so easy or so much fun, so start customizing your desktop just now!


As you can see it is very simple and intuitive software. You drag and drop the image you want on the dashed are in the main window. The you can select to save it as Folder (available in the free version), icns format (available in the free version), iPhone (available in the pro version) and Favicon (available in the pro version). Folder is the most used. Once you do it, you are prompt were to save it. Then simple you past in on the Application/Folder/Hard Drive. The pro version allows you to view the icons you have already saved converted and you can recreat them with a snap.

I love this little application. They are right those who say, precious things come in little packages.

iPod Touch Original Wallpapers

The first version of the iPod Touch contained some great wall papers. They were inspired by the dancing silhouettes that back then was the theme of the iPod commercials. Those wallpapers were very pretty and I wanted them for my iPhone. Unfortunately I could not found them anywhere on the. So I decided to find them myself. I looked around in various Forums and after a lot of trouble I managed to find them. I will share in this post the the details of the quest.

1. So I started by looking the various forums until I bumped on this post a the modmyi.com.There the suggested way was to recover them from the original iPod Touch firmware update. That was simple.
2. Download the .ipsw for the iPod Touch. You should get the 1.1.4 update. A link that is working is here.
3. Once done, the .ipsw will look like a folder and there there will be three disk images with one about 126 MB, named "022-3893-4.dmg". That s the one that contains all the required software. In there there should be the wallpapers. The problem was that the image files was password protected.
4. So how do we go around the password protection? Pwnage Tool. The tool to make the hacked firmware update. You can get the appropriate version for the 1.1 firmware here.
5. Open the Pwnage Tool. Click the Browse .ipsw. Safari will automatically decompress the zip file of the firmware and put the archive in the trash. Recover the archive. This is the file that you will give to the pwnage tool.
6. Select the zip file and click ok. Wait a few minutes while the pwnage tool read the firmware image. Once done click the .ipsw Builder button and that to build the custom firmware. It will ask you where to save it (select a folder eg Desktop). It will also prompt from your password. No worries give your password.
7. Once done the Pwnage Tool will create the custom firmware at the folder of your chioce and will name it "iPod1,1_1.1.4_4A102_Custom_Restore". Tired... Well we are not even done yet... Patience...
8. The problem is that the new version is cannot be opened. Well zip it : Selecting it, right click and select compress iPod1,1_1.1.4_4A102_Custom_Restore"
9. Now trash the original file and unzip the archive. The unzipped version now now is a folder. We are almost there. In there again you will see the "022-3893-4.dmg" file that now is not password prottected.
10. Mound it.
11. Navigate to the /Library/Wallpapers/. Yes.... those are the file.
12. Copy the folder to your computer and tarsh all the used files.
    
13. By this point oyu are dissapointed. You double clicked the images and there is nothing there. A big question mark looking at you. After all this work nothing.
14. What happened is that although the images are .png they are formated with the iPhone/iPod's own propietary image format. So you cannot view them on your computer but if you mail them to yourself then you can recover them in iPhone and then you can view them.
    
15. By looking around though I found some tools in this link that can convert the images.
16. Download the modified vesion of the file (here) and transfer the folder named "iPhonePNG copy" on your desktop.
17. Transfer in there the folder Wallpapers you retreived from the firmware of the ipod.
18. Now open Terminal. Type the series of the following commands:
    cd Desktop/iPhonePNG\ copy/
    ./iPhonePNG Wallpaper/
19. This will create a second folder named "Wallpaper-Decoded" And in there are the so needed iPod Touch original wallpapers. By reading the comments I found the site http://zope.release78.org/beta2/iconvert/ that actually does the conversion on line.

I spent my whole morning trying to figure this out. I hope you appreciate my effort. You can view them here (Picasa Gallery). I hope you enjoy.

MacWorld 09

The last Apple keynote is over. The last kick off of apple to a conference totally devoted to its majesty finished with many mixed emotions. First of all Steve Jobs was the big absentee of the MacWorld. His troubled health took its toll to its devotion to this company. He is well, but stayed away from the spotlight. That is also something that was a good move, because, Apple needs to walk away from his shadow. It is time to show that Apple is much more than Steve Jobs. It is the collective effort of thousands of people. Steve just showed the spirit. Regarding the results of the conference were impressive, but not as impressive as I would expect. Let's see in detail the new products.

MacBook Pro 17 inch - That is the flagship of the Apple laptops. It is the biggest, best, meanest laptop apple ever released. With a 2.66 GHz Intel Core Duo, the Classic dual graphics card, it seems like the bigger brother of the 15 inch. But there is a big difference inside. An non detachable battery. That came as a surprise to many apple fans and it was for sure not widely accepted. The difference is the battery that has no shell, and it is build in, saving space, resulting in a 40% bigger battery. Personally I am not sure if I like it. A non detachable battery, regardless the fact that lasts 7-8 hours, is a non detachable battery. Great inconvenience if you want to swamp batteries or if you just want a back up battery.

iLife 09 - The flagship application here is the iPhoto. iPhoto that is now compatible with the geo positioning of the photographs, and the amazing face detection. Places and Faces, added to the Events make the iPhoto the ultimate photo sorting utility. And here we are discussing a face recognition software, and we still talk about mixed emotions. Imagine being able to give commands like "Find pictures of Elena, in Paris, for her birthday." Amazing.


I have also to mention the iMovie that is the fusion of the iMovie HD and the new iMovie. For those who follow the apple events, Steve Jobs, last here announced the complete rewritten iMovie, that had the skimming and a library of all the movies, that you have in your collection. It was easy to cut and paste clips together, but it was missing all the cool effects, such opening titles, transition, filters etc. The new version has all those features back. What we need to see is if those old plug ins from iMovie HD are compatilbe with iMovie 09. My gut feeling is no.

iWorks - Here the major innovation is the introduction of the new on line service, that allows users across the internet to share and edit documents on the fly. Amazing. And for me, it is great the support of MathType and Endnote, both highly used by scientist across the world. I have to mention here that the trial version of the Keynote Remote ROCKS! Probably the greatest remote that the iPhone can be used fir this.


iTunes - DRM free music. This was Steve 's vision form long ago. He had an open letter to the music industry, on that a while back. It is something welcome, but I am not sure if it really qualifies as MacWorld announcement.

While I am spending time with those apps I will let you know my impressions.

Terminal Commands: Mods under the hood!

Linux/Unix before they get the nice GUI with the windows, the cursor and al the Jazz, it was all command line. A command line that was and is, super powerful. It is still under the MacOS X, but kinda hidden all the way in the Utilities Folder in the Applications folder. The terminal can be used to do different "undoable tasks" like opening and viewing Hidden folder. The most basic command in this is "cd" derived from the acronym change directory. So once you open your terminal you will be greeted by a line such:

[computer name]:~[user name]$

That is the prompt and that 's where you input your commands. If you type now "ls" derived from the word list, you will get a list of the objects in that directory. But if you type "ls -a" you will get all the files (a stands for all) and that will show you even the hidden files usually starting with ".". The command "pwd" will give you the Present Working Directory.

But those simple navigation tools are not what I love about terminal. I like the ability to do changes to Applications, beyond the simple Preferences pane. My favorite blog, TUAW, has a section on terminal tips, and from there I picked those that I love the most.

Enabling half star rating in iTunes: This is something that iTunes is doing anyway base on the number you heard a song, but you cannot do! Just open the terminal and type:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes allow-half-stars -bool TRUE

Replasing TRUE with FALSE will revert the changes.

Change Time Machine intervals: This one is in particularly useful. You can change the time itenrval from 1 sec all the way to one week. Just type

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int [time in secs]

The time input is given in secs so the default one hour is 3600, one day is 24x3600=86,400. I don 't know why Apple does not give this option but it is for sure something needed. But we just gave you the solution!

Add a shortcut of the recent apps on the dock. This one is useful if you hate (and I am sure you do) togo from the apple menu and select recent items. There are about 1o apps I mainly use so there are almost always there! Just type:
defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'
And that will anable it. If you are tired of it, just drag it out of the dick. Simple as this.

For more terminal tips check out the TUAW section on it.

Happy New Year And Happy Last Apple MacWorld

Happy new year all my loyal readers. Well not loyal or readers, but for sure a truthful wish for happy new year. As every beginning of every year the start always comes with the big announcements from apple. Really bog. iMacs, iBooks, iPhones... OSX all the big bold announcements have came through Macworld Apple Keynote. And then in 2009 Apple announce that 2009 will be its last keynote. And there are a few good reasons for that.

For once, apple is grown up now, and it can hold events of that magnitude on its own. iTunes music store, iMacs, iPods, all products announced in a separate event. In addition apple is too much grown up. I remember in 2002 I went to a conference and I was the only apple user in every room. Last year, I was in San Francisco to the same Moscone West center as the apple Macworld, and there was a mac every 3 laptop. So a company of this magnitude will just overshadow all the small developers and companies that are there.

Secondly, Steve Jobs, for health reasons or not, is planning to retire from Apple. It is the company, of his life, but he cannot stay there for ever. And he has to pull back and give a chance to the new people in apple to take the lead, while he is still around to guide. Since MacWorld has been strongly linked to Steve, something like this, will be damaging to the company reputation. So I think Apple will do fine without him, and as per report by CNN, his spirit has been institutionalized. However the apple community has been buzzed about his absence and the rumors have been literally out of control. Even that his is dying. This led Steve Jobs to publish a letter yesterday, to urge that he is fine and his mystery weight loss was, just hormone imbalance. He preferred to spend the holidays with his family, rather than intensely prepare for the Keynote presentation. Phil Schiller will have the honors and I am not expecting anything less that what Steve was delivering. Big bold products...

iMacs: I don 't expect anything radically different regarding the appearance, but I do expect the quad core and the new Nvidia chip. I think that th 28 inch is far fetched.

MacBooks/MacBook Pros: I do antiscipate the withdraw of the plastic models and the introduction of the 17 unibody MacBook Pro. It was delayed due to the construction a whole different facilities to handle the new process. In addition some recent rumors, from Apple Insider state that the battery will be extra long, but not detachable which will be a bummer never the less.

iPhone nano: We 've all seen the cases form the Chinese manufacturers that have been running wild on the web. And although the cases were out none has seen the phone. The big star of this Macworld.

iLife 09: A sure update, since it is almost custom to have a release every year. 08 update was a bit late, it is time to catch up. The online version might come as a compliment to MobileMe users, since an on line version will be less likely to have all the features, already embedded in the actual version.

Mac mini: It is going to be redisigned with aluminum and black plastic to match the rest of the iMac/MacBook line. It will have the optional addiotion of second Hard drive, DVD burner or BluRay (I wish). The design alterative can be inspired from the time machine having the small shallow notch going around the computer, hiding the slot for the slot loading DVD. The most noticapble difference will be the new graphics card, that I would guess it will be the new Nvidia chip or a dual display support (less likely).

Apple TV: I am expecting it to be more functional and be used for media storage, home movies, pictures are stored there and is used as hub to sync all the macs.

Multi Touch Mighty Mouse: This is my secret hope and it is based on a apple patent that was discovered about 2 years ago. The patent descibes the wireless mighty mouste like the one we all know, but instead of the rolling ball it has a touch surface. Although I love mighty mouse, the toughest part is the ball that needs to be cleaned and it is not as trivial. I secretely wish they will anounce that.

The depiction of the mighty mouse by MacBlogz.

Well it is know 1 day before the keynote. We will see how far out I was. There are great sites to watch the live blog of the event:

• Gizmodo live blogging
• TUAW live blogging

Be here tomorrow afternoon to hear the most acurate analysis.

Music on your mac: Beyond iTunes

iTunes is one of the oldest Apple applications, and it is been around before even the MacOSX. It a media player and although it started as a purely music management tool it is now handling movies, podcast, radio streams and iPod/iPhone apps. However, in an average library still, the largest portion is the music. The average libraries can range from a few GB to TB, meaning from 1000 songs all the way up to 100,000 songs. And if we assume that you have the maximum number of songs still you might get bored. You heard all those songs again and again and again... What is afterwards... Well radio stations are one option, but not the best. Even if you find a station that plays Jazz or Rock only from Jazz artist to Jazz artist it might be a huge difference. So what do you do in that case?

Well the best solutions that have come up is Last.fm and Pandora. Both are great tools to find new artists and expand your music horizons. So how do they work what is the difference? I puzzled myself for a while and finally I found the answer. A very comprehensive article by Steve Krause, a well know analyst in the field of technology and gadgets world. I recommend reading the whole article to fully understand the concepts of the two different world.

Last.fm: It is probably the first tool of its kind. It is a collaborative based system for music recomendations. How it works? You are searching the artist you like, and it will start a station playing a random song of that artist. You can mark as Love or Ban that artist and the song. The filters will compare you sellection with the sellection of other users, and will find new suggestions for you. The more you listen, the more sellections.
Pandora: It is a complete different concept. It characterize the songs in 200 different parameters (music genes) ranging from the general genre all the way to beat rythm and melody. By letting you sellect an artist it will start filling the segments of your music genome as they call it. Based on that genome new music will be coming your way every time you are logging on.

Pros and cons:

• Music recomendation: Pandora although smart, if you love more than one genre of music it can easily balck out and run out of suggestions. Last.fm on the other side since it is based on simlar taste base, it will never run out of options although it might take wrong route.
• New artists: Since the Last.fm filters are socially based, before a new artists is surfaced, it will take time since it has to make it to the favorites of other users before it is piped to you. Pandora, on the otherside is independed of that so even the next minute after a new artists is added into the database, will come up as a suggestion.
• Interface: Pandora is purely web based interface, and recently it introduced the Pandora Desktop, which utilizes the Adobe Air. It is still however a snapshot of the web interface. Last.fm gives out a stand-alone program that is different from the on line interface. The Last.fm application is scrobbing (the word is used from last.fm to denote the tracks you listened to) all the songs you heard on your iPod.

Overall both programs have their pros and cons. I would say that the ease of use, Last.fm is much better than the one from Pandora. However, the music recomendation is more acurate from Pandora, since it is based on analyzign your taste. Given the fact that is a much newer application it has room to improve.

The botom line is that Last.fm and Pandora are great alternatives to iTunes, and are extremely helpful to discover new artists.

File systems and Disk formating.

For all the new mac (and PC users) essential accessories are the external hard drives for back ups and extra storage. One of the most critical questions is how to format the hard drive. In the Utilities folders of your Applications there is a small tool that is called Disk Utility and it is probably the most essential tool you have. It is the tool that will format, clone, make disk images and many other great stuff. The one thing we will focus here is the formatting of hard drives. Once open the utility you will see a screen that shows on the left side the list of the Hard Drives, and the various options namely: First Aid, Erase, RAID, Restore. Select the Erase and you will have the following screen.

And as you can see there there are various options on the format type and the name of course. The two main options are the HFS (Mac OS extended) and FAT32. There two drastically different formats developed by Apple and Microsoft respectively and they are different approaches in handling the different bits of the hard drive. There are 4 different variations of the the Mac OS Extended (case sensitive, journaled and combinations thereof)
File Allocation Table or FAT is a computer file systems architecture originally purchased by and then developed by Bill Gates and Marc McDonald during 1976/1977. It was used through the whole history of Microsoft (MS DOS, Windows) until the Windows Me. The structure of the FAT system is the division of the hardware space to sectors that contain specific number of bits and a number of bits to describe those sectors (12, 16 and 32). The system will allocate a sector or sectors of the drive to each file. Now if since the Hard Drives are using the Binary system 0 and 1 the number of bits that can be allocated to one file is 2³²=42944967296Bytes=4GB. So there you have the number one issue with FAT32; the maximum file size cannot exceed the 4GB. However, the format is acceptable by any type of operating system MacOS, Windows, Linux/Unix etc. Also one of the major benefits is the least data loss in case of hard drive failure. Since the the damage can affect the a sector or a neighboring group of sectors damages only the file that is occupying them. One of the disadvantages is the fragmentation that occurs to the drive over the repeatedly erasing and writing. This can increase the seek time and can slow down the process. Although there are de-fragmentation tools are not as effective.
Pros: Minimum data lose.
Cons: Maximum file size 4 GB, fragmentation.

Hierarchical File System or HFS was introduced by Apple in September 1985 specifically to support Apple's first hard disk drive for the Macintosh, replacing the Macintosh File System (MFS), the original file system which had been introduced over a year and a half earlier with the first Macintosh computer. According to the HFS the Hard Drive into logical blocks of 512 bytes. Those blocks can be then be allocated (allocation blocks) to various files. The HSF uses 16 bit system to allocate those blocks in binary system so the number of different allocation blocks are 2¹⁶=65,536. Therefore the limit of 65,535 allocation blocks resulted in files having a "minimum" size equivalent 1/65,535th the size of the disk. So for a 1 GB disk, the allocation block size under HFS is 16 KB, so even a 1 byte file would take up 16 KB of disk space. However, being younger than FAT has a smarter way of handling the folders. It consists of 5 hierarchic blocks:

• Logical Block 0 and 1 that contain the information for the system start-up
• Block 2 contains the Master Directory Block (aka MDB). This defines a wide variety of data about the volume itself, for example date & time stamps for when the volume was created, the location of the other volume structures such as the Volume Bitmap or the size of logical structures such as allocation blocks.
• Logical block 3 is the starting block of the Volume Bitmap, which keeps track of which allocation blocks are in use and which are free.
• The Extent Overflow File is a B*-tree that contains extra extents that record which allocation blocks are allocated to which files, once the initial three extents in the Catalog File are used up.
  
• The Catalog File is another B*-tree that contains records for all the files and directories stored in the volume.
  

This architecture results in a more effective seeking and faster response and eliminates the need of de-fragmentation. However since one block handles all the files it prevents multitasking and further if the section of the hard drive that contains that information is damaged the hard drive is having a complete failure. To address this issue Apple introduced the HFS Plus that fixed the multitasking but the catastrophic failure remains an issue. In the MacOSX generation system these formats are known as the Mac OS and Mac OS Extended. Although they addressed all the mentioned issues, this file management system is not compatible with any other operating systems.
In November 2002 Apple introduced the Journaling which allows the system to log the changes before they are executed. So although typically deleting a file involves to processes deleting the file entry and then marking the space it is occupying as free, a power failure in any of the steps will results in abnormalities. For example, if the power failure occurs during the first and second step, the file will be erased without being deleted. Journaling will first log those changes and then execute them marking them while it is done. That will ensure that both steps are executed properly and in the right order. With 10.3 it was introduced the case sensitivity that discriminates Names for names or NaMeS.

Pros: No file size limit, 255 characters to name the file and folders, case sensitive, journaling.
Cons: Minimum file 16kB, maximum file limit, lack of cros-platform compatibility, danger of catastrophic data loss.

So when you buy a new drive, think before you start using it. If you plan to store videos that is more than 4 GB (only videos can be single files larger than 4 Gb) then go for Mac OS Extended, Case Sensitive, if you are planning cross platform definitely use FAT32. Especially for the USB drives, since the added bonus that are RAM types of drives, has almost no seek time, regardless of fragmantation. Just keep in mind that the K=1024, M=1024x1024=1,048,576 and G=1,073,741,824 bites. So your 1 TB drive is 1,000,000,000,000 bits is actually 931 GB and not 1000 GB.

Combining pdfs in Leopard.

This question came from a friend. In an effort to archive old photography journals he cut their back of and then scanned them; odd pages first followed by the even. So once everything was scanned, he was left with two pdfs one containing the odd pages (1, 3, 5, ...), and one the even pages (2, 4, 6, ...). He wanted know to merge the pdfs in a way that the the resulting will be 1, 2, 3, ... Of course you can do drag and drop in preview and with some copy past you are done. However his magazines were too big and doing this for 150 pages, was time consuming and worst of all he had to make it for many many magazines. He asked me how and immediately I thought of Automator, the very lightly used utility that sits around in you Application folder. Yeah, the one with the robot. So that thing can be used to automate processes either by recording your steps or by programming. So let 's see how it is used here. We need to be able to select the files, and then combined them by taking one page of each, putting them in order to make a new file, that will be moved on the desktop and named as final Document.

Start Automator and you will be greeted by the nice screen that ask you what would this be. In this case I just select Custom.
Once done find the finder icon that has all the files and folders commands and the one on the top is for "Ask for finder items". We will need two of those, one for odd (item 1) and one for even (item 2).
Once that is done we can continue with the pdf merging. Form the Library panel select pdf and then "Combine PDF pages". Notice there an option Append and Shuffle. Append will add the second document to the end of the first. Shuffle will take the first page of the first document, add the first page of the second document, and continue with the second page of the first document etc... just like a casino dealer shuffles card.
Notice here that the various elements of the work flow are interconnecting. That means that the initial elements of each step are results of the previous one. Once this is done we need to take the file from the temporary place that is stored and move if to the Desktop (or anywhere you wish to) and rename it to Final Document (or any other name). For that we need to more functions from the the library the Move and Rename and we add them. Not really in any particular order.
Now click run and you are done! Well almost. Once you open the document in Preview you will see that it is rotated by 180 degrees (upside-down) . That is a common bug in the Automator work flow easily fixed by the tools menu of Preview by consequently rotate the document.

Quick Search Safari History

One of the issues I had with Safari is the inability to quickly search the history with or without spotlight tool. A Trick that was published a while ago at MacOSXhints.com describes the most standard method. From the History menu item select the show all history as shown below.

Thsi will reveal all the history and at the top right corner there will be an input for a search field. Alternative to that, is my tip that although it is not searching the whole history it is helpful since it is using the power of spotlight. All Help menu in 10.5.x have a spotlight feature, that searches the menu items. Recent history in Safari, is stored under the History menu and therefore it becomes spotlight searchable as is evident my the picture below.
This way you have your history always handy and you can find what you saw a few days ago.

iTunes Tagging Vs. Sorting

One of the features I love in iTunes is the ability to sort a song with a different title or artist than the one it is actual named with. so let ’s say that we have the song “I walk the line” as it was preformed by Bob Dylan. So it is part of the “Dylan-Cash sessions” and the album artist is Bob Dylan. However since in that song both Dylan and Cash are singing the artist song is Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. The info panel wi look something like this:

The known iTunes Tag (info) panel.

However I want the song in the iPod to be indexed as if it was from Bob Dylan so I can find it under the selection Bob Dylan. So you can go to less famous panel called sorting. There you can change the title or artist (album etc) different that the original so it will be easier accessible.

The less known iTunes Sorting panel.

So now after this changes we can easily find this song under Bob Dylan, and not under Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. It is extremely important especially when you are forgetting the duets, or if you are bilingual, and you are editing the tags in your native alphabet but you want to find it with the latin alphabet. This is useful for searching a song on iPod and iPhone that do not support other inputs. See the following picture for example.

The Sorting panel used for international sorting and tagging.

Now the best part is that you can find this song by either typing “Σπανουδάκης” or “Spanoudakis”.

Hello World... or who I am...

Hi all. My name is George or as most friends call me Webby, which overtime became DJwebby and since this name was taken in many on line services (gmail, blogger, AIM etc) I added the 2002 (the year I actauly veery actively engaged in the blogging community) and the GR to denote Greece the place on earth I call home. So the total is DJWebby2002GR. Which is pretty cool I think. I am an apple fun and I have been working with macs my whole live. For nearly 23 years. Overtime I not only learned a lot of tricks and hints in apple computer, but I also learnt to think apple. I developed a shell on my brain that is intuitively and processing in apple mode. I don ‘t think human and convert to apple. I think apple.
I was debating the creation of a blog for really long time, but my current mobile blog on cooking, music and other philosophical issues does not allow me to implement this extra blog there. Too crowded you see. But I needed to. I felt that I need to share my poor but strong knowledge on apple computers with the rest of you.
Before I start my posts on apple products, I would give you a small history on my Macs and my Apples. So:
1985 - My dad buys for his work his first computer. A Macintosh that after an upgrade runs with an external hard drive and 4 MB or RAM (I know it was insane).
1992 - He buys a second hand Macintosh LC25 (or II) and the macintosh becomes mine, but I stuck with the pretty colors of the LC display.
1995 - Upon passing to college in physics major my dad buys me the Performa 5300 which has awesome. I was kissing it good buy every night for one year.
2000 - I worked in the radio station for 5 years and I collected enough money to buy a car. That time the G4 tower comes out, and I forget all about the car… I own an G4 Tower witha DVD and 128 MB RAM
2001 - I move to USA as a student and my awesome computer stays behind, for my dad and my sister. I buy an iBook G3 with 256 MB of Ram and an amazing 16 MB video card.
2003 - My dad needs a new laptop. I buy an iBook G4 and he gets my older laptop. I also bought my first iPod refurbished for $350. A 30 GB hard drive, and the simple LCD.
2006 - I buy my iMac. I had a PhD and I should look professional. It is the Intel Core Duo 2 t 2.0 GHz with 1 GB of RAM (upgraded to 2GB later), 51q2 video Memory and has the build in iSight. Towards the end of the year I buy a MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz and 256 MB Ram. I also bought a new 80 GB iPod that plays video.
2007 - I gave away my iBook G4 (I regret it now because I never had guessed its sentimental value, but back then it was for a good cause).
2008 - I bought an iPhone.
So you can see that my apple history is rich and valuable. My first operating system was 1.2 where now we are through the 10 the generation. I would discuss the name of apple operating system in different post, but my point is that over the years I went through 8 different versions of MacOS. So stay tuned for my tips, thoughts and tricks for apple, the second most famous apple in the world. Second, only after to the legendary apple that hit Newton on his head, enough to make him to discover the law of gravity. And a fun fact: The first apple logo was picturing Newton under an apple tree? Random? I don ‘t think so.