Truer Words - A Journal

Happy New Year, One and All

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 16:22:11 GMT

2006 was a good year for me and mine, in many ways.

To all of my family near and far, to my ecclesia here and worldwide, to all of my friends new and old, close or distant:

Happy
New Year!

Hoping 2007 will be even better, for all of us...

Jon Udell Using Flip's DesktopSweeper

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 14:25:36 GMT

Flip says:

Jon Udell (yes, the famous writer and analyst) shares my taste for distraction-free desktops, and shows how he achieves it in this six minutes screencast. The only part of the method he presents that's not implemented directly in OS X is done using my DesktopSweeper. Indeed, I've always thought that such a feature should be part of the OS.

Hey, that's very cool. Congratulations, Flip!

Jon Udell's book, Practical Internet Groupware, was a big inspiration behind the design of Conversant. Which has nothing at all to do with the screencast or Flip's DesktopSweeper, except that Flip used to work for me at Macrobyte and was a major contributor to Conversant. :-)

I Want a TactaPad, too!

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 15:34:02 GMT

Flip pointed to the TactaPad yesterday.

Ooh! I want one too! Very nifty.

dbSpy: Database Analysis for Frontier

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:12:40 GMT

dbSpy is a new Guest Database analyzer for Frontier and Radio, by Andre Radke and Philippe Martin.

dbSpy is a low-level database analysis tool for Frontier. It provides information about the structure and the contents of a GDB, in the form of a Frontier hierarchy of tables (detailing used, free or orphaned nodes and other similar information) and optionally in the form of a graphical representation of the GDB.

Unfortunately, the web page doesn't yet say why you'd use it.

In late December, 2004, the Frontier-Kernel list was discussing problems with root-file (database) corruption and bloat. Dave Winer explained what he had been seeing on one of his machines. Andre responded with a description of a tool he had partially completed:

I wrote a Frontier tool some time ago that understands the low-level database format and knows how to scan through a root file by visiting all blocks either in sequence and also according to the table hierarchy.

I basically started out with re-implementing the window.dbstats verb in UserTalk. The idea was to be able to analyse corrupted roots and to eventually develop strategies to fix them even if doing a Save A Copy from within Frontier was no longer able to do so, but I never got that far.

dbSpy is a more complete version of Andre's tool, but now it includes a very pretty (and useful), html-based, graphical overview of the database. (It reminds me a little of the disk-overview image provided defrag tools like Norton Utilities.)

To paraphrase Andre, its purpose is to analyze the low-level format of corrupted or bloated databases, to help the operator (programmer) learn what went wrong and what might be fixed (or fixable) in the kernel to prevent it from happening again.

What is "Unfrozen Caveman?"

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 19:49:06 GMT

Flip, Jim, Greg, Steve, and Brent (update: and Apollo, Daniel, and Terry) have each linked to the story about the Firefox book. I really appreciate it... this is a very big deal for me, as most of you know.

Brent said that my description of the SOAP hack made him feel like "Unfrozen Caveman." If anybody has a clue stick, I need a beating. (Did it make him feel a bit behind the times? Out of touch with the tech? Really old? Maybe it thickened his brow and made him a good shot with a spear?)

Flip's IC-Switch Reviewed on MacWorld

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 23:02:26 GMT

Friend-and-former-employee Flip Martin produces a piece of software known as IC-Switch. It's designed to make it very easy to quickly switch the apps you use for certain protocols like http (switch your default browser), mailto (switch your default email program), nntp (default news reader), etc., etc., etc. Mostly useful for web developers and tech support, probably, and it's mac-only. I've mentioned it before.

(MacOS 9 used to include "Internet Config" for doing the same thing. When they didn't produce something similar for OS X, Flip did IC-Switch. Thus the name.)

I didn't notice it until just now, but Flip reported on Tuesday that MacWorld (actually, the MacGems weblog on MacWorld) reviewed it... way back in December.

The author understands why it behaves the way it does (designed for quick and frequent switching), and appreciated it. Very cool. Congratulations, Flip! (And I won't even tease you about the new word you invented. Much.)

Ride #82: Flip Would Have Been Proud of Me

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 08 Oct 2004 22:10:15 GMT

Went for a slightly longer ride today, still building back up to where I was before I caught my cold last week.

I came to an intersection and saw four people standing on the side of the road waving their hands around a lot. As I approached, I realized they were waving a map around.

The four people were two older cyclists, and two older tourists whose car was parked on the side of the road. The lady cyclist was trying to give them directions to Charlestown, RI. Man oh man were they lost. Like, 40 miles lost. To make matters more confusing, there was no common language. The cyclists certainly lived in the area, but they had a rather thick accent... I think it was German, but I'm not sure. The tourists were French, and didn't speak English well at all.

The lady cyclist asked what I would tell them, and i said to just put them on Route 1 and stay on it all the way. She said trying to stay on 1 through Westerly would be confusing. I said they don't speak English very well, but that doesn't mean they can't read signs with nothing on them but a big number 1. :-)

The alternative was a long list of directions... left, right, left, left, get on the highway, take this exit, blah blah blah... Um, no. Just turn right here, and keep going straight until you can't go straight anymore. Turn left on Route 1. Watch for the signs where Route 1 turns one way or another, and stay on it all the way to Charlestown.

As they were leaving, the driver (an older gentleman) said, "merci beaucoup." Without even thinking about it, I responded, "de rien!" (That's why I thought Flip would be proud of me.) That made the guy smile, and of course he corrected my horrible pronunciation, but then I remembered a better response and said, "pas d'problem." He didn't correct me that time, just yelled "tres bon!" with an even bigger smile on his face.

I imagine it was nice to have someone make the effort to speak his language.

Stats: 37.6 miles (60.53 km) in 1h 53' 48" for an average speed of 19.82 mph (31.91 kph).

IC-Switch has Flipped to 1.4

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 09:59:45 GMT

M. Philippe Martin has released IC-Switch 1.4.

IC-Switch is a menubar app that lets you choose which application should handle a given protocol, such as http, ftp, or mailto. New in 1.4 is support for the feed protocol.

The feed protocol was originally designed for farms. Cattle, for example, just have to click a button to access a feed: url on the farmer's server, which causes grain to be dropped in the trough.

In a bizarre misuse of this important technology, the feed protocol can also be used to request an RSS or Atom file, to "feed your brain."

Finally! Flip Blogs.

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 27 May 2003 18:11:22 GMT

Finally, after all these years, my friend and former employee Philippe Martin has his own weblog.

Flip helped write a number of the features in Conversant, including some of the lower-level functionality like "Labels," and he wrote lots of documentation and still occasionally helps out on the support site.

He's a Frenchman, but you'll see immediately that he's blogging in English. Perhaps as he grows more accustomed to the new weblog plugin, he'll switch to bi-lingual blogging. Let's hope!

This reminds me... it's about stinkin' time that I switch this site over to the new Weblog II plugin. How silly is it that I'm writing it but not using it, when all of the beta testers (except Duncan) have happily made the switch?

Flip Releases IC-Switch 1.2

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 13 Apr 2003 12:37:16 GMT

Flip has released version IC-Switch 1.2 (MacOS X only). There are a bunch of new features, including everything I requested (to handle the news protocol the same as nntp, and to support the ftp protocol).

Nifty, thanks Flip!

Flip Releases IC-Switch 1.1

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 18 Feb 2003 10:15:59 GMT

A while back I mentioned that Flip was working on a little Mac OS X-only app called IC-Switch, which gives you a small menu in the menubar for changing your default web, mail, and news clients. Unfortunately, bugs in the operating system caused it to stop working correctly for awhile.

Those bugs have been fixed as of Mac OS X 10.2.4, and Flip has released IC-Switch 1.1. There are a number of new features, all of them designed to make it even easier and faster to see and switch your default internet software from one app to another.

IC-Switch has once again found a home in my menubar. Thanks for the freeware, Flip!

IC-Switch 1.1b1

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 12 Sep 2002 20:13:17 GMT

Friend and former employee Philippe "Flip" Martin has released a new beta version of IC-Switch. The web site only lists 1.0, but version 1.1b1 was announced on the Script Meridian list.

IC-Switch is a tiny MacOS X application that let's you change the system's default helper applications for email, web, and news URL's. It changes the same prefs that are available in the Internet panel of System Preferences, but it's all done via a small menu added to the menubar.

For anyone working with multiple browsers -- or constantly testing new versions of beta software like Mozilla, Opera, or Mailsmith -- it's invaluable. I've been using it for over a month, and I'm very happy with it.

Plus, it's free.