Best wishes for '04

With 2004 only 121 minutes away, it's time for me to wish you all a very very very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

Thanks for reading and reacting, and see you the other side.

Freudian slip

Adriaan, the author of Kung-Log, pick a good one up on Apple's Developers Site: WebKit SDK Disk Image (Err.. was that Disk ?)

Macinblog's best of 03

Just in time for my list of favourite software of the year:

1. Mac OS 10.3: the latest version of the Macintosh operating system
2. Kung-Log: post and manage your weblog entries
3. BBEdit (*): high-performance text and HTML editor
4. iViewMedia Pro: media management software
5. OmniGraffle Professional (*): lets you create your best graphs, diagrams, flow charts, etc.
6. NetNewsWire Lite: RSS news reader for web sites
7. Safari: Apple's web browser
8. DiskWarrior: repair Mac OS X native directory and save your day
9. xScope: powerful set of tools for measuring, aligning and inspecting online graphics
10. Movable Type: weblog (or website) publishing software
11. Interarchy: my SFTP alter ego

(*) present in last year's favs

Hmm, but why these ? What are my criterias ? Completely emotional - and practical. Basically, most of them are applications I use on a daily basis, which I've used and abused, most of them since their early versions (some beta), applications I couldn't do without, and finally, most of which live in my Dock. Some are not new, some have just been released, some I have just discovered. Oh, and most of the download links point to MacUpdate. I still can't make my mind up between VersionTracker and MacUpdate (which service do you favour ?)

1. Mac OS 10.3: okay, this one isn't really an application per se (that's why there's 11 favs this year), but it had to figure in this list as Mac OS X gets better and better at each release. I'm not going to into details on this one, others have done it much better - but applications like Mail, iSync, FontBook or Address Book are part of my daily grind - and new features such as Expose is really tooooo cool..
2. Kung-Log: I discovered this little jem about a year ago (it was still an AppleScript Studio app back then). This product has since evolved into a Cocoa application full of features and has become an indispensable tool to anybody who hosts a weblog. You can manage your entries, post, draft, edit, delete, upload images or files, preview your post (uses Safari's WebKit), send notifications by e-mail, etc.
   
   And what's more, the next version is on it's way! It's called ecto and is currently undergoing private beta testing. Don't miss the public beta when it's released - it really rocks! (this post was edited using ecto beta release 1).
3. BBEdit (*): no need to present BBEdit anymore. This application loads early in one of my typical day's work. The latest release offers WebKit Preview. That means that while you're tweaking css code (or xhtml), you can preview in realtime how it renders with Safari's engine (Kung-Log/ecto offer the same functionality). This is invaluable to test layouts and html code in general. I still haven't tested the CVS feature since it's release last year, but intend to get my teeth into it this year.
4. iViewMedia Pro: I've tried several media management software these last few years for managing my images, starting with Canto Cumulus, but gave it up when the Mac OS X standalone version never showed up, Extensis PortFolio, but never got used to it's interface, Apple's iPhoto until it choked on my 3'000+ photos and really got too slow (not to mention its file management limitations), until I discovered iViewMedia Pro. The latest release really suits me down to the ground. You can manage large libraries of images, it's fast, offers numerous way of assigning categories, keywords, and other attributes to sort your media files just the way you want. It is user-friendly and it use very intuitive, yet its features remain powerful. The file management is a breeze. It reads and downloads your images directly from your digital camera, imports files from your HD at lightening speed. I haven't explored in details its export options or slideshow features, but they seem quite satisfying. Hopefully, I won't have to change in the near future.
5. OmniGraffle Professional (*): a gem you don't get tired of. I'm been using OmniGraffle more and more frequently these last 12 months, and keep discovering new ways of getting my work done more efficiently. Clean and neat.
6. NetNewsWire Lite: what better way to get abreast with your favourite weblogs ? It's simple, sports a clean interface and it's free. I never really gave it's big brother a try being a fan of Kung-Log, but I'm sure it is a brilliant application too.
7. Safari: Apple's web browser and my favourite browser. I was running Chimera last year, and slowly switched to Safari. Fast, clean, does the job just right. Gets better at each release. but you know all that already, no ?
8. DiskWarrior: since the release of version 3, it's saved my day at least two times, resurrecting drive catalogs that other apps declared good as dead. What more to say ? If you job relies on using a Mac - or taking care of Macs - on a daily basis, buy it.
9. xScope: I only recently discovered this little application. Like all others from IconFactory/Panic Software, it is very well polished. It proved itself invaluable during the tweaking of the css style sheet I was working on, while trying to address the different inconsistencies of IE. Only took two hours before I purchased it.
10. Movable Type: Okay. It's not a application as such, well not a user app anyway. But it's a wonderful server application to publish websites in general and weblogs in particular. Throughout this last year, I haven't ceased to discover it's power and flexibility (and extensibility). It's amazing what you can achieve with it. Until recently Macinblog was hosted run by MT. I must admit that Movable Type is my discovery of the year.
11. Interarchy: another old friend. I been using this application so long that I only realize how much I depend on it when I'm on a Mac without it. I guess Interarchy is what one could call "an acquired taste". I rely quite a bit on SFTP in my daily tasks, and sometime on several different severs at the same time. Interarchy makes file transfer as simple as using another window in the Finder. It's full of other interesting features, but I must admit that I've never really taken the time to evaluate them properly. I just thought this one would round up my list nicely.

There, that's done. Time to go and see what the rest of my little family are up to .. Happy New Year to you all ;)

Domain mapping problem

Sorry for those who experienced domain mapping problems. It seems that I didn't configure the move correctly, and that macinblog.com was left out in the cold. The URL to use for the time being is www.macinblog.com. But you know that already if you're reading this..

The other problem I'm having is mapping the former post permalinks to the newer ones. I've got a bunch of fake files with redirects in their headers, but I have to upload them one by one .. so It'll probably take until early next year.
;)

I'm working on Macinblog's best of 03, and hope to share it with you sometime tomorrow, if I find the time to finish it.

Macinblog downtime

Sorry for the downtime. It occured at 16:55 CET when I started to experiment with .htaccess support on TP, and uploaded a configuration file which generated a 500 error.

I opened a support ticket, and hopefully the problem shall be solved very soon thanks to SixApart's online help.

Oh well, don't look at me like that - someone had to try, no?

On December 28, 2003 05:57 PM, TypePad Customer Support said:

Hi David,

Thanks for the report. The system stops you from creating an htaccess file in your template set, but not if you upload it.

We're working on the file manager for this and it's high priority to add to the system.

Ben can delete the extra file for you, I'll mark this for him to take a look. Thanks, and sorry for the trouble.

Thank you, Brenna

Macinblog moved to TypePad

Some of you might have noticed that Macinblog has moved from MT to TypePad.

This is not a move away from MT, but rather an opportunity to test TP in a production environment. Macinblog might move back to MT in a near future - who knows.

The move was smooth. I exported all records from MT, edited the file with BBEdit to correct the image paths and imported it into TP directly. All records were correctly imported, categories and comments included. After all, TP does run on MT.

The only glitch was the images. I had to upload them one by one .. Then I wondered if I could have uploaded an archive file of all images in the same manner you can do with a TP photo album (?) Thinking of it, I don't know if there's a way of dowloading all images if ever I move back to MT in a few months..
:/

Macinblog doesn't rely on a specific plugin, it had a little php here and there, but it can live without it. The plugin I will miss is MTBlackList - but it might appear in a future release of TP.

Currently, it's running with standard templates, and styles. I'll convert them to advanced template next week, and see how far you can go that way.

Anyone know if php is supported ? Guess not.

The next step is to support all the old URLs as TP uses a different archiving scheme than Macinblog did. I have a few leads, and will let you know how I worked that one out.

Redirecting your MT permalinks to TP

Good idea, but it from what I understand, the redirection code would need to be inserted in an alternative individual archive. Unfortunately, I haven't found the way to create additional individual archives. Advanced templates lets you create index pages and modules, but not archive templates.. This solution is fine as long as (1) you don't use TP domain mapping, and (2) you haven't closed down your previous account.

I guess I could upload individual .html files with the redirect code in them. I'll try to generate them from my MT system.

16:42: it seems to work fine. The only drag is that you have to upload every file manually through TP file upload dlog box. I tried to archive all files and upload it, but now I have an 'archive.zip' sitting on my server and found no way to delete it. Is there some way to perform basic file management tasks on TP?

Unofficial TypePad Resources

News and tips from TP users for TP users

Official TypePad Resources Weblog

The official Six Apart weblog is a place for development news, tips and tricks, links to TypePad-related and weblogging resources and general information for the TypePad user

Use .htaccess to domain map TP

This is the way to go to rewrite an URL to another, with a fixed path+filename. But this isn't my case. I need to regenerate the filename based on the MTEntryID. I guess I could specify individual rules for each file, but that defeats the whole principle, doesn't it!?

ADC promotes best practices in web development

The Apple Developer Connection has published a technical article on how to follow the W3C recommendations when coding web pages.

The Safari development team at Apple has made a dedicated effort to implement Web standards. This means that the easiest way to ensure optimal rendering of your pages in Safari is by following the standards. Doing so will also guarantee optimal rendering in Mozilla, Opera and Internet Explorer for Macintosh. Of course, each of these browsers has its own minor quirks or legitimate differences of interpretation, so testing your site in all of them is still mandatory.

The article covers DOCTYPE, page layout, XHTML, CSS and Javascript. A number of external links are provided for all these topics.

http://developer.apple.com/internet/bestwebdev.html

Favicons appear in NetNewsWire{Lite}

After Safari, here come the favicons in NetNewsWire. The application searches for the favicon file (favicon.ico) in the same directory than the RSS feed. It doesn't read the x-icon meta tag (yet).

So if you want your icon to show up, make sure it's located at the root of the feed, or add it to your ~/Application Support/NetNewsWire/Favicons/ folder (name it: site_domain_tld.ico as in www_macinblog_com.ico).

Display of title attribute fixed in 10.3.2

Anyone noticed that Safari correctly displays the title attribute in little 'tool tips' text boxes ? (like all the other browsers).

Video iPod

Remember the job opening on Apple's website for engineer to develop iTunes for Windows ? Well, here's one that is looking for,

Title: Playback Firmware Engineer
Req. ID: 2075781
Location: Santa Clara Valley, California
Country: United States

Seeking a highly motivated engineer to develop next generation iPod product. Must have experience in overall system design of audio and video products.

Courtesy MacMinute.

The next generation is on its way..

iFlex

MacMice have done it again. When I received my iSight back in July, I ordered a SightClip for my Studio Display (who actually stuck Apple's stand on their monitor?). Months later, they released the SightFlex, a cool flexible stand for your favourite cam, enabling you to position it exactly where you want, including next to your iChat window!

Now they've announced iFlex, the same model, but for iBook/PowerBook owners. Scheduled for release on Jan 8th, just in time for MWSF.

Enrique, if you're reading this, I wouldn't mind one of these..
;)

Hibernation

Dear Macinblog reader,

You might have noticed that this weblog has been rather quiet lately. I've been rather busy with the launch of two major projects late November and early December. But most of all, I've been thinkg about the reorganisation (reunification?) of my different weblogs under a common structure.

Macinblog turned 1 on Dec 3rd, and attracts a fair amount of regular followers which entices me to continue this low bandwidth newsletter. 2004 will see a new Macinblog integrated under my corporate website. My personal weblogs need to be unified too. I currently run www.davo39.org, and the former www.checkbox.org (MT) and wild.blogs.com (TypePad - check the mobile pix section), and have photo galleries on .Mac (www.roessli.net).

TypePad is a wonderful tool, and I recommended to anyone who doesn't want to be bothered with the installation of MovableType. MT on the other hand is my favourite weblog management system (WMS ?). It's extensibility is unique. I'll talk more about MT's uses on my new weblog next year.

All this to let you know that I haven't given up on you, but just stepped back to give all this a think, in order to address the future more efficently.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and send you all my best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

Thanks for reading.