Software
NetNewsWire loves Google Reader
I've wanted a desktop client that syncs with Google Reader for a long time and I'm glad that Brent Simmons is developing it:
The public beta of NetNewsWire 3.2b6 is on nnwbeta.com. Includes Google Reader syncing, send to Instapaper, and a new app icon.
Via inessential.com
Code Sorcery releases Pukka 1.8
Congrats to Code Sorcery on the release of Pukka 1.8. One of the major new features is search and although I haven't tried it yet, it looks pretty cool.
To-do list programs for Linux
Nice to see some coverage for Linux to-do list apps
Getting things done with Linux to-do list programs Via Ars Technica
Path Finder 5.0
Cocoatech's Path Finder hits version 5.0. It's by far the best replacement I've seen for Apple's Finder. Too bad this one's for Mac OS 10.5+ only...
Path Finder 5.0 is available, more file-management power Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
Gmail's Advanced IMAP Controls
Great feature released by the Gmail team a few weeks back. Now there's finally a way to get rid of that pesky All Mail folder in Apple Mail! Note that you have to enable the feature in the Settings > Labs tab in your account.
81.5 percent spam?!
According to an article on Ars Technica,
Spam accounted for 81.5 percent of all the e-mails sent in June, according to MessageLabs. In the US, Illinois was the most-spammed state, with 92.1 percent of all e-mails considered spam.
That’s a crazy amounts of spam. Catch the full article here.
Extra description?
Hm, where’s the extra description?
[wp_caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“408” caption=“getBundle.png”]
[/wp_caption]
Got this in TextMate when choosing ‘Show Bundles on Repository’ in the GetBundle bundle.
LinkedIn Engineer perks
Wow, I'm soo browsing the LinkedIn job board:
A new engineer that comes in gets a new MacPro with dual quad-core CPUs and 12GB of ram and a MacBook Pro. The down side of the whole deal is that you have to choose between two 23" or one 30" Apple Cinema display.
Via the LinkedIn blog
Most lucrative college major? Computer Engineering
According to an article on Yahoo! Canada Personal Finance:
The most lucrative college major today: computer engineering
It's interesting that the term Computer Engineering means different things to different people. Some people think it's some kind of new area of study whereas others simply dismiss it as a fancy term for Computer Science graduates.
Having studied Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto (arguably the best place to study the subject in Canada), I know Computer Engineering to be a mixture of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Computer Engineers not only know how to design and develop software but also the machines used by the software.
If you're looking for a big paycheque straight out of school, think about an engineering degree. The four highest paid majors for people with less than five years experience were all engineering-based, with computer engineering leading the way.
Check out the full article here
NetNewsWire, FeedDemon and more, officially free!
I remember reading this in FeedReader at work and at first I was in denial but after reading the post more calmly, I realized it was true! Brent Simmons, the author of the very popular Mac RSS reader NetNewsWire announced on his blog that all NetNewsWire, FeedDemon, Newsgator Inbox and NewsGator Go! are now free. That’s right, free. For those aware of the popularity of NetNewsWire in the Mac software community, it’s rather shocking that one of the most successful indie Mac applications is going this route.
The announcement makes me glad that I didn’t purchase NetNewsWire even though its synchronization feature made me think twice about using NewsFire (which I did purchase).
Check out the official Newsgator Inc. press release here.
By the way, in case you’re wondering, I find NetNewsWire to be way more pleasurable to use than FeedDemon. Macs rock.
Code culture at Google Inc.
In his post over at the Google blog, Reza Behforooz, a Software Engineer at Google states how how easy it was for him to contribute to the GMail code base even though he doesn't work on the GMail team:
In my first month at Google, I complained to a friend on the Gmail team about a couple of small things that I disliked about Gmail. I expected him to point me to the bug database. But he told me to fix it myself, pointing me to a document on how to bring up the Gmail development environment on my workstation. The next day my code was reviewed by Gmail engineers, and then I submitted it. A week later, my change was live. I was amazed by the freedom to work across teams, the ability to check in code to another project, the trust in engineers to work on the right thing, and the excitement and speed of getting things done for our users. Engineers across our offices (and across projects) have access to the same code; I didn't have to ask for anyone's permission to work on this.
If this post came out of a small software company, I wouldn't be surprised at all, but coming out of Google, one of the hottest software companies in the world, it's pretty cool. The author goes on to mention his work in other software projects at Google and it's worth a read. Check out the whole post at "Crossing team and global boundaries"
(Via Google Blog.)
Err the Blog cheat sheets
Err the Blog has quite a few application and programming-specific cheat sheets that may come in handy for some of you.
There are cheat sheets on bash, capistrano, chmod, curl, e (text-editor), emacs, markaby (I want to give that gem a go), markdown, radrails_ruby, regexp, textmate_rails and many, many more.
Check out the complete list of sheets at Cheat Sheets
More on Windows Vista
In Even the Office 2007 box has a learning curve, Joel Spolsky writes:
I've been using Vista on my home laptop since it shipped, and can say with some conviction that nobody should be using it as their primary operating system -- it simply has no redeeming merits to overcome the compatibility headaches it causes. Whenever anyone asks, my advice is to stay with Windows XP (and to purchase new systems with XP preinstalled).
(Via Joel on Software)
I’ve been thinking about building/buying a new PC and comments like one the above make me think twice about embracing Vista.
Disco. Groovy CD/DVD application
Below is Disco burning a disc.
Intrigued? Well, read on.
Once in a while a program comes along that makes you feel good about doing pretty mundane tasks on your computer. It’s a good thing that such programs are in abundance on the Mac scene. Today I’d like to highlight a recent purchase of mine, a CD/DVD burning program called Disco.
On the surface, Disco is a disc burning/imaging application but don’t let such a simple description fool you. Not only does Disco ooze with style, it comes with excellent features such as Discography and Spandex. Since I like those two features the most (barring the Smoke feature), I’ll give you a brief run-down of what they are.
Discography: It’s simple, all it does is keep track of all the files you’ve burned on a disc (or archived in a disc image) by creating a local searchable index. This prevents you from going through your discs one by one trying for example to figure out which disc you backed up that beautiful sunset photograph on. Obvious, but powerful.
Spandex: If you’ve for example got a whole slew of photos lying around on your Mac from that nature photography course you took and they don’t fit on a single disc, Disco calculates how many discs you need prior to starting the authoring process (Disco assumes you’re going to be using one type of media). This allows you to gather the number of suggested discs or remove some photos to ensure all of them fit on a single disc. Subtle but thoughtful.
The user interface (UI) is pretty slick although it’s pretty out-of-sync with most Mac applications I’ve seen. Furthermore, the UI progresses with a series of choices…kinda hard to explain, but it’s something I’m not really that used to and I think it’s going to take a while before I start feeling more comfortable with it.
So, there you have it. Disco.
I purchased TextMate!
After much mulling over, I decided to go ahead and purchase TextMate.
In essence, TextMate is just a text-editing application. At least that’s what someone might say if you asked for a one-line summary of what it is. However, that wouldn’t do justice to what TextMate really is. It’s one of the best text-editors I’ve ever used.
Not only is it stylish and beautiful (I’m getting used to that being on a Mac), it’s also got amazing features. At first, I thought it was a pretty standard little program, way too basic for the huge 39 Euros price tag (that’s around $60 CDN for those keeping score at home) but as I used it more and more, I realized how easy it makes my day-to-day programming. With snippets galore, it’s even got a database viewer along with tons and tons of great features like HTML and CSS validation just to scratch the surface. The application was so well-received that it even won ‘Best Mac OS X Developer Tool’ at the Apple Design Awards in 2006.
For those curious about what day-to-day programming I’m taking about, I’m referring to occasional Ruby on Rails programming. Ruby’s an amazing programming language and Rails is simply an awesome web-application framework. TextMate works very well with Ruby on Rails, with many big-name Rails programmers openly using it. It might also be one of the reasons I love Ruby on Rails so much!
I’m probably going to have a lot more to say about TextMate in the near future as I get more and more familiar with its features. One of the many things I might touch on is the ‘bundle’ concept whereby the application can be extended to cover different languages and frameworks.
Check out some of the TextMate screencasts to get an idea what this superb application is capable of.