I just wanted to say "hello" and a big "welcome" to viewers to this blog from the Kaboodle site. Checking my logs, I've seen an influx of new visitors since I reviewed Kaboodle here. Take a look around, and please come back! Hopefully a few of you will be Mac fans, and will find something here to pique your interest. And hey, how about someone Kaboodling this site, and letting me know where to find your page? ;)
For all you Mac-lovers out there...the Mozilla organization released v1.0 of their Camino web browser this past week. The Tech Tails newsletter I receive from Small Dog Electronics does a better job explaining it:
Many of you are probably familiar with Mozilla FireFox. It is one of the best browsers around for Windows, OS X, and Linux. Well, Mozilla also has a browser for OS X only, Camino, which is a bit more lightweight then FireFox.
Camino has been in beta for quite some time. This past week they finally released version 1.0. The new version includes an updated download manager and better built-in ad-blocking. Camino also works with other OS X applications such as Address Book, Keychain, Finder, and Bonjour. Like FireFox, it supports tabbed browsing so you don't need to have ten windows open when you're surfing the web.
Camino is an open source project, meaning users all over the world can work on this project and help make Camino a better web browser. Camino is a universal binary, so it will work nice and fast on the new Intel Macs.
I have been a fan of Randy Cassingham's writing for some time now -- years, in fact. What, you don't know him? You may have run across his work if you ever received an email forward with a list of 'funny lawsuits' or 'really true stories', because the person who sent them to you is sending on, many times without attribution, Randy's work.
The two mailing lists I mention are actually the Stella Awards, for "any wild, outrageous, or ridiculous lawsuits", and This Is True, which "reports on bizarre-but-true news items from legitimate newspapers from around the world (never "tabloids")". Randy is a syndicated Colorado humorist, and his commentaries on this stuff are priceless, as well.
I mention his past work to really push his latest effort, Cranky Customer, True Tales of Customer Service Incompetence. My day job deals with customer service, and if yours does as well, then you know how it is when you try to be the best at dealing with people day in and out, then find awful customer service people dealing with you. We all have horror stories about bad CS reps and companies, don't we? Well, now Mr. Cunningham has taken on the topic with his newest website, and the topics have already been drawing some good responses. Companies that won't stop calling, packaging you can't break into, bad phone etiquette -- you get the picture. Head on over to these sites to enjoy, or signup for the email lists - you won't be disappointed.
This Is True
The TRUE Stella Awards
Cranky Customer
I just had to get my two cents in on all the furor over what was supposedly reported as "the first new virus or trojan horse" to hit the Mac OS X platform. As I suspected, all the alarmists were up in arms about something that turned out to be quite the disappointment for them in the end.
I subscribe to a wonderful email newsletter from a company called Small Dog Electronics, that has supported Macs for many years. I am not associated with them in any way, except as a satisfied customer. Anyhow, the newsletter I want to quote from is called "Kibbles & Bytes #453", and they explain the whole brouhaha better than I could:
Oompa Loompa Trojans?
The blogs were abuzz with news of what some called the first "virus"
for Mac OS X, which masks itself as the latest pictures of the next
version of Mac OS X, Leopard. If you download the file
"lastestpics.tgz" and enter your password to uncompress and run it,
it would attempt to send the file to everyone in your iChat buddy list.
Contrary to some reports, this is not a virus. It requires user
action to download, decompress, and launch the program. I don't know
about you, but I don't think I would ever download a file with the
".tgz" extension. That screams WATCH OUT! You cannot be infected
with this malicious software unless you intentionally download the
file (or get it via email or iChat direct transfer). Then you would
have to double-click on the generic icon to decompress it and then
double-click on the resulting file. Depending on how you have your
system preferences set up, you would probably have to enter your
admin password,too.
You can't "catch" this virus — you have to go through all those
steps. Always remember that it is important to understand what you
are downloading. Be cautious about running applications if you are
unsure of their origins. It is easy to make a file that would erase
your hard drive if you answer "yes" when Mac OS X asks you if you
want to erase your hard drive.
Symantec, which has a vested interest in discovering security issues
so they can sell you some software, has classified this Oompa Loompa
Trojan as a category 1 threat (on at 5-point scale with 5 being the
most serious threat).
I happen to be from a family that really knows how to write. I have a sister who is a published author, and my wife has the next, great romance novel under wraps, and just needs to spill the words out on paper. But, all of us siblings (six total) seem to have been comfortable with writing, whether cards, letters, assignments, or e-mails. I believe that we were all influenced by my mother, who not only liked to write notes, cards and letters (as she still does today), but occasionally kept little travel journals on our family trips. I also claim her as my direct influence on doodling when I talk to someone on the phone. But, I digress.
For those among us who could use a few tips to straighten up our writing style from time to time, I present this wonderful site I came across from a blog called "Whatever". The post is titled, "Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing", and it is excellent. As the author notes, even for-real writers will glean some tips here.
Whatever: Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing
Most of you already know about Flickr, a website where you can create an account and share photos with the world. Well, as you might expect, Flickr has amassed quite a collection of photos over time. What else can you do with these photos besides view them? Play a game with them, of course!
Fastr is a game that bases itself on the fact that, when you save a photo to Flickr, you can also add one or more 'tags' to describe the image, so a picture you upload of your tuxedo cat could be tagged 'cat', 'tux', 'tuxedo cat', 'black and white', etc. In this game, Fastr will present a series of ten photos. Each photo is presented about 5 seconds apart. Your job (after typing a name for yourself), is to enter a guess for what word you think all the images shown were tagged with. If you type a word and it is correct, you get points (from 1 - 10) based on how quickly you identified the tag (got it right after the first photo? 10 points. 2nd photo? 9 points, etc.). If not, type another guess. Keep typing until either all ten photos are shown, or you guess correctly. You'll know when you get it right; you immediately win the points you were entitled to. Then it starts with a new series of photos. You see your score, with other players, on the left of the screen. After a set number of rounds, the game ends, then starts a fresh round and clears the scores.
It took me much longer to describe it here than it takes to just jump in and start playing. Good luck, and have fun! If you see a player called 'Kachup', you're up against me!
Fastr - A Flickr Game
Flickr - Store, Search, Sort and Share Your Photos
Fascinating. Via The Orange County Register, you can take an interactive tour of the apartment home of Walt Disney within Disneyland in California. As you take the tour, Disney historian Tim O'Day shares tidbits of information about select artifacts. Requires Flash 7 player.
Walt Disney's Apartment via The Orange County Register
I just came across Kaboodle this week. It makes use of the idea of "social" sites on the 'net, where not only can you get something out of the site, but you can invite others to share their opinions as well.
With Kaboodle, you add a toolbar to your browser window, with two buttons: Add to Kaboodle , and My Kaboodle. Then you're ready to start Kaboodling! OK, ummm...what's that? OK, check it out...
You're on the web. You come across a page you think is particularly nifty. You click on your 'Add to Kaboodle' button. Kaboodle then creates a sumamry of the page. You can then come back to it at any time by clicking on the 'My Kaboodle' button. Also, at the time the page summary is created, you can add notes. Finally, on the Kaboodle site, there is a Share Page option that allows you to share what pages you're Kaboodling with the world. Then, I could see that page, add my own comments, and so on. That's the "social" part of the process.
My brief run-down doesn't do justice to the nice intro they give to the site. The link below will take you to the 'How It Works' section of the site. Click on the links for how it works step-by-step, and for the FAQ. Happy Kaboodling!
Kaboodle: How It Works
Kaboodle Home Page
