rickshangle.com

T-minus however many single-digit hours to the Apple’s “fun” product event, and where is ThinkSecret with the scoop?

Maybe the lawsuits are working.

Well, no matter - because I know what Apple is about to announce.

Do you want me to tell you?

What, you want me to tell you? OK.

It’s not an iTablet (tablet PCs = a solution looking for a problem), or the iPod Video (yawn; my iPod already has video… the IPOD OF MY MIND, that is!).

It’s not a media center Mac (I can hook a 20″ iMac up to a TV (or wait, maybe I can’t) and then spend four hours scrolling through my music collection in Front Row just fine today, thank you…)

Are you sure you want me to tell you what it is?

It’s a 70% price drop in .Mac. Since what could be more fun than Apple bringing the annual price of their Web integration service somewhere in line with market reality…

No, I’m just kidding.

It’s really iDatacenter. 100,000 square feet, every song ever recorded, in your pocket.

It’s a cure for IBS, and it’s called… iIBS. It comes in four flavors - grape, strawberry, lime and IBS-flavored.

rds

HandBrake homepage

Handbrake is a GPL DVD-to-MP5 ripper/converter with one-pass conversion that operates in near-realtime.

I’ve been waiting for this for 5 years.

In the two tests I’ve performed thus far, off VIDEO_TS folders that had already been DeCSSed and were sitting on the hard drive, operation was flawless.

rds

CNN.com - Worm targets Macs via Bluetooth - Feb 21, 2006

Nobody actually believed the hype regarding Apple’s supposed invulnerability to viri, right?

Boot Windows XP on an Intel Duo Core Mac and Make Money

This dude is challenging other dudes to figure out a way to make the Intel-based MacBooks dual-boot OS X and XP. Skin in game. Looking for that one kid who will blow all the other kids away…

rds

These are fun, and you should try them.

Thanks to KNerhood and co for this one.

rds

In the continuing search for a functional, robust, more-or-less-sorta WYSIWYG blog editor, I am now aware (thanks again to Juan) of ecto2.

In-line WSYWIG editing without absurd “preview” pane - check

Easy setup - ehr, sorta. The auto-link to the Wordpress RPC/XML system was incorrect on my system, so I had to FTP into my server, find the file, and edit the path by hand. Dunno yet what the case is on other blogging systems.

Ability to easily embed graphics (currently sitting on my desktop, for example): let’s see.

Oh ecto2 genie, I want a screen dump sitting on my desktop to appear in the blog post: SHAZAM!

Click for larger image.

Ok… I dragged the graphic into the editing pane… will it save? It looks kind of small… ehr, didn’t work on publish. The little graphic shows up way too small, and when I click on it, it takes me to a dead link.

What about this “Amazon” button on my toolbar.

Hey, I like andrew wk… what of it?

“Andrew W.K. - Who Knows? Live 1992-2004″ (Music Video Dist.)

Kind of interesting…

… except now this post is sort of in a no-mans land… and is no longer showing up on the live blog.

Maybe the “send edit” function doesn’t work so well… what if I send the edits as a new post and delete the old one…

Let’s try another “edit”-type save… ok… edit-type saves appear to be a no-go, because the live entry is again missing from the site. at least for me, with wordpress, in my configuration. saving as new, again…

So…

– graphics embedding… not working so well, same as MarsEdit… maybe I should read the manual
– this saving edits as a new post is a BS bug, or some sort of severe mis-configuration on my part (although I don’t see how)

Verdict: won’t be using daily, won’t be buying, until some of these basic things are worked out. Shows promise for the graphically-attuned/lazy.

Other bugs:
— The “Uncategorized” flag seems to get set on publish, no matter how many times I unset it. The only reason it’s not present in this post is because I went into the WP web interface and unset it.

rds

Is Yumi’s in Excelsior, MN.

Go in, ask the Woman to take care of you (after mentioning you know the Guy With the Family and the Other Guy from Washington (the One With the Web Page at Lasershootingrobots.Com), and take yourself to the limit.

Do it now. Well actually, since it’s currently -20 deg F in the Twin Cities at the moment, don’t do it now, but perhaps in summer, on a weeknight. DO IT! do not pass go, do not overlook toro and tiger roll. drink from large bottle of sake. do all these things, for the good of the city.

eat the raw scallop - DO IT!

rds

This is a test. Check-2.

Maybe it wouldn’t be that hard to do… or maybe it sort of is… what’s the problem here…

again…

yeah… it seems like the image-insert-thing isn’t happening with MarsEdit…

And why can’t it really be WYSIWYG? What’s up with this “preview” pane bs?

MarsEdit guy - you’re almost there, son… sorta.

rds

Juan over here made me aware of MarsEdit, a sort of WYSIWYG-ish blog editor that I’m using to create this post. While I can’t say I’m really feeling the power, I can say I’m sorta feelin the power… of it.

OS X only at the moment, but the rest of you can continue to enjoy the standard sub-standard web interfaces to Wordpress and others.

Spell-checking alone is worth the $25.

Not quite sure how to set categories. Maybe that will become apparent soon, later, in the year 9000, or never… ok, soon, in this case. Click “options” and go.

A blow up of the action here, for fun. Bigger, also for fun.

For my next trick, plugging MarsEdit into my ITToolbox Blog, given that the update interface for Movable Type is slightly less enjoyable than an anal probe.

rds

In an episode with high expectations to feature skits starring Scarlett Johansen’s exposed breasts… this episode didn’t let down. Unfortunately, most of these skits weren’t that funny.

Save one, the last skit of the episode. I must be a closeted Jane Austin fan.

Mr. Willoughby has two suits of clothes…

The video.

rds