March 2011
12 posts
“It’s time to pick up a whiteboard marker and think fresh. There are other...”
– Evan Williams, on his blog.
1 tag
Encrypted backups with Time Machine →
If you wish to keep an offsite Time Machine backup in a place which you don’t consider safe (for me it’s my office: although I’m the only one working there, my collegues could in principle get it when I’m out), then this link is for you. It will drive you through the whole process, from creating the encrypted disk image (to an external USB HD, or someplace else), to the...
Developing an addiction to coffee… →
Also, now added to the places I like to visit, two for joy, in Amsterdam.
New Samsung tablets →
Hey, look who’s here.
And to not illude anyone: coming soon, but not yet, with price to be announced.
Marco.org: Why the Quick Bar ("dickbar") is still... →
marco:
Twitter’s official iPhone app, formerly Loren Brichter’s Tweetie and an otherwise awesome client, got a lot of negative reactions from the recent addition of the Quick Bar, a mandatory trending-topics banner on top of the tweet list. A lot of people really hate it, calling it the “dickbar” and…
I guess that Loren now sees some similarities between atebits acquisition by Twitter...
Just made my best “spaghetti ai frutti di mare” ever.
Del.icio.us
PowerPoint::Mac = buggy.
1 tag
“I hate computers. It’s ironic, because I spend most of my time with them.”
– Thomas Troppenz
1 tag
Papers and the Mac App store
This is kind of a prediction, since at the time I’m writing this, Papers 2.0 is not out yet. But I think it all boils down to the 30% cut they would have to give to Apple.
The advantages of the Mac Apple Store are basically two: visibility and simplicity (to install, pay and upgrade). The disadvantages are that every upgrade has to be review and accepted, and that you lose 30% (well,...
February 2011
4 posts
1 tag
“It’s cold outside… so where’s the global warming?”
– Donald J. Trump. I can’t, really, I can’t actually believe he said that.
1 tag
“Twitterrific is Multi-Platform
Twitterrific is also available for your iPad,...”
– http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific/ I would say multiplatform has a new meaning right now.
“See, I started in this business because this is what I wanted to do. I knew I...”
– William Parish, Meet Joe Black. I guess they didn’t watch the movie at the Huffington Post
January 2011
4 posts
1 tag
Flash
I don’t know if people are supposed to do that, but I calibrate the battery of my laptop every now and then. It’s a simple process that should ensure longer battery life and more accurate percentage indicator.
The battery had 7% left, and the Mac has to sleep automatically for the calibration to work. It was late, I didn’t want to surf the web for 20 minutes or to photoshop...
On the iPad 2.
Everybody these days is chatting about the forthcoming iPad 2. In particular, people are wondering whether it will have a new higher resolution display. There seems to be three classes of people.
The ones who say no.
The ones who say yes, it will have a 2048x1536 screen (four times as many pixels, doubling the pixels in both dimensions)
And finally the ones who say yes, it will have a higher...
December 2010
5 posts
1 tag
Suspend and resume processes
I always searched an easy way to suspend and resume processes (useful to save resources without quitting programs). First, add the following lines in your .profile
pause () { kill -SIGSTOP `pidof "$*"`;}
resume () { kill -SIGCONT `pidof "$*"`;}
then add the following shell script to your PATH
#!/bin/sh
ps axc|awk "{if (\$5==\"$1\") print \$1}"|tr '\n' ' '
and make it executable. To pause a...
1 tag
LaTeX style tips →
Check it out if you use LaTeX. A lot of insightful tips.
3 tags
November 2010
3 posts
5 tags
Illustrator and psfrag
If you have problems with Illustrator and PSfrag, that’s probably because you can’t have psfrag replace tags with more than one character, once you saved the EPS with Illustrator. I think I found the solution, at least using CS5, and if the file is not too complicated. When saving the EPS, choose for Version the Illustrator 3 EPS. In this way you’ll be able to replace tags with...
2 tags
“Art is a generous action—it’s when a human connects to another human and...”
– Seth Godin
October 2010
11 posts
How to update in the Mac app store
I’ve heard many complains about the Mac app store, like: hey, how about update pricing? I mean, do you have to buy it all over again?
But, what about in app purchase? If you have version 3 of transmit, let’s say, to get version 4 you can buy it new (for 30 bucks, for example) or you can do an in app purchase (for a lower price, like 15 bucks). Couldn’t that work?
Long days
The fact that the kids are not sleeping in these days, is stretching the hours in which I can work or read…especially at night :)
5 tags
Pick up the winner
Apple is abandoning Java, Apple is abandoning Flash.
I remember some words of the think different campaign, which fit the situation:
The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them....
4 tags
Deprecated Java →
As I’m reading at Mac Os X hints, it seems that Apple is determined to stop ugly Java in their operating system. While it may seem radical, I couldn’t agree more. They invest a lot of time in creating a beautiful UI, a pleasant to use UX, and then what happens? The user get these Java apps which are careless for the UI, the UX, looking like island of ugliness in a sea of beauty,...
1 tag
3 tags
Convert a searchable pdf in djvu
Well, why would I wanto to do that? Because in general djvu’s take up less space. Anyway, if you have a Mac with macports, issue from the terminal
sudo port install pdf2djvu
and then use it with
pdf2djvu -o name_of_the_file.djvu --monochrome name_of_the_file.pdf
where I used
--monochrome
because I just had a black and white pdf. For more options,
man pdf2djvu
3 tags
Marco actually replied →
Well, I don’t know how he managed to reply to my post, but I’m glad he did.
1 tag
Start Your Presentation With PUNCH →
Nice article by Garry Reynolds on presentation openings. Must read if you care about your audience.
3 tags
A number portability odyssey
Well, long story short, T-Mobile.nl is going to port my mobile number 40 days later than expected. Their fault will cost me some 30 euro. So if you’re going to switch to them, consider losing your mobile number as a better option. After all with email you can notify everyone with a click.
1 tag
Dear Marco..
..I use instapaper every day and tumblr kinda often, but I don’t have enough money to support you by buying instapaper pro. Thanks for making a free version and think it’s cool for cheap ass like me to just us it. Since your great service is for free, I felt like saying thank you was the least I could do.
Giovanni
September 2010
2 posts
Sent from my iPhone
Never thought it would be so nice to use an iPhone. All these webapps are truly amazing.
2 tags
How I write an article →
Very nice article by Shawn. Take home message: re-writing, re-editing. And repeat. Repeat. Repeat. With respect to this, very similar to Gruber’s view on how Apple Rolls. Alas, how I wish I would still write for zeronave..
August 2010
3 posts
Marco.org: A smartphone retrospective →
This is what high-end smartphones looked like in 2007: Smartphones were an established consumer-electronics market with devices that people thought were pretty cool, but often frustrating and with serious shortcomings and design flaws. Then this happened: Other manufacturers had…
LG promises Optimus tablet 'will be better than... →
From Engadget. I guess they speaking about USB ports.
Lessons from the Japanese bath →
Just as the meaning of Japanese cuisine goes far beyond sustenance, the significance of the bath goes far beyond merely washing.
July 2010
6 posts
6 tags
1 tag
7 lessons from the Japanese forest →
Great article from Garr about the lessons we can learn from bamboo. Be sure to check out it’s blog for a lot of other great articles
I use these, what do you use? →
The whole world sets its clock with Greenwich. Greenwich sets its clock with Chuck Norris.