Yearly Archives: 2006

Firefox question for you all

Is there an easy way to get my bookmarks from Firefox into Safari?

Whilst I am in love with the extensibility of Firefox (oh, my beloved spellchecker plugin for one!), I was curious when I read this article. So I nuked the offending icon database (it was 6.8mb :O !), fired up Safari, and am just a little bit shocked by how snappy it feels compared to Firefox.

I’m doing a trial of Safari again (I wish I could remember my reasons for going over to Firefox in the first place) and, whilst I don’t use bookmarks that much any more thanks to RSS, I would like to have those I do use handy in Safari.

So yes, the quick and easy way please. None of this manual faffing around.

And while you’re at it, is there a way I can get the funcionality similar to Spellbound. Other plugins I can live without… With my scattershot approach to typing and spelling, that’s kind of a deal breaker.

Sunday Roast: piracy is our only option

Sorry this is unusually late. I was at a family gathering this weekend and got back to Meadow Towers later than planned. So yes. A shorter one than normal because of tiredness and there being a dearth of interesting things out there this week. These are the few shining lights 🙂

In a staggering vote of support for common sense, the Americans have finally twigged that increased use of tanning beds increases skin cancers. Really, it’s not rocket science. UV rays can trigger skin cancers – this we are all agreed on. Sun beds pump phenomenal quantities of this radiation into your skin at a short distance for a prolonged period of time. In this case, two plus two really DOES equal four. I reckon if someone did a study of the incidence of skin cancer in this country, a huge anomaly would appear in Liverpool, the city where every other shop really is a tanning salon and it costs as little as 10 pence for five minutes! People – stop using sun beds. It’s that easy! You won’t end up with leathery skin when you get older and you might even live to be older!

In what I do hope doesn’t become a weekly series of how most Americans are really rather dumb, I bring you the news that more Americans know who Harry Potter is than Tony Blair. Yup.

Ben over at Open Switch is getting into the flow of his ‘Ask a Minister’ podcasts. This one – are Christians going to Hell? – got me thinking. My own religious journey is a long and tangled one that still isn’t over yet (the map got thrown out the window years back and who knows where I’m gonna end up) and isn’t something I talk about really, faith being an intensely personal thing as far as I am concerned. But just because I don’t talk about it doesn’t mean I don’t think about it. I recommend you have a listen to what Ben has to say – one thing though Ben if you read this – stop saying you aren’t a professional. You’re a minister aren’t you? What more qualifications do you need? You clearly have your head screwed on straight. Take pride in your views and understanding. To butcher a good quote, I might not agree with everything you say, but I like the way you say it 🙂

As I was going through the sites I’d bookmarked for the ‘Roast this week, thinking of how I was going to introduce everything, I came across Liz’s latest and started to giggle – I spent a good deal of time on Saturday night trying to drunkenly explain to relatives why I wanted to work in publishing and make words my living. So when Liz says writing communicates across the world, through time, to people I have never met. It captures ideas, inventions, and information she pretty much hits the nail on the head. Should have taken her to the party, she could have explained for me!

Having grown up in a tourist town myself, the following is freakishly familiar to me. I have fond memories of the time I misdirected a tourist because he was being unusually dumb. I could have sent him up the Tor the nice ‘easy’ route that is designed for the tourists. Even has benches on the way up. No, I sent him up the evil steep way that no one but the sheep normally use. Mwhahahahaahaaaa. So yes, I know exactly what Caryn is talking about!

Imaginary. Mystic. Dwarves. What more could you possibly want?

Junk mail is 37 percent more likely to be opened if it’s sent to a dead person. Only Moose could find a story like this.

I could have done with this last year – a list of people doing research on social network sites.

In a letter of support to the Air-Jaldi Wireless Summit, His Holiness the Dalai Lama says this about the Internet: “the Internet’s contribution to the diffusion and dissemination of knowledge and information is truly remarkable. By itself the Internet cannot feed the poor, defend the oppressed or protect those subject to natural disasters, but by keeping us informed it can allow those of us who have the opportunity to give whatever help we can”.

And to finish off, something insightful from Mike on content versus popularity and all that jazz. Yes, I should come up with a better introduction, but it’s late and I am fresh out of inspiration. Suffice it to say I read this article at work of Friday and it made me think. As ‘what made me think’ is the guiding principle behind the ‘Roast, in it goes.

Enjoy 🙂

Gym Tracking

Weight – same as before.
10 min walk to gym.
3km on cycle = 9.30 min.
1km on rowing = 5.02.9 min.
15 min resistance (mainly arms).
3km cycle again = 9.50 min.
10 min walk home (resisting the temptation to get the bus).
Collapse.

Blog Club – Apple

So it’s time for the second Blog Club. This week’s community is Apple (that’s the computer company, not the fruit). If you can’t remember what Blog Club is all about, go here

Anyone who’s spent any time around me or the blog will know I’m a bit of an Mac fan. Their stuff is just so shiny (in both the literal and the Firefly meanings of the word). I got an iPod back when they were still so cool they were sub-zero – my brother got one of the very first ones that had square corners, click buttons, and a perspex top (very funky looking) and I got one of the second gen ones that looks more ‘iPoddy’ with the smooth corners etc, but has the buttons in a separate row above the scroll wheel. I love my iPod and wouldn’t be without it and, even three(four/five – I’ve lost count) years on and two car crashes later it’s doing beautifully. The battery still holds enough juice for a transatlantic flight (plus airports at both ends)… And ok, I’ll stop now. I do love my iPod (though I am starting to consider getting a newer, sexier, video version.)

I also own a titanium 12″ PowerBook G4, lovingly named the PocketCalculator for it’s teeny size. I’ve had that three, nearly four, years now as well and again I wouldn’t be without it (though it is partly responsible for my RSI – tip to anyone pondering one of the smaller MacBooks – get full sized keyboard if you plan to do lots of typing). You’d have to pay me serious amounts of money to run a PC as my home computer again.

I expect I’d own lots more Apple stuff if it wasn’t so frelling expensive.

Why do I love Apple’s so much? Apart from the fact they are just so pretty it would have to be because they just work. Yes, things go a little odd from time to time, but a lot less than PCs do. Most days at work I have to restart my computer three or four times due to inexplicable system crashes. The Mac? Once every couple of weeks, if that.

I also find them so much simpler to use than Windows computers. Switching from Windows to Mac was a bit of a learning curve, I will admit. Three years on I am still learning the best way of doing things but that is because I am having to unlearn a decade of Windows. Three years to learn how to use something… That doesn’t sound too easy, does it? And it’s not just me – on the odd occasions Moose uses the PocketCalculator it takes her a few tries to do things sometimes. Ditto my father.

So why do I say it’s ‘easy’? Because really it is. If you don’t have to unlearn Windows then you are laughing. We got my mother a MacMini for her birthday last year and, let me stress this, it is the first computer she has ever owned or used. Strange that she should have two such tech-minded offspring and such a gadget-freak of a husband and remain innocent, but it happened. Within a very short space of time, Mum was able to email, find things she wanted on the Internet, and download her pictures from her new digital camera. So those aren’t the sexiest or most complicated things to do on a computer, but it’s all she wants to do, and she can do them. I don’t have to explain why she has to click on the ‘Start’ icon to turn her computer off. I don’t have to explain double clicking. I don’t have to worry about her getting some malicious virus and unwittingly passing it on to everyone in her address book. I don’t have to explain file structures to her – all her pictures are stored behind the scenes by iPhoto; all her emails in Mail. All the programs she wants to use she loads quickly and easily from the dock. So when she calls me up for help as she does sometimes she will say “I clicked on the stamp picture on the bar at the bottom – that’s how I get my email right?” but that’s OK. She doesn’t need to know the program is called ‘Mail’. It’s friendly, it’s pretty, it’s straight forward, and she’s even once or twice braved the help option and found the answer to her question.

Tell me this – would YOUR computer illiterate Mum be able to use the Windows help option and find the answer? Hell, *I* can’t use the Windows help option and find the answer half the time!

So there you have it. I’m meant to be talking about the Apple Community and I go off on one about my Apple experiences. Yes, there are some downsides to Macs (price, the rapidity that an OS becomes obsolete, less things compatible with it – e.g., webcams! etc) but… I don’t care. I’m a Mac Fan-Girl and I expect I always will be.

Before I let you go, here’s what I was meant to be talking about – the Apple community blogs and a few posts I found interesting:

Paul Stamatiou – now, I should point you to one particular post on Paul’s site, but picking just one is impossible. Regular Sunday Roast readers will probably be familiar with Paul’s site already because I do tend to link to his stuff with monotonous regularity. Um, what else to say? He’s freakishly talented, I’m more than a little jealous, and… Yup, that about covers it 😀

SchwarzTech reviews lots of stuff. Again, I couldn’t pick just one post to link to. I daren’t read this site on a regular basis because I just find myself drooling over the pretties that I can’t afford. Every now and then though, when I can’t resist a little fantasy shop, I pop on over because I trust their reviews of things.

All you Firefox for Mac users out there will have noticed that the default theme is, well, ugly, and just doesn’t fit with the essential prettiness of Macs. I thought I had it fixed with the ‘brushed’ theme, then I read this article and found the ‘GrApple’ theme. So much better!

So not technically a post about Apple, this post from the uber geeks (in the Apple community) is a pet peeve of mine, so in to the list it goes 😀

Last but by no means least, we have ‘The Apple Blog’ and their round-up of free web design tools. Invaluable.

Enjoy, I know I do 🙂

blog club, blog_club, 9rules, apple, mac