Ramblings, v.2

I get my car’s windows tinted today! Can’t wait. Appointment is at 1pm. Florida’s max is 28% front sides and 15% rear sides & rear window. I’ve been searching around to see what the various levels look like, and I think I’m going to get as close to 28% all over. I don’t like the stepped look that’s common on vehicles around here, and I don’t need to be pulled over for illegal tint, considering my employer.

In other news, I was one of the thousands of people who lined up in Titusville, FL to see Endeavor off last night. Fail. *sigh*

iPhone Push Notifications need fixing. I have 3 apps that receive push notifications – AIM, Star Defense, and Prowl. I got them in that order. After each one, I noticed that my battery seemed to drain just a bit faster. Now it’s to the point that my phone won’t even last a day with light actual usage. Example: 10% drop in a half hour. Fail. [For those playing the home game, that's 2 - count them - 2 fails for the price of one post!] Turned off Push, and I’m back to reasonable battery usage. Apple: please light a fire under your developers’ & testers’ asses and get 3.1 out (but only if it fixes battery usage with Push).

ross sweet action Apple, audi a4, car, fail, iPhone, nasa, tint, travel

Kinda wish I’d been posting more frequently, but I just haven’t had time. I’ll try to throw up a paragraph about each thing I remember.

• The move happened pretty much as I said it would a few posts back. I got a 16′ Penske truck with a car trailer. The truck was as close to full as I was comfortable with, and there were still a few things left out for the movers to take. Overall, I’d say the Benadryl we gave Kona worked like a charm. It didn’t knock her out, but it did mellow her a bit. She stayed on the floor, between the seats of the truck for the whole drive. Here’s a pic of her passed out on the floor. Awwww.
• I want to SEVERELY MAIM (not kill…then they wouldn’t suffer like I did) whoever decided that the rental truck shouldn’t have cruise control. My right leg kept cramping up, and I’d have to use my left foot on the gas.
• We’re staying in a small (13′x17′) 1-room apartment that was built into half of a small barn. We’ve got a bathroom, a “kitchenette” that can only be called that cause it’s got a mini-fridge and a sink, and a single closet. Oh yeah, and 15′x20′ and 5′x10′ storage units (1 each) about 20 minutes away with all the rest of our earthly belongings. Except the condo. Which we still own & didn’t move. Anyone wanna buy it? Please?
• We figured out early on that we’d have to do some rearranging and significant purchasing of press-board Walmart shelving. I’ve gotten two shelving units, one to make part of my makeshift desk, and one tall unit for the kitchenette. Once we clear out some more boxes, we’ll probably get some more.
• My job is pretty neat, but that’s about all I can say about it. The commute isn’t the greatest (45min-1hr), and the hours are early. I usually get here about 6:45 am so I can get a parking spot, and I don’t leave till 4 pm. Somehow that reminds me that I NEED to make a phonecall today.

That’s it for now. I’ve got my Xbox 360 set up and playable, but I’ve downgraded from 12 feet (projector) to 20 inches (Dell LCD monitor). I needs a new tv.

ross house, mindless prattling jacksonville, jax, kona, moving, travel, videogame, walmart

Ever heard of MacHeist? If you own a Mac (and use OSX on it…creepy people who use windows on a mac), it’d be very penny-wise to become familiar with them. Yesterday, I picked up free copies of DEVONthink, Fresh, and Overflow. It’s also how I got 1Password. I could also get HyperSpace, and I think I’ll grab that in a bit.

I’m gonna dig into Overflow here for a bit – I’m also using Fresh, but I don’t know for how long.

I’ve tried all kinds of application launchers in OSX, and the only third-party solution I’ve liked is Quicksilver. Google it, it’s amazing. If you know what you want, Quicksilver is the quickest way to get it. If you don’t know what you want, you’re stuck digging through your Applications folder. Unless you have Overflow. By default, Overflow sits in your Dock. (For the record, I just typed “taskbar” by mistake. I hate Windows.) My problem is that I have almost too much in my dock already. I’ve also run the hack that makes hidden apps’ dock icons turn slightly transparent. When Overflow isn’t active, it’s technically hidden, so the icon fades. Yarr. So, up to the menu bar it goes, thanks to a built-in option. I also attached Option-Space as a show/hide hotkey (also a built-in option). Then I set about customizing its application lists.

By default, Overflow comes with two groups – Dock Applications and Dock Items. My “Dock Items” section was empty – probably because I only keep applications in my dock. The first group I added is called “Always On” – apps that are always running due to their inherent usefulness but don’t start automatically on boot for whatever reason (Quicksilver, Firefox, Mail, iCal, iTunes, Twitteriffic, Fresh, Address Book, and Skitch). After playing with Overflow a bit, I realized that I was an inadvertent genius in that each group name has an “Open All Items” option in its context menu. So, on boot, once Overflow comes up (auto-start, another built-in option), invoke, right-click on the “Always On” group name, and hit Open All Items. Wait a minute or so for everything to get going, and I’m set. Genius.

I then made groups for the various iLife apps, office apps (both iWork and M$ Office), “Geek” (0xED, BBEdit, Calculator+, iStumbler, Nocturne, RAIDar – for my NAS, Terminal, and WireShark), Developer (most major apps in the /Developer folder when you install Xcode), and Administration (AppZapper, Activity Monitor, Disk Inventory X, Keychain Access, Network Utility, Remote Desktop, System Preferences, System Profiler, Server Admin, and Workgroup Admin). I then realized that I had other apps that I wanted to run that didn’t really fall into those categories. That spawned the “Mostly On” group – 1Password, Cyberduck, Google Earth, Journler, VLC, and a few others. Once I got everything set up (took about 10 minutes to go through all my apps), I removed most apps from my dock – I’m now down to Finder, Dashboard, Quicksilver (it likes to die in Leopard…leaving it in the dock means it’s just a click away from relaunch), Time Machine, System Preferences, and Terminal. With the Recent Apps and Recent Downloads stacks and the Trash, I’m down to 9 items. Handy.

In other news, I’m flying down to Jacksonville, FL next Wednesday night through Saturday. Watch my tweets. I’ll probably forget, but you never know.

ross mindless prattling application launcher, macheist, osx, quicksilver, travel, twitter