knilob.com

So, I had a little downtime this afternoon at work waiting for some responses about a project. I figured now would be a good time to try and see if there are any other Applescripts out there for NetNewsWire that would allow me to email an article to someone. The only one I could find that seemed to work was Feed Mailer by LittleAppleScripts. This is a great little Applescript, but it only works with Mail.app. I use Entourage at work, so I wanted something that would work with it. I’m assuming that it’s impossible to implement via Applescript because you would think someone would’ve done so by now.

While I was browsing the Ranchero NNW Scripts page, I found a new listing for a del.icio.us and Cocoalicious tagging script. I’ve been using the older Post to del.icio.us script since I started reading my feeds in NNW and I thought it was OK in it’s functionality. Reading about this new script turned me on to Cocoalicious which is an excellent piece of software all Mac owners should have if they use del.icio.us.

This new script allows you to post tagged items to del.icio.us by going through the Cocoalicious interface instead of popping up a browser window. It saves a few seconds this way, and it also allows you to keep your focus on reading your feeds. Now I can see something I think will be handy, post it del.icio.us and keep going through all of my feeds. This script will even post straight out the News Items list. Those are two huge time savers over the previous script.

I love finding more options within a piece of software I use everyday. This makes my investment in NNW worth so much more. Now, as long as this program keeps up it’s stellar track record, I won’t have to worry too much about this rumor currently making it’s way around the Mac Internets. News Gator better not screw this one up. There will be many Mac Zealots who will be royally pissed off if that happens.

Technorati Tags: Applescript, del.icio.us, NetNewsWire, Ranchero, RSS

I’ve been using NetNewsWire for about four months now to keep track of all of my RSS feeds. Before, I was using Bloglines to keep track of my feeds at home and at work. I always knew NNW could sync up with my Bloglines account, so I thought I would give it a try this morning just to see what the results were. Unfortunately, they weren’t what I was expecting.

I guess it has to do with the Bloglines API and it’s limited functionality for adding feeds and lack of groups support. I like to have all of my feeds neatly sorted into different categories so I can decide what topic I want to read next. In order to keep my Bloglines account updated via NNW, I would have to throw all of my groups out the window. I don’t really think I could read my feeds without them at this stage in the game.

The other feature I disliked is the inability to add feeds from NNW to Bloglines. I would really like to see this implemented (if possible) on the API. There are many times when I’m reading a feed and I get linked to a site that is something I would like to add to my collection of feeds. In order to do this with the NNW/Bloglines setup I’d be required to login in to my Bloglines account. Again, this type of workaround is just something so foreign to me now that I’ve been using NNW exclusively.

In all, I commend Ranchero for adding this functionality to NNW. I know they did the best they could with the Bloglines API in it’s current form. Hopefully there will be some increased functionality added to it by the good folks at Bloglines. I still use my Bloglines account when I’m on the go; I just wish I could keep my feeds updated from NNW in a more comfortable manner.

Technorati Tags: Bloglines, NetNewsWire, RSS, Ranchero

Recently my wife and I remodeled our upstairs to make it a master suite (pictures once we get all of our furniture situated). In the course of moving up stairs, we finally were able to install a TV back in our bedroom. Our other room downstairs didn’t have a cable television feed., My wife wants to be able to watch the shows we record on our ReplayTV on our TV upstairs. For all of you who are married, you know you have to deliver once the wife gets an idea in her head.

So I went about setting up another DVR in a normal fashion. I purchased another ReplayTV to serve the bedroom, and I also went out and bought two Linksys WRT54G wireless routers. I have heard that it’s easy to upgrade the firmware on the WRT54G, so I figured I would be up and running in no time.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. The problem lies with the fact that all of the latest Linksys routers you can buy at your everyday Best Buy or CompUSA are now Version 4. It seems that very few of the third-party firmware developers support Version 4. The only 2 firmware projects that support what I needed (WDS) are HyperWRT and OpenWRT.

HyperWRT is the most similar to the stock Linksys firmware out of these two. It actually has a web based admin page which makes it very easy to configure. I had to search around for some user based scripts to save in the firmware in order to enable WDS. Unfortunately none of those seemed to operate correctly.

The other firmware, OpenWRT, is an entirely Linux command line utiity. I’ve only just dabbled with Terminal in OS X, so my Linux chops are sorely undeveloped. I have to say getting a baptism by fire in command line Linux use is not a way to spend a weekend, unless of course you like torturing yourself. I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning on both Saturday and Sunday poring over OpenWRT documentation trying my damnedest to get the routers to talk to each other.

After fiddling with both routers most of the day on Sunday, I decided that I was just going to reset everything to the default settings and return the routers. I’m going to do what I should of done in the first place when I started the crazy plan, which is buy a Buffalo Airstation WBR2-54GS. It supports WDS right out the box. Sometimes I just have to know when to throw in the towel.

“You win some. You lose some. But you live, you live to fight another day.” - Mr. Jones, Friday

Technorati Tags: Buffalo Technology, HyperWRT, Linksys, Linux, OpenWRT, ReplayTV, WRT54G

For some reason I’m having problems logging on to a couple of different sites from home. I can’t get to BroadbandReports.com or ReplayTV.com. I don’t know if this is an isolated issue, or if it’s some sort Comcast related shenanigans. I could see why Comcast would want to block both of these sites. I just hope that’s not really what’s going on here. I did have a DNS problem a few months back, so maybe that’s cropped up again.

I always think the worst when I can’t get to a site. I wish there were more options for broadband access. Unfortunately there isn’t. The Supreme Court obviously didn’t think it was a good idea to deregulate the cable lines. What do they know anyway. They said it was cool for the Government to seize private property so long as someone had a better use for it.

Technorati Tags: Broadband, Comcast, Supreme Court, ReplayTV

Over the last week, the iPod nano has been a gigantic topic on the Internets. I’m not going to put my 2 cents on if it’s a good move by Apple or not. All I’m going to say is that I’ve already made plans to sell my iPod mini and Shuffle in order to buy a Black nano. Those things are shit hot! It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

P.S. This is also my first post using ecto. I’m trying it out to see if it’s any better than MarsEdit. There are just some weird things MarsEdit does that I don’t like. I figured this was worth a shot.

Technorati Tags: ecto, iPod shuffle, iPod mini, iPod nano, MarsEdit

My wife and I had to finally lay our aging Wintel box to rest about a month ago. I’ve had that machine since 1999, and I have to say it served it’s purpose phenomenally. It was only the last 3 or 4 months where it gave us any trouble at all. I had to reinstall Windows 3 different times. After the 3rd time, I decided it was time to finally make the move to a Mac.

It took us awhile to finally decide which Mac we wanted to buy. In the end, we decided to go with the Mac mini 1.42 Ghz G4. Luckily they had just been “updated”, so we got the Airport and Bluetooth built-in. It was a real hard decision on whether to get the mini or the iMac G5.

I like the power and specs of the iMac, but I didn’t want to get locked into having the screen and machine all-in-one. Plus, the G5 processor has a bit of reduced life expectancy with Apple’s current move towards an all Intel based product line. I know it will take a few years for the transition to be complete, but I’ll be able to make the move to the Intel line of Macs sooner since I bought a mini.

All in all, the Mac mini is a wonderful machine. I would’ve loved to purchase a Dual G5 Power Mac, but for the size, the mini can’t be beat. Out of the box if provides enough juice for most of your basic computing tasks, Internet browsing, email, or word processing. It’s not going to blow you away. I am planning on upgrading the RAM to 1 GB and adding a 7200 RPM Hard Drive. Both of those additions should boost the performance of this machine by about 40%. I am also going to ad an internal DVD burner. I could’ve paid $100 at the start, but I would’ve been stuck with a 4x burner.Installing it myself nets me a 8x burner. That’s worth it in my book.

Mac mini 1.42 Ghz: 8.75/10