The Author – Bart Busschots
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Oct
19
A Little Chuckle at Microsoft’s Expense
Filed Under Computers & Tech | 1 Comment
I just couldn’t help but laugh when I read a report on the release of IE7 on Yahoo News. MS have decided to distribute IE7 to XP users via Microsoft Update as a security patch! Never a truer word said!
[tags]IE7, MicroSoft[/tags]
Oct
12
Comet SWAN Observed
Filed Under Science & Astronomy | 1 Comment
That’s two clear nights in a row! I’m just in the door after another very successful observing session but unlike yesterday this one was not form the darkness of rural Ireland but from the light-polluted suburbs of Dublin (Maynooth to be precise). My target for today was the comet SWAN and also to try to track down M92 which I’d missed yesterday.
[tags]SWAN, Comet[/tags]
Oct
11
Uranus and Neptune Observed
Filed Under Science & Astronomy | Leave a Comment
I’m just in from a very productive observing session. Tonight was the first time in a long time that I’ve been in the country side (at my parent’s place in Cavan) on a clear moon-free night. I’ve just come in now because the moon is starting to rise but before the sky started to brighten too much I was able to get some good observing in. I had set myself the challenge of finding Uranus since I said it would be easy on the IFAS Podcast and then, if I had time, I was going to try to find Neptune as well.
[tags]Uranus, Neptune[/tags]
Oct
9
CodeWeavers recently sent round a mailing about the release of the second beta version of CrossOver Mac. I didn’t have time to play with it straight away but over the weekend I gave it a go. The upgrade was not problem free but it did fix one of my problems with CrossOver, IE now seems to work properly.
[tags]Apple, CrossOver, CrossOverMac, OS X, IE[/tags]
Oct
8
FireFox Extension for Managing Proxies
Filed Under Computers & Tech | 4 Comments
If you use a laptop and you move around between multiple networks you’ll probably tire very quickly of FireFox not allowing you to store multiple proxy configurations. I have to use different proxy settings at work and at home so I set about to look for a nice proxy switching extension for FireFox. There are a few different extensions out there and after playing with the most promising looking ones I’ve come to the conclusion that the best one for me is SwitchProxy Tool.
[tags]FireFox, Proxy[/tags]
Oct
3
Creating an OS X Application from a Java JAR
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development | 8 Comments
On OS X you can run a JARed Java App by simply double clicking the .jar file. This works but it has a few downsides. For a start you can’t keep the app in your dock so you can launch it easily and you also can’t easily launch it with things like HimmelBar. Secondly it will always have the Java JAR icon and if you’re running a few Java JARs this can get very confusing. What you really want is the same Java App but wrapped inside an OS X App. Examples of this would be the OS X version of jEdit. If you have the Developer Tools (XCode) installed on OS X this is trivial to do. If you don’t have the developer tools installed you’ll find and installer for them on your OS X DVD.
[tags]OS X, Java, Application[/tags] Read more
Sep
29
RedHat Need to Learn Some Common Sense
Filed Under Computers & Tech, System Administration | 5 Comments
I’ll hold my hands up now and say this will be a rant post. I’m annoyed. I’ve just wasted and entire afternoon at work because of pure and utter idiocy by the RedHat people. I don’t suffer fools well so that also adds to my annoyance 🙂 Read more
Sep
25
The Easy Way To Join PDFs on OS X
Filed Under Computers & Tech | 8 Comments
Something you have to do from time to time is assemble a PDF out of pages from other PDFs or images. I had to do this today. I was writing a report in Open Office. I exported the report to PDF to send it but then wanted to attach a few appendices to that PDF file so I would only have to email one file rather than a collection of files. TBH I expected to be able to do this kind of thing very easily with Preview by just dragging and dropping things around but no, not happening. So, off to Google I went and I found a simply excellent freeware App that lets you do this in a really simple and easy way.
[tags]OS X, PDF, Freeware[/tags] Read more
Sep
16
This is a follow-on to the article iTunes 7 – Not The Success It Could and SHOULD Have Been
I’ve spent quite a big of time trying to solve my iTunes 7 problems and a lot of time on the Apple discussion boards and I’ve now got solutions to most (obviously no movement on the reverse-sync thing).
First, an update on album art which is a reply to Des’ comment that they have too few covers. They seem to have added many more over the last day or so, because I just got covers for about 20 albums which they didn’t have covers for on the first day iTunes 7 came out.
Now, on to the meat and bones, my most serious problem, not being able to download my purchased items, has been solved. Though not by Apple support. As well as lodging a support call I also started a thread on their forms and that’s where the solution came from: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=643636&tstart=0. I did get a response from Apple but it was massively disappointing. It was a stock answer that simply ignored the information I had given in my message to them pointing out that I had already tried what they just gave me as a ‘solution’. They got a very grumpy reply from me!
Next, onto not being able to move items from Music to Audiobooks. I mentioned that I had tried iTunify and that it had not worked. Well it had sort of worked. What the program did not tell you what that you have to remove the items from your library (being sure to click ‘keep files’ when asked) and then re-add them. When you re-add them they will go into the right place. Again this solution is courtesy of the Apple forums: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=640125&tstart=0
Just one more follow-up, my problems with iTunes 7 constantly re-starting itself when I closed it have not come back. I guess it was just a glitch that was sorted out by a reboot (how Windows like!).
Although my big problems with iTunes 7 have now been solved I shouldn’t have to spend hours getting up and going when I update a program. Apple took their eye off the ball on this one. Lets hope this is not the way things will be from now on with Apple software updates.
[tags]iTunes, iTunes 7, Apple, Audiobooks[/tags]
Sep
15
The recent Apple event to launch the new iPods, and new iTunes & store, was up to Apple's normal high standard. It all looked great and Steve even managed to get not just one but two "oh and one more thing …" bits in (obviously making up for not including one at the WWDC this year). Also, for the first time in my life I'm actaully tempted by an iPod Shuffle! The preview of iTV also looked very interesting, though in this neck of the woods ITV means something else!
Upon installing iTunes7 my first impressions were also very good. Sure, I think the new blue logo is a step backwards, and the new colour scheme has gone a bit too goth for my tastes, but no one can deny that the new interface is very slick. The promise of reverse-syncing also appealed to me. But then it all just went a bit pear-shaped!
[tags]iTunes, iTunes 7, Apple[/tags] Read more