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Paul's Time Sink

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Installing XML::Parser on Mac OS X

Paul Westbrook | 20 September, 2006 01:40

I was having a problem installing the XML::Parser perl module on Mac OS X.  The problem is because fink installs the expat library in /sw/lib, where the configuration script is not expecting it.  Also, if the configure script doesn't find it, the user is not promted for the correct location.

This page describes the fix. 

# perl -MCPAN -e'look XML::Parser'
# perl Makefile.PL EXPATLIBPATH=/sw/lib EXPATINCPATH=/sw/include
# make; make test; make install
# exit

The first command downloads and expands the package and opens a shell in the expanded directory.

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Caltrain news rss feed

Paul Westbrook | 20 September, 2006 00:24

RSS seems to be a mechanism that is enabling many types of device to have access to structured data.  This is especially good for mobile phone, where the browser can render the information in a form that is readable on a small screen.

One example of this is the Caltrain news updates.  When I am waiting at the train station, I want an easy way to check the status of the trains.  Caltrain has a web page that displays this information, but they don't have an rss feed.

I wrote a script that parses the html an creates an rss feed.  This is based on the example given on this page.  Here is the resulting rss feed.  (This will be up as long as Caltrain doesn't ask me to take it down.)  There are two things that I want to fix with script:

  1. Not cause the post to be seen as unread when the it runs again.
  2. Add a summary of the body to the rss feed.

 (More)

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Blogging from Google Video

Paul Westbrook | 19 September, 2006 09:25

Just like you can blog from within digg and flickr, it looks like you can blog from within Google Video.  Unfortunately it looks like Google Video only supports hosted blog services like Blogger, LiveJournal, MySpace, and TypePad. 

It would be great if Google supported the standard protocols like MovableType, metaWeblog or Atom.  (I am surprised that they don't support Atom, since Google uses the Atom standard for many of their products.)

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Xtorrent

Paul Westbrook | 17 September, 2006 22:07

A new public beta of Xtorrent has been released.  This looks like a very interesting bittorrent client for Mac OS X.  It has some interesting features:

  • integrated torrent search engine
  • iTunes integration
  • folder monitoring and automatic .torrent downloading

One thing that I would love to see is integration with iSquint or VisualHub to convert videos into iPod compatible format automatically.

[via DWBlog]

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iTV thoughts

Paul Westbrook | 17 September, 2006 16:33

iTVThere has been a lot of talk about the iTV announcement in the past week since the announcement.  I am not that impresses with it.  The functionaly is not any more than FrontRow running on a Mac mini.  Also price is not really a factor when compared to a Mac Mini, since there has to be a Mac running somewhere in the house anyway.  The one thing that the iTV has over the Mac mini, is that it can be silent.  There shouldn't be a need to have a fan in it at all.

There are a few things that I think would make the iTV worth the money.

  1. Be able to "stream" a mounted DVD. - You could insert a DVD into the mac that is not attached to the TV, and this mac would make the DVD volume available over the network.  Then the iTV would be able to play the video content from the shared DVD.
  2. Play purchased content from Apple.  I believe that when Steve Jobs talked about how long a iTunes Store purchaced movie would take to download, he gave the example for a user who had a 6Mbs download speed.  If Apple is assuming broadband speeds of this rate, I think that:
    • Every song and video that you purchase from the iTunes Store should me made available on your iDisk.
    • When you want to view your content, the iTV could access it directly from your iDisk.

    This would mean that you don't need to leave a Mac running when ever you want to view you content.
  3. License Sling Media's playback technology - This would allow the iTV to play content from any video source attached to a Slingbox

[Picture via flickr]

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DIRECTV's reaction to TiVo Series3?

Paul Westbrook | 13 September, 2006 12:02

DIRECTV has started upgrading the DIRECTV HD DVR with TiVo (HR10-250) to version 6.3.  Did this software suddenly become ready, or is DIRECTV feeling the pressure from the TiVo Series3?

[via PVR Wire]

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Annoying iTunes 7 behavior

Paul Westbrook | 13 September, 2006 03:16

I just discovered an annoying behavior in iTunes 7 when attempting to sync a iPod game to an iPod.  After downloading the game, when you sync your iPod you will see a messages with text similar to:

Some of the games in your iTunes library, including the game "Vortex", were not copied to the iPod "Paul's Vide iPod" because you are not authorized to play them on this computer.

Unauthorizedgames
 (More)

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TiVo Series3?

Paul Westbrook | 13 September, 2006 02:49

Since I used to work at TiVo, I am pretty partial to the TiVo service and interface.  Since it seems like DIRECTV is phasing out support for TiVo DVRs, the TiVo Series3 looks like a very good option.  I still have a Series1 that has lifetime service that I can transfer to the Series3.  Here are the pro and cons for switching:
 (More)

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.Mac

Paul Westbrook | 13 September, 2006 01:56

There is a lot of talk about whether .Mac is still relevant and a lot of people are not going to renew.  There is even a viral feedback petition to Apple.  Our .Mac membership doesn't expire until March.  I am not sure if we will renew it.  Some of the features we don't use, while others we do:

Use:

  • Mail/Keychain Sync - Is use this to synchronize my mail settings, keychain between different macs
  • HomePage - This is a very easy way to create a web pages, especially to share movies.  (Google Page Creator may be a reasonable replacement)
  • iDisk - I only use iDisk for storing videos for iDisk.  We could just as easily use our web server with the WebDAV module.
  • Backup - This is an easy way to have automatic offsite incremental backups.  (I think that this alone may justify the membership)

Don't Use:

  • Bookmark Sync - Since I use Firefox, Google Browser Sync is use to synchronize bookmarks.  One reason that this is better that .Mac is that it works cross platform.
  • .Mac mail - Gmail is a better implementation of webmail and POP based mail.
  • Secure iChat - This is not that useful, as it you can only send encrypted messages to other .Mac users
  • s/mime email - Unfortunately most people are not able to verify signatures or encrypt/decrypt messages.
  • iWeb - So far HomePage has worked for us, so I haven't even launched the program.
  • Groups - If we needed to use this, we could use Google Groups.
  • iCards - I believe that you don't need to be a .Mac member to send an iCard.
  • Online iCal - Google Calendar implements online calendars better than .Mac

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iTunes 7

Paul Westbrook | 13 September, 2006 00:46

Apple released iTunes 7 today.  I noticed some interesting things about the new features

  • Gapless Playback - This is intended to mark series of tracks that should be played back without gaps, such as live albums or classical pieces.  The problem is that it appears that it has to open each track to make this determination.  This can be very slow when the tracks are on remote servers, and there doesn't seem to be an option to turn this off
  • Get Album Artwork - This is one feature that I am glad to see built in to iTunes.  I had been using the Album Art Widget to get album art into iTunes.  It is interesting how they implemented this.  It looks like iTunes send the list of albums that are missing artwork to Apple.  I tried this on the Mac mini, which had not been set up with the iTunes Store, and getting Album Artwork required me to log into the iTunes Store.  I am assuming that the way that this works is that the album artwork will be downloaded at some point later, since they don't appear to be adding the at the time the menu item is selected.

Getalbumartwork

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Google Calendar Suggestion

Paul Westbrook | 13 September, 2006 00:10

I wanted to enter our kids' school calendars into a calendar program I can access the calendar at work and at home.  Also this gives us the ability to have access to the calendars from either of our computers.  I decided to enter the calendar into Google Calendar, and it went very smoothly.  I noticed one thing that I would love to see in Google Calendar.

Google Calendar can export a calendar to iCal through an ics file.  Unfortunately the ics file does not include the alarms for events.  This means that iCal, or any devices that sync through iSync, will not alert you for events.  Google Calendar has event notification with SMS messages, but these notifications can cost money, as often there is a charge for receiving text messages.

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PandoraBoy

Paul Westbrook | 11 September, 2006 20:55

Sometimes when I get bored with the music in my iTunes library, I listen to some stations on Pandora's web site.  Even though they have an minimal interface on the web page, the web browser has to remain open to listen to music.

I just saw this post that mentions PandoraBoy.  This is a Mac OS X application that lets you listen to your Pandora stations.  I believe that this is just a web browser that will presents a web page with two frames.  One has the Pandora player, the other has ads for music from Amazon. 
 (More)

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Blogging within flickr

Paul Westbrook | 11 September, 2006 20:28

As you can see from the previous post, you can post directly to your blog from within flickr.  flickr supports many of the standard blogging packages, as well as software supporting Atom, Blogger or metaWeblog APIs.

flickr's implementation of metaWeblog is a lot better than digg's, where flickr actually makes the API calls to get the list of blogs from the blogging software, where digg didn't.  Unfortunatelly, when posting from within flickr, there doesn't seem to be a way to select a category for the post.

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Chicago Skyline

Paul Westbrook | 11 September, 2006 20:11

Suuweeet Home Chicago!
Suuweeet Home Chicago!,
originally uploaded by Flipped Out.
This is my first post from within flickr

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Menu Bar apps

Paul Westbrook | 11 September, 2006 18:11

This page has a list of Mac OS X Menu Bar applications.  (Mirror, if the page is still being dugg.) Those who have seen my computer, know that I have a lot of installed Menu Bar applications that I use to tell the status of my computer.
 (More)

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