Spanning Sync Public Beta

Spanning Sync has now entered Public Beta (Unfortunately, their servers are being overwhelmed, so they have closed additions to the public beta program temporarily.) 

[via TUAW]

Comment spam in gallery2

I just logged into my account in our installation of gallery2, and I noticed a bunch of comment spam messages.  It took me a while, but I deleted them all (They need to add a way to delete multiple comments at once), and I installed the captcha module.

Now I want to look into installing Bad Behavior for Gallery 2.

Source Trust Prediction

Source Trust Prediction looks like an interesting way to fight spam.  Instead of looking at the contents of the messages, it looks at the ip address of the server sending the mail, and predicts the likelihood that the message is spam.

This should be a faster way to determine that a message is spam, especially since now content filtering really requires OCR to handle the messages where the text is rendered as a graphic.

[via Slashdot]

Transfer Google calendar ownership

I just enabled Calendar for our Google Apps account.  I have been using a Google Calendar account, tied to my gmail address.  Since I only check mail though the Google Apps interface, I wanted to move all of my calendars to the Google Apps domain.

I found a pretty easy way to do this:

1. In the gmail account, share each calendar with the email address that you want to use, with "Make changes AND manage sharing" permission.


2. Now in the account in Google Apps, delete the share with the gmail account.  (This is not strictly necessary, but I didn't want to leave these calendars in the gmail account.)

Unfortunately, you have to manually subscribe to all of the "Other Calendars" that are in the gmail account.

SpotlightFS

Now this is another cool use of MacFUSE.  SpotlightFS is a filesystem that creates smart folders.  You can create a folder with the name of a Spotlight query, and all of the matching files will appear in the folder.  Also, you can use the SmarterFolder to create arbitrary results.

The main difference about SpotlightFS and the Finder's Smart folders, is that the Finder's Smart Folders aren't directories. With SpotlightFS, you can look in these directories through the command line.

[via Unixjunkie Blog]

sshfs

I finally got around to installing MacFUSE and sshfs.  I tried several times to get this to work, but I wasn't able to until I tried this sshfs for Darwin, which is a downloadable binary.  Now I am able to mount remote file systems very easily.

[via TUAW, Download Squad]

UnPlug

UnPlug is a Firefox extension that generates links to download links for embedded video in a web page.

[via macosxhints]

PwdHash

PwdHash is a Firefox extension that will automatically generate a per-site password for web forms.  This is similar to the bookmarklet that I mentioned before, but it returns the same password for sub-domains.

[via BigFatGeek::rants()]

Unit Converter widget

I hardly have an occasion to convert units of area or temperature, but I often need to convert between Hex, Decimal, Octal, Binary and ascii.

This post links to an AppleScript that patches Apple's Unit Converter Widget to do these conversions.

SNL/Steve Jobs on the iPhone

This is pretty funny:

http://www.youtube.com/v/7Kd-beTSdkQ

[via TUAW]

JVC KD-NX5000

One of the problems with after market navigation systems, is that they require an external, often flip out, monitor.  There have been several headunits only available in Europe that integrate a navigation unit into a single-DIN headunit.  For example, the Blaupunkt Travelpilot, and the Harman/Kardon Traffic Pro are mainly available in Europe.

The JVC ND-NX5000 is a single-DIN headunit with navigation.  It has a 40GB drive, where 15 GB is reserved for navigation maps, and the rest is available for audio or video content.  The built-in 3.5" screen can also be used for watching DVDs or other video content on the hard drive.

[via Engadget]

Alpine KCE-300BT

I have mentioned that several car headunits that allow hands-free talking on your cell phone over bluetooth.  These usually were missing some feature that I wanted like, iPod controls, or satellite radio controls.

Now Alpine has announced the KCE-300BT.  This is an Ai-NET component that will connect to any of the newer Ai-NET compatible stereos, and allow you to have hands-free conversations on your Bluetooth cell phone.  The caller id information will appear on the headunit display.

Since most of Alpine's headunits are Ai-NET compatible, this will allow the hands-free functionality, with all of the other extra features that I want.

[via Engadget]

OmniGrowl

OmniGrowl is an framework that allows notifications to be sent for applications that don't natively support Growl.  It also comes with some pretty useful plugins:

• various notifications of iCal appointments


• track changes in iTunes

Some of these are available as separate scripts, but it is nice to have a single place to enable/disable them.

[via TUAW]

My Visited States

I guess I have been to 58% of the states.

create your own visited states map

or check out these Google Hacks.

[via Ramblewords]

iPhone Alternative?

A new line of Linux-based phones is scheduled to be available soon.  The Neo1973 is the first phone from this family of phones.  The GSM phone has a 640x480 touchscreen, and an A-GPS receiver. In addition to the standard applications, you can install new applications using an "application manager" interface.

They are expecting a follow-up model that includes both WiFi and Bluetooth.

I think that something like this has the potential to be a challenger to Apple's iPhone.

[via Razvan Antonescu's link blog]

iPhone

So yesterday Apple announced the iPhone.  Personally, I want this device, but before I would purchase this, I would want some questions answered:

1. How much would the Cingular charge for the data plan?  Potentially this would use a lot of network bandwidth.


2. How usuable is the UI with a the touch screen, especially without feedback?  I didn't like our Philips Pronto as a remote, as you really couldn't use it without looking directly at it.


3. How are the mail account settings configured on the device?  I don't want this device to check all of the mail accounts that I have configured on my Mac, but only a subset.


4. How durable is the screen?  I normally keep my cell phone in my pocket.  Will the screen get scratched?

iTunes Recent Podcast

This post has a interesting AppleScript that makes it easy to find podcats that have been updated in the last n days.

SlingCatcher

It looks like Sling Media will be coming out with a product that I find pretty interesting (And that I mentioned before.)  The SlingCatcher is a device that you connect to a wireless or ethernet network and your TV.  This will display the video that is being "broadcast" by a Slingbox.

I would use something like this to view the TiVo Series3 that is downstairs on our TV in the bedroom (This would allow us to not have to use the horrible UI on the Comcast Motorola DVR.)  I am sure that the and satellite providers aren't going to like this product.

[via Engadget HD]

SPF records for Google Apps

Today I was having a conversation about spf, and it reminded me that I haven't updated my spf record since moving to Google Apps for Your Domain.  Our mail could have been bounced since Google is is not listed as being authorized for sending mail for our domains.

This Google Help page describes what is needed to set this up.

Google Reader Trends

Google has released personalized statistics for Google Reader.  These show interesting information about your subscriptions in your Google Reader account.  Here is the overview from my account:

From your  312 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 11,450 items, starred 18 items, and shared 3 items.

I have some problems about these stats:

• I haven't actually read 11,450 items.  I have marked that number of items as read.
  Ideally, this count would only show the number of items that were actually marked as read.  This wouldn't include when you do "Mark All As Read", and should only include items where they are selected for some period of time, before going to the next item.  (This would approximate the user actually reading the item.)


• The number of starred items is not accurate.  It actually displays the number items that are starred at the end of the 30 day period, that hadn't been starred at the beginning.
  This doesn't include the number of items that were starred, and where the stars were removed.

OpenID for LifeType

A while ago I wrote about OpenID.  I decided to write a plugin for LifeType that would use the LifeType authentication as OpenID authentication.


A little over a week ago, I wrote an OpenID plugin for LifeType.  I have just updated the wiki page.

Disco

I have been playing with the trial of Disco to burn some DVDs of video we took over the holidays.  This is a very simple application to burn CDs and DVDs.  But not only is it easy to use, but it has some pretty powerful features:

• Disc error protection that uses the motion sensor on MacBooks and Mac Book Pros.


• Easily have burn data to multiple discs, when the total data is larger than the capacity of a single disc.

Also, Disco has a lot of eye candy.  The whole app can be translucent.  And when burning a disc, smoke will float from the burning window.

This app is definitely worth the shareware fee.