East of the Sun, West of the Moon

Through a Mac-using friend of M I got some more application-recommendations, which I’m checking out now, slowly but surely.

Yesterday I experimented with iTerm, a Terminal.app replacement.

I like the idea, but it seems to have some problems with my keyboard. Maybe it makes incorrect assumptions about the keyboard-mapping, I don’t know. Also, while I like the idea of bookmarks and would love to have tabs of sessions, it doesn’t seem to be much faster, if at all, nor does the memory usage look any better. The ability to apply Apple script is certainly pleasant, though. I’ll test it some more tonight, to see if I can figure out why it didn’t like my non-Apple keyboard.

The untested recommendations are:

• MacTheRipper
• Menu Meters
• OnyX
• Fugu, an ssh/scp/sftp graphical client.
• Subethaedit
• Quicksilver

If someone knows something negative/positive about these (I know you’re reading this, Josh ), don’t hesitate to comment. Especially negative things are good to know in advance, before spending too much time on a new application. Time = money, after all.

With a bit of luck M‘s Mac Mini will arrive today. FedEx tried already this morning but as I didn’t expect it before Saturday at the earliest, I was unprepared and didn’t get to the door in time. I expect they’ll try again this afternoon and this time my signature is ready and waiting.

In partially related news, I’m trying Sizzling Keys for iTunes now so that I can play/pause (and a few other things) without switching to the right virtual desktop or reaching for the mouse (and then right/option-click on the dock icon and another click elsewhere, at minimum). Handy when you get an incoming phonecall, for instance!

I installed the NewNewsWire 2.0 beta and doubt I’ll go back to NNW Lite after the trial period is over. In particular the Combined View layout is just right for how I’d like to read my news, glance over the subjects and their content, and hit the spacebar repeatly going through it, hitting return on the ones that sound interesting enough to read the entire article and then after I’ve gone through it, check the tabs with those articles, closing them as I go along, which can be done almost 100% with the keyboard as well. My wrists thank them kindly.

So that’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m not entirely amused with iSync’s support for the Palm’s To Do lists, in that it lacks support for the categories that you can use on the Palm and the work-around suggestion is quite ugly. The same thing applies to the addressbook (I use categories to separate work addresses from ones from family, friends, services, etc), where a similar workaround may be possible (I haven’t tested it yet) but really shouldn’t be necessary.

I really want to use the sync-between-Palm-and-cellphone part of the deal, but am definitely unhappy about the lack in support there. I might give in some more and mourn the loss of categories, or I may give up on iSync for that part and merely use it to more easily maintain the phonebook in my cellphone, at least. We’ll see.

Ok, that’s it. For the past 2-3 years I’ve been using a Palm m105. Works fine, still does. Sadly it has the downside of (by default) only having a serial connection.

So while moving more and more things to the new Mac Mini, this too had to be solved. One option is to get a Palm Connect Kit of sorts. Of course you’re still stuck with the relatively slow serial speed and an aging m105. Hrm. The alternative, pointed out by Josh, is to buy a (refurbished, or Open Box as they call it) Palm Zire 21 which comes with USB by default and has a built-in rechargeable battery while the m105 requires a neverending supply of AA batteries which always crap out at the most inconvenient moment.

So while debating my options there, I was reminded of the data-cable I bought for my Motorola cellphone (a 120e model) which was supposed to enable me to first of all edit the phonebook in more convenient circumstances and second of all keep a backup copy around, should something horrible happen and I need to recreate the phonebook. This was supposed to work with Win98 but I never got it to work. After wasting an evening on it I figured that had cost me enough time & money and put it aside.

That was then, OS X is now… I dug up the data-cable, plugged it in, fired up iSync, asked it to look for new devices and it almost instantly told me what model I had (correctly, fortunately) and syncing worked flawlessly! Bliss.

Adding to the bliss is the fact that the Palm Zire (with USB) should also work without much (if any) trouble after dropping in the right plugin. Then I can keep my collection of names & numbers in one place (the Phonebook application) and sync it to both the Palm and the cellphone. Yay!

Palm Zire(s) ordered, additional data cable ordered, waiting impatiently to upgrade how I use these devices… soon.

To get the tabbing behaviour under OS X correct for both Firefox and Safari, do this:

• For Safari and general OS X form-like elements:
  System Preferences — Keyboard & Mouse — Keyboard Shortcuts — Select Turn on full keyboard access
• Firefox (and I suspect other Mozilla-derived browsers also, as far as they exist for OS X):
  Open a tab with about:config, in the Filter field enter tabfocus which should bring up the accessibility.tabfocus entry. Change its value to 7; Restart Firefox; Enjoy. The value 7 is explained in MozillaZine Knowledge Base.