Finally, the video training product many of us here at CMX have used on the Windows platform is now available on the Mac! 

Camtasia lets you easily create engaging presentations, demos, software tutorials and even marketing videos. If it's on your screen, you can recrod it in action!

I've used Camtasia for Windows for many years and love it. Now that I've recently switched to the Mac platform, I can't wait to add this software. And even better, Techsmith is offering a special promotional price of $99 US. If you're an educator who teaches software to your students, you have to try out Camtasia.

To learn more, check out Techsmith's press release.

Well, it's finally happened.

I just pressed the checkout button at the Apple store and in a few days I will be the proud owner of my very first Macintosh.

I ordered the 15" Macbook Pro with the faster, bigger hard drive.

My old Toshiba doesn't owe me any favors; it's had a hard three year life span - and will probably end up in the hands of my nephew for at least a year, but with the writing I've been doing, having the ability to work with both Mac and PC apps is becoming pretty important. I'll just install a trusty copy of XP on the system so I can still work on both sides of the Force.  ;-)

Can't wait till it gets here.

A web buddy has just hipped me to This.

See that item down in the left corner? Safari now has a shiny new version number, and it works on the PC too. So old Stevie has entered the PC Browser Wars, eh? That should stir the pot a bit.

It's been a full week since returning from Adobe's MAX conference and I think I've finally recovered. Adobe did a nice job taking it over and things were pretty similar to previous years. The venue was beautiful and the evening events were well done. I got to see lots of old friends and made a great deal of new ones. My only real complaint was doing all of my speaking on the final day. I hurriedly talked to a few of you while running from floor to floor, and I have your business cards. But usually I quickly write something on the cards to remember who's who. I didn't have time to do that -- apologies if you asked me to contact you. Please email me a reminder. I couldn't keep up. :)

In my sessions, I promised to put my final MAX sessions up on my site (if you downloaded them from the Adobe attendee resource site, they're markedly different from what I presented). I finally got them online a couple days ago. Download my CSS Session files (as soon as I get my own site completed and changed, the additional demos will be available).

Also, if anyone has any pictures from MiniMAX, will you please email me? I haven't been able to locate any from that night yet.

Next year, if you get the chance, try to make it to a conference. They're well worth it -- not only in how much you can learn, but also in the connections you can make. If MAX is too large and not your style, check out TODCon (it's not just about Dreamweaver).

After only thirteen months my little Airport Express appears to have died.

I loved my Airport, but like so many other people reviewing it on the Apple store, I'm completely gutted by the fact that my £90 investment has bitten the dust after such a short life span.

I am SO disappointed, and don't really know if I want to fork out more money for the same product with perhaps the same defect. This is the first time that I have been disappointed with any Apple product.

Does anyone know of any reliable alternatives to the Airport Express?

I made a discovery today: the Leahy/Langridge image replacement method doesn't work in MacIE when applied to a div. It only works when applied to an element such as h1 or p. When it's applied to a div, the text is not covered up and the background image is cropped horizontally. To work around this, always wrap the text to be replaced in the proper semantic element instead of just plopping it into a div naked (which we should all be doing anyway), then apply the image replacement to the semantic element. I couldn't find any other mentions of this bug out there on the web, so I hope this tip helps you make better use of Leahy/Langridge image replacement.

I've had my computer back long enough now to reliably report that it's been successfully repaired. Yes, I can conclusively say that replacing the topcase (or is it top case) and logic board has fixed all remants of narcolepsy. It hasn't fallen asleep one single time since I got it back last weekend.

For those of you that happen onto this thread (and without a doubt you've got a 1.67GHz PB -- either 15" or 17") and aren't prepared to read the 80 or 90 comments on the previous two threads, here's my recommendation to you:

• Install the little program called Temperature Monitor (it's freeware)
• Set it up to keep the trackpad sensor temperature reading in the menu bar where you can see it at a glance. Also, be sure to set the history to record.
• You can run the hardware test that came on your OSX disk, but it may or may not show anything wrong (if it does, it will likely be related to the logic board)
• You will likely notice that when the trackpad temperature starts to wildly fluctuate, and then goes up into what is equivalent to the 200-something degree farenheit range, your computer goes to black screen. (Some can get it to wake up by jiggling the space bar or the shift key. Others have had to remove the battery.)
• After you hit a phase where the computer will stay awake long enough, go to your system.log. You will see some comments like this:
  
  Jan 23 17:40:06 name-of-computer kernel[0]: Power Management received emergency overtemp signal. Going to sleep.
  
  
• Save this in a text file so that you can show the correlation between the system.log information and the temperature history (which will show a big spike in temp at the exact same time).

When you talk to Apple about it, do not let them tell you they've never heard of it (the low-level person on the phone may not have, but you can get the problem escalated to a PowerBook specialist). Feel free to send them to these threads for proof. The comments of the other two threads are filled with people having the same problem. We can actually help Apple save money by sending them to this information. It has conclusively and repeatedly been shown now that replacing the Mother Board doesn't fix the sleep problem. There's no reason to replace the keyboard, the power supply, airport, wipe the HD and/or reinstall all the software. All those things have been done and none of them help.

All that needs to be replaced is the topcase and, most likely, the logic board (though it seems some may have been fixed with topcase replacement only -- at least they haven't come back here to report problems with that repair).

I had originally thought my Powerbook was from the April batch. But when getting it repaired, I learned it was actually purchased in October, thus it was much newer than I realized. (My problems began in earnest in January when it was three months old.) This problem seems to manifest itself early in the life of these computers.

Good luck to you and happy repairing!

When I last wrote about Apple's switch to Intel, nearly a year ago, I wasn't so sure I saw the benefits.

Today, I do.

That's because today, Apple announced Boot Camp—software which will permit users to easily install Windows XP, and then dual-boot with OS X. Boot Camp will be built into Leopard, the next version of OS X, but a beta version is available for use now (you need an Intel Mac, of course, as well as your own copy of Windows).

Apple's share price rose 7% on the news. As well it should: this is very BIG news, and it's going to result in Apple gaining significant market share, especially in light of Microsoft's recent delay of Vista, the next Windows version.

Apple's release of Boot Camp is a very smart move.

Here's the deal. I love Apple. I've used Apple products since I started using computers (about 14 years). I really don't want to quit (I have a new video iPod, complements of a dear friend of mine, coming this week). But lately, Apple is starting to look, and act like, a big company. That makes me sad. Yes, I want them to make money and stay in business. But good grief, can't we keep the cool things that make them individual as well? The things outside their great usability/advertising?

I've had a problem -- you've seen that if you read my blog. My gorgeous baby (17" 1.67GHz PowerBook) has narcolepsy. The trackpad sensor is screwed. It's whacked. It believes it's freezing and then burning up. Of course, my fingers, since they live there regularly, would know if that were true. It's not. As soon as the temperature (erroneously) hits 220-something farenheit, it goes into auto-sleep. Shut down. Narcolepsy. G'night.

<rant>

Due to that, my sad saga begins. This all began in January. At that time, Apple didn't seem to know what was happening or hot to fix it. I work a ridiculous amount of hours and couldn't afford to send the computer in for 7-14 days and risk it coming back with, "We can't reproduce the problem." There's no WAY I can go back to my Quicksilver. It's nearly 5 years old and way too slow to really get anything done. My 14 year old would also be very, very upset if I kicked him off it. I decided I had to figure out what was wrong myself, share it with Apple and thus, get it fixed when I sent it in.

About a month ago, after much blogging and testing with other people, I finally had it figured out. Anyone with narcolepsy needs a topcase (without a doubt) and most likely a logic board as well. I know what it is; I've documented it; I'm ready to send it to Apple now. But the people at AppleCare made me nervous. It didn't seem they were really listening to, or understanding, what I was saying.

I finally got escalated to a PowerBook specialist (thanks Scott). I emailed my compiled info directly to him so he could attach it to my record and pass it on to the engineers.

The box to send it in for repair arrived. I tried to calculate how I would work without my computer (with 18 web projects happening concurrently) for at least 7-10 days. There never seemed a good time. I kept delaying (and getting more annoyed at my computer). Last week, we had opportunity to go to Chapel Hill. There's an Apple store in Durham.

I call the store and find they repair PowerBooks on site. If you have ProCare ($99 per year) you get the repairs done priority. I buy it.

I have a plan to drop the computer as we arrive into town. They can have the parts ready since I know what I need, and I'll be all set by the time we leave. Cool beans.

Roadblock One: you can't find out what parts are in stock before you're in the store (hello Apple -- what about those of us that don't live in a town where an Apple store will ever exist). I get an idea. I have a box Apple sent me for my warranty repair. If I call AppleCare and tell them I'll be getting it repaired in-store instead of mailing it in, they'll be sure the parts are sent to Durham for me. After all, I'm a good, long-standing client who's purchased numerous Apple products. I have a business to run. Apple wants me to be successful, use their computers, spread the good news, and keep on going. Right? Hmmmmmm... Seems not.

Roadblock Two: The gentleman at AppleCare really didn't seem too concerned that I would be going to the Raleigh-Durham store for repairs. He really had no desire to attempt to do anything outside the ordinary way they're done. Think different? Not here. He didn't escalate my case to someone that could help me. I have him pull my case to prove I know what I need. This might impress him. None of the info I so carefully compiled is appended to my record. I'm told, "There's nowhere to put customer comments. That was just sent to the engineers.")

Steve should know about this

Steve's a cool guy who cares. He would hate the fact that his computers have a defect that is causing his customers to lose productivity and money. I wrote him at all three addresses I could find for him. No, I didn't honestly expect him to read them. But perhaps someone would reply.

They didn't.

So I head to the Durham store. I'm at the mercy of whatever happens to be in stock that day.

I enter the store, fingers crossed, and wait for my pre-booked appointment at the Genius Bar. When they finally get to me, I explain the problem, show him the history on my track pad sensor, give him a print out of the information I'd sent to AppleCare. I explain in detail how I know I need the topcase and logic board. He tells me they still have to test and reproduce. In his defense, he does order the parts for me right then. He says they're usually in by the next day, or at worst, the day after (that would be Thursday, the day we were heading back to Wilmington). I leave my machine.

I get an email from Adobe Wednesday saying that an article I wrote for the Devnet center is going live on Thursday. Now I need access to the original one on my computer so I can compare the edits. I go into the Apple store and ask Justin (a great Apple worker) whether I can get access to my computer if it's not disassembled (it's easy to find -- it has "Talk Nerdy To Me", Creative Commons and Technorati stickers on it). He finds my parts aren't there yet and brings my computer out. I was standing in front of him finding what I needed when my computer kicked into narcolepsy mode. YES! As annoying as it is, I was just thrilled to have him stand there with his mouth open -- and report back to the engineers that he'd seen it with his own eyes. He recommended I call at 11am the next morning since the part shipment would be there by then.

Thursday, 11:00am

I call. My parts are not in. I don't want to leave the computer unless they'll be in the next day. The person on the phone says she'll check. But what she finds is, though there's record of them being ordered, there's not a record made by the Parts Dept as to WHEN they'll be shipped. "They may be in tomorrow. If not, they should be here by Saturday." Well now, that's reassuring. Apple won't ship to you from the store either. So since it's unlikely it will be repaired over the weekend and there's also a day of testing the repair when complete, I take it back home with me.

I might as well have shipped it off to Apple. The purchase of ProCare is worthless in my opinion. If I can't have the part waiting, what good does "priority service" do for me really?

If the part arrives, the saga will continue on Monday. I have a friend that lives in the area who will take my computer back on Monday after her visit here. Then, it appears I'll be driving 2.5 hours each way to pick it up on Wednesday or so. Great service Apple. Let's make it as difficult as possible to get a machine, that has problems I did not cause, fixed. I'm miffed.

</rant>

Due to all the "me too" posts on my original blog post about my Mac's terrible case of narcolepsy, I wanted to see if we could compare some things here (and not lose this in the comments of the previous post). I think I've ruled out anything to do with my power cord (or lack of it).

Question One:

Whether you have a 15" or 17" Powerbook, is your processor a 1.67GHz?

Question Two:

Did you buy your PB closer to the April or August release date?

Question Three:

What Boot ROM Version are you running?

Question Four:

What system version are you at -- and is this an upgrade from what came installed on your computer? Did you notice this problem at a particular upgrade?

Question Five:

If you tap the space bar to wake the computer every time it goes to sleep, will it eventually stay on for an hour or two?

Question Six:

Do you stay on longer after rebooting? And if so, what's an approximate time?

My answers are the following:
17" PB with 1.67GHz processor
April Purchase date
Boot ROM Version: 4.9.1f3
Running System Version: Mac OS X 10.4.3 (8F46) (though based on Eric's report, I'm going to upgrade today). This is an upgrade over what I originally had installed.
Most times I can hit the space bar 8-20 times and it will finally stay on.
If I do not reboot, I definitely get progressively worse over time. The episodes of narcolepsy get closer and closer together. If I start the day with a fresh boot, I can usually get 2-3 hours.

Thanks guys!

I have just spent the good part of two days trying to figure out why my 17" Powerbook (1.67GHz) has narcolepsy. And an annoying couple of days it has been. I've narrowed the problem down finally, but I still have not come up with a solution. I'm blogging here in hopes that someone has either A) seen the solution or B) can answer a couple questions I have that will lead me to it. C'mon Mac-heads, time to step up here! Imagine my surprise when I logged in to find the last post here was Tom Mucks' post on his dead Toshiba laptop. LOL I haven't had trouble with this one at all until this. And no, I don't have Apple Care and it's out of warranty.

Before someone hops into the comments and tells me to:

• Repair permissions
• Zap the PRAM
• Reset the PMU
• Repair permissions
• Boot into single user and run fsck -fy
• Repair permissions
• Create a new user and test while running that
• Check the console.log and system.log

Let me just save you the time and let you know that I've done all that ad nauseum... and none of it works for more than a little bit. However, in doing all that, I found that I do have the error in my system.log that states that the machine has overheated and is being put to sleep. The problem is, after installing Temperature Monitor, and keeping track for a couple days, I found that I don't have an overheating problem at all. What I have is an insanely whacked out Trackpad sensor -- or at least a whacked out reading -- caused by "I don't know what." And that's what I'm determined (hopefully with your help) to find out -- with as little down time as possible. A gurl has to work y'know! (The sensor readings can vary within a two second readout period from -193F to 243F. Likely these are incorrect since I'd either be freezing or burning at either temperature.)

I found two posts (actually more, but two that were somewhat helpful and confirmed my findings) outside the Apple forums. Why am I outside the Apple forums you ask? Well, for one, I found at least three threads there with the same problem -- but no solution. And also, because something is bad wrong with those forums right now and sometimes I have to click and time out five times before a page loads. Forget it. I done quit and gone ta googlin'...

In the first post I found at MacFixItForums, the guy was in Korea and ended up sending in his machine. Apple fixed it and according to him, the way they fixed it was, "Something about two contacts being pressed together under the surface to the left of the trackpad." OK... that's plausible. But I don't really want to take my machine apart to check for such unless that turns out to be the solution with none other.

In the second thread I found, a gentlemen that apparently works on Macs seems to have fixed it another way. He states he "repaired permissions using Terminal and discovered a library widget had the wrong permissions. Once the Widget permissions were fixed, the laptop immediately stopped going to sleep and had been fine ever since." This sounds much more like a solution I would like to try for myself. However, I've not figured out how to use the terminal to repair permissions. I know how to do it using Disk Utility only.

Does anyone have any clues for me? Has this triggered thoughts in your brain you might like to share? Here's hoping...

You've probably read it by now. Internet Explorer for Macintosh is now officially dead -- or will be in three days. There will be no further security or performance updates from Microsoft. I realize with the inattention it's received over the past few years, it's a welcome development for most of us. But in its day, it was da bomb! In fact, I would be bold enough to say that in its day, it was the most advanced browser (thanks to Tantek Celic and his team). It was ahead of the curve. It rocked. IE Mac boasted "the first browser ever to fully support CSS-1, HTML 4.0, PNG 1.0, DOM 1.0 HTML, ECMAScript-262, parts of CSS-2, and most of DOM 1.0 Core & some DOM 2.0."

But with the announcement of no further development, it fell more and more behind until, it is now loved only slightly more than Netscape 4. It has been sad to watch it die. But at this point, I'm happy to have the wake, reminisce for a bit, and move on. Microsoft is suggesting Mac users migrate to a more recent web browser -- like Safari (isn't it shocking they didn't mention Firefox? ;-))

If you need to support IE Mac, and thus check pages in it, make sure you've got a working copy. As of January 31st of 2006, it won't even be available as a download from Mactopia. For now, OS X users (IE 5.2.3) and OS 8 & 9 users (IE 5.1.7) can download their respective copies at the links provided.

And yes, it's certainly a thorn now -- but I do "remember when" ...

He and I have at least two things in common:
1) We both are artists and
2) We both have a young son who has been diagnosed with autism.

Those two things, in and of themselves, probably doesn't seem all that remarkable. Given the statistics I now know about autism, there are probably far too many artists in the world today who have sons or daughters that have been diagnosed with autism. So you may be sitting at your computer right now asking yourself this question: If that's the case, what makes Nic Carcieri so unique that Chris would feel the need to write a blog about him?

Obviously, the fact that we both have very young sons who have austism connects us in a very unique way but that's not why I'm writing about Nic. As my title of this blog says, I've never met Nic before. I've never talked to him before. In fact, just a few short weeks ago, I didn't even know who Nic was - just as I'm sure he didn't know who I was either.

But, being the artist that I am, I happened to be crushing through one of my favorite comic book-related web sites, Digital Webbing when I came across a pencil sketch of this piece of artwork:

Nic posted an open call for any interested artists to submit artwork for a charity book he was creating in order to raise proceeds for the Autism Society of America. Sounds simple enough, right? It was just a small little post on a very popular comic book web site. But this little post demonstrates exactly how powerful, how useful and how incredibly beneficial the web can be - especially when that message is also combined with a personal blog.

Nic was extremely wise to create a blog detailing this very unique project in a blog because now, this project has started to pick up incredible amounts of steam. It's one thing for relatively unknown artists who are looking for any kind of showcase for their talents (and yes, that includes me too) to donate their time and energy, but it's another thing entirely when big names like Tim Sale who hear about this and decide it's such a worthy cause that THEY want to be a part of it too.

Now, for me, the difficult part comes. I already have a rough idea of what I'd like to draw. Being a child of the 70's, I grew up watching Ultraman and another show that was a favorite of my brother's... "Johnny Sokko and his flying robot". So I am thinking about doing a take-off on something like that - along with an illustration of my son in his super hero persona (Doctor Destructo). I'm thinking Doctor Destructo and his crime fighting flying robot... something along those lines. The trouble is, I'm not normally accustomed to drawing "technical things". My comfort level is in drawing human faces - that probably comes from drawing caricatures for so much of my life. Added to that, how do you draw a humorous looking robot and not have people think of the recent computer-animated movie, "Bots"?

And, even though illustrating a mechanical robot of some sort will be a challenge for me, it's nothing compared to the challenges of dealing with autism. Noticed that I haven't used the words "disease" or "suffer" yet? Well, that's because I don't believe autism is a "disease" or that my son Tyler - or any other person who has autism - "suffers" from it. Sometimes the people who care for an individual who has autism - a mom, a dad, a brother, a sister, an aunt or uncle perhaps - sometimes we go through hardships but it's not really that we "suffer" because of Tyler as much as we make very conscious sacrificial choices.

Autism though, can be very hard to deal with sometimes. The mood swings. The stubbornness. The refusal or inability to communicate to and with the outside world... that can be incredibly hard to deal with. Especially since we know so little about autism... where it comes from... why some family members have it and others don't. That's why research - and education - are so very, very important.

And that's exactly why Nic's project is so special too.

Chris

Due to the gazillion hours I spend at my computer, I had begun to develop a little tendonitis in the outer part of my right wrist. I'm certain many of you relate to this all too well. My work area is ergonomically pretty good. I have a actual office desk and chair, my dual monitors are on risers (I'm rather tall and I found myself scrunching down to read everything causing upper back pain), I have a padded mouse pad, and a wrist pad for my keyboard. But still, there was the wrist problem.

I did a little research and finally bit the bullet and purchased an ergonomic Microsoft keyboard (with cordless mouse). After the initial couple days of repeatedly whacking the wrong keys, I adapted and I find it to be a much more comfortable typing position (my wrist seems to be getting better as well which makes my volleyball partners much happier).

After our recent visit from hurricane Ophelia, the power spikes and outages required me to do some computer maintenance to get several programs running again. No problem. I know how to boot into single user mode (I have a dual G4). I can use the console to run the /sbin/fsck -fy command to run directory repairs and such. No, I hadn't done it in a while, but a quick glance at my MacAddict Cheat Sheet gave me the key commands.

Problem was, no matter how many times I started up holding down Cmd-S, I kept getting the Startup Manager -- allowing me to choose a startup volume. But once chosen, I couldn't continue the boot in single user mode. This made no sense. I called a couple friends who are Unix geeks (Tom Pletcher and Andrew Jeffery - thanks guys!) to get their take on it since my main programs were not usable till these repairs were made. We went through the whole scenario together and finally surmised that it might be related to the whole master/slave linking of my two internal drives. I went under the hood and disconnected the slave drive as well as some fun little things like resetting internal memory and such. But nothing worked.

Finally, at my wit's end, I had a brainstorm (isn't that always the time?). Since holding down the Option key is what is supposed to bring up the Startup Manager, could my Microsoft keyboard be confusing my system? (This had not occurred to me before since I am the keyboard command queen. I constantly use the Alt key on this keyboard -- to the left of the space bar -- for the equivalent keyboard shortcuts I would use the Command key on my Apple keyboard for. And that's the same key I had been using here.) After several hours working on the issue, I knew I was clutching at straws, but I was willing to try anything at that point.

I pulled my Apple keyboard out of the box, plugged it in, held down Cmd-S and booted directly into Single User mode. Ack! Hours of wasted time -- due to a foreign keyboard. (Why the same key that maps to the equivalent of Command when doing things like Cmd-Q or Cmd-V maps as Option on startup, I have no clue. These are just the facts as I found them.) If there is another mapping I need to use with the MS keyboard on start up, I don't know it (please leave me a note if you do). But I thought I would get this out into the public arena. Perhaps my frustration won't be wasted if it saves you a little troubleshooting time. Meanwhile -- keep your Apple keyboard close by.

How many fellow mac heads have been frustrated at the difficulty sending HTML email using your mail program? That has been one of the most frustrating issues for me. When I send my invoices, which are created in DW (using a template), I have to open them in a browser and save them as a PDF, then attach to the email. There are other times I would like to send a nice pretty HTML email, but I only have cursory formatting available in Entourage.

Michael Jones, a friend from my rather chatty WebWeavers list, just pointed me to a MacWorld article that contains the answer. You can get the details there, but Rob Buckley created a free Send Complex HTML with Inline Files 2004 that was about as easy to install and use as anything I've done yet. It's a matter of putting the Applescript into your Entourage Script Menu Items folder and then showing the email the path to your HTML file. Voila! Lovely formatted HTML email from OS X! What more could you want? Thanks Rob!

Since "Batman Begins" has been doing so well at the box office of late, it seems sad to mention the recent passing of one of Batman's more popular artist as Jim Aparo - a popular artist during the comic book highs of the 1980's - has recently put down his pencil for the final time.

Although Jim continued to work in comics all the way up until a few short years ago, he probably became best known for his work on "Batman and the Outsiders" - a book which teamed Batman up with five little used DC comic heroes at the time. Although the book never reached the popularity scales as John Byrne and Chris Claremont's X-men or George Perez and Marv Wolfman's Teen Titans did during that same period, it did reach a high point where Batman and the Outsiders took on the Teen Titans in a two issue series. It was during that two issue story that Robin (Dick Grayson) began to break away from the identity of being Batman's kid sidekick and helped propel Robin into more of an individual character like the one created on film by Chris O'Donnell.

Here is a duplication of the promotional piece for the Batman and the Outsider's comic book and a sample of Jim Aparo's style:

http://www.tonyznet.com/nostalgia/nzine3/20-21.jpg

This is what DC Comics had to say in its release:

OUTHINGTON, Conn. - James N. Aparo, an illustrator for DC Comics
for more than 30 years who drew Batman, the Green Arrow and other
action heroes, has died.

Aparo died Tuesday at home after a short illness, said his daughter,
Donna Aparo. He was 72.

Aparo, who grew up in New Britain, brought characters to life in his
home studio in Southington, corresponding with DC Comics through the
mail. He retired about four years ago, his daughter said.

Besides Batman and the Green Arrow, Aparo also did illustrations for
Aquaman, the Brave and the Bold, Phantom Stranger and Spectre.
His big break came in the late 1960s when he was working for
Charlton Press and his editor got a job at DC. The editor, Dick
Giordano, brought Aparo with him to the comic book maker.
In a 2000 interview with Jim Amash for Comic Book Artist, Aparo said
he went to Hartford Art School for a semester, but was mostly self-
taught.

"I just drew as a kid and went with it," he said. "I studied and
copied comic strips and comic books. I grew up with Superman,
Batman, and Captain Marvel. I really liked Captain Marvel Jr. by Mac
Raboy. That was beautiful stuff. I liked Alex Raymond, Milton
Caniff ... all of those guys."

Aparo is survived by his wife, Julieann, and three children.

On another sad note...

It looks as though James Doohan's fight against Alzheimer's disease has ended as well. Scotty, at the age of 85, has finally beamed up for the last time as well.

http://www.imdb.com/news/flash/

For Star Trek fans every where, I am sure this must be a sad, sad day. Just as it must have been when DeForest Kelley passed away.

I was never a huge "dress-myself-up-in-Federation-outfit-and-go-to-Trek-convention" type fan, but I do enjoy the Star Trek universe very much and used to enjoy watching the "classic" Trek episodes every night at midnight in my dorm room in college. And later, along with my wife, we became big Next Generation fans (but I think that had more to do with my wife's affection for bald headed men more so then her fascination with the show). :-)

You think these characters are going to live forever and then suddenly, the human being who portrayed them dies and you are left remembering that they were just characters on film that were portrayed by mortal actors. Of course, Scotty and Bones WILL always live forever on screen... Deforest Kelley and James Doohan may have passed on but they have given us Bones and Scotty to enjoy until the film they live on disintegrates into dust.

Still though, for my money, Scotty will always be defined by three different episodes:

1. His part in the original "The Trouble with Tribbles" episode
2. His part in saving the human race in "The Voyage Home" - I mean seriously... can any Mac enthusiast NOT crack up in laughter as Scotty sits down at an old classic Mac and says "Computer...on..."???!!! :-)
3. And his later appearance in the Next generation episode where he was able to set up a continual transporter beam in order to keep himself alive (although you would think you wouldn't gain any weight or age in a transporter beam loop but that's neither here nor there, right?).

It looks as though it's a sad day indeed.

-Chris

I don't know how many of your tried Grokker in its first permutation (it had to be downloaded and installed and didn't work well for me on the Mac at all), but I got a note this week that they've relaunched. Since all my company just left and I'm exhausted, I thought I'd have a look. I was pretty impressed with the improvements.

I suppose I should have started, for those that don't know, by answering the question, "What the heck is Grokker?" Grokker reminds me a bit of my old favorite search engine, Northern Lights. I loved Northern Lights because it categorized my search results into folders. Thus, if there was a variety of subjects my search words could apply to, I could quickly see them, click the folder for the one closest to what I was looking for and drill down from there. It's a shame they went private.

Anyway, Grokker does similar, by showing the relationships generated by your search. You can customize it, but by default, it will show you orbs and squares inside circles (which represent the sites that fall into those subject/categories), labeled with the category name. You can drill/zoom down into these and see more. Hovering shows you the details of the link you're over. If a page appears in more than one circle, when you hover over it, it will light up in the other circle as well. I realize it's late, I'm tired, and this likely isn't making any sense at all. Hey, it's a visual tool -- have a look at the features yourself.

One of the main things I like now though, is that I don't have to download it as a stand alone. I can now use it on the web. There are advantages to downloading if you decide you really love it. You can share your map with a friend and Grokker will save it more than the 14 days it's saved in the web-based version. The free-standing "for purchase" version is much more full-featured and looks like it would be great for research and serious use, but the online search is excellent for simple searches and checking Grokker out.

I found that on a Mac, since Grokker is Java-based, Safari works very smoothly (Firefox didn't seem to know I had Java). The only negatives to me are, the results are pulled from the Yahoo! Search results (that's probably fine, I just prefer Google), and I can't do a text search for something specific within my results page (since it's a Java visual). But for certain types of searches, this is very cool. If you're a visual person, or doing a good deal of research on a specific subject, you owe it to yourself to view this cool little search tool.

I've needed a few days to try and assimilate Apple's Monday announcement of a switch from PowerPC to Intel processors.

Waiting a few days hasn't helped much.

My initial, gut-reaction assessment was very negative. Why would Apple switch from PowerPC, which has been generally acknowledged to be a superior processor? Why would it inflict the pain of transitioning upon its loyal users?

For kicks, maybe?

It's not the first time Apple has made a major architectural shift. But this seems to be the most random, "for the hell of it" example yet.

I don't know— nor does anyone, really—what Intel will do two years out, vs. IBM. It had better be damned good, to justify all the pain-in-the-ass stuff Mac users are going to have to endure, in order to transition to "MacTel".

Regular readers on this site will know I am a major advocate of OS X, and perhaps an even greater advocate of Linux and open source (Mac and open source are rather closely related, after all).

I hope Steve Jobs has more business acumen than I'm giving him credit for. I also hope that Apple has enough cash on hand to sustain it through two years of slumping sales, as people wait for "Intel Macs".

I myself was in the market for an Apple notebook—I think I may now wait, or, more likely, buy a PC notebook instead.

IF Apple makes it through this transition—and again, I must question the need for this transition in the first place—then good things may yet accrue.

If Joe Six Pack can buy a Mac and also run Windows on that very same Mac, then Apple stands to gain significant market share. However, we don't yet know all the details, or whether this will actually be possible.

Apple has said they won't do anything to prevent people from running Windows on their "MacTel" machines, but it is way too early to tell exactly what the real scenario will be. Apple has also said that OS X will run only on their own (undoubtedly higher-priced) computers; whether or not they will be able to enforce this is very much open to debate. While I love the idea of being able to triple-boot OS X, Windows and Linux on one machine, I think the jury is still out.

Meanwhile, I offer this solace to PPC Mac owners: Debian will continue to work just fine.

You may be more up on newsy items than I, but just in case you're not -- I really enjoyed an article I read today. It was about a security company that has recently switched from PCs to Macs (causing quit an uproar I guess). Now farbeitfrom me to start a flame war. That's not the point here. We have 1 PC and 3 Macs at our house. I have been quite amazed though at what it has taken to keep the PC cleaned up. I've never had to work that hard with my Macs (having used them for about 13 years).

I have two teenage boys that like to surf music and gaming sites. Because of this, we have a tendency to pick up hitchhikers (well, till I figured out how to block and clean them). Both my parents own PCs and neither can figure out how to do even the most basic maintenance. That alone should be a good reason for them to just buy a Mac and be done with it. But I guess they believe that since everyone else owns a PC, they should too.

Anyway, give this installment of the Mad As Hell series a read and see what you think... I liked it. :) Especially coming from a security company ... and mirroring my experience of being a "Ma and Pa" user of the PC. They make some good points.

I really thought we were done with this. At least I thought that larger, more professional sites had changed. Browser sniffing. Locking people out of web sites due to their browser choice. What happened to presenting an unstyled page to those who choose a more current browser? What about screen readers?

Case in point -- National Geographic. As some of you know, I home school my sons. This morning, I was helping the eldest with some Grasslands research for Biology class. I Googled what appeared to be a great link. However, when I hit it, this is what I got:

Your Browser is not supported

The Following Browsers are supported:
Please download one of these free browsers and try again.

Netscape 4
Netscape 6
Internet Explorer 4
Internet Explorer 5
Internet Explorer 5.5
Internet Explorer 6

So rather than telling me my experience would be better if I were using one of these icky browsers, they choose to completely lock me out. Ahhh, but I'm one of those smart web developer types, right? So I just go to my little Web Developer's Toolbar, and I turn off JavaScript. They can't sniff without it! Now I'm all set to read. I refresh my page and voila! I have nothing. I have a completely and totally white page. Okay...

Final ditch effort. View Source. Wow -- the whole, entire, freaking page is loaded with JavaScript. There is no page without it. So they sniff and then they load. If they can't sniff, they don't load anything.

Yes, I have access to a PC. And yes, I went to the page and know that the main portion is an "interactive" map -- albeit a very slow clunky one. I wonder if they actually tested it in Moz-based browsers before they locked everyone except IE and NN out. Perhaps, they could allow the rest of the page to load? Maybe I'd like to see and use the sidebars, even if they've created something in the main area that no browser but IE and NN can handle? That would be swell.