That was easy. Maybe a little… too easy:
I believe there were three clicks involved, but I may have miscounted.
It may have only been two.
Which is awesome, and will be great for ensuring people quickly plug security holes. But you’re really trusting that they have security locked down with the automatic upgrade process itself.
Some applications are revolutionary, changing the way you do your work (or making entirely new kinds of work possible).
Then there are the smaller, less-celebrated applications that just make life a little bit easier. And the thing about them is, when the part of life they make easier is something that comes up a lot, they can actually have an impact that rivals their more heavy-hitting cousins.
Meet NetworkLocation, an OS X (Leopard and Tiger) utility that makes it much, much easier to stay connected when you move around with your Mac. Your wired network at work has different settings from your home wireless network? No problem – NetworkLocation changes IP settings, adjusts the volume, turns Bluetooth on or off, swaps the default printer, and much more… all automatically.
It’s phenomenally useful, affordably-priced ($26 and change in Canuck currency), and very well-supported; when I sent an email question, I not only got the right answer within an hour, but heard back from developer Rick Fillion a few days later to make sure my problem was resolved.
Go. Download. Try. Enjoy.
There’s a new Mac OS X software update available (one that improves Macbook battery life, huzzah!). As always, there are a few simple precautions you can take to ensure a trouble-free installation:
Believe me, Photoshop, you’re amazing. The things you can do with the Curves control, with channels, with compositing, with custom filters… you still take my breath away.
But lately we’ve been getting on each other’s nerves. Come on, admit it: you feel like I don’t appreciate you when I fire up the world’s most comprehensive image editing software just to crop some logo I found on the web. And I feel like you’re being too needy when you demand so much startup time, memory and processor overhead just to adjust the contrast on a photo.
Look, you need to know: there’s… there’s someone else.
Their name? Their name doesn’t matter. What matters is… okay, fine. It’s Snipshot. Are you happy?
Yes, they’re from Vancouver. But that’s not why I’ve been using them.
It’s because Snipshot lets me do the kind of simple, nimble image manipulation I so often need… and do it without opening anything but my browser. Yeah – it’s a web application, and it’s free.
You know what? I can install a little bookmarklet in my browser bar, and any time I’m on a web page with a graphic I want to use, I click on the bookmarklet, select the image and start editing. It’s fast and easy, and free.
Imagine combining that with Flickr. Do you know how liberating that is? Do you know how young and alive that makes me feel?
I’m sorry, that was cruel.
Listen, Snipshot isn’t perfect. For instance, I’d love an easier way of taking screenshots of entire web pages, and while I can use Snipshot with a service like Browsershots, it would be a lot cooler if there was something that could automatically grab whatever was on my clipboard and edit it.
And Snipshot is fast and easy, but nowhere near as smart and sophisticated as you are. I’m not even talking about your filters, type handling, layers, channels and effects – you handle far bigger pictures, with far more file formats, with far more precision than Snipshot could ever hope to. This year, anyways.
So this isn’t goodbye, Photoshop. It’s au revoir. I’ll still be bringing you out for the big and medium-sized jobs all the time. It’s just the little stuff where I’ll be using Snipshot… although granted, it’s little stuff that comes up a whole lot. And that kind of mundane work is beneath a piece of software as big and powerful as you are.
No, I’m not being patronizing. I mean it. We can still be friends, right? Good.
What, right now? Um, actually, now isn’t good for me. I have this little GIF that needs cropping, so I thought I’d, uh, use Snipshot and…
Photoshop? Hello?
Via Jason at Communicopia, news of a new award for those who create open-source software that helps make the world a better place. Introducing the $10,000 Antonio Pizzigati prize for software in the public interest:
The new Antonio Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest will honor individuals who, in the spirit of open source computing, develop outstanding applications that help nonprofits become more effective in their ongoing efforts for social change.
â€Within the world of public interest computing, no significant prize has up to now existed,†said Tides Foundation Director of Philanthropic Services Tod Hill. “The Pizzigati Prize aims to honor people working in the field and help create real solutions for activists working for positive social change.â€
The prize is named for Tony Pizzigati, a promising young activist and software consultant who was killed in a car accident in the spring of 1995.
An announcement of the first winner is slated for later this month, and it will be worth checking out. The advisory panel for the award includes the brilliant Katrin Verclas, Network for Good’s Joseph Mouzon and the E-volve Foundation’s Allison Fine.
We’re trying a new piece of software, BurnoutMenu 2.0, which we hope will be our long-sought-after way of giving iCal a half-decent to-do list.
But this piece of copy on their web site gives me pause:
BurnoutMenu 2 is a complete refit of the original idea. Built from ground up with the users’ demands in mind, it only shares the name, BurnoutMenu, with its predecessor.
Let me suggest a follow-up paragraph:
Whereas BurnoutMenu 1.0 was a Russian-made back-end application for a restaurant that specialized in emergency take-out situations where a home cook had just burned the main course, BurnoutMenu 2.0 is a to-do list.
Yesterday we went to see Wild Safari 3D at the CN IMAX downtown. Lots of fun, the 3D technology actually works (except for the difficulty of keeping a squirmy two-year-old from taking off her glasses), and we’ll leave the unsettling racial politics (the trackers are black, the zoologist/ranger is white) for another post.
Instead, we’ll focus on the closing credits, which include something I’ve never seen before in a movie. Along with exhorting viewers not to buy ivory, and assuring us that no animals were harmed in the movie (tell that to whatever the lions were eating), the credits announced that no pirated software was used to make the movie.
It’s an interesting move, and I wonder why the filmmakers included that announcement. Of all the evils they could have renounced (“No toxic dumping occurred during the making of this film.” “All members of the film crew were paid a living wage.” “This film was not financed by selling crystal meth at daycares.”), why software piracy?
So some questions: is this part of a new campaign where software makers encourage filmmakers to comply with anti-piracy audits? Has anyone seen that disclaimer in a flick before?
And how about the one I’d like to see: “Made entirely using open-source software”?