Overseas Chinese Web Guide

Category: Tech

  • Snow Leopard, BBEdit & QuicKeys

    Because Snow Leopard does not install Rosetta by default, I’ve decided to abandon the last of my PowerPC applications: QuicKeys 2.1.1.

    I’ve been a fan of BBEdit for a long time. At first, I relied heavily on QuicKeys to handle a lot of my keystroke automation within BBEdit:

    1. Add pre-defined text / templates.
    2. Insert HTML tags.
    3. Run AppleScripts.

    However, I’ve encountered various compatibility issues with QuicKeys over time as I upgraded to newer versions of Mac OS X or BBEdit. Instead of waiting around for a fix, I’ve slowly migrated many of my QuicKeys functions over to BBEdit. After I installed Snow Leopard, I finally pulled the last automated function away from QuicKeys.

    Adding Predefined Text or a Template. If you have to enter the same text repetitively in multiple documents, create a clipping. To do this, select the text pattern and save it as a clipping. In BBEdit, select © > Save Selection as Clipping… For some reason, the Clippings menu looks like an inverted copyright sign. Then, select Window > Palettes > Clippings. This summons the Clippings window where you can highlight your clippings and assign a hot key to them via the Set Key button.

    Inserting HTML Tags. While you can use the above method to insert HTML code, the better method is to take advantage of BBEdit’s built-in hot key (or menu key) functions. Select BBEdit > Preferences to summon the BBEdit Preferences window. Select Menus from the left-hand column of the BBEdit Preferences window. In the right-hand column, expand Markup by clicking on the arrow to its left so that it points downward. If you find the HTML tag that you want from the sub-menus, select it and click on the Set Key button to assign a hot key. This method works better than just inserting the HTML tags as text because it inserts the opening and closing tags in the right place.

    Run AppleScripts. The last remaining function that I had assigned to QuicKeys was to run an AppleScript that handled capitalization. Yes, BBEdit has a Change Case function, but it did not work exactly like I wanted. If I asked BBEdit to Capitalize Words, I end up with something like this:

    A Rat In The House May Eat The Ice Cream

    However, I prefer not to capitalize certain words, such as “in” and “the,” at least from the above text string. I have a bunch of other words that I do not ordinarily capitalize as well, such as “of”, “a” and “an.” While I love the Text Factory function, which is an easy way to run successive search and replace patterns, I can only run a Text Factory across an entire file and not an individual text selection. Hence, I created an AppleScript to handle this, which I had assigned to a QuicKeys hot key. Turns out that moving my existing script over to BBEdit was easier than I could imagine. I just had to drag the script to ~/Library/Application Support/BBEdit/Scripts/. The script then magically appeared in the Script menu (which looks like a curled document). To assign a hot key to this script, select Window > Palettes > Scripts. Select your script and click on the Set Key button to assign a keystroke.

  • iTunes is Annoying Me

    I rarely listen to the radio. When I do, I almost listen exclusively to KQED, which is not the best source for hearing new or old Chinese music. So, I pretty much depend on the Genius Just For You feature in iTunes to discover new music. iTunes seems to handle English artists and songs quite well; however, it experiences difficulties when dealing with Chinese artists and songs.

    If I search through my own music for 王菲, iTunes will only return the songs by 王菲. If I search through the iTunes Store for 王菲, iTunes will return the songs by 王菲 as well as the ones by Faye Wong. Curiously, iTunes will return the songs from Zhi Mi Bu Hui from the artist Faye Wong, but not the ones from Wang Fei. So, when iTunes recommends Chinese songs, I have to make sure that I don’t already have their recommendation in my collection. And, this double-checking is not a straight forward process because I have to search through all permutations of a song’s or artist’s name: English, Pinyin, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. Ugh…

    The other issue that troubles me is that some song titles are obviously incorrect, like 桃花开, which was inartfully translated to Peach Bloddom Come Out. If this was Wikipedia, some of these errors would already be corrected.

  • MobileMe

    My 60 day free trial of MobileMe will be expiring at the end of this month. MobileMe has worked well enough during the trial period, so I purchased a one year subscription last week. For me, the most important feature was the calendar synchronization. Secondly, I needed the ability to track lost iPhones and remotely wipe out data. So, I ordered MobileMe from Amazon last week for $69.99. For whatever reason, the price is higher this week. Here’s the confusing part. Amazon is currently selling MobileMe [OLD VERSION] for $75.00 and MobileMe Individual (Updated 2009 Version) for $95.00.

    In reality, the only difference between the two products is that the $75.00 version is fulfilled by Amazon and the $95.00 is sold by Amazon. The OLD VERSION and UPDATED 2009 VERSION labels are meaningless because MobileMe is not a physical product. The MobileMe box contains a sheet of Apple stickers and a pamphlet with an activation code. No CD/DVD. You enter the activation code from either “version” and you get the same MobileMe.

  • iPhone RunKeeper App

    I recently installed the RunKeeper Free application on my iPhone 3GS. I’ve used it a couple times to track my walks around the neighborhood, as well as a few short cycling trips. Generally, the application has worked pretty well. It tracks the time and distance of each workout. Afterwards, I can view my exercise log on the RunKeeper website, which offers route maps, calories expended and other wonderful data. Last weekend, RunKeeper recorded my best workout ever.

    runkeeper

    In a feat that Lance Armstrong would have a difficult time replicating, I biked 63 miles in 23 minutes with an average speed of 161 miles per hour. Or, that’s what RunKeeper reported. The strange thing is that I’ve biked this route before and RunKeeper had given more reasonable numbers previously. I wonder if the overcast skies left RunKeeper all confused.

  • Apple Migration Assistant and Symbolic Links

    I switched to a MacBook Pro 17 inch 2.8GHz back in June when the older MacBook Pro suffered the infamous black screen of death. During the file transfer, I basically allowed Migration Assistant to do its thing on auto-pilot. I did encounter some errors during the process, but never bothered deciphering the error log since all my files apparently made the jump.

    I think I know what went wrong. I had some symbolic links (ln -s) set up on the older MacBook Pro. Migration Assistant doesn’t play well with symbolic links and didn’t re-create them on the new computer. So, while using Filemaker to output some data files, my script choked because the output path that relied on symbolic links was invalid. The other thing I discovered is that Make Alias, which works the same as a symbolic link in the point-and-click world, really isn’t exactly the same. Filemaker didn’t like paths that contain a Make Alias folder. When I recreated the symbolic link, the problems disappeared.

  • iPhone 3GS

    I recently upgraded from an iPhone (2G) to an iPhone 3GS. Wow! I heard nothing but bad news about AT&T after the iPhone 3G launch and was really concerned that I would be stuck with a 3G phone on an EDGE connection. So far, I have not experienced any major problems. I have been able to pick up a 3G signal whenever I am outside the house, which is basically when I need it most. Inside, if I turn off Wi-Fi, I am still stuck on EDGE, so no improvement there.

    First, the iPhone 3GS is significantly faster than the iPhone 2G. Applications launch faster and games appear to run smoother. However, I blame some of the lag on the iPhone 3.0 software. After I installed the iPhone 3.0 software on the original iPhone, I discovered a noticeable lag whenever I selected the iPod button. However, I was not about to revert back to 2.x. So, I will say that the iPhone 3GS is perceptibly faster than the iPhone 2G.

    However, the real improvement is in the data speeds. When I am out on the road and really need a piece of information, EDGE is better than nothing. Google, with its spartan interface, runs pretty fast on EDGE. So, I can still run some basic queries. Plus, I had grown accustomed to the limitations of EDGE and knew better than to give it more than it could handle. With 3G, the gloves are off. I can now exploit the full potential of the iPhone. For example, I needed to lookup the Apple Store on a map earlier today. I knew that I was only 1-2 blocks away, but was uncertain as to the direction. I think the iPhone 3GS was able to display a map of my location and stick a pin on the Apple Store in seconds. I was totally amazed because the iPhone 2G would have taken 20-30 seconds to download the map. I’ve been through more than my fair share of waiting for maps to download in the past two years. 3GS. Totally worth it.

  • iPhone Design

    iphone-bento

    Looks like a bento box. Yum.

  • Michael Jackson: Google, Bing and WolframAlpha

    24 hours after the sudden passing of Michael Jackson, I decided to take a look at how fresh the results were from various search engines.

    WolframAlpha shows a date of birth and a date of death for former President Ronald WIlson Reagan.

    ronald-reagan

    For Michael Jackson, WolframAlpha only displays a date of birth.

    michael-jackson

    Next, I compared Google and Bing. In the snippet from Wikipedia, Google’s cache is more up to date than that from Bing. Google’s display the date of birth and the date of death.

    google-michael-jackson

    Bing does not.

    bing-michael-jackson

    Curiously, the snippet that Yahoo displays from Wikipedia excludes the date of birth. However, if I view Yahoo’s cache, I can see that they have the older version of Michael Jackson’s biography, like Bing.

  • YouTube Down

    youtube

    YouTube is down for maintenance and will be back shortly.

    Wow. YouTube was momentarily down this afternoon. However, true to their word, they were back shortly. After a couple minutes, I was able to access their site again though midday outages are usually not because of “maintenance.”

  • MacBook Pro 17 inch 2.8 GHz

    Last week, I picked up a new 17-inch MacBook Pro because the previous one I had caught the black screen flu. Here’s my quick review.

    • Speed. Nothing exciting really happens when moving from 2.4 GHz to 2.8 GHz. Mathematically, the new MacBook Pro has a 16% faster processor, but I cannot perceive the difference. At one point in time, a 400 MHz upgrade would have been good news.
    • Keyboard. I really like the feel of the new keyboard. It provides the right resistance and offers a great tactile response. I was absolutely awed the first time I touched the internal keyboard. That said, I will still be doing 99% of my typing on an external keyboard.
    • Screen. Now that matte screens cost an extra $100, I picked up my first glossy edition instead. The screen is not as reflective as I had previously feared. Totally usable.
    • Hard Drive. Ho hum. Already had a 500 GB drive in my previous MacBook Pro. I’m glad Apple finally decided to upgrade the specs so I wouldn’t have to downgrade to a smaller hard drive.
    • Memory. No change, except that the maximum memory capacity is 8 GB instead of 4 GB. Not willing to shell out $1,000 from Apple or $634 from Other Word Computing for 8 GB. Maybe in a year or so when prices come down. The only time that 4 GB really feels inadequate is when I’m running VMWare Fusion, and I try to run that as least as possible.
    • Trackpad. I guess you get a larger trackpad when it’s not split between the trackpad half and the clickable half. Took me a few minutes to get used to this.
    • Function Keys. In its infinite wisdom, Apple decided to move the functions around. Not better, not worse, just different.
    • Ports. Ugh. Instead of ports on both sides of the MacBook Pro, Apple placed all the ports on the left-hand side. The front-loading SuperDrive is now a right-hand-side-loading SuperDrive. I was not pleased with this development since I previously connected a mouse to my MacBook Pro via a right-hand-side USB port. Fortunately, I still had an open port on my external keyboard or else the mouse would have to take a very circuitous route. That or learn to be a lefty.
    • Latch. I like the magnetic latch instead of the physical latch. The latch on my even older PowerBook G4 is failing so I know those parts can wear out. Who knows how well the new magnetic latch will perform 5 years from now. Have to wait and see.

    Of course, the most amazing thing for me was how Apple was faring during this so-called recession. The mini Apple store at the Stanford Shopping Center was absolutely packed during a weekday. Unbelievable. While other retail stores are closing or offering significant discounts, Apple is still cruising on.