Since the value, if there is any, of many of my entries depended on the illustrations that went with the text, in many cases. I may as well dump those posts. Some of the text may be worth keeping, so I’ll sort through as time permits and do some pruning.

Morale: Back up anything you may wish to keep.

I just downloaded the trial version of Little Snitch and I will probably buy a copy to keep. It has a nice, easy to use interface that allows you to control which applications are allowed to open an internet connection from your computer TO the outside world. That’s right, TO. Your web browser sends out calls for web pages and brings them IN. But many applications, web pages and email messages are designed to “call home”, sending information from your computer to another internet address.

In many cases, this is a helpful behaviour and you want to let it happen. Software updates, for example, might send version number information back to the application developer so that you can be automatically notified when an update is available.

In other cases, you might not want to let someone else’s software open an internet connection and report back to the source. Maybe you rather that a spammer didn’t know that you had opened their message (telling them that your email address is a “live one”).

The thing is, how do you know when such an outgoing connection is being attempted? Little Snitch.

By setting Little Snitch “rules” you can easily limit the outbound connection possibilities to only trusted sources.

I will continue to try out Little Snitch for a few days and learn more about it. My first impression is positive.

I think it’s wise to avoid the 1st generation of any device Apple offers. The new iPad is going to look very old, very fast.

First I ran Disk Utility to repair all permissions, then I did the installation using Software Update. Just to be sure, I ran Disk Utility again, after 10.6.4 was installed.

So far, none of the applications I use have complained about anything.

Use the pop-down list under PDF to choose Save as PDF…

In the Dialogue box that opens, name your PDF whatever you like and set it to save to wherever you wish. I usually save to my Desktop.

BONUS INFORMATION You can secure your PDF so that recipients need a password to open and read it. Kinda cool.
You can also control whether or not recipients will be able to print hard copies.

Just click the “Security Options…” button at the bottom of that last dialogue box and you’ll see how to do it.

Here’s what happens…. the installer disc checks to see what you have on your hard drive. It restarts your machine and begins the lengthy installation process. 45 minutes in our case. If you have applications that require Rosetta, you will get a dialogue box asking if you’d like to do the Rosetta installation. Yes, you would. Takes about a minute, and your old PPC app is happy.

What happens if you install an old PPC app onto your Mac after you have done the Snow Leopard installation? Still no problem.

If there were no PPC apps on your machine when you first installed Snow Leopard, there would have been no need for Rosetta, so it wasn’t installed. If you add, say, Quicken 2005 later and click the app icon to open it, you get a dialogue box saying you need Rosetta. Just put your Snow Leopard installation disc in the slot and your Mac will get Rosetta from it.

Nevertheless, there might be an iPad in my future. Maybe next year. Or sooner if a second generation shows up sooner. (I don’t know what they have left out of the first generation, but the second generation will be more complete, I think.)

I like the size, the fact that it can run iWork apps, has a mic and speakers. It does WiFi internet, but (unsurprisingly) no Flash. The screen is LED, the battery life claim is up to 10 hours and the resolution is a very respectable 1024×768.

Gaming is of no interest to me and I would have liked a camera, but I hope that the iPad will enable reading of library books as well as the titles from the iBook Store. It can do enough to be of interest to me, that’s for sure.

There will be extras to buy… I’d like Bluetooth earphones rather than corded ones and I think the dock/keyboard thing would be a must, even though there are virtual keyboards onscreen. There’s a cover/stand that will be needed, too.

U.S. prices are $500, $600 and $700 for 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB machines, respectively. Add the cost of the extras, the cost of connectivity and the temptation to buy instantly from Apple’s various Stores and you have a potential threat to your personal economy.

Adobe’s dim view

Obviously Adobe doesn’t like being shut out on iPads and iPods, so here is how they like to show the iPad experience of the internet. Broken plugin icons are all you get on web pages showing Flash video. They have a good point, but maybe iPads are just not powerful enough to process Flash video.

I think it’s more than that, though. I think its a control thing. If Flash was fully functional on an iPad, developers could deliver Flash applications directly. Control has allowed Apple to avoid many of the reliability problems that Microsoft has suffered, so the strategy does have user benefits.

Anyway, Flash CS5 will be able to compile Flash apps into native iPhone/iTouch apps.

I still wish the iPad could do Flash video, though. The HTML5 H.264 video experiments on YouTube and Vimeo are choppy in comparison.

When making a Keynote presentation and using an external projector ,the MacBook has a feature that allows you to view the ‘current’ and ‘next’ slides on your Mac while only the current slide shows on the projected screen…”Play / Customize Presenter Display’……’Great’ feature for presenters who use their own external projector.

The problem is I cannot get it to work properly….My projected image shows both the ‘Current’ and ‘Next’ slides..I cannot get only the single ‘Current’ image on the screen…I have checked all the settings but am stumped!!

I replied with a link to this Apple Tech Note.

Then Mark got back to me with his experience:

I had a few problems with the first set up but there were three things that I found effect the result.
1. The projector (Dell) must be connected to the MacBook and turned on first
2. In Keynote Preferences / Presenter Display..Check ‘Alternative Display’
3. In Keynote Preferences / Slideshow…Check ‘Present Secondary Display’
The result:
Slide #1 projected
Slide # 1 & 2, plus ‘Presenter Notes’ displayed on the MacBook…just like it suppose to do.

Thanks, Mark! Good stuff.