Google Ad Spam?

So, I get an email that looks like an ebay question from a buyer to a seller. The only thing is, I don't have anything for sell. I check out the auction number (by copying and pasting it from the email) and its a legit auction. Now, as I said earlier, I try not to do anything stupid with my email. So, before clicking anything in the email, I hovered the links. To my surprise, the links are all http://www.google.com/pagead/... links. A couple of days later, I get another one. As if click fraud is not bad enough, now spammers are getting into the game.

So, beware. If you get an email from "ebay", it very well could be a click fraud spam. Hover those links before you click.

Technorati Tags: google, spam, email, ebay

NeoOffice for Intel

I am a long time user of OpenOffice on Windows and Linux. It does more than I need it to. I have installed it on several friends PCs and they have had no problem using it either. So, I knew that would be one of my big problems on the Mac. You can install OpenOffice for the Mac. It uses X11 though. That means its slow and not Mac like at all.

NeoOffice has been around for a while for PPC Macs, but tomorrow, a public alpha of the software will be available for Intel Macs. Last week, I decided to go ahead and pay the very low $10 to get a copy ahead of time.

It's everything I hoped it would be. Its fast and gets the job done. It uses all the Mac keyboard shortcuts and uses the standard Mac menu. The long time Mac users may not like it as well as I do. The dialogs do not look and feel like a Mac. They are the standard OO.org widgets. As a long time user for OO.org, I have no problem using it. In fact, its good to be home again with my office suite.

Technorati Tags: apple, mac, macbook, os-x, office, openoffice, neooffice

macally icestation

I recently got a macally icestation for my MacBook Pro. It works quite nicely. Their site markets it to work with Powerbooks and other laptops. The only problem I see is that the CD slot is on the front of the MacBook Pro and therefore putting in CDs when it is on the icestation is a bit of a hassle. I don't use a lot of CDs though. Overall, it's much better than having the MacBook Pro just sitting on the desk.

Technorati Tags: apple, mac, macbook, os-x

Matias USB 2.0 Keyboard for Mac

Matias is well known these days for their Tactile Pro Mac keyboard. Its uses mechanical keys and kind of addresses a lot of the problems that some users have with the Apple keyboard. Things like the function keys not being spaced into groups.

However, their web site is pushing this new USB 2.0 Keyboard. They have a Mac only version and a Mac/PC version. Its closer to a full size keyboard that I have been using for years now. I also liked the idea of a USB 2.0 hub on my keyboard. So, I ordered two. One for the office and one for the house.

I got them, unpacked one and hooked it up. Well, at this point, I see the funky dual USB cable. One is a USB 1.1 cable and the other is a 2.0 cable. I then realize that the keyboard nor its hub is 2.0. There is a single port on top of the keyboard that is USB 2.0. So, basically, there is a USB 2.0 cable embedded to the keyboard. That's it. I looked at the web site and sure enough, at the bottom of the page it mentions all this. However, both there and in the docs, they show a little more hospitable cable. So, on that I was willing to live and learn.

So, I started typing. The first thing I noticed was that the keys were a little small. The number pad and other keys like the F-keys were normal sized. My hands did not find the cursor keys or the page up, page down group very easily. I chalked all this up to having a new keyboard. The more I used it however, the more I felt the quality of the keys was not what I was used to. Still, I pushed on.

A day went by and I noticed that one "feature" of the keyboard was really starting to annoy me. Their innovation on this keyboard was to move the caps lock key from the normal spot and cram it on the lower right side with the command, option and control key. In the place of the normal caps lock is an extra control key. WTF!?!? This became very annoying. I am a programmer, so, I come across things that are all upper case more than say a writer or graphic designer would. This was the last straw for me. I am sending them back.

Technorati Tags: apple, mac, macbook, os-x, keyboard

Mac Security

Seems a lot of folks are talking about security on the Mac these days. I read another switchers blog and he has ranted about it. Then I checked out Ctrl-Alt-Del today and found their latest comic. I have to admit I laughed.

Myself, I am following the same pattern I did on Windows. Don't do anything stupid ( I include running anything named Outlook in that ). Believe it or not, I never ran anti anything software on Windows. And I never ( I promise never ) had a virus or malware installed on my system.

Of course, I realize that most people can't or won't follow that head. They will click that email from someone they don't know to see a picture of their favorite celeb in the nude. And they will pay the price.

Technorati Tags: apple, mac, macbook, os-x, security

I must be comfortable

Well, its been a while since I posted. That must mean I am getting comfortable. I figured I would post a list of the last few things that are still on my mind about my mac.

1. Clicking a window does not register a click on the window. This is unique to Mac OS X. If my browser is in the background and I click a link on that window, it does not click the link. It only brings the window to the front. This has a good side. You don't accidentally click stuff. If I had only used the Mac, I would like find Windows/Linux odd.
2. Command Button does it all. I am still getting finger tied with the command button. Its mostly when I am wanting to use the Home and End keys on my PC keyboard. What was one key stroke is now two. CMD + R Arrow is not as quick as End.
3. The lack of tabbed/dockable applications. The Windows and Linux world are tab crazy. Most Mac apps are still one window per item. Terminal, X Code, and even apps that while not tabbed, were contained like Fireworks have all these windows everywhere. Its tough to get used to it.
4. A good office suite. OpenOffice really spoiled me on Windows/Linux. I have it installed on my Mac via X11. But, to anyone that has used X11 apps on Linux, its not really much fun. I just don't want to use MS Office. I am hoping for NeoOffice to release an Intel version soon.

On the other hand, I had to set up my old laptop with Windows XP Pro this week. Someone else at work is getting it. Boy, that sucked. The wireless was a pain. Windows Update is annoying and takes forever to download 400 little patches. The wireless on the laptop keeps dropping now too. Good old Windows.

Technorati Tags: apple, mac, macbook, office, os-x, OpenOffice

Intel in a PPC world

Well, I am mostly converted over. There are a couple of apps I use that don't have Intel/Universal binaries yet. One is X-Chat Aqua and the other is eSVN. Both are ports of *nix applications. X-Chat is a full port to Cocoa. eSVN uses the QT toolkit.

The other frustration was fink. My PPC coworker uses it daily. I am not so lucky yet. Gentoo's packages are for PPC also.

MySQL has presented a challenge as well. We are still using 4.0 on our servers. There are some backwards compatibility issues that are keeping us at 4.0. MySQL has a nice Mac package. But, because 4.0 is not a current release, they only offer PPC binaries. So, I will have to build it myself to get 4.0. I have been working around the problems for now and using 4.1. Maybe this is a good time to bite the bullet and change our code to support 4.1+.

Technorati Tags: apple, intel, irc, mac, macbook, mysql, svn