Schinckel.net

Jaq bought me a book while she was in New York: “Wonderful Town: New York stories from The New Yorker.” It reminds me more than a little of stories by O Henry. Just the feeling of the stories - they feel like the always awake city, even though they are generations apart. I’ve never read the New Yorker, although I may start in the near future, so all of the tales are new work to me. (Sidetrack: I used to think the road signs saying “NEW WORK” said “NEW YORK” when I was about 4. My sister had taught me to read, and I guess I wasn’t perfect at it yet!)

The foreword was illustrative - I almost enjoy reading what authors & editors say after they’ve written the books more than I like the books themselves. David Remnick, the editor of this volume & the magazine, obviously loves the city as much as the authors who follow him. New York (so good they named it twice - just like Wagga Wagga!) apparently is an amazing place. For me, the biggest tragedy of the Al-Quieda attacks (which occurred months after the publication of this book) was that it may have changed the city that never sleeps. Maybe, and I suspect this, NYC will not only survive but thrive. Anyway, I’ll post excerpts, reviews and the like as I read through.

One of the subjects I teach at school is Computer Aided Design (& Manufacture, if the facilities allow). I’ve done a bit of CNC machining in my time (nothing real, mind you, but a few toy things made here and there). There is a cool article on wired about where things might go, next generation. I’d love to have one of these in my workshop, or even study at home!

I’m not the only person publishing their novel on a blog as they post: Le Spirale Fantastique is a novel that an Indian fellow is writing, but he’s doing something a little cool - if you use a quote from his novel, and link it back to his novel, he will link that quote to your website. See if you can find my link - I’ve actually used the quote as part of my novel.

I seem to write differently lying on the couch using my Palm to how I do typing at the keyboard. I wonder if anyone could read the novel and work out which bits were written on Palm, and which on Mac.

Did you ever hear the saying “you can’t turn chicken shit into chicken salad?”

I have downloaded Books, but only entered about one section of my library into the program. Entering ISBN codes is just too much fun. Now, watch out for Delicious Library. iSight barcode scanning. iPod Sync support (hopefully with PalmOS as well as iPod - I’ll put in a feature request!). Finally, a chance to totally catalog all of my books. Instead of doing real work! GRIN.

Here is a response to the article found at: http://www.mac360.com/index.php/mac360/comments/187/

As a refugee from BeOS, I’ve had first hand experience of the type of ‘live searching’ that Spotlight promises to deliver. In fact, the key engineer from Spotlight wrote the Query system (and file-system, IIRC) for BeOS.

Since I manage to keep most stuff well organised, I really only used it with email. BeOS, like Tiger, keeps each email in a separate file. It is then possible to have queries acting as smart groups for email messages.

The point where it becomes truly useful is where files need to belong to multiple groups - no need to have links or aliases.

Still, at times it is best to have files stored within folders - particularly if you are coding - you might have several hundred files named ‘Makefile’ for instance.

BeOS used a system of File Attributes to store meta-data about files. It was possible only to search on these, not content.

Does anyone know if Spotlight will use meta-data, or will it be automatically generated? (A better solution, since then the programs don’t need to be made ‘Attribute Aware’ - the filesystem looks after it.)

I for one welcome our new Searching Overlords.

I thought about another improvement for BwE today. It really only occurred to me when I created a new blog for nanowriwo 2004. When a new folder is created, I wonder if it is possible to add a folder action (of the same folder action script) to the created folder. This way I could just attach the script to the .Blogs folder, and then when I create special purpose blogs, I only have to create a folder on the Palm with the right name. I also wondered if I should use the “Journal Entry” feature of Agendus for blogging. Must look into this. I placed a Blogger bug report about post times not being respected by the server, but haven’t heard back. At least they fixed up the timezone error. Update: I’ve updated the script so that when a new folder is created, a “Blog with ecto” Folder Action Script is automatically added to the sub-folder. The latest version, as always, can be found at Blog with ecto.scpt. Thought: I should also tell ecto to update the account cache, but I need to know the server details, I think.

Jaq bought an iPod some time ago, and I noticed at the time Adelaide was missing from the timezone properties. Should report this to Apple.

Letters & Symbols I keep getting wrong on my Palm. Comma - becomes a J, or S, or even a CR or BS, but mainly a J. D - often becomes an A. T - either an F followed by a space, or an L followed by a <menu swipe>. 2 - 7. ( or ) - 1. E - Q. (If slack!) I also run into problems on words ending with L, or when 5 is followed by a 1. (I’ve changed the $ setting in Graffiti Prefs.) And every now and then, H doesn’t appear.