I HATE APPLE

link? xpost

http://blog.iso50.com/?p=1832

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2088/2366597370_71e638bc98.jpg?v=0

http://www.flickr.com/photos/katemo/2366597370/

What Microsoft fails (or at least failed up to 2003; I've not used Office 2007) to understand is (a) that applications need to be CONSISTENT, especially if they form part of the one suite, and (b) how users use applications.

Today all I wanted to do was copy text out of one Excel spreadsheet and paste it into another. But no. It all HAS to exist in one parent window (Word doesn't behave like this btw), so I had to keep alt+tabbing between the spreadsheets. There is literally no reason for designing the application this way.

Apple gets users. It gets that people need to do simple things with an interface that requires a tiny bit of forethought. Apple puts that effort into doing the interface properly. Microsoft? No. Everything is tacked onto everything else like Blu-Tack, and eventually you're left with a hulking rancid cripple of a product like Office 2003.

This is coming from someone who's never, ever, done anything productive on a Mac, ever.

Excel for Mac is a pretty good app. As far as I'm concerned Excel is MS's best application, and the UI is probably better on Mac, although the Mac version has some serious database connectivity issues. Mac Office is not MDI, and while the MS MBU has gone to great lengths to avoid dirtying themselves with Cocoa, the Office suite is reasonably Mac-legit, although Excel is the only application I'd use if I weren't forced.

10.5.3 upgrade seems to have made the whole machine run like shit. froze twice last night and turned on frozen this morning. what the fuck? I think I have a time machine back up pre upgrade, try that?

10.5.3 cause problems with anyone else?

I find Excel on the Mac much slower than the PC version. My 2ghz core duo noticeably struggles to keep up with a 1.2ghz single proc PC on some sheets. Also the Office 2007 interfaces kicks all sorts of shite out of the Mac 08 one, especially Word.

Anybody here experts on Applescript? I really want to merge 2 of the sample scripts that come with InDesign. They're both pretty basic but I can't figure out how to marry them, I tried just pasting one after the other, but it got confused since they both call up a dialog box.

dan: http://rafb.net/paste

I think it'd be easier to just tell what the two scripts are, no?

You mean give their names here? Why would that be useful?

so somebody who knows how to do applescript can fix them for me!

Dude, the point is that unless we can see inside the scripts, ain't gonna be no helpin' for ya unless the folks in question happen to have InDesign (which I do not).

OK, i figured anybody who'd be able to help would have indesign. I'll post them to paste.

these are the two scripts:

http://rafb.net/p/P7NYTM51.html
http://rafb.net/p/lbna3745.html

One takes a box and makes crop marks from it. The other takes a box and makes guidelines from it. I'd like a script that gave you one dialogue box asking about both the crops AND guides, and made the crops and guides at the same time.

and what would REALLY be great is if it made another set of guidelines .125" around the first. I wonder if It could be coded to just do that, or do something where it duplicates the first box, enlarges is .25" from the center, then makes guides from that box.

The main problem here -- there well may be others -- appears to be that pasting together the two scripts results in multiply defined functions (e.g. on myDisplayDialog()). If you carefully rename the functions in one script to remove these collisions, you may be able to paste them together.

Now, if you want just ONE dialog box (just reread that part), you will probably have to learn a little applescript.

I'm fine with 2 boxes, like if one pops up after the other.

Start with renaming all the occurrences of "myDisplayDialog" in one of the scripts to "myDisplayDialogFirst" or something and then paste 'em together.

holy damn, it's working!

I've now got one script that takes a box, makes crops to my preset specs, then adds guides for those crops.

Now I need to figure out how to add bleed guidelines (guides that are 1/8" further out than the crops.

I LOVE APPLE

Did the renaming tactic work?

yes absolutely. Now I'm close to figuring out the rest. There are two tough parts (and note I haven't programmed since 10 goto 20 on the Commodore 64), one is to have the dialogue box have a checkbox for adding bleed, and if selected, basically repeating the same guide drawing procedure in the second script, but adding and subtracting an 1/8th inch from the location. I took me a while to realize you can't use inches because the " marks mess it up, so it has to be done in points.

woah, I did it.

almost.

Applescript is delightfully awful.

well I'm impressed that I was able to figure this much out without knowing anything, but now something isn't working and there just aren't that many variables that can be wrong, you know?

Probs time to whip out the ol' standard,

display dialog <variablename>

I have no idea what that means.

Insert lines like that into the applescript if you have suspicions about the contents of certain variables. I mean, it's just another variation on the ol' printf(var); trick used to "debug" languages w/o an IDE or a debugger.

you lost me at...

If you remind me later when I have access to a computer with InDesign, I'll see if I can combine 'em for ya.

I combined them fine...I just can't add bleed guides.

Man I love MacPorts

I guess I need to attach an antenna or something to my Airport Extreme. Should I get an antenna or a booster or what, and what kind, if so?

sonds obvious, but have you tried changing channel? I switched to 13 and speeds shot through the roof. But there's about 20 competing access points near me

Yeah, I've tried about 5 diff channels. Currently, I'm on 11, which is the highest allowed in the GUI: This may have something to do with WDS; I also can't set the WAP to anything but N/G/B mode. I don't really have any reception problems on my MBP (which I'm giving to my mum), but only on a new MB.

I have also used iStumbler to see what other channels are in use, to no avail.

I HATE ROGERS

What did Fred ever do to you???

Those plans are shit.

Here in Aus I'm really hoping the competition between 2+ providers will make things fair. A decent data plan is all I care about.

OK, latest Airport update helps massively with my signal strength issues. Whoa.

another big security update went out tonight, includes a remote arbitrary code exec vuln in SMB server so I'm just telling everyone to go ahead and run SWU again soon. we had two new OS X trojans released last week, too.

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate2008004intel.html

Whoa, I did NOT catch that one tom -- yikes. Meanwhile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatter_attack

I think my whole airport prob is totally fixed with the latest round of updates. Full bars everywhere in home. Glad I didn't get a booster.

Hey, how do I pull tracks off a CD to .wav format so they can be edited? Surely I don't have to use Nero on my PC...

Ok... you can do it in iTunes. duh.

Looks like I can get a new mac at work - budget is generous but can be spent on other things if not used, so I don't want to go overboard. I'm basically going to be using it for nothing more strenuous than LaTeX, and my 1st gen macbook pro does this fine under Tiger, so I'm inclined to think that I want the most basic machine that exists - so, I should get a Mac Mini with 2GB of RAM, right?

What I do want is a nice big screen. Am I best off going with Apple's own screen, or something from someone else? And what about a keyboard? I've seen those new wireless keyboards and they look really tiny and annoying to type on - is that right?

Apple's screens look nice but are a little overpriced. Samsung's always do well in reviews and come under the Apple price by a long way.

You'll get something decent for around the $400-450.

I presume the Mini will go at work and the laptop will stay at home, right?