Status-Q

Those of us who love the command line can be keen to point out its advantages over pure GUI-based programs. “Imagine you want to rename a hundred files”, I have been known to say, “to change photo001.jpg to old_paris_photo001.jpg, etc…”

Now, the truth is that, while it would be a real pain to do this in the Finder, it isn’t exactly trivial on the Unix command line either. Which is why I think there’s a room for a utility dedicated to renaming, especially when it’s free, and as nicely implemented as Renamer4Mac. You drop the files onto the window, choose from a variety of filename modifications, and it shows you what the new names will be – a big advantage. Then you just click the button and you’re done.

It can also install itself as a contextual menu plugin, so you can select files in the Finder, right-click on them, and choose “Rename with Renamer4Mac…”

Thanks to the MacBreak vidcast for the link.

Regular readers will know that I was hoping for some update to Apple’s Aperture software to be announced today. And sure enough, Aperture 1.5 will be a free upgrade later this week, with lots of nice new features.

As always with Aperture, there are video tours and tutorials including one which shows you what’s new in this version. (Here’s a direct link to that movie.)

There’s now a 2.0 beta version of Skype for the Mac, which includes video chat.

Almost everybody I know is on AIM, so for regular IM chatting I use iChat, with the occasional audio or video link to other Mac users. But Skype has always been better at getting through firewalls than iChat, and this could make it a better video solution, especially if the quality is as good as iChat.

If you’re a Mac user and you haven’t really worked out how this RSS stuff works in Safari, have a look at Craig Swanson’s quick tutorial.

In a recent post I said that, “at $299, Aperture is a somewhat pricey but very nice piece of software”. Of course, it used to be somewhat more pricey – it was $499 when first released.

I’ve always assumed that there would be a lot of disgruntled early users out there when the price was dropped almost to half of what they had paid, but it turns out that Apple gave a $200 coupon to all registered users of the first, more expensive, version. What a nice company!

Now, I wonder what’s happening to Aperture in ten days’ time…

Ah, now this is a very nice new feature in iTunes 7.

There’s more information here.

I’ve noticed a bit more of a trend in this direction recently: for applications to incorporate backup options for their own data. I think it’s quite a good idea, because they often have a better idea of what needs backing up, how often, and in what way, than a more general “copy the files” backup. A couple of other packages I use which have two very different, but both very good, backup strategies built-in are the excellent accounting package MYOB and Apple’s Aperture.

So my photos, my accounts and my music now all have their own backups in addition to the general disk-cloning that I do from time to time with SuperDuper. Good for one’s peace of mind. I shall now go to bed and sleep soundly.

Having taken lots of photos while on holiday, I’m becoming a real fan of Apple’s Aperture software – designed to help photographers manage their workflow. Workflow, by the way, is something that professional photographers apparently have and that people like me aspire to.

Anyway, at $299, Aperture is a somewhat pricey but very nice piece of software. It has a bit of a learning curve, but is blessed with some really good tutorials. You get a DVD in the box with an hour or so’s instruction, there are tutorials on line on the Aperture site, but if you’re considering buying it and want to know the sort of things that make it different from say, iPhoto, I recommend Apple’s introductory on-line seminar, which is well-produced. There’s also an advanced one.

A warning, though; Aperture is one of those few things that makes you realise that Moore’s law hasn’t yet given us all the processing power we could possibly need. Make sure you have a pretty beefy Mac if you’re planning on using it!

In June I tried switching browsers. Since then I’ve been using Firefox for the web and Vienna for reading RSS feeds. It’s a good combination, but I never quite liked it as much as Safari, which shows me the RSS counts on my bookmarks bar. And having to start up or switch to a different application to read RSS stuff meant that I was never quite as up-to-date with news as I was in the old days.

It’s true that Firefox is more capable when it comes to AJAX-based sites, or WISIWYG editing of blog posts. The Web Developer Toolbar is invaluable when developing web sites. You can even use themes to make it more Mac-like, but it’s never felt quite as smooth as Apple’s offering.

So for now, I’m back to Safari as my main browser with Firefox as a backup. The good news is that I haven’t touched Internet Explorer in years…

A couple of years ago I wrote a piece describing my ideal backup system. It was essentially a jog-shuttle wheel allowing you to scroll back to any point in your computer’s past.

Just a few minutes ago, Steve Jobs announced the backup system that’s going to be built into Leopard, the upcoming operating system for the Mac. It’s called Time Machine, and – hey! – it lets you scroll back into your computer’s past, on a coarse granularity at least. Of course, it also looks very pretty!

Can’t wait to see how well it works in reality. How do you look at the contents of a folder that’s no longer present, for example? How much work is it for application developers to incorporate this? And what’s the underlying storage mechanism?

It looks as if there’s lots of other good stuff on its way in Leopard too – calendars which multiple users can edit, sharing of presentations and slideshows, and desktops, through iChat, full 64-bit support, and so on… We have to be patient, though. The release date is Spring 2007.

Update: Steve’s keynote is now online.

About a week ago I wrote that “I may take any ‘battery recall’ notices a little more seriously in future”.

And today I read that Apple is recalling batteries for some of the 15″ MacBook Pros, including mine.

I’ve often looked at the various project-management offerings on the Mac, and never found quite what I wanted. I’ve wondered about trying to do my own system using Excel or, more likely, OmniOutliner.

So I’m pleased to see that there’s a new option available – OmniPlan – from the people who brought you the wonderful OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle. Looks very nice at first glance.