What's it all about, Alfie?

Today I was looking at a weblog and saw a pointer to Base 1.0.2 by a single indie Mac developer for dealing with SQLite3 databases. These are the databases of CoreData, and in that sense, very interesting to work with - when I get into the CoreData game more. Right now, I'm thinking that I need to get into it (CoreData) a little more. However, it's got a lot going for it and I want to support the indie Mac developers. They have a hard enough time, and they deserve the support when they make something good.

After I updated iTunes this morning I synced all the updated iPod Touch apps, and then found that version 2.2 of the firmware for the Touch was out. I had to update. Safari is updated as is Mail, there are WiFi improvements, and the Home button is really home now, and the general stability and security fixes.

Nice to get, and I have to say I don't miss not having a phone in it. It's perfect just as it is.

The Mozilla Group has released Camino 1.6.5 today with the standard stability and security fixes as well as the latest Gecko rendering engine. They biggest annoyance to me is the buttons on the web sites. Why is it that Camino seems not to be able to do those right?

I understand their desire to be a Mac-like browser, but then they need to be smarter about what they do for the rendering of the buttons. I'm sure it's not high on the list of bugs to fix, but it's a style point that makes it easy for me to place it third out of three for browsers on OS X.

This morning I noticed that Software Update had an update for iTunes to take it to 8.0.2. Seems the improvements were in the integration with VoiceOver, and a problem with third-party MP3 files (Amazon store?), as well as the standard stability and security fixes.

Nothing much changed, but it was nice to see they were moving forward with updates in light of Snow Leopard's release in a few months.

The cats at Rogue Amoeba have fixed two "nasty bugs", as they called them, in Fission and released version 1.6.1 for general consumption. I'm a little surprised that they didn't elaborate, but maybe they were something they'd rather not hear about again and again in the indie Mac developer community (You did What?).

I hadn't hit anything major with Fission, but then again, I'm not making/editing podcasts with it either.

UPDATE: they did say what the problems were:

• Fixed a rare crash that could occur after intensive editing
• Fixed a drawing-related crash on Tiger when using the I and O keys to create a selection

I've been using Flying Meat's VoodooPad (Pro) for a while now, taking the time to put in the things I want quick access to and might not put in this web log. I like the Wiki format, and the auto-creation of links, but I have to admit that I haven't used the imbedded drawing like I might have, it's just not something I've thought to use a lot. But I'm going to try harder in the future.

In any case, they have released version 4.0 of VoodooPad (Pro) and it's got a ton of new features. I like the updated look and feel of the app, including the single window for all options - very much like Acorn, their image editor.

I haven't played with a lot of the other features, but I'm sure I'll get around to them soon enough. I always seem to have the need of some other little tidbit to place into VoodooPad, so I'll be using it more in the weeks to come.

Friday evening we went to pick up my fixed iMac G5 from the OakBrook Apple Store and I've been setting it up, and updating it over the weekend. Yesterday, I went to Best Buy and got a nice My Book 1TB drive for Time Machine on this guy. The drive was in the $260 range, and had USB and Firewire 400 ports - nice drive.

So I got it hooking up and I wanted to reformat it as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) filesystem for Time Machine (and anything else I wanted to throw on there), but when I tried to do that, I kept getting a formatting error, and it'd just stop.

Hmmm...

I finally open up the log for Disk Utility and say this error message:

    newfs_hfs: /dev/rdisk1s1: partition size not a multiple of 4K.

That's very odd. I hadn't seen that before, and I've formatted a lot of this style of drives in the past. I wonder what it was. If I formatted is as FAT32, it worked fine. But I didn't want that. I wanted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). So I had to hit Google.

The solution was not obvious, and yet clear as day once you know what to look for. The trick was in the partitioning of the drive and the 'Options...' button at the bottom. The default from the factory had it with a DOS-based MBR selected, and I needed to select the GUID (for Intel Macs) or the APM (for PPC Macs). Once I did that, then the format was clean and quick, and it's working fine.

Interesting how the defaults play into these things. Glad to have hit it, and figured it out.

I got a nice little surprise today when I went to my machine and noticed that Software Update had Safari 3.2 on it! Sweet! I haven't read all the release notes, but I'm guessing this is the WebKit update that has SquirrelFish in it for JavaScript interpretation. I've been laid up with this back problem, but I'm hoping that as soon as I'm well enough to sit at a desk for a while, I'll be able to have a look at the release notes and see what's all there.

OK, I had a look... seems this release has the anti-phishing features some other browsers have had for a while, and that's nice to have, but they didn't release SquirrelFish, as the Acid3 test is only at 77, and I know SquirrelFish and WebKit have been up to 100 for a while now. So it's better, but it's not the best WebKit can do in this release.

That's OK, I'm sure Snow Leopard will have all the latest in that release at the first of the new year.

Once again, the MacVim team has released a new snapshot of one of the best Vim implementations I've ever seen. There are a few add-ins for this release, and a new way of communicating from the ObjC (Mac) side to the underlying C (Vim) side of the app. Hopefully, this is going to make the app more responsive on slower machines. I know I still love it and it's plenty fast on my MacBook Pro.

If you like Vim, get it.

This morning, at volleyball practice, where I'm the Asst. Coach, I bent over to pick up a volleyball and Zing! I felt it right in my lower back. I had hoped it was simply muscular strain, and would get better during the day, but as time progressed, I knew it wasn't... it was going to be another long recovery.

I spent a lot of Saturday and Sunday resting, and getting a few back spasms along the way. I have to say, I've been told that kidney stones are one of the most painful things you can endure. I have to agree. When I had a kidney stone, it was bad. But a lower back spasm is right up there. If you can't control your breathing and force yourself to relax, then you're going to be in a world of hurt.

Monday morning Liza called the Doctor and I got the prescription for the steroid pack and some muscle relaxers which is all I need - along with time, to get better. It's no fun, no fun at all. But there's nothing I could have done to stop it. No way to know that this volleyball, or whatever, would be the one to aggravate the condition.

So I'm laid up until I'm better. What a drag.