Day by Day

Over the weekend I took the time to migrate the way that I interact with my GMail from the old POP method to the newer (and better) IMAP method. There are a few core reasons for making this dramatic switch, and I’ll mention those later. But first I want to provide you with the step-by-step instructions that I put together from many different sources to set up proper and consistent IMAP syncing of email between the GMail Cloud and your Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (Mail 3.x) or above. See the extended body for the directions and reasons for switching. Enjoy, Alex. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday at approximately 12:11 pm I downloaded and installed the new major release of Apple’s Mobile OS, v3.0, to my iPod Touch. In the extended body of this post I have a few quick notes on the main new features and what I like about them. Enjoy, Alex. Read the rest of this entry »

This morning marked the start of Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers’ Conference (or WWDC). At the start of this weeklong event there is a keynote that Phil Schiller gave that has some useful tidbits of information on Apple products (hardware and software). In the extended body of this post I’ll tell you the key highlights. Enjoy, Alex. Read the rest of this entry »

In just the past few hours Apple sent out a whole slew of updates that sum together to be updating most of the iLife ‘09 software suite. Here’s a summary of the updates:

iLife Support: Memory leaks, custom folders, and importing issues. Requires a reboot.

iDVD: Fixes an issue where iDVD was unable to add title/ comment to an image. Oddly enough this update didn’t show up in Software Update, yet.

iMovie: The software now supports 720p AVCHD Lite cameras and camcorders as well as some other issues.

iPhoto: Some fixes to publishing to MobileMe, Flickr, and Facebook. Slideshow playback and GPS information in emailed and exported images also got improved.

Digital Camera RAW Support: RAW Support added to iPhoto ‘08, iPhoto ‘09, and Aperture 2 for various Canon, Nikon, and Olympus cameras. This update requires a reboot as well.

As the iLife updates depend on the two reboot-required updates this whole set of updates subsequently requires a reboot. As such I’m waiting for after I backup on Saturday to install these. Enjoy, Alex.

Earlier today at around 9:20 am I gave my second speech for the Iraq seminar. From my perspective it went well and I think that people enjoyed it quite a bit. This was the final real assignment for the seminar, especially seeing as how I also turned in my seminar reflection along with the speech text and bibliography. Incidentally, this speech is also the final major assignment of my junior year of high school except solely the Algebra 2 comprehensive test. I’ve included the text of the speech in the extended body of this post, but also have a PDF copy available on my Avalon Projects Website for easy downloading if you like the speech. I’d also gladly read any comments that you may have on the speech in the comments of this blog post. Enjoy, Alex. Read the rest of this entry »

This afternoon Apple sent out 3 updates:

GarageBand v5.0.2 is 108 MB and has these release notes: “Improved purchasing experience for Artist Lessons in the GarageBand Lesson Store, and Accessing installed Jam Packs in the loop browser”.

QuickTime v7.6.2 is 60.3 MB and supports the new iTunes release. This update enforces a reboot.

iTunes v8.2 supports iPhones and iPod Touches running iPhone OS 3.0 (!!!!) and improves accessibility. By nature of requiring the new QuickTime this update will enforce a reboot.

Enjoy, Alex.

June 9th, just 9 days from now, is the final true day of the Avalon school year. However, it is this Friday, June 5th, that the 2008-09 academic school year comes to a complete and final close. WOW!!! For the past 5 years I’ve been in a year-round school (Crosswinds), but putting that small but important detail aside the last 4th of this school year has gone by in a blur of quick and one-directly-after-the-other events. A week before last Friday I finalized my final true independent project of the year (the Red River project), and in the next two days have a finalization each day for my other two independent projects. My summer (which consists of many things I hope to talk about here later on) partly includes the Ancient Greek and World Classics summer project that will be proposed and most likely accepted this Wednesday. Then, on Thursday at 9:20 I will be giving my final speech for the Iraq seminar (I’ll post the text here by the end of that evening). At that time literally every single piece of non-in-class academic work for this school year will be completed (except for small pieces of the end-of-block checklist)! Just WOW, that I’ve come so far this past year in what feels like so little time is amazing. But I do have my transcript which states the credits and standards that I’ve earned as a record. This week, like the past many weeks, I’m sure will go by too fast and then I’ll find myself 7 days from now looking ahead to two short days of earning Community Credit at Avalon getting ready for this summer’s renovations and my summer plans. The two best deliverables this year were my Poetry Book as the first deliverable and my Planet Recipe Cards as my second-to-last deliverable because of the art involved in their production. This has been a good, yet way to fast, year. I’m glad that I’ve engrained it as part of the deliverable process to make my project output available to the world on my website. I look forward to this last week and then a summer that is energetic, productive (for my own hobbies as well as my senior year at Avalon), and on top of all fun! One bright note for you all is that I’m very likely to be blogging a lot more over the summer then I have been during the past many months of the school year because I won’t be nearly as busy with very important things to get done on time. Enjoy, Alex.

Earlier this afternoon Apple sent all it’s purchasers of the iWork ‘09 software suite their second update, v9.0.2. As I’m not installing this new update until Saturday post-backup (for clear reasons) I can’t give you a firsthand rundown of what has changed. However, the Apple Support website says the following about this update:

This update improves reliability when saving some iWork documents and when playing some presentations more than once per Keynote session.

This update is recommended for all users of iWork ‘09.

From that sparse description I can only hope that this update may fix the one serious annoyance that I’ve been having with Keynote ‘09 given what they say about playing presentations. On more than just a few occasions Keynote has taken a long time to show the presentation when I click the Play button. Long enough that instead of displaying the keynote it just reboots my MacBook! Hopefully that serious bug gets fixed when I install this update! Anyway, the update is 42.75 MB and doesn’t require a reboot. Enjoy, Alex.

Earlier this afternoon Apple decided to send its users the next iteration of Mac OS X, version 10.5.7. The update has been a long time coming and so is greatly welcomed in its publicly available state. The update includes a huge number of fixes including the following general fixes: Additional RAW Camera support; Improvements to performance of video playback and cursor movements for recent Macs with NVIDIA graphics; Resolves an issue with Dvorak keyboard layout in Mac OS X 10.5.6; Improves the reliability and accuracy of Unit Converter, Stocks, Weather and Movies Dashboard widgets; Addresses a situation that may cause issues when logging into Gmail; Improves reliability when syncing contacts with Yahoo!; Expansion Slot Utility for Mac Pro now reports the correct PCIe slot configuration; Improves network performance when connected to certain Ethernet switches that have Flow Control enabled; Improves stability for network home directories hosted by Mac OS X Server v10.4; Improves Finder search results for network volumes that may not support Spotlight searching, such as Mac OS X Server v10.4, Time Capsule, and third-party AFP servers. Mail has the following fixes: Addresses reliability and sync issues with Notes (for iPhone OS 3.0?); Addresses an issue that may cause the BCC field to populate incorrectly when redirecting a message from the Sent mailbox. The following improvements have been made to iCal: Improves overall reliability with CalDav; Improves reliability when automatically syncing with MobileMe. The Parental Controls mechanism received these fixes: Improves consistency with Parental Controls and application restrictions; Addresses an issue in which time limits may not work properly with full-screen games and Fast User Switching. The Printing services in OS X got these fixes: Resolves an issue that may cause certain third-party printers to print to the incorrect paper tray; Non-admin user accounts can now be allowed to add and remove printers by enabling Parental Controls and selecting “Can administer printers”; Includes other printing reliability and stability improvements. That about covers what Apple tells us the update includes. The update is a 442 MB download and obviously requires a reboot to install. Enjoy, Alex.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks at Avalon and that state won’t change until June 9th, the last day of school this school year. One of my many projects and long-term seminar assignments was for a media studies seminar with the title and topic of Iraq. The only three assignments in that seminar are a 3-5 minute speech, a 5-7 minute speech, and a seminar reflection. It was earlier today that I gave my 3-5 minute speech which I chose to do on why Saddam Hussein’s rise to power was the natural course of action if you consider the history of Iraq. The delivery of the speech at 9:31 am today lasted 4 minutes and 26 seconds, so well within a respectable timeframe of the 3-5 minute requirement. If any of you feel the urge to read the speech you’ll find the full text in the extended body. Please provide any questions, comments, or suggestions for me about the speech in the comments of this post. Enjoy, Alex. Read the rest of this entry »