The essential Mac OS X freeware list Sat, Jun 23. 2007
It's now official - I'm a Mac user. After flirting with Ubuntu Linux for a year, watching Knut Sætre (my coworker) use his MacBook Pro and reading all the switch stories around the net I decided time had come for a change. So far, I'm definitely not regretting anything. OS X seems to me like Plug 'n Play the way it was supposed to work. Everything integrates out of the box, and I've so far never even SEEN the word "driver". 
I've always meant that my "work computer" should work without fiddling and never need tweaking. This was the reason I waited so long to try Linux, and this is exactly the reason I love OS X.
As those who know me might know, I love researching stuff on the net. In addition to that, I've also got a personal policy of always using freeware when it does the job - my own way of avoiding pirated software. It also helps freeware authors get a nice user mass, so I can't say I feel sorry for NOT buying commercial alternatives.
So one of the first things I did (actually before I received my black new-model MacBook with 2GB ram) was researching for apps I needed. And now, after actually testing them I figured I might publish my findings, so others could benefit from it as well. 
So here it is, my list of Mac OS X "must have" freewares:
Reorganizing my life... again Sat, Apr 28. 2007
During the last couple of months, GMail has had several hiccups. And when Google homepage suddenly lost all my gadgets for two days recently, I figured I might look into the desktop application approach to organizing my life again. I've also experienced that having "tools" in the same browser that contains tabs with social networks and news is pretty counter-productive in the long run.
Free design work Sun, Mar 18. 2007
I found this through No-spec.com, the original author is unknown and the original posting was on CraigsList.
To those who are looking for someone to do work for free… please wake up and join the real world
Every day, there are more and more CL posts seeking “artists” for everything from auto graphics to comic books to corporate logo designs. More people are finding themselves in need of some form of illustrative service.
Why Vista isn't coming near my computers Wed, Feb 21. 2007
I've earlier written a norwegian piece on why Vista isn't coming near my computer over at Nettvint.net, but since the arguments have grown during time and I felt the need for a recap, I'll do it again.
To sum it up: Vista isn't coming near any of my computers, and I'll tell you why right here and now:
Why Flash websites are a really, really bad idea Mon, Nov 27. 2006
Just to state some basic facts...
- Flash doesn't work everywhere, unlike normal HTML. My computer runs a 64-bit OS without 32bit emulation, and Adobe has yet to provide a Flash player for any 64-bit platform.
- Flash requires a proprietary plugin.
- Flash does not let users change font sizes or contrast settings using personalized stylesheets.
- A lot of screenreaders and other accessibility tools does not work with Flash (some screenreaders does using a Windows-specific API).
- Flash is not indexable by all search engines. Some does index text in Flash files, but since there is no way to link to the subpage your query was found in, people can't be redirected to the result, making the result useless for users.
- If a browser doesn't support Flash, you get nothing unless the entire website is also saved in a standard compliant (also know as HTML) way. If a browser doesn't support CSS, you will still get a readable website.
- Flash doesn't not present my usual OS widgets (textfields, submit buttons and such) or use my OS settings for these (larger fontsizes, higher contrast and such).
- Flash is owned by a commercial entity and even though the format specification is open, it is not licensed for free use.
- Flash sites breaks the back button, a fundamental function that users are used to.
- There is no way to bookmark a subpage of most Flash-only sites.
- Flash doesn't work in most alternative browser devices, like PDAs or Smart phones.
- Printing content from a Flash site is extremely difficult and most of the time comes out weird on paper, if at all.
Flash doesn't provide a standard way of navigating without the mouse(tab navigation is possible by default).
Note: I'm not saying Flash should be banned from the net, I think there are numerous valid reasons to use Flash. But my opinion is that it should only be used for interactive multimedia which cannot be represented in HTML/CSS/JS in an easy way. Stuff like games, ads and (because of terrible object tag support in browsers) video playback. If you need to use Flash to have graphical menu buttons with mouseovers or display a logo in the header of your site you really should reconsider your profession.
Edit: Item 5 moderated, item 13 refuted.
Sidenote: Tadeusz Szewczyk at Fadtastic talks about the demise of Flash.
Edit: Item 4 moderated.
The Top 10 Arguments Against DRM Mon, Nov 20. 2006
Via Learn Out Loud you can read about why DRM is a bad, bad thing... And for the less technical of my readers, DRM is the copy protection on all music bought online from MSN (for your Zune player) or iTunes (for the iPod). This is a must read, the end of the article contains a lot of tips on where to get music without DRM, even cheaper than MSN and iTunes!
Yet another Firefox extension list Sat, Oct 28. 2006
When I first got a customized Firefox install demonstrated to me I was immediately awestruck by the functionality offered by extensions. Sure, Firefox isn't the fastest nor the most standard-compliant browser around, but the extensions really got me hooked (thanks, HHJ)! So I did the conversion after having used Opera for 5-6 years. And now, after half a year I find it a real pain to install all extensions every time I install a new computer. So as much for the benefit of myself as well as a public service, I thought I'd list all my extensions together with links.
Linux ikke helt klart for desktopen Thu, May 4. 2006
Jeg har hørt veldig mye skryt av Ubuntu, så jeg fant ut dette var det naturlige valget.
Ettersom jeg innså det ville bli mye switching mellom OS i begynnelsen (og for å ha ryggdekning i tilfelle alt gikk rett vest) fant jeg ut at jeg skulle flytte alle viktige dokumenter samt Firefox og Thunderbird profilene til en FAT32 partisjon slik at dette kunne deles mellom Linux og Windows.
Forsøk en
Siste releaseutgave av Ubuntu (v5 breezy) ble installert. Jeg gikk for stabilt og velprøvd. Etter at systemet var satt opp oppdaget jeg at nyeste Firefox i pakketreet var versjon 1.0.5. Ikke akkurat ideelt med mindre jeg ville degradere Windowsversjonen til samme utgave, noe som ikke var særlig aktuelt.
Jeg fant fort en tutorial for å gjøre in-place oppgradering til v6 (dapper) og denne fungerte utmerket og jeg kunne fort konstantere at Firefox 1.5.x var på plass.
Dessverre fant jeg ut jeg skulle resize Windows-partisjonene på disken, fikk mange kryptiske feilmeldinger fra PartitionMagic, kjørte et partisjonstabellrepareringsprogram (si det fort etter hverandre et par ganger!) og endte plutselig opp med at hele Linuxdelen av disken endte opp som "unpartitioned space". Nuvel.
Forsøk to
Med en "fikset" partisjonstabell bega jeg meg ut på en ny ferd mot uavhengighet. Etter å ha lest litt frem og tilbake fant jeg ut at KDE måtte være tøft. Altså, Kubuntu (som er Ubuntu med KDE som default istedenfor Gnome). Ny installasjon, med v6 dapper fra starten av.
Under installasjonen taster jeg inn SSID og WEP-nøkkel og alt går fint. Men så booter maskinen inn i desktopen og plutselig har jeg NULL trådløsnett!
Nettverksverktøyet i desktopen sier at forbindelsen er "up", men eksperimenter med ifconfig i konsollen sier meg at jeg ikke har IP. Ellers ingen direkte feilmeldinger, DNS-oppslag feiler og ping funker ikke. Etter MYE feilsøking går jeg inn på oppsett av trådløst og velger SSID'en min på nytt, og halleluja det funker plutselig! Problemet er rett og slett at tekstinstalleren til Ubuntu ikke er case-sensitiv (skiller ikke mellom store og små bokstaver) i SSID'en, mens det ferdig installerte systemet er det. Logisk? Nei. Så jeg tastet SSID'en med feil case men det funket litt.
Så... moving on. Nyeste Firefox og Thunderbird på plass rett fra pakketreet. Men mailto-linker ble feil i Firefox (åpnet i KMail) og http-linker ble feil i Thunderbird (åpnet i Konqueror, KDE's browser)! Selv om innstillingene var satt til å bruke Mozillaprogramvaren. Stønn.
Etter mye om og men fant jeg ut at dette var slik disse to programmene hadde oppført seg i KDE for mange brukere lenge uten at det hadde blitt fikset. Jeg fant riktignok et js-hack for configfila til disse to, men den observante leser husker at jeg skulle dele profil mellom Windows og Linux for disse programmene og da funket den heller dårlig... Tilbake til square one.
Forsøk tre
Ubuntu 6 dapper. Her gir vi oss ikke så lett nei! Installerte. Tilpasset i øst og vest (deriblant oppsett av delte profiler). Testet grundig. Funket fint. Nå gjensto det bare å installere eventuell programvare jeg trenger til daglig. Kopete (MSN-klient) installeres og funker fint, veldig fint faktisk.
Neste skritt, finne en decent PHP/HTML/CSS editor. Etter å ha lest mye omtaler, sett på screenshots og sammenlignet egenskaper bestemmer jeg meg for Screem. Installerer, tester bittelitt og den ser fin ut.
Men hva skjer neste gang jeg trykker på en link i Kopete? Linken åpnes i Screem! I HTML-edit-visning! Jaja, tenker jeg, den har vel satt seg som standard nettleser da. Inn på brukervalg, finner nettleserinnstillingen, og... eh... finner ut at den fortsatt står på Firefox. Prøver å switche den til Konqueror og tilbake til Firefox igjen for syns skyld. Tester igjen. Nei. HTTP-linker funker ikke lenger, verken i Kopete eller i Thunderbird.
Så her står jeg nå, med et skakkjørt Linux for tredje gang på to uker, og jeg er dataingeniør. Og likevel finnes det folk som mener at alle bør bruke Linux istedenfor Windows?
Kyss meg i r...
