Playing with a few things, changing a few things, updating a few things.
A couple of new apps this week. The first I heard about on Mac Break Weekly called Shape Collage. You can read the write up at dbmini. I know I know, I don’t normally post software reviews there, but most of the readers carry camera and they still out-number you 2:1.
Second app I’m playing with is called DoubleTwist. It’s an app for getting media to your device of any shape (mp3 players, phones, game consoles) and for sharing with your friends. I don’t see a real need for this on the ATP, but if you have anything else that holds media, it might be worth checking out. Full write-up to follow after I play with it some more.
Oh yea, both of these run on Windows and Mac. So go nuts.
After my recent issues with the Adobe AIR runtime component in OS X, I started thinking about the uninstallation of apps on the Mac in general.
Sure, it’s simple, right? Find the app in The Finder, drag it to the trash and poof, it’s gone. Except that it really isn’t.
Over on Windows, MS made developers include a uninstallation routine with the installer. Sure it was hit or miss until Windows XP, but it was still there. And, it was there for many reasons, least of which is that uninstalling applications in Windows without it is practically impossible unless you are the original developer of the app. There are folders. There are .dll files. There are registry entries. Log files. Mold, mildew and soap scum. When you install an app on Windows, it gets everywhere.
Not so on the Mac. You open the .dmg, drag the icon out and that’s it. Everything that app needs contained inside of a nice package.
We can call this part 2 in the series about getting to know RSS.
Before we begin, you do know what RSS, don’t you?. Follow that link if you aren’t sure.
Now that you know what RSS is, why do you care? What are you going to do with this new found knowledge? Well friends, RSS will help you do some really cool stuff!
Most websites these days have an RSS feed. You will know this because you will see the orange icon someplace on the site, or your browser will tell you in the address bar (the orange icon, a star, the letters RSS or something similiar). With these feeds, you can actually subscribe to the websites that have them!
Subscribe? Wait a second. Isn’t that a print medium term?
Yes, yes it is. But it applies out here in the Internets too. Lemme ’splain.
RSS feeds are actually files that you can download to your computer. You can view them online as well, but without the right software it might look to you like the Internet barfed on your display. Like I have mentioned before, this is normal.
Once downloaded to your computer, you can use special (almost always free) software that will let you read the website without having to actually visit the site. Imagine a website that updates every few days with a new story or photo. Imagine again that update arriving in your email inbox, available to read whenever you like. That is what is called subscribing. And you can do this for as many sites as you dare can keep up with.
Once you have subscribed to a site, it’s only a matter of opening a program (much like email) that will download the updated feeds for you automatically. Once downloaded, you can read them whenever you like! I know, pretty sweet, right? Also, if it’s a story that you like and would like to comment on (or only a snipet of the story was posted), you can still visit the site with a single click. No need to open a bookmark or type the address in your browser. It’s very very handy.
It’s all starting to make sense now, right? That’s ok if you need to go back and read again.
Next time it will actually subscribe to a feed or two using Google Reader. Great fun! Stick around.
Groovy song, even groovier effects.
Be sure to click through to watch the HD version. It’s worth it.
I’ve been using Tweetdeck for my Twitter needs of late and I can tell you that it’s the only app built in Adobe AIR that I actually like. Until it came time to upgrade to a newer version.
Everytime I tried to run the upgrade, it would crash and not restart. I tried reinstalling from the website using Firefox and Safari, but couldn’t get it to go. I tried installing other AIR apps the same way, but no go. So I tried to reinstall AIR, but that kept telling me that AIR was already installed, which means the installer wouldn’t run.
No big deal, I think. I’ll just uninstall and reinstall AIR I think. How hard can it be? I have expert level technical experience and skills, and this is just a simple software uninstall/reinstall.
Until I find that I don’t have an uninstaller for Adobe AIR on my system. Great. I then go about searching on google, on adobe and anyplace else I could think of. It would seem the only way to fix this problem is to sign up for an account on the adobe support site and submit a question.
Why?
All I want is the runtime uninstaller. Hell, I’d be happy if I could just reinstall AIR, but it won’t let me since it’s already installed. I don’t want to jump through a bunch of hoops and give my information for a file download.
As it turns out, there is a way to uninstall AIR without the uninstaller that I found here. It requires using terminal and having the installer DMG open, but it works.
Why couldn’t I find this on Adobe’s site? Why did I have to use a command line to fix this? It is thing like this that make computers hard to use for the majority of users and the only benefit is to keep a few support staff busy with phones and email troubleshooting the problem.
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