A lot of people have been posting referrals to a new site called bux.to on Twitter & elsewhere. It works by having you click ads and stay at the site for 30 seconds. This is click fraud, and it’s against the terms of service for Google AdSense and every other ad service.
Mike Cohen
Flashback to May 2007
As I was coming home from errands today, a neighbor came speeding around the corner and missed hitting me by mere inches. It was almost a repeat of what happened in May, when a different neighbor actually did hit me. Thankfully this one missed, but I was still pretty upset about it.
Skitch gets public profiles
Skitch is one of my favorite Mac utilities. It lets you capture an image (either a screen grab or iSight snap), add markup such as text & arrows, and share it on Flickr, .mac, or Skitch.com. I’ve been using it instead of the OS X’s built-in screenshot.
Uploaded with Until now, you could only share individual images by providing the URL. Now, you can specify whether an image should be public, private, or hidden. The default, ‘secret URL’ still lets you share an image, as I have done here, but it won’t appear on your profile page. Any images you specify as public will appear on your public page.
My profile is at http://skitch.com/mike3k/.
The death of an icon for Islam in Senegal
I’m very interested in Senegalese music & culture, so I’m posting this item from MetaFilter.
Serigne Saliou Mbacké, the leader of the Mourides, a prominent Sufi Islamic brotherhood in Senegal, died a week ago today. One of the most influential people in Senegal, he had been the the last living son of the Mouride founder Chiekh Amadou Bamba. Thousands of peoplehave traveled Touba, the Mouride capital, to pay their respects.
The new leader of the Mourides, Mouhamadou Lamine Bara Mbacke, is the first grandson of Caliph Ahmadou Bamba Mbacke to become leader.
Many of New York City’s street vendors are Mouride followers, and they send much of their money back to Touba. For an interesting article about them, read this. A must read for anyone who doesn’t realize just how bad Giuliani is.
GTD software for the Mac
I’ve been looking for a GTD application I would actually use regularly for a long time. I want something quick & simple, that isn’t too intrusive, yet lets me add tasks and get reminders any time. Finally I’ve found two that seem very promising.
links for 2008-01-04
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How to clean your mighty mouse (wired model)(tags: mac)
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The Year of the Linux Desktop began as a dream, transformed into a myth, and is now little more than a humorous meme.(tags: linux)
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Here are 20 resources to help you find some of that great freeware for your OS X machine.
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A collection of themes for TextMate(tags: textmate)
Windows gets a needed feature
Microsoft has patented a frustration-detection help system that would monitor your computer use and biometrics to figure out when you were frustrated. It could then offer to pair you up with someone else doing exactly the same thing who might be able to help you out.
Clueless customer support
Remember the Royal PF110 digital picture viewer I blogged about last night?
I sent the following email to their customer support:
I was given a PF110 as a present, but the software that came with it is PC
only and it doesn’t mention Mac compatibility. I use a Mac, although I can
run Windows under Vmware. However, the CD that came with it is a mini-CD
that can’t be used in my MacBook Pro’s slot- loaded drive. Is there a way to
download the full software for it (which I could probably run under VMware)?
All I could find is a Vista upgrade.
Here’s the reply I got, most likely automated:
REFERENCE NUMBER: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Please use this ticket number in any correspondence with us.
SUBJECT: FW: Message from Royal Consumer Information Products, Inc. Website. – PF110Dear Customer,
Thank you for contacting us.
We regret the inconvenience caused to you. Our software will not work with mac computer. Please follow the link to download the patch file for windows vista.
http://www.royal.com/drivers_manuals.htm
In case this email does not fully answer your question, or you would like to contact us for any reason, simply reply to this email. You can also get immediate assistance by calling our Customer Service Department at: 1-800-272-6229.
Sincerely,
Sandy
Customer Service Department
Royal Consumer Information Products, Inc.
I did manage to get the software on my Mac. My old Dell Inspiron laptop does have a use – its CD ROM drive will take a mini CD, so I was able to copy the CD contents to my file server and then install it on my Mac. It does work under Parallels and the device is recognized when I connected it to the virtual machine. The software is extremely clunky & ugly, though.
Best wishes to Om Malik
Om Malik had a heart attack on December 28. Thankfully he was able to walk to the hospital and is recovering. My thoughts are with him.
Belated Christmas presents
Two of my friends were in San Francisco during the holidays, and another friend lives in New Jersey and only comes down here for a few weekends, so this was the first time all of us were here since Christmas so we got together and exchanged gifts tonight.
Among the gifts was a Royal PF110 digital picture keychain. Unfortunately it isn’t Mac compatible. I could probably use it with Windows under Parallels, but the software came on a mini CD that can’t be used in a slot-loading drive. I couldn’t find a download of the full software online, only a Vista upgrade. It doesn’t appear as a USB mass storage device when I connect it, so it looks like it can only be used with their proprietary software.
