Apple woos developers to OS X Leopard

With a combination of an unbeatable debugging tool, the most famous web development framework for scripting, faster graphics than ever before, and QT video capture and iLife applications being exposed as components directly to non-Apple applications.

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pirates for Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster

I just downloaded the Pirate translator from the Apple Dashboard top 50 list

Here is a quote that I typed in off the top of my head:

I wonder if you have read about the giant flying spaghetti monster. Did you know it is a theory that explains many of the mystical things about our universe, like science, that would otherwise be too complex to comprehend?

Not too impressive, is it?

Now, read the same quote after being run through the Pirate Translator widget that you can download for free to run on your Mac's Dashboard:

I wonder if ye 'ave read about th' giant flyin' spaghetti monster. Did ye know 'tis a theory that explains many o' th' mystical thin's about our universe, like science, that would otherwise be too complex t' comprehend?

That is a pretty clean translation. Read it carefully. Pretty good, no?

This great little widget from Pirate Monkeyness is just the thing to liven up the world.

It might not win any converts for the Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster right away. But it is only a matter of time before it does, har, har.

One can now buy the Gospel of the FSM in bookstores, at Amazon books online, at Barnes and Noble, and elsewhere.

Another use for the Pirate Translator is to spice up new product announcements. Especially, if your target demographic is pirates!

No moon tonight!

According to the Current Moon Phase calculator, there is going to be no moon at all tonight.

It is going to be very dark!

No Fatalities Reported In Hawaii Earthquake

HONOLULU, Oct. 15 -- A strong earthquake shook Hawaii early Sunday, causing landslides that blocked major highways on Hawaii Island and Maui. It knocked out power and limited communications across the state but apparently caused no fatalities, authorities said.

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Delicious Library is a handy app for the Mac that can help organize your library

If you have a Macintosh and a big library (books, music, DVDs, video games), check out Delicious Library (shareware $40) for for the Apple Mac.

It runs on Mac OS X and makes it easy to catalog all of your books.

It will use your Mac’s iSight cam to scan the UPC barcode. Or you can type in the UPC code, the IBSN number, or the title.

It is pretty fun.

It even comes with a handy Dashboard widget with a mini version of your bookshelf and a search field, so you can find stuff fast.

I just now tried the widget, and it is fast – plus, the animation looks really neat: a spotlight plays across the empty shelf, and then the books swiftly slide in from the left side.

The application itself is just amazing. It lets you enter lots of information about each book, holds an image of it which is displayed on a virtual bookshelf, and has lots of other cool features.

See more progress on: Recatalog my library.

Dunn and four others charged in HP spy case

I really respected Hewlett-Packard decades ago when I was learning to program computers.

They made the minicomputers, the terminals, and the printers that high students in the public school system in my county used to do their Computer Science class programming assignments.

What impressed me about the HP computers was the quality of their documentation.

Just by reading their computer manuals, I taught myself: B.N.F, SPL/3000, zero-address space architectures (stack-based processor), and my second ALGOL-derived block programming language.

My first and third ALGOL-derived languages were PL/C, a PL/1 compiler from Cornell that ran on IBM/370 mainframes, and Pascal. All three of these languages I also taught myself back in high school. My school system also taught me BASIC and FORTRAN. I taught myself a couple assembly languages during my junior and senior years as well.

The first programming language I ever used was BASIC, and I ran it on two models of HP's once popular minicomputers. HP was instrumental in my computer education during high school.

I also used computers made by Honeywell and IBM during my first year of CS education during high school. HP computers were the main resource I used to learn how to program computers.

HP was people-friendly back then.

Their manuals were amazing, they had newsletters that were very educational, and they would even sell their manuals to high school kids. They had an office just 20 or 30 miles from where I lived that sold them to me.

HP treated me like an adult when I called their sales number. Their employees were probably my very first contact with a computer company. I was impressed with their knowledge.

Now I see that company has changed. Really changed.

It is sad.

globeandmail.com: Dunn and four others charged in HP spy case:

Former
Hewlett-Packard Co. chairwoman Patricia Dunn and four others are facing criminal charges in California, including identity theft and conspiracy, for their role in a covert hunt for a boardroom mole.

The charges, filed Wednesday by California Attorney-General Bill Lockyer, mark the latest blow for the venerable computer maker, which is also facing investigations by the U.S. Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress.

Patricia Dunn has recently made statements that (a) it is not illegal, (b) all the companies are doing it.

Facts that have subsequently come out in the press contradict her claims. First, she has been charged with crimes stemming from her actions. Second, Apple Computer sued - rather than illicitly sleuthed - to find out who was leaking information about its unreleased products.

When the court denied its plea to discover who had leaked confidential informaiton to the journalists, Apple dropped its case. The matter was closed. Apple did not cross the line that Dunn and HP crossed.

The same article explains the penalties for the charges if there are convictions.

The five defendants are each facing four charges: use of false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility; unauthorized access to computer data; identity theft; and conspiracy to commit those crimes.

All four counts carry a maximum prison sentence of three years. The maximum fine for each of the three underlying felonies is $10,000 (U.S.). A conviction for conspiracy to fraudulently obtain phone records, or conspiracy to unlawfully access and use computer data, carries a maximum fine of $10,000.

Computer companies need to make money, but they should not just be about making money.

You have to like people and computers too.

Otherwise you are just spinning out of control, without a compass to guide your course or a rudder to steer you on it.

I hope Dunn learns to appreciate people and computers more at some point in her life.

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