OS X + Active Directory + Notebooks

Working with OS X, Windows, Active Directory and other network services as much as I do, I came across a great tip when adding a leopard based machine to a AD domain today. After you bind the machine to the domain, make sure to enable the option called “Create mobile account at login”, especially if the machine is a notebook. I’m not going to say I learned this from experience, but hey you get the drift.

Create mobile account at Login

After binding to your domain, select “Show Advanced Settings” and select the “Services” tab. Open the Active Directory settings and enable the Create Mobile Account at Login check box and confirmation box if necessary.

Take Note!

I, of course, have been using my laptop coupled with my favorite note taking app for Windows to take notes (paper + pencil is so archaic, duh). On that note, I have to say I am so sick of seeing people use Microsoft Word (Mac + PC) to take notes for classes.

After enjoying a couple months off from school, I find myself back in class four days a week learning basic biology. I, of course, have been using my laptop coupled with my favorite note taking app for Windows to take notes (paper + pencil is so archaic, duh). But for the first time in my academic career (outside my computer science classes, I should say), at least 1/2 of the students in the class are also using notebook computers to take notes! This is great proof that my generation (± a few years) are becoming more comfortable using computers for more than just Internet, email and media.

On that note, I have to say I am so sick of seeing people use Microsoft Word (Mac + PC) to take  notes for classes. While most people immediately flock to the o-so-familiar Microsoft Word app to record text, there quite a few applications for both platforms that perform much better for the task at hand.

Starting with OS X (as I started my note taking career on a Powerbook), there are of course the usual suspects: TextEdit (included with OS X) and Microsoft Word for Mac ($149). These two apps will do the job, but not very well. TextEdit is limited in functionality and Microsoft Word is heavy and not Intel native. This is where The Omni Groupcomes in. When I purchased my first Mac (Titanium Powerbook) it came with a program called Omni Outliner from The Omni Group. After messing around with other the other applications, I found Omni Outliner to be the best at keeping notes, thoughts and attachments in one simple workspace. The application is light (especially compared to Microsoft Word), Intel native and follows Apple’s Inspector driven interface. But best of all, Omni Outliner comes standard on EVERY Mac that ships, and it’s a full licesnse.
Omni Outliner

Omni Outliner makes it easy to:

  • Use rich style sheets to define your document’s template
  • Add attachments directly to the file (not just references, be embedded files)
  • Easily create multiple bullet styles, including check marks for lists!
  • Easily create bookmarks throughout your document for quick reference
  • Export to multiple file formats, including PDF, XML, PlainText, RTF and more

For those of you who use Microsoft Windows as your operating system, fear not. At the launch of Office 2003, Microsoft added a new application to the suite called One Note. At it’s core, OneNote is a digital notebook (which I believe to be heavily inspired by the emergence of Tablet PCs) that can be used for note taking, project management, brainstorming and more. It features a familiar WYSIWYG interface with a few exceptions. First, there is no save button. OneNote is always saving, always tracking changes, and therefore requires no manual saving. In OneNote 2007, Microsoft released new features that allow users to make audio and video recordings of meetings or lectures, for example (hardware dependent of course) as well as share their notebooks with other users and collaborate simultaneously. As far as the Windows world goes, there isn’t any comparison. OneNote 2007 delivers the best note-taking product I have ever used and I highly recommend it to anyone using their Windows based PC to take notes. Download a free trial from Microsoft here, but students rejoice! There is an Academic edition of OneNote 2007 available also!
Microsoft One Note 2007Microsoft One Note 2007 Academic Edition – $44.95 from Academic Superstore

Windows Vista Ultimate – Limited Edition

Well I know it may sound really stupid, but I think it might be really cool to buy this Windows Vista Limited Edition. Aside from the blatant copies from Apple OS X and the more hardware intense requirements, the operating system will grow into what XP is today, the standard Microsoft operating system.


Well I know it may sound really stupid, but I think it might be really cool to buy this Windows Vista Limited Edition. I mean, yeah I know it’s Windows, but on that same note, it’s Windows. Bill Gates has announced that he will be stepping down as Chief Software Architect at Microsoft so this would be the last operating system released under his watch. And for what it’s worth, it’s not that bad an OS. Aside from the blatant copies from Apple OS X and the more hardware intense requirements, the operating system will grow into what XP is today, the standard Microsoft operating system. $259 really isn’t that bad to own a piece of history like this.

Addicted

because the 5 shelves in the living room are full.You know the following sequence by heart: 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1024 2048 4096 8192 16384 32768 65536 131072You read The Tao of Programming…and relate.You need an intercom for downstairs to tell your parents / girlfriend / wife / whatever to get you more JOLT.When you take a break from programming, and program.When you can say with a great level of confidance that you have written more lines of code than english.You wake up in the middle of the night with the solution to your coding problem.Your 4 year old son has seen you login and out of Windows and Linux so much that he can do it himself.You are the only one who knows what the difference is between a coder and a programmer.You have more groceries inside your keyboard than in your fridge.You have a toothbrush next to your monitor.You watch a tv sitcom and think “I could write an algorithm that writes the scripts for these things”You sit stuck at traffic lights and work out a more efficient algorithm for them, based on road orientation, sensor placement, time of year, time of day, weather and local sporting events, in your head.The people you respect most you have never physically seen or spoken to, but you always bow to their knowledge.Your family informs you than you should go and make some more friends …so you start coding AI routines.You consider ‘drinking caffeine’ and ‘sleeping’ to be synonyms.You can write ‘Pong’ in any language for any OS (or even NO OS) in under 4 minutes.


You Know You’re Addicted to Coding When…

Triple espresso’s start tasting bland

You have nightmares about COBOL and ADA.

You have good dreams about multiple inheritance, factories, and compilers that support partial template specialization.

Instead of using MS Word, you type your essay for school in HTML using NotePad.

School? What’s that?

You can multiply a 32 bit binary number by a 6 digit hexadecimal number in your head.

You laugh at movies that show programmers at work.

You walk outside and wonder why the sun doesn’t make a lens-flare in your eye….

You get withdrawal symptoms if you’re away from a computer for more than 3 hours

(Lines_of_Code) / (Hours_of_Sleep) < (Number_of_Energy_Drinks_Consumed) Every time you look at your clock, you see a power of 2 (6:40, 1:28, 2:56, 5:12, 10:24) You’re pressing CTRL+S every 5 minutes, in every application.. You end each line you type with “;”, even plain english ones; You code your own support software for the digital camera you just bought When your significant other mentions having kids you lecture her on the disadvantages of multiple inheritance. MSVC opens on startup. Whenever somebody asks you to do something, you try to think of a way to write a program that would help you. You have 2 bookshelves filled with programming books in your room… because the 5 shelves in the living room are full. You know the following sequence by heart: 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1024 2048 4096 8192 16384 32768 65536 131072 You read The Tao of Programming…and relate. You need an intercom for downstairs to tell your parents / girlfriend / wife / whatever to get you more JOLT. When you take a break from programming, and program. When you can say with a great level of confidance that you have written more lines of code than english. You wake up in the middle of the night with the solution to your coding problem. Your 4 year old son has seen you login and out of Windows and Linux so much that he can do it himself. You are the only one who knows what the difference is between a coder and a programmer. You have more groceries inside your keyboard than in your fridge. You have a toothbrush next to your monitor. You watch a tv sitcom and think “I could write an algorithm that writes the scripts for these things” You sit stuck at traffic lights and work out a more efficient algorithm for them, based on road orientation, sensor placement, time of year, time of day, weather and local sporting events, in your head. The people you respect most you have never physically seen or spoken to, but you always bow to their knowledge. Your family informs you than you should go and make some more friends …so you start coding AI routines. You consider ‘drinking caffeine’ and ‘sleeping’ to be synonyms. You can write ‘Pong’ in any language for any OS (or even NO OS) in under 4 minutes. You get drunkhighotherwise intoxicated just for a different coding experience. You think of sex as an algorithm. Sunshine genuinely hurts your eyes. You actually feel like crap from getting 8 hours of sleep, that just so unnatural You can’t help but squeeze math and research topics in while sweet-talking to a girl. You have a “hacker’s manicure” (i.e. huge calluses on all your fingers) When you die you want “Hello world” carved into your headstone You keep old computers around and boot them up every once in awhile for the nostalgia. You would like to have an Aibo to see if you can run Linux on it. Your mother phoned you to see if you were still alive, and you responded “ping”. You look at your old code and cringe You got a D in Computer Programming class because you where coding a plasma effect instead of a “Hello World!” program You read books on quantum physics and time-travel to relax. When someone asks you your favorite color, you give the RGB code in binary. No one else can ever use your computer, as it is tweaked so much only you know how to use it. The first time you use another person’s computer it takes you less than 30 seconds to completely disable all useless programs from running at boot and uninstalling all the ad-ware the fools had on the system. You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends who are addicted to coding.

Get Your Own Addicted Meme Here

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It’s Official, AIM is DEAD

Users of the new Google Talk client for Windows Now have the new and following features:File Transfer With this top requested new feature, you can send unlimited files and folders to your friends through Google Talk.

Well, not really. However, with the pending launch of a new version of Google Talk, it will be soon. Users of the new Google Talk client for Windows Now have the new and following features:

File Transfer With this top requested new feature, you can send unlimited files and folders to your friends through Google Talk. There is no restriction on the file type or size and the peer-to-peer transfer is fast and reliable. Learn more
A small percentage of users (such as those behind restrictive proxies) will not experience the highest level of file transfer speed possible.

Voice mail If a friend isn’t around to answer your call, now you can leave a voice mail. You can even leave voice mail messages for your friends who don’t use Google Talk–they’ll receive an email with the message attached as an audio file. Learn more

Music Status Listening to music while on Google Talk? Now you can let your friends see what you’re listening to by selecting “Show current music track” in your status menu. Your status message will change when your song does! Learn more

For those of you who don’t use Google Talk, I highly recommend it. While similar in functionality to all the other IM clients, Google Talk has some key features that make it stand out as the leader:

  1. Direct Gmal Integration – you can use Google Talk right from the Gmail website. Check it out!
  2. Chat Auto Archiving – because of the direct integration with Gmail, Google Talk can automatically save your chat histories in Gmal for you under the heading Chats. What makes this cool is that it doesn’t matter what computer/device you are accessing Google Talk from, it will get everything. For example, I connect to Google Talk from my desktop at work, home as well as from my Blackberry. The chats are archived from all the devices
  3. No Ads! – That’s right, when you are using the Google Talk client on Windows, there are no Ads anywhere. Yay Google!
  4. Voice Chat – Similar to Skype, Google Talk features an excellent VoIP solution (SIP) for great voice calls.
  5. Easy To Use – With just the options you need, Google Talk is great for nearly all users

So yeah, DOWNLOAD THE NEW GOOGLE TALK!

Digg It!

Microsoft Privacy Check to begin TODAY

In attempt to scare unlicensed Windows users, Microsoft will release and new version of Windows Genuine Validation in the form of Windows Genuine Advantages Notifications tool. It will display a message “This copy of Windows is not genuine;

In attempt to scare unlicensed Windows users, Microsoft will release and new version of Windows Genuine Validation in the form of Windows Genuine Advantages Notifications tool. It will display a message “This copy of Windows is not genuine; you may be a victim of software counterfeiting.”

Great…..

via cnet News.com

Apple BootCamp

As a funny side note, the BootCamp site has a silly disclaimer on the side: Word to the WiseWindows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC.That means it’ll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world.So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes.

After the major announcement last year that Apple was going to switch to Intel processors and the surprise announcement of the Intel iMac and MacBook Pro in January (six months ahead of schedule), Apple has done it again. Shortly after a few programmers were able to get BIOS emulation to work on the Mac, Apple released a new product BootCamp.

More and more people are buying and loving Macs. To make this choice simply
irresistible, Apple will include technology in the next major release of Mac
OS X, Leopard, that lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system
on your Mac. Called Boot Camp (for now), you can download a public beta
today.

Obviously only compatible with the new Apple computers with Intel chips (MacBook Pro, iMac, MacMini), BootCamp not only allows users to setup and install Windows XP, it even burns a CD with the core drivers (Graphics, Networking, Audio, Airport Wireless, Bluetooth, The Eject Key, and Brightness Control) for Windows. This was the main problem with the hack-around method before as users were faced with unstable performance.

The real question now is, how well does it perform. Shortly after the announcement of BootCamp, I downloaded and installed Windows XP on my 20′ iMac with an Intel Core Duo processor running with 2 GB RAM. The install went very quickly and as I began to install applications (Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, Macromedia Studio 8) I noticed that they were installing faster than on my PCs. I launched Adobe Photoshop and began working with some RAW images. I applied some filters and effects and the results were astounding. The performance completely blew my current PC setup out of the water! Illustrator and Flash gave similar results. The verdict? Not only does the iMac perform amazingly with OS X, it simply fies with Microsoft Windows.

As a funny side note, the BootCamp site has a silly disclaimer on the side:

Word to the Wise
Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC.
That means it’ll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world.
So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes.

🙂 Apple, you never cease to amaze me.