All Forces

One of the new features of Mac OS 10.5, a.k.a. Leopard, is .Mac’s Back to My Mac, a way to connect to your computer at home remotely. Back to My Mac allows a user log into another Mac remotely via internet. This is a great feature but it is only available if you are a .Mac subscriber. However, the new iChat supports Screen Sharing, so the only thing to figure out is how to auto-accept a Screen Share invitation and how to do it securely. This quick tutorial will show you how set up iChat to do just that.

Requirements:

This set up requires that both computers run Leopard. If you don’t have it yet, here’s the Amazon link to buy it. It is well worth the price. You also need two separate iChat supported IM accounts, one for each computer. This could be AIM, .Mac or Jabber accounts.

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And the countdown begins. Apple announced today it will be shipping Leopard, it’s next version of Mac OSX on October 26th. That is only 10 days away! I’m particularly looking forward to the new Mail, Spaces, Quick Look and the new Finder. Oh and of course, one of my most used and beloved apps, TextEdit, which will have OpenDocument and Word 2007 Formats support. I know Apple is touting Time Machine as the killer feature, but we’ll see how many people end up using it.

Referral Link: Pre-Order from amazon.com

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhjgGBiqPDM[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKA0gUMEIKM[/youtube]

These are my kids looking very impressive solving the Rubik’s Cube. Now, if you are a cuber, you wouldn’t be as impressed since you know the “Cube” move is the most basic of all moves and can be learned in just a few minutes. And yes, I did set it up so that all they needed to do is apply the move to finish it. But man, they look so smart doing this. I’m sure most parents think their kids are special, but I’m just saying…. My kids are special.

A new toy is awaiting me at home today. I finally broke down and got a digital SLR camera. I went for the Canon Rebel 10mb XTI with a lens that costs twice as much, the EF-S 17-55mm. I am also getting a flash for it, but I am still hesitant to get the 580ex since the 430ex seems to fulfill the needs of a non professional photographer, it’s cheaper and lighter. But hey, what do I know, I’m the newbie here. Any suggestions are welcome. But not matter which I choose, I plan to get Gary Fong’s fantastic Lightsphere diffuser. I will post some pics as soon as I take some.

Link: Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM at Amazon
Link: Canon Digital Rebel XTi at Amazon
Link: Canon 430EX Speedlight flash at Amazon
Link: Lightsphere II at Amazon

I am truly sadden whenever we loose a great artist and Marcel Marceau is no exception. I know that in general, the art of mime is not as honored in the US as it is in other parts of the world. It is evident in so many movies were mimes are mocked. But that’s probably because they’ve never seen Marceau perform. I saw his show at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles a few years back and it was a magical experience. So here it is to Marcel Marceau. You will be missed.

Marcel Marceau on:
Link: Wikipedia
Link: Flickr
Link: YouTube

Yesterday Anika, our 7 year old, overhead us talking about how disappointed we were about Hillary’s new health plan. She interrupted us asking if we were mad about it, to which we replied “well yes, we are”. So I thought this was a great opportunity to school my daughter about our nation’s current “for profit” health care system compared to other nation’s free universal health care systems. She was shocked to hear people die in the US because they can’t afford the medicine or an operation they need. And that in other european countries the doctors help you in any way they can without having to worry about money. At first, I was very impressed with her interest and conclusions. She asked “Is our president too distracted with the war in Iraq to think about health?”. But when I mentioned Hillary Clinton’s new proposed plan. She said “Hillary Clinton? I thought you were talking about the other Hillary. Hillary Duff!”. She then quickly realized how funny it was and broke out laughing. I kept trying to go back to the subject at hand but I had lost my audience to a running joke that lasted through the night.

Link: Hilary Duff
Link: Hilary Clinton

I so had to have one. Although I did end up getting the wired one instead of the smaller wireless one because I am tired of recharging/replacing batteries on my old bluetooth keyboard. Having that said, my heart is still set with the smaller one. I can only hope my kids have another liquid spill on their keyboard forcing me to pass on this one to them and get a new wireless one for me. Oh, Apple, why do you do this to me? You make such pretty things.

Link: Flickr Photo Set

To celebrate me and my wife’s birthdays in July, we went to Maui, Hawaii for a a week and took the kids with us. It’s funny because we lived in Los Angeles for 13 years but never vacationed in Hawaii and within a year of living in New York, we decided to go to there. This added and extra 6 hour leg to the 6 hour flight from LA. We stayed in a rental condo owned by Gary, a dear friend from LA, in Kahana on the island of Maui. The condo had a full kitchen and was literally in front of the beach with a balcony that faced the water. In this cozy spot overlooking the sunset, we had many memorable meals, wine and cheese and even made out frequently late at night while the kids were asleep. The kitchen came in very handy since food in Hawaii turned out to be just as expensive, if not more expensive than New York. It’s been a month now since the trip and I just barely got around to finish tagging all the photos and posting them to Flickr. Enjoy the pictures!

The Flickr Set
The Condo

As some of you know, Apple asked me give a session about WordPress at at their WWDC 07 conference this year. The session was titled “Designing and Extending the Mac OS X Blog Experience” and they gave me an hour to cover how to create a local development system for designing blogs with WordPress and Mac OS X. So I practiced, practiced and practiced my session and had my Steve Jobs moment with Keynote and a huge screen behind me… and I did alright. The video(audio and slides) of the session is now available in the iTunes Store. An Apple Developer account is required but you can get that at no cost.

Link: ADC in iTunes Store (Link Updated)
Look for it under WWDC 2007 Sessions > Content and Media - Video

After many months of painfully slow internet service from Time Warner Cable, I’ve upgraded to a 20 Mbps connection from RCN. According to my first test, I got 15.6 Mbps. Not the advertised rate, but still 20 times faster than what I was actually getting from Time Warner. Even my upload speed is 2.5 times faster than the download I was getting before. At these speeds, I am seriously considering canceling my tv services as well. And since usually only the best shows end up on DVD, I think between Netflix and everything else available online, all of our tv needs can be met. So good bye loading bar, and hello multiple downloads.