Now this was a good day
Posted on June 25, 2003
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# The garage doors are finally being installed. After we get our garage back, I think the house is *done*.
# The windows and hardwood floors were professionally cleaned (thanks, Mom, for arranging it)
# I got enough in billings that it was time to open a separate bank account for Mom at Home Design (I applied for and received a trade name from the city months ago)
# This is the big one…the city has an outdoor art installation every summer. A few years ago they mirrored New York City with a cow parade. This year it’s a safari of ceramic animals. They had a contest to name one of the animals. Top 10 entries put in a hat and the Mayor picks the winner. Eric just got the call from the Mayor. He won! It’s a gorilla in a business suit that is now officially named “Businessimian.” He’s stopping by the TV/Appliance store later to pick up our new 32″ flat screen TV! Woo hoo! Of course, now I need to have enough time to watch TV but that’s beside the point. 
update: Our local newspaper just called looking for my lucky hubby, so I should have a link tomorrow to a nice fluffy PR article about it.
Can you hear me? Can you hear me now?
Posted on June 25, 2003
Filed Under Macintosh | Comments Off
If you’re running Mac OS X 10.2.6, you *have* to try iChat AV. We’ve owned an iBot webcam for a while, but never used it. My mother-in-law has a webcam and we keep talking about how we have to get it going, but I never thought Macs fully came to the game with videoconferencing. The picture with iChat AV is superb. Way beyond what you typically see with webcams. I’ve had a few video chats with some folks from the Mac lists (it’s Mac to Mac only right now) and it’s been fun. I think we have a tendency to hide behind our keyboards online and while that has its advantages, it’s also nice to be able to reintroduce body language and eye contact back into our worldwide communication. Even without the AV features, the new iChat is much improved…multi-line typing at last among other improvements.
The only issue I’ve had is with audio. My G4/450 is nearly 4 years old and I’ve never been concerned with audio-in. In the past few days I’ve discovered that not only does my Mac have no built-in microphone, but it uses a proprietary mic port that only Apple ever supported called Plaintalk. I went to Staples and bought a cheap $15 microphone headset, only to find that it won’t work. The sound-out works, the sound-in does not. Apple’s tech documents were not helpful and it took me a bit of searching to uncover the Plaintalk truth. Okay, so now I find out that I can use a regular microphone if I had a Plaintalk converter, a little piece that goes in to the port and the microphone goes into that. Unfortunately, this outdated animal doesn’t seem to be available for anything less than about $50. Like I’m going to spend $50 so I can use a $15 microphone for a computer I’m keeping for another 2 months? I don’t think so. I ended up spending $6 on a Buy it Now auction on eBay for a Plaintalk microphone. These things used to come with Macs. It should at least let me have audio until my G5 arrives in August.
If you’d like to chat with me, video or not, feel free to send me an IM at AIM ID JudiS217.
quoted in MacCentral
Posted on June 23, 2003
Filed Under Macintosh | 1 Comment
Not entirely accurate, but in the ball park of what I said. Makes me seem like I didn’t do anything to get the money to buy a new computer, nevermind that I’ve worked very hard over the past few months to afford it.
And yes, we did place that order and I’ll be among the first to own a dual 2 GHz G5.
FontBook!
Posted on June 23, 2003
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Forget user switching and panes, Panther will have built-in font management! Yippeee!
waiting to hear from the mothership
Posted on June 23, 2003
Filed Under Macintosh | Comments Off
I’m sitting here at the Apple Store in West Nyack with about 30 other Mac faithful, waiting for the WWDC keynote. I expected a bigger turnout, but no complaints. I am the only woman. Kind of fun listening to all the geek-talk around me.
