joshtransient::stream

there had to be an insane amount of work put into this. simpler, interstate-only version deep linked.

scumbag mac os preview.

the big deal over the holiday season was that i got my parents a new mac mini to replace their 5-6 year old windows xp box. i even went ahead and loaded a copy of vmware fusion so i could p2v the old box, ensuring an easy migration from old to new. they absolutely loved it, and after a week’s worth of use, admitted that they hadn’t even fired up vmware to get into their old stuff.

after the gift deployment, we took inventory of windows-specific programs they used, and the best course of action for each. one that they relied on specifically was acrobat professional. after asking what they used it for, they came up with: scanning images directly to pdf, adding/deleting/rearranging pages, adding off-page and on-page comments, and highlighting text. mac users have had the privilege of the built-in preview app for awhile now, which takes care of all these things, so that was one fewer software package for them to buy during the transition. i gave them a quick run-through, which thoroughly impressed them.

being a newer mac, it came loaded with lion. lion has that new auto-save/versions feature. it is a terrible, horrible, scumbag feature that is poorly advertised, poorly implemented, and—as i’ve learned in the last 48 hours—not even consistent between applications. especially this one:

mom calls on wednesday. she admits to being hyper-frustrated about pages in a pdf she’s been compiling that have “gone missing.” i fire up screen sharing to see what’s up. the sidebar of her combined pdf shows 20-ish pages, but only the last five have actual thumbnails. the rest of the pages have a thumbnail that says “pdf” and content that says “pdf.” must be a versions thing, i thought, so i showed her how versions works. sure enough, i watched pages reappear as we looked at past versions.

obvious methods of getting those old pages didn’t work, e.g. dragging a page from the old version into the new version. i outlined a method by which she could make a few copies of the pdf, restore each to the version that had the most number of pages from the past, then merge all the copies together. there honestly wasn’t an easier method i could conjure up after 45 minutes of screwing around with it, so she agreed she’d do it on friday, when she had the day off.

a friday call prompted me to drop into screen sharing with her again, and every single past version of her pdf had been wiped, as if they didn’t exist. this is not how auto-save was advertised. so she starts the process over using my recommended procedure: open image capture to get all the pages first, then reorganize them in preview. this worked out much better than anticipated, and now that she has a workflow, i figured case closed. of course, the culprit (auto-deleting, auto-saved previous versions of the original pdf) was still at large.

imagine my surprise when, of course, mom decides to drop into a help file and find this:

that’s right, folks. versions doesn’t really do what it says on the tin—it cleans up after 24 hours, regardless.

apple: folks honestly aren’t ready for this…especially when it’s not obvious which apps have versions enabled. having large blocks of text in what used to be your save dialog is not going to make people “get it”, either. explain exactly what “save a version” means to people (“commit”, like in svn) and slowly, responsibly break them of their compulsive need to hit command-s every five minutes.

year-end playlist. sorry it’s not on spotify, but two very key artists (the weeknd and dlc) are not.

it’s not like it has to be said. please write/call your representatives.

holy crap…this dude culled multiple sources for their aotys from 2007 forwards, then linked all of them to spotify, rdio, etc. time to play a bit of catch-up.

after two codes unsuccessfully redeemed, i still can’t figure out why i now need two accounts (one xbl, one ea/origin) to play battlefield 3 online.

today’s challenge

come up with a system administrator/engineer equivalent to the term “brogrammer”. because i’m wearing aviators, chugging a rockstar zero, raging on sharepoint, and listening to dubstep. (okay, that last part is a lie…i just loaded up darkest hour’s “undoing ruin”, one of the best overall metal albums in existence)

who has two thumbs and got a signed vinyl copy of fitz and the tantrums’ “pickin’ up the pieces”? this guy.

i think i just realized i don’t /dislike/ android - i just can’t stand the default droid sans font, all the white text on black backgrounds, or the app drawer mechanic. loading up the latest version of the miui ROM (romsmaster.miui.us) on an old galaxy s and getting a theme that replaces all that makes for a very usable device that doesn’t make my eyes bleed. also, swype is kind of amazing.

officialthrice:

Hey folks, to lead-up to the official release of Major/Minor on 9/20, we’ll be posting a new song from the record each weekday in the player below. Since we’ve already released the first two songs (“Yellow Belly” and “Promises”), both of them are included below along with track 3, “Blinded.”…