joshbuhler.com

This is one of those things I’m blogging about mostly so that I always know where I can find it.

If you ever find yourself working on a Mac, but without a Mac keyboard with an Eject button on it, you can still open the keyboard with a mouse click by installing the Eject Menu Extra. You’ll find it in the following folder:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Eject.menu

Just double-click it and it’ll install to your menubar like so:

This comes in really handy at times. Recently, I was using an old PowerMac that we have here in the office for some stuff, and rather than clutter up my desk more with the extra mouse & keyboard, I was using Teleport to control the machine. While using this setup, Teleport wasn’t sending the “eject” command from the Mac keyboard I was using, so I installed this Menu Extra, and was able to control the drive, regardless of the keyboard I was using.

Have some fun with this Flash app from Joy of Tech.

The “shirt” of Apple tattoos is a nice touch. Also, be sure to enter the dress-up contest when you help Steve find a new look.

A while ago I posted a link to something called the Apple Product Cycle. One of my favorite parts of this is near the bottom:

Weeks before most users are able to hold Apple’s new gadget in their hands, “What features would you like in the next version?” discussions take place on Mac mailing lists.

I laughed at this the first time I read it, and now, it’s even funnier due to the following post I saw today in the MacRumors forums:

It’s only been a couple of weeks people!

Link to forum thread

Looks like Microsoft is using Apple equipment to demo and develop for the new XBox 360 console. Makes sense, as they both use the PowerPC architecture, but still, it is kinda funny as Microsoft, as it part of it’s plan for world domination, relies it’s arch-rival’s gear to get the job done.

Kinda reminds me of those episodes where He-Man and Skeletor would be stuck in some terrible situation that was bad for the both of them, and they’d be forced to work together in order to survive.

MacRumors.com Article
c|net Article

I know I’m a little behind everyone else here, but I now have Tiger installed and running on my Mac (Chewbacca).

I received it in the mail today, and so the very first thing I did upon getting home was begin backing up everything so that I could begin the upgrade. The install was pretty painless, only taking about 40 minutes, and that includes updating the developer tools as well. And so far, so good. As far as I can tell, all my data made it through in one piece, all my main apps are still running, and Spotlight is busy indexing everything.

Hopefully later this week I’ll be able to really dig in and start playing with the feature I’ve been most excited about, and that’s Dashboard. I’ve got some ideas for a few widgets, and now I’ve got a chance to start building some.

Also - be sure to check the image used as a screenshot for the Dashboard Doppler widget. A storm brewing over Redmond, WA (via: tuaw.com)

I got this page when trying to login to my account in the Apple Developer Connection.

Apparently, even though things weren’t working, and I couldn’t log in, there was no error. Glad they let me know.

Almost every week Apple provides at least one free song download from the iTunes store. Usually there are two songs available. However, currently there is an entire album’s worth of free music. I’ve been trying to collect them all with the help of this thread over at the MacRumors forums.

For the most part, the free music hasn’t been that great, but every once in a while there is some pretty good stuff. I found an album by a guy named Marc Broussard that I really liked, and ended up buying the entire album. It’s one of my new favorite cd’s. Check it out.

Found this link from forevergeek.com today. Even though I’ve only been a Mac user for about 6-7 months now, I have already seen what the author of this article was talking about. I love my Mac, and definately would choose one over a PC, but I don’t have any Apple tattoos, I don’t worship The Steve, and I’m willing to admit that Macs even have a few flaws. An I’m definately not near as rabid about my Mac as most of the people I read posts from in the various Mac forums. If you spend even 20 minutes reading posts in some of these forums, you can see all of this behavior the author describes.

Give it a read if you’re into the Mac thing, and you’ll probably get a good laugh out of it too.

http://www.misterbg.org/AppleProductCycle/