Greg In The Desert

I have been patiently awaiting the arrival the the new Quicken for Mac product. The Unofficial Apple Web Log says the Quicken Essentials for Mac (formally Quicken Financial Life for Mac, formally Quicken for Mac) is actually, finally available for pre order. It will be released February 2010. Yet, It cannot do the one single thing that I need it to do.

3. Can I pay my bills within Quicken?
While you cannot pay bills within the product itself (“direct bill pay”), you can track your bills and make sure you have enough cash to pay them when they’re due. A few alternatives available include using Quicken Mac 2007 or using the bill pay functionality on Quicken Bill Pay.

Downloading transactions from my bank is a huge time saver, but paying them directly within a single application, using several banks, is a even bigger time saver. So much more that I’m wiling to suffer using a crappy three year old application to do so. As far as I can tell, iBank doesn’t do this.

It does every thing every other financial app on the mac does, just not as good and doesn’t include the feature that I use Quicken for the most. I wonder if I will have to wait another three years for this to get added back into the product.

Universal Powerline Bus (UPB) is now available on the Mac through a private beta of XTension. This is great news as there has not been a UPB option on the Mac before. For Macintosh home automation software, UPB gives XTension a competitive advantage over Indigo and Shion who support X10 and Insteon, Thinking Home supports X10 and Wayne-Dalton’s still vaporware Z-Wave software.

UPB support is still in the early stages, visit the XTension Wiki for more information.

Thanks to Gorden Meyer.

• Macintosh 25th Anniversary Reunion: Where Did Time Go?
  By Guy Kawasaki
  (tags: mac apple macintosh history video)
• Why does Miss America still exist? | The Movable Buffet | Los Angeles Times
  Regardless, each year now the Miss America contestants descend on Vegas with their chaperons and rules out of another era. Prospective Miss America contestants don't party, the winner this year thinks President Obama needs to quit smoking at once, and certainly the contestants don't drink or gamble, and generally their handlers speak rather condescendingly of all the major pastimes that keep the lights on in Vegas. So we promote Vegas with a contest that wants to project an image that has nothing to do with the business of Las Vegas?

I can’t let this day go by without mentioning that January 24th is the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh computer. If you keep up with any Apple news you would have known this weeks ago.

Macworld magazine has several articles to read on the anniversary. However I recommend you watch the “Steve Jobs showcases Macintosh” video on YouTube, which is the first introduction of the Macintosh in 1984.

Then watch the 1984 Superbowl commercial

I’m looking forward to another 25 years of Macintosh.

Indigo (Macintosh home automation software) has been updated and is available on MacUpdate. Here’s what’s new:

• Added support for INSTEON SocketLinc module.
• Added support for all EZIOxx Input/Output modules: EZIO8T, EZIO8SA, EZIO2X4.
• Added new Trigger Action options for EZIOxx and EZRain modules.
• Added Control Page elements for Device sub-states (ex: show sprinkler zone 3 on/off state).
• Added support to get all object AppleScript properties at once (ex: “get properties of devices”).
• Added Karl Smith’s background Weather NOAA sync script to periodically retrieve weather conditions.
• Removed script filename extensions from the Scripts menu.
• Fixed UI display problem caused by blank Variable names.
• Fixed PowerLinc 1132CU upload error caused by uninitialized Trigger Actions.

I never thought in a million years that this would happen. Intel based Macs will be out next year. I’m sitting here besides my self…

Apple to Use Intel Microprocessors Beginning in 2006

WWDC 2005, SAN FRANCISCO—June 6, 2005—At its Worldwide Developer Conference today, Apple® announced plans to deliver models of its Macintosh® computers using Intel® microprocessors by this time next year, and to transition all of its Macs to using Intel microprocessors by the end of 2007. Apple previewed a version of its critically acclaimed operating system, Mac OS® X Tiger, running on an Intel-based Mac® to the over 3,800 developers attending CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote address. Apple also announced the availability of a Developer Transition Kit, consisting of an Intel-based Mac development system along with preview versions of Apple’s software, which will allow developers to prepare versions of their applications which will run on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs.

I want to mention that Apple never used the My Whatever for folder names. So now Windows will, again, adopt another Macintosh way of doing things.

Ending a longstanding tradition, Microsoft Corp. plans to stop using the word “my” as the default prefix for such folders as “My Documents,” “My Music,” “My Pictures” and others along those lines. Starting in the next Windows version, due out next year, folders will be known simply as “Documents,” “Music,” and so on.

It’s time once again for MacHack 20 (aka ADHOC 2005). They are looking for people to submit papers.

Following up on an exciting and successful MacWorld San Francisco, The Advanced Developers Hands On Conference (ADHOC) is announcing the Call For Papers for ADHOC 2005/MacHack 20. ADHOC focuses on, but is not limited to, Macintosh and Unix development issues. Abstracts for papers must be received by February 28, 2005 by the conference papers committee for consideration.

Have you done interesting work you would like to tell others about? Many new things are happening in the world of computing, from low cost supercomputing to new OS releases. New programming languages and tools are always showing up and need good discussion. New or expanded techniques used in code development can be shared and expanded on for the good of the software community.

What’s the deal with ADHOC, well they do more than just hacking the Mac. So they came up with another name for the conference. MacHack is better. I bought a T-shirt from the 2001 show, maybe I will buy one for this one.

Here it is in all it’s glory. It’s been somewhat difficult to get over the past few days. What’s most interesting is that not much has changed in the way Apple (Steve Jobs) presents its wares.