What Do "Syndicate this Site" and "RSS" Mean?

I'm not sure if many blog readers have noticed, but there is a link on the sidebar of this blog, and many other blogs throughout the blogosphere, that says 'Feed (RSS)', 'Syndicate this site (XML)' or something similar. What exactly does this mean?

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" - for allowing people to view, via a 'newsreader' updates of information (usually news or updated blog information, for our purposes). For more history and information concerning RSS, read XML.com's article, "What is RSS?"

So, what does this mean for you and I? This means you don't have to visit a blog or news website to find out if it has updated news or a new blog entry; you can simply open up your newsreader program (list of a few at end of this entry), and it will tell you if there are new blog entries! Some websites even give you some or all of the blog entry or news article, so you can see if you're interested in reading the whole entry by going to the site.

NewsFire Logo

Here are some RSS newsreaders:

For Windows PCs:
Feedreader - Free
RssReader - Free

For Macintosh:
NewsFire - Free (What I use)
NetNewsWire Lite - Free

New Apple Computer - UNDER $500?

According to various sources (see below), it would seem Apple is getting ready to release a sub-$500 Mac! It is rumored to be very small, with no attached monitor, 1.25 GHz G4, 256 MB RAM, 2 USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 400 port, 100 Mbps Ethernet, 56k Modem, AirPort Extreme ready, have either VGA or DVI video (no card specified), and have an external power brick.

All I can say is (if it's true), "Woohoo!" I know people aplenty who are in the market for a Mac, and are holding off because they only have 600 or 700 bucks to spend. Let's just hope (if it's true) Apple's design is nice, and the computer doesn't have any gaping flaws... of course, one doesn't expect anything bad from Apple!

Sources: MacRumors.com, AppleInsider, Think Secret, CNN Money, San Jose Mercury News, ReutersInformationWeek, and many others!

Microsoft's Passport a No-Go; More Viruses for XP

Well, here are some nice end-of-the year stories to cheer up the loyal Mac fan:

No-go zone for Passport (CNET):

"Microsoft's Passport authentication technology lost a prominent partner this week when eBay announced that it would stop supporting customer logins through Microsoft's Passport and .Net services.

The online auctioneer decided to stop supporting the service after Microsoft made an "architectural change" to its online authentication service, an eBay representative told CNET News.com on Thursday."

So it would seem Microsoft's 'awe-inspiring' Passport system that would 'change the way people store personal information online' is now going the way of the horse carriage. Too bad.

Trojan Slips through XP's Back Door (Tom's Hardware Guide):

"Online miscreants have released a Trojan horse that can infect computers running Microsoft's Windows XP, installing programs to remotely control a victim's system. Symantec warned in an advisory this week that the program - dubbed "Phel", an anagram of "Help" - infects visitors to a maliciously created website through Internet Explorer's Help controls. A bug in the malicious program may prevent it from infecting some computers, the security company said."

Hmm... XP seems to have more than one back door, with all these viruses, worms, and trojan horses going around. Even after SP2! Well, I can rest well tonight, considering I have OSX on my computer; the worlds most secure operating system.

Panic Audion Story; A Good Read

Last night I read a story written by Cabel Sasser, Panic Software's co-creator. Panic makes a few Mac shareware apps, and they make them well (i.e. Transmit for FTP and Unison for usenet services). Here's the story: The True Story of Audion

Panic used to make an MP3-player product for the Mac (one of the two best contenders) called Audion (now a free download). I never purchased Audion (I used Casady & Greene's SoundJam instead), but I know some people who did, and considered using Panic's Transmit FTP client before subscribing to .Mac. Panic is a quality Mac-only software company with a lot of 'spunk'.

I found out about this interesting article via MacAddict magazine. The article explores the quirky and interesting development of Audion; why, by whom, where, when, how, etc., and explains a lot of details surrounding product development and reasons why the software is now 'retired'. I especially liked the parts talking about Steve Jobs' dialog with Mr. Sasser! If you're any kind of Apple fan, as I am, you'll get a kick out of reading this.

Why Friends Don't Let Friends Use Windows

Ugh.

That's all I can say after having spent two hours of my life installing a simple game on a client's Windows PC yesterday.

First of all, I must say that Windows and Microsoft are not all bad; no, quite the contrary, I receive around 30% of my income because of Microsoft ;-) . Other than that, though, I can't find a reason why anyone would want to put himself through the torture of owning anything with Windows on it.

Here's the story:

I received a phone call just before dinner, informing me that the client's son received Backyard Baseball 2005, a game designed in part by Microsoft Game Studios, but the son could not install the game due to difficulties with his video card. Thus I was called over.

Before going any further, I'd like to say that if you are also having problems with Windows Logo Certified software installations, please visit Microsoft's Support site to view this document: "You cannot install some updates or programs" - one of the various solutions should help you.

Being no stranger to working on PCs (I make much of my living off of working on them), I dove right in and found a plethora of problems. First of all, as often happens to unknowing, innocent PC buyers, the Dell PC the son was using had no real video card. It was one of those 'economy PCs' with 'integrated' (i.e. nonexistent) video. So, first of all, a trip to the computer store was necessitated.

After installing a new ATI Radeon 9200 128DDR video card, I found that DirectX 9.0b, the latest DirectX version, could not be installed from the game CD, the ATI Radeon Install CD, Windows Update, or the Microsoft Support download. Why did Microsoft's own product fail on Microsoft's own operating system? Because it wasn't 'Windows Logo Certified'.

Hmm... let me get this straight: Microsoft's own brand-new product won't run on Microsoft's own newest operating system, Windows XP. Well, ain't that nice?

So it was off to Microsoft's shoddy support site for help. Only, I couldn't find anything either there, or on Atari's website (the game's other developer). Well, I said, Google's done it before, let's do it again! I searched for "Can't Install Windows Logo Certified" on Google, and within two pages of results found a little nugget on an online forum. It referred me to a vaguely-named topic on Microsoft's support website titled "I can't install certain software because it is not Windows Logo Certified Even though It Is" (something along those lines...).

I find that, in order to get a proper install, I will have to go through about a 30-step process involving some vague commands in the Windows command line, typing in things like "msblahblah32 /u rrislis.dll" over ten times (substitute some odd gibberish inside the quotes, and that's what I did...).

Finally, after about four restarts and more steps, DirectX would properly install, but in an unorthodox way; 'InstallShield Wizard' (who comes up with these names?) wouldn't run, so I had to find a semi-manual DirectX installer (without the 'Wizard') on the ATI Radeon CD, and install from there.

Lo and behold! After two hours of idiotic procedures and such, Backyard Baseball 2005, a game designed in part by Microsoft, would finally run on Microsoft Windows XP Home (an outrageously expensive OS for the features), using a piece-of-junk Microsoft screen-drawing environment, DirectX.

As I said before: ugh.

Use iDVD to Burn to an External Drive

Well, here goes for my first 'Mac-related blog topic':

I have written an article about a 'hack' or 'easter egg' that allows a person using iDVD to burn his or her work to a non-Apple SuperDrive or external FireWire drive (as long as Finder Disc Burning works), to burn to DLT Tape drives, or to 'burn' to a disk image. But, I've never given the reasons why someone would want to do such a thing. Well, here they are:

1. If you are having trouble burning to your internal SuperDrive or to an external drive, burning to a Disk Image will solve almost any burning problems; I have yet to see a disk image burn get stuck on Stage 4 or have an error during the disk image creation.
2. If you would like to test your DVDs before burning them to a semi-expensive DVD-R disc, burn a disc image.
3. If you want to burn more than one DVD, but don't like how long it takes using iDVD, or would like to burn the same DVD from time to time, but not have to re-render it in iDVD for every burn, you can use a created disk image to burn an image (using either Disk Utility in OS 10.3 or Disk Copy in OS 10.2 or earlier) multiple times.
4. You might like to archive your work so you can come back and quickly burn a DVD a long time from the original burn, and so you can burn a disk image for that purpose (plus, the disk image is whatever size your finished project is on DVD, usually less than 4.7 GB!).

I always burn a disk image instead of burning directly to DVDs, for the four reasons mentioned above, and because I have an external FireWire case that I swap my hard drive and disc burner in and out of, preventing my from ever burning straight to a DVD. I hope this helps!

Email: Video from FCX Won't Play in iDVD

I was recently emailed a question concerning a Final Cut Express video unable to be played via exporting it and copying it into iDVD.

Emailed Question

A four-minute movie plays perfectly in Final Cut Express 2.0. Exports to Quicktime 6.5.2 I drag it to iDVD. It won't preview (or play when burned).

Before this started happening, I was getting perfect audio but no video in iDVD preview. I tried this with two different movies. Same problem with both. They both play beautifully in Final Cut Express. I have been on several Final Cut discussion pages for info but have decided this must be an iDVD problem.

My Answer

How did you export the video? Did you click "File>Export>QuickTime Movie..."? If you did, did you make sure the 'Include' menu had "Audio and Video" selected, and the 'Markers' Menu had "Chapter Markers" or "None" selected?

If you do all of the above and still have a problem in iDVD, there are a couple more things you should try in Final Cut Express:

Instead of choosing "File>Export>QuickTime Movie...", try Exporting via 'Using QuickTime Conversion...". For the 'Format', choose 'QuickTime Movie', click 'Settings...', and set the following options:

In the window that pops up,

1. Click on 'Settings...' in the Video section (and make sure the 'Video' checkbox is checked, and choose "DV/DVCPRO - NTSC" from the video codec menu, "Best" from the Quality menu, and make sure the 'Frames Per Second' field is blank. Then click "OK".
2. Click on 'Settings...' in the Audio section (and make sure the 'Audio' checkbox is checked, and choose "None" in the 'Compressor' menu, '44.100 kHz' in the 'Rate' menu, "16 bit" in the Size section, and "Stereo" in the 'Use' section. Then click "OK".

Finally, click "OK" in the dialog box, choose a name and location for your file, and Export it. Drag this file into iDVD and see if it works.