http://www.geeksrus.com We're geeky so you don't have to be Wed, 14 May 2008 17:04:05 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Well Microsoft has finally caved in and realized they were wrong by not including Visual Basic Support in Office 2008. After some hand waving about Applescript blah blah, the reality is that some spreadsheets just won't open on the Mac - So much for interoperability! Anyway, now they are adding ... http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/05/14/squeak-wheel-gets-the-visual-basic/ Be wary of FreeCreditReport.com. If you don't read the print on the left, you'll miss that if you don't call within 7 days, your "free" credit report turns into a monthly subscription. So in other words, you get what you pay for, and the credit agencies are the ones tricking ... http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/05/05/freecreditreportcom-scam/ While trying to fill out a voter registration form, I ran into this sad state of affairs: 1. Preview works with the check boxes and radio buttons, but the text fields are only 2 characters wide. 2. SmileOnMyMac's PDFpen application doesn't work at all. Radio buttons are displayed randomly on the ... http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/04/22/sad-state-of-pdf-forms-on-the-mac/ Cool, another reason to rent Apple TV movies. [Read about Netflix decision](http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9924836-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5) http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/04/21/netflix-to-charge-premium-to-rent-blu-ray/ I picked up [Digital Video Esstentials](http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Video-Essentials-Basics-Blu-ray/dp/B000V6LST0/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1208837770&sr=8-1) from Amazon to calibrate my DLP TV set. The information was good, if not too much. The instructions on how to use the video patterns was poor - They fire too much information at the user without specific steps. However, once I watched the same ... http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/04/21/digital-video-essentials-for-bluray/ I've now found 5 spreadsheets for Excel, written in Excel, that won't open in the 2008 Office for Mac. * No VBA Macros * Super slow performance (try 15 minutes to edit a cell) Are the two big issues. What a joke. Edit: * I have tried the latest 12.0.1 version. * http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t11882-rogue_gear_spreadsheet/ is one ... http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/04/17/thanks-microsoft-for-excel-2008/ Sometimes, a beautiful statement can be made from the dreadful loss of life: [Mosaic of Cheney and Bush made from the photos of 4,000 dead soldiers](http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/15983/original.jpg) http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/03/25/political-art/ Yes! Yes! After 12 months of not being able to use my router, Apple shipped Firmware 7.3.1 which passes SonicWall VPN packets! So far, the router is fast, super fast. Now to see if it keeps connections! http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/03/19/finally-sonicwall-vpn-bug-fixed-in-apple-airport-extreme-n/ I gave a demo of [NetNewsWire](http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NetNewsWire/Default.aspx) at [PMUG](http://www.pmug.org) tonight. Well actually, I am giving the demo :) http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/03/10/netnewswire-demo-at-pmug/ I have not tried this yet but looks interesting: [Backup Bouncer](http://www.n8gray.org/blog/2007/04/27/introducing-backup-bouncer/) Note: This is a geek tool at the moment - Requires XCode, etc. http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/02/28/backup-bouncer-helps-verify-your-backups/ We're getting close to shipping Sophie. Here is a page with some tutorials we set up for Ross High School. They show what I've been working on for some time now: [Sophie](http://sophieproject.org/ross) http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/02/24/sophie/ * Make movie in iMovie * Upload to .mac web gallery * Get url: http://gallery.mac.com/sriggins#100087 What the hell is that? Why didn't it let me choose the url to use? iWeb does the same lame stuff. I can't take this serious with a url like sriggins#100087 http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/02/24/an-example-of-how-mac-doesnt-get-it/ I forgot the foil wrapped cucumber. http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/02/24/detroit-cat-city/ I ordered a Mac Pro, Dual Quad Core 2.8 with 2gb RAM and the nVidia 8800GT today from the Apple Store. Just kiddin, Erick. I ordered it via [The Beaverton Mac Store](http://www.themacstore.com), got my [PMUG](http://www.pmug.org) discount (5% for you PMUG members!), and also picked up AppleCare for my MacBook Pro. I'll ... http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/02/22/ordered-a-mac-pro/ 1. I see file I want on dock, drag to Finder window. 2. Poof sound and animation heard. Crap, I just deleted my Downloads stack off the dock 3. See downloads in said Finder window. Drag to dock. 4. Poof sound and animation heard. Crap, I just deleted my Downloads ... http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/02/22/the-latest-failure-of-the-mac-finder-ui/ If you write software, you should be using [Fogbugz](http://www.fogbugz.com) Not only is the software/service great, when I told them I was going to buy a copy for my personal use, they said "Just switch to the free 2 user account" Whoa. This site, developed by the infamous "Joel on Software," allows ... http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/02/20/fogbugz/ It's on your software update. And here I thought it was my lame typing or iSkin that was causing the first character I typed to be lost! http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/02/19/macbook-macbook-pro-keyboard-update/ From Tim: >Don't know whether you've ever tried: defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleDisplayScaleFactor 1.50 >to set the global scaling (works pretty well except some apps actually go all fuzzy and others look fabulous)? It turns out it breaks the cmd-shift-4 to snapshot the screen and save the image to a file. The general advice ... http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/02/16/how-to-fix-screenshots-from-a-broken-scale-value/ Let me tell you a somewhat long tale about the week I've had. This will get a little geeky, but you'd find out exactly why you should be using Time Machine and maybe a few tips to help your disaster recovery process. Time Machine is Mac OS X 10.5's automatic ... http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/02/14/why-you-should-use-time-machine/ I bought an Apple TV after Apple's promised rental changes. Ok, so it is a toy, really I mean come on, $230 just to pay Apple more money to rent movies, but i love tech and wanted to check this out. I've always wanted a 1080p Apple TV and while ... http://www.geeksrus.com/2008/02/12/apple-ships-apple-tv-20-a-review/