On the Mac, was using some maven build scripts (well, ANT wrapped in Maven) recently that had references to tools.jar. This is problematical on the mac, since Apple repackages tools.jar (some bits go in Classes.jar) and ironic since some of the classes are already available, so it’s an unecessary error. Some digging revealed a recipe for using profiles to fix this:

https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JASSIST-44

(Actually from last night during the flight, but then I got home…)

As part of my new position for CampusEAI I’ve had a fairly aggressive travel schedule over the past few weeks (the cost of not relocating). It has however forced me to become much more closely acquainted with the airlines (and Continental in particular) and prompted a few observations:

1. Upgrades: Getting upgraded is nice. The biggest problem? Generally people who travel enough to get upgraded are flying on business — and — hence flying at the same time as others flying on business (who fly even more). It’s almost disheartening to watch half the people waiting for the flight standup when they’re boarding Elite Access. Still, it’s nice when it happens.

2. Delays: So far out of 6 flight segments between Newark (EWR) and Cleveland (CLE) I’ve been delayed 3 times. It doesn’t seem possible to get delayed by less than about an hour either, though so far I’ve been fortunate enough with nothing longer than about 2 1/2. Still, a 50% hit rate is pretty… good? bad?

3. Airline Clubs: Worth every penny. If you travel a lot. Normally I try to cut my arrival at the airport pretty tight with my flight departure, to grab more time at home with the kids, but during those aforementioned delays… There’s a big difference between an hour delay in the concourse fighting it out with other grumpy bench residents, and an hour delay while sitting in the lounge on the wifi, by the bar, munching on an apple.

4. Security: Surprisingly I’ve actually gotten used to security — to the point where someone I was traveling with was like “wow — that’s crazy” and my instinctual response was “eh”. Of course, I no longer travel with belts, a watch, coins in my pocket…

5. Pricing: This is kind of a crazy subject. Right now — a Sun-Wed roundtrip between EWR-CLE is ~ $260. A Sun-Tue roundtrip? ~ $850. Whaaaat!?!?! I’m not sure that there’s any way to explain that other than trying to segment the market into business travelers,since who else would stay less than 3 days? Though, if I book 2 weeks at a time, with 2 weeklong stays that just happen to overlap… hmmm…

In general, business travel (especially regular, sustained travel) has been something to endure. It feels good to vent though

Just logged into my GMail account and noticed that IMAP is now supported — configured into Apple mail and seems to be working like a charm — this may be enough to get me to switch to Google Apps for the whole shebang when it makes its way over there.

Mix: AAPL, Canada, Jacuzzi, EMI, Unlock:

The Copyright Board of Canada has approved a new tax on music downloads from iTunes and other online retailers. Retroactive to 1996, the tax means Apple will have to pay 3.1 cents for each music file they sell, or 1.5 cents per track for complete albums, to SOCAN (the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada).

The whole idea of a retro-active tax seems particularly wrong. Not only can the government charge you a tax on things you’re doing, but they can charge you for things you’d done in the past?

Got a new Macbook Pro (gotta add the pro at the end) at work, and have literally spent the whole day adding in all the stuff I “need” to make it my own development box. It’s amazing how much stuff you end up with that you quickly come to rely on. My short list seems to include:

• Quicksilver
• Macports
• NetNewsWire & Marsedit
• WeatherPop Advance
• Textmate
• Omni Group Stuff (Omnigraffle Pro & Outliner Pro)
• Micrsoft Office: Mac
• Eclipse & Webtools
• SVN (through Macports)
• … which means Apple’s developer tools, for GCC
• Maven
• Colloquy

And I’m sure a whole bunch of crap that I’m forgetting right now… It’s amazing how easy it is to justify all this upfront investment for productivity down the line

Click image to play movie.

(If you don’t have Quicktime, you can download an AVI version )

We produced our first movie of the baby with the new camcorder. Much as we promised ourselves we weren’t going to be the “tapes everything” kind of parents… well… what can I say?

Richard Scoble of Microsoft asked:

“Mark: tell me what you can do on a Mac that you can’t do on a PC? Give me, say, five examples. Here’s your chance to do some great advertising for Apple. The kind they can’t buy.”

While I don’ feel the zealous need to defend my choice of personal computers, it didn’t seem like it would be bad as an intellectual exercise. It does make me articulate the reasons I prefer Macs to Windows PC’s. They are:

1. System-wide spellchecking (services)
2. Syncing/802.11/Bluetooth that works
3. Media Creation, Manipulation & Organization
4. UNIX/Scripting/Developer tools
5. Lower Maintenance & Trouble-free Operation Continue Reading »

Apple is offering Volume Discounts for purchases of iTunes songs. A new program allows companies and educational institutions to offer song downloads from iTunes for promotional giveaways, incentive programs, sweepstakes prizes and other valuable customer offers: ‘Through this program, Apple provides the ability to purchase a batch of individual codes, good for redemption of song downloads at the iTunes Music Store. Your customers who receive song codes can download any one of the available songs from over 1 million at the iTunes Music Store. In addition, best of all, you may purchase these volume song codes at a discount.’ The minimum volume purchase is 25,000 songs for commercial entities and 10,000 songs for colleges and universities and the songs are available for U.S. iTunes Music Store usage only and must be used from within the US.

This is an interesting toe in the water, but what I’d really like to see is some kind of Rhapsody like subscription service. Perhaps implemented over a local University network much the same as the current iTunes Library sharing feature.

HP’s version of Apple Computer Inc.’s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) wildly popular iPod digital music player has unofficially been dubbed the hPod, analysts said.

The two companies earlier this year struck an agreement for HP to resell the iPod under the HP name, which will boost both companies’ exposure to consumer electronics markets.

‘The expectation on the iPod is that HP’s version will probably outsell Apple’s version relatively quickly,’ Enderle said, due to HP’s broad distribution at electronics retailers. (emphasis added)

Considering the number of sales Apple has been racking up recently, and the relatively wide distribution of the iPod already, I’m not sure about that last conclusion. It doesn’t look like HP is going to be able to underprice (or really differentiate themselves at all) from Apple, and while I could see a strong market for iPod’s as an add-on at the time of computer purchase, I’m not sure how successful they’ll be “adding-on” an accessory that costs 1/2 the full price of the computer.

The next major release of the Mac OS X operating system will include technology that will eventually grant users more control over the way application windows are displayed to the screen.

According to reliable sources, Apple Computer’s Mac OS X 10.4 ‘Tiger’ OS will introduce developer support for resolution independent user interfaces (UI), breaking the software assumption that all display output is to be rendered at 72 dots per inch (DPI).