tewha.net

I’ve been putting this off for a while. While I like bibles, and I like the Mac, QuickVerse for Mac is a major disappointment to me.

First, the good. There’s a lot of content here. A lot of it. You can synchronize your view into different books, and you can look up Greek and Hebrew words.

But it’s got a lot of bad to it, too.

Right from the start, the installer didn’t work. As part of its postflight, it calls into the software to build some indexes. That command line tool crashes, leaving you unable to access any resources. I did find a workaround; the installer is actually a multipackage installer, and I installed the packages one at a time and upgraded to QuickVerse 1.2 before installing the package that included the postflight. Support never did solve this, but I was able to solve it myself. A painful experience, to be sure.

On a check list somewhere, the UI would seem very Mac-like, but it seems to emphasize using the latest Mac features over usability. Polished metal, slide drawers, customizable toolbars abound. But the main interface is an awkward polished metal console window, rather than a view into content.

The search is a full tab with a bunch of settings on it and a slide out drawer showing (sometimes) the context of the selected found result. I say sometimes because sometimes the result will be several screens away.

You can search for words or reference, but you need to click a radio button to switch between the modes. Apparently the writers couldn’t find a way to distinguish between, say, heaven and Hebrews 3:1. Keyboard shortcuts are almost nonexistent.

Next, while it contains a lot of resources, it does not include the Amplified bible. I knew this when I purchased it, of course, but I didn’t realize how much I would miss it.

The awkward navigation and searching combine with the lack of an Amplified version to really turn me off of this product. I usually end up using biblegateway.com or crosswalk.com’s interlinear bible. I think QuickVerse for Mac convinced me (more than anything else) that web applications can be useful after all, although it’s taken me a few months to realize this.

Apple posts a list of security fixes in the iPhone 1.1.1 update. Looks like a must have. I have to admit that CVE-2007-3757 surprised me; it was the very first thing I thought of when I heard you could dial by tapping an URL.

Query Expression Syntax for Mac OS X Spotlight.

Really, this is a comparison of the Sony and Apple experience with Windows by Panic’s cofounder Steven Frank. It sounds like Sony has gone out of their way to make the experience as painful as possible.

Visual Studio to Finally Address Performance Issues

“A downside of this is that Visual Studio, while opening a solution, would wait until the background complier had a chance to run.” — I hit this daily. And, in fact, it was only on reading this that I realized that SP1 replaced feacp.dll.

Yes, I know Microsoft likes to keep their preference dialogs uncluttered. so they don’t add a check box for features that cause major problems, like background recompilation. And the ability to control how many items appear in the Window menu is far more important than being able to turn off the buggy, molasses-slow background compiler.

Still, I don’t mean to whine, but do you think next time you could either finish the feature or give us a way to turn it off? No wonder Windows developers like to inflict junk on users. It’s because we believe on some subconscious level that pain should be applied equally to everyone.

For all the great things the GPL has done its followers really could do some reading on that whole “definition of words” thing. - Marco Peereboom, on the relicensing of BSD code under GPL in the name of freedom.

Indiana Jones 4 got a name: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

But the best part of the story is this:

Actor Shia LaBeouf, who has been cast to play Jones’ son in the film, blurted out the title on stage at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards — only to have the news overshadowed by two former husbands of Pamela Anderson scuffling with each other and Britney Spears dancing barely clothed on stage.

Yeah. It sucks to be in show business with a show. Everyone else is convinced the word “show” means “showing how big of an idiot you are.”

Indiana Car Insurance free insurance quotes

“C’mon, surely you remember the Zune. It’s like the Foleo without the refreshing sense of honesty.” — The Macalope

This is like when the carpet cleaners call you to do a survey and ask how often your carpet is cleaned, and would you like to have it cleaned next Tuesday?

Because we all know having 20 women a month is what life is all about.

After I was personally attacked by a moderator, I sent him this message. This is not acceptable behavior for Macworld and Playlist.org.

After you accused me of being uncivil, I asked two questions:

Jim’s article was approved for publication. Therefore, I want to know:
Is it Playlist editorial policy to approve (or even insist on) inflammatory, accusatory articles without facts?

You accusation of me being uncivil came from a moderator account. Thus, I want to know:
Is it Playlist policy for moderators to make personal attacks on those commenting on the quality and tone of writing in a particular article?

I would like the answers to these questions. This is 2007, not 1997, and Playlist does not have a monopoly on iPod news, nor Macworld on Macintosh news.

Finally, be advised that if you reply privately (regardless of the tone of the reply) that private reply will be posted publicly.

The explanation? “Personal attacks.” There’s none in there. I was never given a reply, either. I guess I have the answer. MacWorld 2007 is a shadow of its previous self, where editorial policy is to post trash and have moderators defend it with personal attacks.