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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.

I bought a Apevia Q-XPACK 2 of these as a replacement to a Q-XPACK (i.e., the first model). Was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of the hardware is exactly the same as the Q-XPACK: motherboard tray, drive assembly. Install was really fast as a result. The sides/top of the case is the same size as the Q-XPACK, although I think the Q-XPACK’s is a little sturdier. I bought a refurb with sharp gouge on the outer case, so I just used my old wrapper.

The extra inch of depth is mostly in the front of the case and in how the parts fit within the assembly. The design is nicer than it looks in photos. Fan LED is definitely much brighter than the Q-XPACK. How much brighter? Well, my next purchase is probably going to be a fan.

Lack of power cable management is one downside here. The cables are wired directly into the power supply, so unless you’re willing to cut them you’re probably going to end up with at least one that you’re not using. That’s pretty typical, but it hurts a little more here; There’s more cables than the Q-XPACK, and not much space to hide them away.

Of course, it’s much too early to see how the power supply stands up.

I was very pleased with the Q-XPACK right up until the power supply started wavering. The Q-XPACK2 seems to have everything I liked about the Q-XPACK, plus the (theoretically) more robust and standard power supply. Even if the power supply isn’t as robust as I’m expecting, being able to swap it is a major benefit.

Other problems? Well, this was a refurb, and it had some problems from that. The handle wasn’t very well attached, and it didn’t come with a couple cables that it should have. Neither of these was a problem for me, though.

We develop applications for multiple platforms here. How to do this is something of a challenge; in the past, I’ve favored writing custom interfaces and using common business logic. To be blunt, I still think this makes a lot of sense, although in the past we’ve made some choices as to the various languages to write things in that turned out pretty poorly over the years.

Another developer here suggested we evaluate Qt. To make a long story short, we’ve placed an order and plan to use it.

Project configuration made easy.

Qt’s cross platform abstraction starts with the project file. For instance, a trivial QT project file might look like this:

TEMPLATE = app
SOURCES += main.cpp

Type qmake on the Mac and it’s converted to a Project Builder or Xcode project. I believe makefiles are supported on Mac, too, but I haven’t tried that yet. Import it into Visual Studio with Qt’s Visual Studio integration and it becomes a vcproj.

Want to add precompiled headers and make it a debug build?

CONFIG +=debug
PRECOMPILED_HEADER = stable.h

(This assumes that stable.h #includes your headers that aren’t going to change.)

Run qmake again on the host platform (or import into Visual Studio), and the project file will be regenerated to use stable.h as a precompiled header and we’re using debug libraries and appropriate settings.

Want a universal build on the Mac?

QMAKE_MAC_SDK = /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk
CONFIG +=x86 ppc

Want to build a Visual Studio project? Move over to Visual Studio 2005 and choose Open Solution from .pro File. A second later, you’re looking at a Visual Studio project with the equivalent configuration.

It really is that easy. The difficulty is in finding the variable names, and that’s documented on TrollTech’s website.

House, MD is an American medical drama series like nothing I’ve seen on television. It could be described as CSI for mature adults where the symptoms are the crime and medical conditions are the suspects. Without the series cheating and introducing new technology, it’s up to Gregory House and his team to diagnose. Usually the only way to confirm a diganosis is to start to treat it and see if the patient gets better or worse. And often, House and team eliminate what they suspected, add the reaction and any new symptoms to the white board, and re-diganose.

There are many levels on which this show can be enjoyed. Not only is the medical diagnosis interesting, but the main character has his secrets. House is constantly sarcastic and biting, and hooked on pain killers. It could make for a hated character, but Hugh Laurie pulls it off in a way that keeps House sympathetic. One of the things the show’s format and flow does is encourage the viewer to make a diagnosis on House’s personality issues (and re-diagnose when the show proves them wrong).

Unquestionably the best thing I’ve seen on TV. New episodes air Tuesday evening on FOX (US) and Global (Canada). Two seasons are available on DVD.

Although my wife uses my old Titanium PowerBook G4, she’s using the adapter for my Aluminum 12″ PowerBook G4. Although they look different, they’re compatible. The Aluminum one is higher wattage, and has a safety ground and a LED at the PowerBook end of the cable to indicate the charging status. Plus it works; her old power adapter is long since toast.

My wife has recently taped the end of her PowerBook’s power adapter. She also added toothpicks, more tape, and so on. The plug just kept growing. On the weekend, I decided to peel off all the junk to see what she was hiding.

I am not joking: The thing sparks almost continuously. Snap, snap, snap, snap. I unplugged it and hid it away, and went to the local Apple dealer (Simply Computing - highly recommended, even if their website is a bit lame). They’re out of stock on the adapter, and Apple’s apparently back-ordered. But they had a third party adapter, which brings us to the main topic of this post.

Newer’s 65 Watt Power Adapter was about $20 less than Apple’s power adapter at Simply Computing. It lacks a safety ground and a recharge ring light, but has heavier-duty cabling between the adapter and the laptop. And not only does it have sturdier cabling, it has a sturdier PowerBook connector. I don’t think I’m ever going to have to bend the outer ring on the plug back into shape.

I have no serious regrets about this purchase. The only regret I have is that I’ve since found out I can probably get the Apple AC adapter replaced under warranty. But that’s mostly cool with me; it’s good to have spares.