Got some Griffin EarJams

2005-06-16 - 17:07

I really should learn to read reviews before I rush out and buy something…

So, I grabbed a set of Griffin EarJams for my iPod yesterday. I was finding the standard iPod ear buds difficult to keep in my ears if I moved my head at all. And the EarJams promised “massive bass” and “improved sound”, along with the “enhanced comfort” of in-ear buds.

Well, they were certainly right about the massive bass, but they neglected to mention the massively attenuated top end. The “jams” are indeed quite comfortable in my ears, but the sound is muddied and flat.

It’s quite disappointing, because I wasn’t unhappy with the sound quality of the ear buds that came with my iPod, I just wanted them to stay in my ears while I walked. But even after playing with the “eq” settings on the iPod to pull the bass back a bit, I just couldn’t listen to music through the things. I suppose they will be ok for podcasts (such as the excellent ABC Radio National ones).

I guess I’ll have to save up for some “real” in-ear headphones.

Adium script to insert NetNewsWire URL

2005-06-06 - 22:04

I quite often find myself reading feeds in NetNewsWire and find something I want to share with a “buddy” in an Adium chat. Adium has a neat little “safari” button that inserts a link to the web page you are currently viewing in Safari, but nothing equivalent for NetNewsWire. And to do it manually is a pain, involving multiple mouse movements and clicks (including right clicks, which are cumbersome with the powerbook) and key presses to cut and paste.

AppleScript to the rescue!

The following bit of AppleScript (my first actual functional applescript!) gets the necessary values from NetNewsWire:

using terms from application "NetNewsWire"
    tell application "NetNewsWire"
        set linkHTML to "<HTML><A HREF=\"" & (URL of selectedHeadline) \
            & "\">" & (title of selectedHeadline) & "</A></HTML>"
        return linkHTML
    end tell
end using terms from

This code needs to be wrapped in the appropriate Adium hook:

on substitute()
    ....
end substitute

Finally, the whole thing needs to be packaged up in a bundle that can be installed in Adium. The source code is available at my svn repository, and the installable bundle can be downloaded from NetNewsWire.AdiumScripts.zip.

Problem adding a user in Mac OS X

2005-06-06 - 09:49

Weird… I tried to create an account for a friend on my Powerbook today (Mac OS X Tiger 104.1), and it kept failing. Well, it appeared to work ok (no errors in the GUI), but the account would not be created. I tried a couple of times (thinking I must have hit the wrong button or something), but same result. In the system.log, the following lines appeared:

2005-06-05 09:06:07.121 System Preferences[16863] ### Error:-14120 File:DSRecord.m Line:349
2005-06-05 09:06:07.124 System Preferences[16863] ### Error:-14120 File:DSRecord.m Line:349

A quick google search turned up nothing. So I rebooted and tried again, and it worked. Weird.

Google site search

2005-06-05 - 14:26

Finally, I have Google site search working. (See the search box on the left.) I’m not sure what the problem was, but the last few times I tried, google claimed not to have any indexed pages for mojain.com. Which was demonstrably wrong, since I came up in searches. But anyway, it works now. If only I had some interesting content… ;)