Pixel update

Because Friday is traditionally catblogging day in some areas of the blogosphere, and because Pixel actually has some things worth mentioning, here's an update on the world's most fabulous cat's most recent books:

His most recent is Contribute 3 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide by Tom, in which he demands fish while showing off the wonders of table alignment.

Earlier this year, he could be found in Mac OS X Panther Hacks by Rael Dornfest & James Duncan Davidson. No, it's not the first time he's managed an appearance in a book written by someone not in his family; he can be found on pages 330-332 helping to demonstrate iPhoto and Salling Clicker.

And also recently, there was Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide by J. Tarin Towers. I don't recall what he was demonstrating, but I believe he's on page 83.

Note to authors (both those of computer books and non): Pixel is happy to appear in your books for a very reasonable rate. The last time I ran the numbers, they were at something like 93% of works featuring him earning out, so he may well improve your odds.

Republicans for Humility

There's some good stuff at Republicans for Humility:

Help spread the good news that true conservatism is NOT the politics of isolation from allies, inflammation of terrorist recruitment, endless war, fiscal irresponsibility, and surrender of constitutional principles.

In other political notes, we're happy to have been included at States Writes: a Progressive Peer Directory from The American Street. Thanks for the link!

New from Ranchero

Silly me, I've been too busy using the new NetNewsWire 2 public beta to mention that it's out. It's truly cool. I can't think of a single feature that I wished was in here that isn't, and it's extremely stable for a beta.

I should also mention MarsEdit, the new weblog editor, which is also in public beta. NNW used to be both a news reader and a blog editor, and it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who thinks that these things should be two different applications. I haven't used it, as we're using a version of MT that is so old they don't work together, but that's my issue, not Ranchero's.

Best part: if you already bought NNW 1, both of these are free. Yes, free. Can't beat that!

What If It Happened Here?

We keep hearing from Bush and the right that things are getting bettter in Iraq all the time, thanks to their steely, resolute leadership and impeccable execution of the war, in which no mistakes have been made. Juan Cole does a little thought experiment: if conditions in the US were like Iraq, what would they be like? Here's the result.

MacRabbit's CSSEdit

Also new to me (it's that kind of day, I guess): MacRabbit's CSSEdit. It's a OS X CSS Editor. It costs $25. It looks darn cool.

Mac Geekery

A new site to me: Mac Geekery. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

Scoble gets bit by his own bite

Scoble opened his mouth and inserted his foot when he said:

OK, I listen to a LOT of AM talk radio. I sure miss KGO Radio down in San Francisco. Jeff Sandquist came in my office this morning all excited because he had found a piece of software, Replay Radio, that let him "Tivo" any streaming media feed. Whoa.

So, you mean I could tell Replay Radio to record all of Ronn Owens' radio shows and put that on my Tablet PC so that I could listen later? Freaky awesome!

Anyone else have any cool software tools like this?

Adam Curry, you need to check this out! Oh, forgot, you use a Mac.

(emphasis mine)

The Mac users immediately piled on in his comments, telling him that he wasn't just a day late and a dollar short, but considerably more. Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro does everything that he wants and has done it on the Mac for quite some time. Not to mention that it's only $32 versus $50 for the full-featured version of Replay Radio. Sheesh.

Senator with principles

Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) says he may not support Bush. Personally, I'll take Chafee over Zell Miller any day of the week.

Kerry's Iraq Speech

Here's John Kerry's speech on Iraq that he gave today. It's good stuff; hard hitting, reasonable, sharply critical of Bush. It'll be interesting to see how the mainstream media distorts it.

Coolness watch

Two things this weekend were particularly cool:

• Yesterday, Tom and I spoke at NCMUG's Mac Computer Expo about AirPort (aka Wi-Fi, aka 802.11) and Bluetooth. Tom covered the former and then I did the latter. He ended up his part by demo'ing AirTunes with a set of powered speakers he'd hooked up in the back of the room. I then talked about Bluetooth, and ended my bit by walking away from the computer and using my cell phone (via Salling Clicker and Bluetooth) to talk to the computer, which then told the speakers in the back (via Wi-Fi and AirTunes) to play music. It makes for a sweet closing demo and it's a nice way to show people how these two technologies work together.
• Today we saw Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow. To those critics who didn't like it: we feel sorry for you. You've lost that all-important sense of wonder, and your life is no longer worth the space you're taking up. Or in other words, we enjoyed it immensely. We spent about 30 minutes afterwards just talking about all the films that SC&WOT paid tribute to—it's a pretty impressive list.