The Republicans in this election year have decided that doing nothing in Congress is less damaging to their image with the voters than doing something for the American people, like immigration, unemployment benefits, public infrastructure, jobs, etc.
We are paying them a $174,000 annual salary with benefits, travel expenses, etc., for talking about the problems but doing nothing to resolve or fix them. No wonder they want you to re-elect them. They smile and lie to your face while they steal your wallet.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Thursday, January 16, 2014
If
If we had fought the "war" on poverty, diseases, jobs, education, healthcare, the elderly, children, enviroment, corruption or any other economic or social issue facing this country like we fight war itself, and invested the same money in any, even all, of these other "wars" we invested in the Defense Department and military, we would have won those wars years ago and have the most prosperous country in the world and still have money to defend our country from any threat.
We still can if we want to do do this. It's our choice to elect people who will work for all of us on these issues. Nothing has changed until we demand change from our government and politicians, and hold them accountable when they don't listen and invest in the change for all Americans. That's our choice of our future. It's never too late.
We still can if we want to do do this. It's our choice to elect people who will work for all of us on these issues. Nothing has changed until we demand change from our government and politicians, and hold them accountable when they don't listen and invest in the change for all Americans. That's our choice of our future. It's never too late.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Consider
Consider the Republicans aren't against government programs for families at or below the poverty level because it's wasteful spending. They're against them because they don't want people to have opportunities to improve their lives. It's not about what the government can do and does to help. It's about keeping a permanent class of people in poverty to criticize government.
If they can't bitch about government they have nothing to run their political campaigns on and against. It's easier to create problems than solve them, something they've long known and something the Democrats haven't found the solution to challenge them and hold them accountability. The failure is the Republicans for creating it and the Democrats for not solving it.
If they can't bitch about government they have nothing to run their political campaigns on and against. It's easier to create problems than solve them, something they've long known and something the Democrats haven't found the solution to challenge them and hold them accountability. The failure is the Republicans for creating it and the Democrats for not solving it.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Mac Audio and Browsers
Update II.-- Well BitPerfect has its own issues with OS-X, not that it doesn't work but that after using it a few times it uses 500 MBytes of active memory to work. That's not critical if you have lots of memory, but it's a lot for a little application, apparently the cost of hogging the Mac's audio output.
Update.-- Well, this isn't a fix for Safari but for OS-X. I discovered there are applications or plug-ins which have what is called "hog mode" for the audio output, meaning the application or plug-in takes control of the audio output so only one is or will play, silencing all other audio outputs, such as Mail, Growl, Safari, etc.
I found two so far which do this. One is a plug-in with Fidelia for their music application. I have Fidelia which I like minus the startup issue (something they haven't really fixed for OS-X 10.9), but it only works for their application and costs $50.
The other is BitPerfect which is a standalone application which controls iTunes audio output. You have to use iTunes and BitPerfect together which is ok, and then Bit Perfect controls the audio on the Mac, from the iTunes volume to the Mac's volume with its own volume control.
So far I've only used it a few times and like it, especially since it silences interruptions in the music from other applications and it silences Websites with ads or music. You don't hear them if you're playing iTunes through BitPerfect.
I would still like Safari to have the option to silence the audio, but until that happens, which I'm not holding my breath with Apple anymore on doing good things for users, I'll use BitPerfect. It's available on the Apple App store for $10.
Original Post.-- I wish there was an option, user preference or plug-in to turn the audio off with Safari brower. I really get tired of going to a Website playing an ad, music or some audio file when I'm listening to iTunes or another music player and have to search for the audio off on the page, which sometimes is hidden or even invisible so you have to quit the page.
Please Apple give users the option to turn the audio signal off when using Safari. It's not rocket science since it's a separate stream in the data, just allow the user to stop it playing when on the Web page.
Update.-- Well, this isn't a fix for Safari but for OS-X. I discovered there are applications or plug-ins which have what is called "hog mode" for the audio output, meaning the application or plug-in takes control of the audio output so only one is or will play, silencing all other audio outputs, such as Mail, Growl, Safari, etc.
I found two so far which do this. One is a plug-in with Fidelia for their music application. I have Fidelia which I like minus the startup issue (something they haven't really fixed for OS-X 10.9), but it only works for their application and costs $50.
The other is BitPerfect which is a standalone application which controls iTunes audio output. You have to use iTunes and BitPerfect together which is ok, and then Bit Perfect controls the audio on the Mac, from the iTunes volume to the Mac's volume with its own volume control.
So far I've only used it a few times and like it, especially since it silences interruptions in the music from other applications and it silences Websites with ads or music. You don't hear them if you're playing iTunes through BitPerfect.
I would still like Safari to have the option to silence the audio, but until that happens, which I'm not holding my breath with Apple anymore on doing good things for users, I'll use BitPerfect. It's available on the Apple App store for $10.
Original Post.-- I wish there was an option, user preference or plug-in to turn the audio off with Safari brower. I really get tired of going to a Website playing an ad, music or some audio file when I'm listening to iTunes or another music player and have to search for the audio off on the page, which sometimes is hidden or even invisible so you have to quit the page.
Please Apple give users the option to turn the audio signal off when using Safari. It's not rocket science since it's a separate stream in the data, just allow the user to stop it playing when on the Web page.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Really Sucks
Since updating OS-X 10.9 Mavericks to 10.9.1 I still haven't seen that Apple fixed known problems, and I wonder if they're more worried about fixing bells and whistles than fixing the underlying user problems.
I won't argue that some of the changes are good, like putting each tab in Safari in its own daemon so when you close it, the memory goes away, or actually into inactive file cache, but this change doesn't require you to close Safari and use the purge command to clear old memory.
They also changed the Activity Monitor application. First they dropped looking at more then the main HD. It's written for laptops with one HD and not Mac Pro's or iMacs where you can't see other HD's. This is stupid.
They changed the memory management to move and keep application memory in active memory when you close an application. They moved inactive memory to file cache which the purge command (administrator password required) clears but it won't clear inactive application memory.
There is good reason for this if you close and open applications but sucks if you only open any one infrequently and want to clear the memory from the active memory. I'd love to have a command to do this, simple remove inactive application memory. They had it with 10.8 so what's the problem Apple?
They also created a problem between Safari and the Magic (wireless) mouse where you'll be working with any number of tabs open and Safari doesn't recognize your mouse except for clicking. All scrolling functions are gone.
You have to close the tabs and Safari and reopen it so it works again. This is a problem with Mail too but it's easier to close Mail and reopen it to continue your work, but with Safari, it's not just frustrating or irritating, but really sucks.
They didn't fix this with 10.9.1 and I'm not holding my breath it will be fixed with 10.9.2. And there are other issues they created, some of which they now blame third-party developers who didn't adapt their applications to 10.9.x.
One of this is the menu bar application with the drop down menu. OS-X Mavericks will "deny hid control" which locks the drop down menu open and locks the application windows you have open at the time. Sometimes I have to quit or hide the open windows to clear the issue.
Here I wonder if the problem is Apple setting too restrictive use of the menu bar applications or the third party developers adapting their applications to Mavericks, but when the problem is consistent across multiple applications, then I wonder if Apple did this to restrict drop down menus.
But some of they do work which means the applications can make dropdown menus work with Mavericks. This, however, goes to the real problem with menu bar applications icons, which I've ranted about before, and found an application to fix this if Apple doesn't with 10.9.2.
I say this because I run 15-20 applications on the menu bar, and not being able to control the location of the icon on the menu bar (currently it's random everytime with every application) really sucks. You have to keep searching where it opened and not where you expect it, something which has worked before with OS-X 10.5-10.8.
Ok, enough said, or not. I still wish Apple will fix iTunes 11 so it loads and keeps all the album artwork in active memory. This was the situation with iTunes 10 they dropped for some reason but there's no reason they can't make it a user preference or setting.
Lastly, I would like to see is Apple announce what they're actually working on to fix with 10.9.2 than announcing new bells and whistles or fixes the new ones they broke. Fix the underlying user functions and tools.
I won't argue that some of the changes are good, like putting each tab in Safari in its own daemon so when you close it, the memory goes away, or actually into inactive file cache, but this change doesn't require you to close Safari and use the purge command to clear old memory.
They also changed the Activity Monitor application. First they dropped looking at more then the main HD. It's written for laptops with one HD and not Mac Pro's or iMacs where you can't see other HD's. This is stupid.
They changed the memory management to move and keep application memory in active memory when you close an application. They moved inactive memory to file cache which the purge command (administrator password required) clears but it won't clear inactive application memory.
There is good reason for this if you close and open applications but sucks if you only open any one infrequently and want to clear the memory from the active memory. I'd love to have a command to do this, simple remove inactive application memory. They had it with 10.8 so what's the problem Apple?
They also created a problem between Safari and the Magic (wireless) mouse where you'll be working with any number of tabs open and Safari doesn't recognize your mouse except for clicking. All scrolling functions are gone.
You have to close the tabs and Safari and reopen it so it works again. This is a problem with Mail too but it's easier to close Mail and reopen it to continue your work, but with Safari, it's not just frustrating or irritating, but really sucks.
They didn't fix this with 10.9.1 and I'm not holding my breath it will be fixed with 10.9.2. And there are other issues they created, some of which they now blame third-party developers who didn't adapt their applications to 10.9.x.
One of this is the menu bar application with the drop down menu. OS-X Mavericks will "deny hid control" which locks the drop down menu open and locks the application windows you have open at the time. Sometimes I have to quit or hide the open windows to clear the issue.
Here I wonder if the problem is Apple setting too restrictive use of the menu bar applications or the third party developers adapting their applications to Mavericks, but when the problem is consistent across multiple applications, then I wonder if Apple did this to restrict drop down menus.
But some of they do work which means the applications can make dropdown menus work with Mavericks. This, however, goes to the real problem with menu bar applications icons, which I've ranted about before, and found an application to fix this if Apple doesn't with 10.9.2.
I say this because I run 15-20 applications on the menu bar, and not being able to control the location of the icon on the menu bar (currently it's random everytime with every application) really sucks. You have to keep searching where it opened and not where you expect it, something which has worked before with OS-X 10.5-10.8.
Ok, enough said, or not. I still wish Apple will fix iTunes 11 so it loads and keeps all the album artwork in active memory. This was the situation with iTunes 10 they dropped for some reason but there's no reason they can't make it a user preference or setting.
Lastly, I would like to see is Apple announce what they're actually working on to fix with 10.9.2 than announcing new bells and whistles or fixes the new ones they broke. Fix the underlying user functions and tools.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
iPhone Music Album Artwork
It would really be nice if the music app in IOS didn't keep losing the album artwork in the artists' list. Everytime I changed the music in the library (I have 1,200 albums in the library and working to add another 600-700) on the iPhone 4, the music app loses the artwork for one artist.
The artwork is there because it shows the artwork when you go to the artist's list of albums, it's just missing from the artists' list. What's worse is that there is no easy fix for this, you have to either erase and reload the entire music library, and if that doesn't work, erase and reload all the content and settings.
And that is absolutely stupid to only give users those limited tools to fix a small problem because having spent years in data management I'll bet Apple technicians and developers have a tool to access the music library of files to fix any problem in the app.
And it doesn't matter if you remove and reload the artist's music, the underlying file is still corrupted and it won't display. In addition some of the folks on the Apple forum think it's not a problem, that I shouldn't be bothered when it loses the artwork of one artist, the "Just live with it." mentality. Yeah, right.
Anyway, it would be nice if Apple had an easier and better fix for this small problem because it's a fairly regular problem now. But then Apple's approach is like rebuiling an entire engine to replace one bad sparkplug.
The artwork is there because it shows the artwork when you go to the artist's list of albums, it's just missing from the artists' list. What's worse is that there is no easy fix for this, you have to either erase and reload the entire music library, and if that doesn't work, erase and reload all the content and settings.
And that is absolutely stupid to only give users those limited tools to fix a small problem because having spent years in data management I'll bet Apple technicians and developers have a tool to access the music library of files to fix any problem in the app.
And it doesn't matter if you remove and reload the artist's music, the underlying file is still corrupted and it won't display. In addition some of the folks on the Apple forum think it's not a problem, that I shouldn't be bothered when it loses the artwork of one artist, the "Just live with it." mentality. Yeah, right.
Anyway, it would be nice if Apple had an easier and better fix for this small problem because it's a fairly regular problem now. But then Apple's approach is like rebuiling an entire engine to replace one bad sparkplug.
Really
The pro-life folks won't allow a woman under 18 to adopt a baby because they say she is too young and not mature enough to be a mother and raise a baby, Yet they're willing to deny her contraceptives, and should she become pregnant by accident, rape, incest, etc., deny her an abortion and force her to carry the baby to term and become a mother.
Do they really think it works like that? That a woman of any age giving birth automatically makes her old and mature enough to be a good mother, or once she gives birth they don't really care about her, her skills as a mother or the baby because their whole fight is about pregnancy and not babies or mothers? They think we don't see the contradiction and hypocrisy in their beliefs because they're blind to it and think we're equally blind. No, pro-life folks, we're not that blind or stupid.
Do they really think it works like that? That a woman of any age giving birth automatically makes her old and mature enough to be a good mother, or once she gives birth they don't really care about her, her skills as a mother or the baby because their whole fight is about pregnancy and not babies or mothers? They think we don't see the contradiction and hypocrisy in their beliefs because they're blind to it and think we're equally blind. No, pro-life folks, we're not that blind or stupid.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Adobe Dreamweaver
Update.-- Adobe released an update to Dreamweaver CC today (Jan. 2, 2014) and they didn't fix one very important thing. The application writes a message to the console log file every 3-5 seconds! It literally drowns out all the other messages from all the other applications! So Adobe,
People are paying $20-50 per month for your applications. The least you can do is make sure it doesn't fill the console log with repetitive useless messages which can easily be trapped for fixed as some are about core performance, obsolete functions or libaries, etc.
You would think the developers at Adobe would have a Mac Pro with OS-X 10.9.1 running and watch the console log as they open Dreamweaver CC. You would think, but apparently that's asking too much. So I still won't use it!
Original message.---I've used Adobe Dreamweaver for a few years going back to CS3 but only CS5.5 (not CS5) and later versions run under OS-X 10.9.x Mavericks along with GoLive 9, Abobe's Web design application before Dreamweaver (DW) which has run without a hitch through several generations of OS-X including Mavericks.
I didn't like Dreamweaver CS6 because they redesigned to a full screen window size without the user having any control over the default opening window size and position which DW had with all previous versions. And with all the updates they never fixed this bug, so I stopped using it.
I like Dreamweaver CC, but don't use it under OS-X 10.9.x Mavericks for one very good reason, which isn't related to the use of it, but what it does when it's open. If you like to use, even keep, the console window available to see what your Mac is doing, you won't like DW CC or CS6.
I don't know what Adobe did or if the problem is an Adobe-to-Apple issue with Mavericks but once you open either DW CC or CS6 it writes endless messages to the console window every few seconds, and it's several different message repeated endlessly until you close the application.
I would have thought someone at Adobe would test this but apparently not as they've updated DW CC and CS6 for Mavericks and the messages didn't stop. This is the stuff developers call chatter since they're not error messages, but endless chatter is ridiculous when it drowns out all the other messages.
So, until Adobe decides to fix this I've resorted to using DW CS5.5 (CS5 crashes shortly after opening) and GoLive 9.
PLEASE FIX YOUR DAMN APPLICATION!
People are paying $20-50 per month for your applications. The least you can do is make sure it doesn't fill the console log with repetitive useless messages which can easily be trapped for fixed as some are about core performance, obsolete functions or libaries, etc.
You would think the developers at Adobe would have a Mac Pro with OS-X 10.9.1 running and watch the console log as they open Dreamweaver CC. You would think, but apparently that's asking too much. So I still won't use it!
Original message.---I've used Adobe Dreamweaver for a few years going back to CS3 but only CS5.5 (not CS5) and later versions run under OS-X 10.9.x Mavericks along with GoLive 9, Abobe's Web design application before Dreamweaver (DW) which has run without a hitch through several generations of OS-X including Mavericks.
I didn't like Dreamweaver CS6 because they redesigned to a full screen window size without the user having any control over the default opening window size and position which DW had with all previous versions. And with all the updates they never fixed this bug, so I stopped using it.
I like Dreamweaver CC, but don't use it under OS-X 10.9.x Mavericks for one very good reason, which isn't related to the use of it, but what it does when it's open. If you like to use, even keep, the console window available to see what your Mac is doing, you won't like DW CC or CS6.
I don't know what Adobe did or if the problem is an Adobe-to-Apple issue with Mavericks but once you open either DW CC or CS6 it writes endless messages to the console window every few seconds, and it's several different message repeated endlessly until you close the application.
I would have thought someone at Adobe would test this but apparently not as they've updated DW CC and CS6 for Mavericks and the messages didn't stop. This is the stuff developers call chatter since they're not error messages, but endless chatter is ridiculous when it drowns out all the other messages.
So, until Adobe decides to fix this I've resorted to using DW CS5.5 (CS5 crashes shortly after opening) and GoLive 9.
NY Times New Reader
Update.--After sending feedback I got a response from the NY Times which was the normal thank for your feedback. I'll give them credit for being nice when I was, and still am, angry about the change. While the new design is clean, simple, and easy to navigate and read, it's still not a newspaper but a news Website application.
The reader have the open to see the print version format but you can't read it and you still can't print an individual article through the app or with Safari's Reader tool. What they don't seem to understand is that some people want the look and format of a newspaper, which the Times Reader replicated fairly well.
Otherwise it's just a news Website which the new NY Times app is, just a simplified version of the daily newspaper without the extras the NY Times Reader has/had, like latest news, videos, etc., which I guess now you get from the NY Times Website itself. I hope this app improves, but if not, it's my choice to buy it or not.
Original Post.--I subscribed to the New York Times Reader, which is based on Adobe Air, and recently they sent me an e-mail this service is being discontinued January 6th (2014) when all subscriptions will be transferred to the "new" NY Times Web-based version.
Well, for one I like the Reader. Abode Air is a good base for a number of app I have and I like the idea you downloaded the entire daily paper to read it off-line. I liked the format and the design, but I also realize, it's not what sells newspapers.
So, after trying my subscription to the Web-based NY Times reader, I have to say it's not better, and in fact is worse. The old Reader had a week of papers in your local folder to go back to and read previous articles. It had additional features, like videos, updated news, etc.
And above all, it had an ease to use print option, for each article. The new Reader doesn't have a single article print option and Safari Reader tool can't see the individual article in the whole set of pages on the one Web page you have, so it includes the left column navigation.
After some testing to print a single article you have to e-mail the URL to yourself, open the URL for the Web page of the article with the surrounding ads, etc., in a browser and then Safari Reader tool see the article separate from the rest to print it.
When many Website have a "Print this page" link for the content-only of the Web page without the surrounding Web page stuff. Not to have it for the reader (try hit print key to test it for yourself and see the number of pages it will print just for the one article) is really stupid.
What happened to your testers who are supposed to think like customers and readers? In short, I hope the staff at the New York Times improves this reader because for now they made a good service worse and I may cancel my subscription if it doesn't improve.
The reader have the open to see the print version format but you can't read it and you still can't print an individual article through the app or with Safari's Reader tool. What they don't seem to understand is that some people want the look and format of a newspaper, which the Times Reader replicated fairly well.
Otherwise it's just a news Website which the new NY Times app is, just a simplified version of the daily newspaper without the extras the NY Times Reader has/had, like latest news, videos, etc., which I guess now you get from the NY Times Website itself. I hope this app improves, but if not, it's my choice to buy it or not.
Original Post.--I subscribed to the New York Times Reader, which is based on Adobe Air, and recently they sent me an e-mail this service is being discontinued January 6th (2014) when all subscriptions will be transferred to the "new" NY Times Web-based version.
Well, for one I like the Reader. Abode Air is a good base for a number of app I have and I like the idea you downloaded the entire daily paper to read it off-line. I liked the format and the design, but I also realize, it's not what sells newspapers.
So, after trying my subscription to the Web-based NY Times reader, I have to say it's not better, and in fact is worse. The old Reader had a week of papers in your local folder to go back to and read previous articles. It had additional features, like videos, updated news, etc.
And above all, it had an ease to use print option, for each article. The new Reader doesn't have a single article print option and Safari Reader tool can't see the individual article in the whole set of pages on the one Web page you have, so it includes the left column navigation.
After some testing to print a single article you have to e-mail the URL to yourself, open the URL for the Web page of the article with the surrounding ads, etc., in a browser and then Safari Reader tool see the article separate from the rest to print it.
When many Website have a "Print this page" link for the content-only of the Web page without the surrounding Web page stuff. Not to have it for the reader (try hit print key to test it for yourself and see the number of pages it will print just for the one article) is really stupid.
What happened to your testers who are supposed to think like customers and readers? In short, I hope the staff at the New York Times improves this reader because for now they made a good service worse and I may cancel my subscription if it doesn't improve.
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