With Leopard, Apple has unleashed the greatest version of Mac OS X yet, and David Pogue is back with another meticulous Missing Manual to cover the operating system with a wealth of detail. The new Mac OS X 10.5, better known as Leopard, is faster than its predecessors, but nothing’s too fast for Pogue and this Missing Manual. It’s just one of reasons this is the most popular computer book of all time. Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition is the authoritative book for Mac users of all technical levels and experience. If you’re new to the Mac, this book gives you a crystal-clear, jargon-free introduction to the Dock, the Mac OS X folder structure, and the Mail application. There are also mini-manuals on iLife applications such as iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto, and a tutorial for Safari, Mac’s web browser. This Missing Manual book is amusing and fun to read, but Pogue doesn’t take his subject lightly. Which new Leopard features work well and which do not? What should you look for? What should you avoid? Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition offers an objective and straightforward instruction for using: Leopard’s totally revamped Finder Spaces to group your windows and organize your Mac tasks Quick Look to view files before you open them The Time Machine, Leopard’s new backup feature Spotlight to search for and find anything in your Mac Front Row, a new way to enjoy music, photos, and videos Enhanced Parental Controls that come with Leopard Quick tips for setting up and configuring your Mac to make it your own There’s something new on practically every page of this new edition, and David Pogue brings his celebrated wit and expertise to every one of them. Mac’s brought a new catto town and Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition is a great new way to tame it.
Down The Gopher Hole
Today, for some reason I remembered about gopher:// protocol. And was I surprised to find out that there are still gopher sites operating: gopher://erwin.complete.org/1/Software/Gopher/servers.
Gopher is a pre http:// protocol that was created at University of Minnesota an named after its mascot, Goldy Gopher.
Goldy is apparently not really a gopher:
““He’s actually a chipmunk,” said Sarah Compton, a student worker at the University’s Bell Museum of Natural History.
…
The museum has created a mock criminal lineup comparing five stuffed rodents alongside a stuffed Goldy Gopher.
…
Although this comparison makes Goldy’s mistaken identity seem obvious, other rodents have been mislabeled as gophers since before Minnesota became a state.”
Well, it could have been worse. If MIT or Caltech geeks created it, we would have had beaver:// protocol on our hands.
Browsing about a little I found this gem:
“Happily, most web browsers will still understand Gopher, but they are at best suboptimal. No major web browser understands Gopher+, for one thing.
…
Because of security bulletin MS02-047, Gopher support is NOW DISABLED IN INTERNET EXPLORER 6 and higher. Rather than fix the buffer overrun in the Gopher protocol handler, Microsoft, in typical fashion, simply decided to disable it entirely. Instead of spending another paragraph or two on a droll rant about how high up their rear ends the heads of Microsoft technical designers are, we’ll just talk dispassionately about the impact of this security flaw: while the risk of an exploit is low in our very friendly community, it is not impossible, and the flaw is apparently damaging enough to be graded Critical. Nevertheless, if you want to reenable it, download the registry file from the clients directory here at Floodgap, or go into RegEdit, drill down to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings, and enter a key named EnableGopher
with type DWord and value 00000001. The reg file is available from gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/9/gopher/clients/ie6/iegopher.zip“
Rooting around I found some protocols that I haven’t even heard of, like “Hyper-G“. Man, why do I like to dig up this obscure stuff?
Band On The Web
Everybody knows that Dr Fun was the first cartoon on the World Wide Web. What do you mean you didn’t know? Ignorant mumble mumble. But a lesser known fact is that Les Horribles Cernettes was the first band on the Web.
According to this site:
“The Cernettes began when a patient CERN secretary was made to wait and wait and wait for the return of her permanently-on-shift physicist boyfriend. In an attempt to garner his attention, she asked physicist Silvano de Gennaro to write a song about her life, and got a few girlfriends to back her up. Then she stepped onstage in 1992 during CERN’s annual Hardronic music festival, and sang “You only love your collider” to the whole CERN population.”
…
“But the Cernettes’ real claim to fame is being the first band on the Web. In 1992, Tim Berners-Lee asked Silvano for photos of “the CERN girls” to publish on a new information network he’d invented. The image you see below is the first photo ever featured in a Web browser.”
“Collider” is pretty good, but “Liquid Nitrogen” is even better!
“You poured liquid nitrogen down my spine
as you told me you didn’t love me any more
and run off with the girl next door
…”
Pure genius. They are all so damn talented. Too bad they didn’t record any more songs. Their stuff is some of the best coding music that I have. I wonder if I’d like some more conventional Doo Wop music…