Comments for Ryan Block

Comment on Where’s IrfanView for Mac? by David Uribe

David Uribe — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:44:30 +0000

@ryanblock Thanks for the quick reply to such an old post of yours!

I was asking because the book I’m reading now suggested using IrfanView, but as a long-time Mac user, there’s little chance I want to go anywhere near windows again… so I looked up the question and this post of yours came up!.. I can’t believe they still haven’t migrated to the Mac platform (6 years later)!

The book I’m reading needed me to make thumbnails, and it seems like Xee doesn’t do that!… so I googled “image editor with thumbnail tool mac” and the third result down was “http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/10/02/15-useful-batch-image-processors/”. Anyway, it seems like a really good list of image editors, so I thought I’d share!

Comment on Where’s IrfanView for Mac? by Ryan Block

Ryan Block — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:27:12 +0000

Never found anything to fully substitute Irfanview, but I also stopped looking years ago. I’m a fan of Xee these days.

Comment on Where’s IrfanView for Mac? by David Uribe

David Uribe — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 03:51:32 +0000

So @ryanblock did you ever find a reasonable solution to the lack of an Mac version of IrfanView?

Comment on Tech I’m thankful for this year by Ryan Block

Ryan Block — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:47:51 +0000

Will see if I can find the time to throw another one together!

Comment on Tech I’m thankful for this year by Cameron

Cameron — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:46:13 +0000

Would love if you did another one of these for 2011! This list really did change how I viewed the last year.

Comment on Disable IntelliTXT and keyword popovers: some solutions for the end user by Brad T

Brad T — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 05:47:40 +0000

Thanks Ryan.

Comment on Good folders to exclude from Time Machine backups by Ryan Block

Ryan Block — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:18:41 +0000

Don, smart call on Dropbox! I’d suggest you do backup your mobile apps folder though, especially if you have any apps that aren’t available for download anymore.

Comment on Good folders to exclude from Time Machine backups by Don Wilson

Don Wilson — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 05:24:11 +0000

I excluded my Dropbox folder as well since Dropbox backs that up for me. I also excluded /Users/[user]/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Mobile Applications since those are only there to back up my phone. I don’t feel like I need to backup the backup.

Comment on Good folders to exclude from Time Machine backups by Zig

Zig — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:47:40 +0000

Great article. I’ve been trying to do a large backup on a WD Mybook Live NAS. Since it’s 350+ GB it hung every time. Through some fiddling around I’ve found it best to exclude all of these large folders (particularly Music and Photos), then add them back into the backup after the initial backup is complete. Wee-Haw!

Comment on Disable IntelliTXT and keyword popovers: some solutions for the end user by Rick M

Rick M — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 16:43:22 +0000

I’m all for blocking every ad known to man. They are completely USELESS SPAM FORCED MARKETING harmful or not I want them all banned gone adios! If I want to see ads I will look them up any ad that pops up on my screen is doing nothing but securing a spot in my “Ill never ever buy from them” folder. The only folks that “Don’t mind harmless ads” are the folks putting them out there, and trying to make money off them ..I mean why else would they “like” an ad .

Comment on Where’s IrfanView for Mac? by Richard

Richard — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:22:17 +0000

gunste@: Grab does the same job as Clipmate. it’s hidden in Utilities, and it’s easy to use. Saves as .TIF, which you can open in Preview, edit, crop, and save in various formats from there.

But I also want something to replace Irfan View!

I’ve a customer who wants to open .WMF, .CDR, .AI, and several other different formats of clipart images, which are in her large collection, at minimal cost.

Is there anyone out there who wants to Tackle this? Irfan View looks as though it will never be ported to OS X. People have been asking in this thread for over five years now, and that’s a lifetime in computer terms.

Trying to run IrfanView it via WINE isn’t the proper way to do things.

Richard

Comment on Android using Java VM for apps — whatever! by Tony

Tony — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 09:29:48 +0000

LOL, gotta love Java-hating snobs. It’s so 2002. Oh man, Java is slow, real men program in C/C++ (which is fast for machines, but slow and painfully error-prone for humans to actually create, compile, and maintain). Either that or “Java is lame, real men program in Python” (which is actually quite a bit slower than Java but hey, it’s hip).

Comment on Good folders to exclude from Time Machine backups by Tommy

Tommy — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:17:46 +0000

Thanks for your list, absolutely great. I was especially interested in removing parallels after the first backup….. But I cant find parallels in /Users/[user]/Library/Parallels instead I can find a 12GB file in Macintosh HD/Programs/Parallels/WinXP…. is this the same file you are talking about ?? Thanks a lot !

Comment on Tech I’m thankful for this year by Social Media Assistant

Social Media Assistant — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 15:14:49 +0000

I would agree completely about the magic mouse, it’s become send nature to me to use the new gestures which initially i was skeptical about to be honest.

Comment on Come as you are. by Steve

Steve — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 05:13:26 +0000

Ryan,

Beautifully said. I’ve used Apple products for a LONG time. Grew up 5 miles from Steve’s boyhood home. I worked at Apple. I’ve inadequately tried to explain my feelings about his death to family and friends.

I’ve read many blog posts (including Marco’s)…but yours hit closest to home.

Thanks.

Comment on Good folders to exclude from Time Machine backups by Micha

Micha — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:02:49 +0000

Thanks for the very useful post, Ryan.
I had a problem with time machine backing up all my encrypted Espionage folders which was insane since those bundles of data would get backed up even if just one tiny file had been altered.

So whoever has the same problem: http://www.taoeffect.com/espionage/EspionageHelp/pages/usg-backup_timemachine.html has an obvious tip (well NOW it’s obvious to me ;).

Have a good one!

Comment on Come as you are. by John Bell

John Bell — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:18:43 +0000

Thanks for making me tear up ALL OVER AGAIN.

Seriously though, excellent piece. I think you nailed just why there is such profound sadness over the passing so few ever really knew.

Comment on Come as you are. by Andy

Andy — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:44:49 +0000

Well said; and I’m certain you feel more closure for having written it. It’s an amazing phenenoma this unexpected sadness. Who among us hasn’t hasn’t also asked themsemves almost daily in quiet retrospect how could they be more like Steve in his personal and unrelenting dedication to perfection. Watching his life and reflecting on his accomplishments is like reading all the best self-help and business books all at the same time. His passing and his legacy will be long celebrated as it should be.

Comment on Things I hate most about my Motorola HD DVR by jay

jay — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:39:44 +0000

I have replaced about 8 different receivers because after any power outage or if i move stuff around and have to unplug the box for any reason what so ever the dvr shits the deck loses all my shows and then just says dvr service is unavailable or has been disabled… It doesnt matter which Receiver i had the black one this stupid crappy gray one right after its unplugged or there is a power outage im guaranteed to have lost my dvr service and the only solution is getting another tech out here. I have had comcast services for 8 months and once a month it seems like i have to replace my receiver do to a power outage and the receiver being incapable of retrieving the dvr service that exists on it.

Comment on Android using Java VM for apps — whatever! by Andy T

Andy T — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 04:41:39 +0000

The very source of the problem is Sun Microsystems, they define and went after whomever broke off VM and go the machine-code route instead of bytecode. The language is streamlined version of C/C++ when you look at it superficially. As a general purpose language Java is very good indeed with overzealous parent that gave rise to C#.

When is last time you do unions, bitwise variables, destructors, multiple inheritance? And the crown-jewel is Garbage Collector, a phone cannot just go about rebooting in the middle of the day just because some guy forgot to dealloc() or delete heap. Now JIT, it did offer good speed; the only problem I can see is that VNC needs Native not Dalvik. Sun Micro did not say ‘OK, we need a carbon copy of Visual Basic with a more popular syntax’, they had to design entire VM to compete and wreck their hardware line up.

You should be properly armed with information before you bash it for being no good it sounded no more like OS war or browser war redux. Just GC along renders the original article quite meaningless. You can say to adopt Microsoft’s early ’90s approach of Runtime but back to unmanaged approach of C/C++ is very bad idea.