Getting Text From Apple Pages on a PC in a Pinch
The other day I brought a .pages file into a classroom. The problem is all the computers at the school use MS Windows, which can't open .pages files. Did I panic? Yes. Was all hope lost? Nope.
It turns out that the .pages extension is just a fancy compressed file. That means you can simply change the ".pages" extension to ".zip" or ".rar" and get at the file contents.
The simplest way to get at the text from there is to look in the folder called "QuickLook." There should be a PDF in that folder Read more [...]
Thoughts on "Stopping Piracy"
There is no way to stop people from stealing. Humans have been stealing since well before computers came around, and they’ll never stop (at least not in our lifetimes). It’s better to let go of the idea of stopping it and figure out ways to work around it.
Theft is an unstoppable force. If you see a car speeding towards you and you want to live, you don’t think of how to stop the car, you just get the hell out of the way.
Related items
Fix for Disk Utility: “File system formatter failed.”
Situation:
You buy an external hard drive for you Mac. You want to format it for the Mac (Mac OS Extended (journaled)).
So you fire up Disk Utility to reformat. Choose erase, click go, and get “File system formatter failed.” shot back at you.
The problem:
The drive, like most, is set to FAT-32. This means you can't just erase it because, like a bad ex-roommate, FAT-32 leaves all sorts of gross stuff everywhere.
The Solution:
You need to re-partition the drive. Sound tough? It isn't.
1) You Read more [...]
MacBook Pro Battery is Not Charging
My MacBook Pro has had it's fair share of power issues. First was the charger melting, then the battery went from fairly healthy to only holding a five minute charge. Those two problems solved I've been given a new one to tackle.
My MacBook Pro flat out refused to charge the battery. The message was straightforward and honest. "Battery is not charging." I noticed it a while back, but the issue always seemed to work itself out eventually given enough time. Then it started to get progressively worse, Read more [...]
My Leopard Finder Bug
This bug was first found in Leopard 10.5.1 (9B18) REPRODUCTION: 1) grab file 2) open a folder by hovering the file over a folder in the "places" sidebar 3) open a sub-folder of the first folder by hover again 4) drop file into folder 5) click the back arrow to return to the original folder RESULT: 1) The moved file will appear to still be in the original folder, as well as the new location. Read more [...]
Living with Leopard's Firewall
Here's a few helpful tips: to add a port: sudo ipfw add allow from to So, if you want allow port 80 with tcp you'd type sudo ipfw add allow tcp from 80 to 80 to see your rules: sudo ipfw list to delete an open port: first type sudo ipfw list, you'll get something like this 33300 deny icmp from any to me in icmptypes 8 33400 allow udp from 0.0.0.80 to 0.0.0.80 33500 allow tcp from 0.0.0.80 to 0.0.0.80 take the number proceeding the rule you want to delete and type sudo ipfw deletem , so if I wanted to delete the rule "33500 allow tcp from 0.0.0.80 to 0.0.0.80" I'd just type sudo ipfw delete 33400 Hopefully Apple will realize that giving users no advanced options is dumb. Read more [...]
Calibrate Your Mac Battery
Plug in the power adapter and fully charge your PowerBook's battery until the light ring or LED on the power adapter plug changes to green and the onscreen meter in the menu bar indicates that the battery is fully charged. Read more [...]
iPhone Update Locks Down 3rd Party Apps, Time for a Linux Phone?
With Apple's recent move to lock down the iPhone and iPod Touch the Linux Phone called OpenMoko is starting to look better all the time. The combination of openness not only of software but also of network (any GSM network anyway) makes the OpenMoko a compelling alternative to what Apple offers, that being a closed software and closed network phone. Read more [...]
Apple's World-Wide Pricing
From what I can tell using Google Finance: $2,688.14 USD - Current price for Japan (based on the exchange rate at the end of the day 2007.Sep.11) $2,456 USD - Year's low price for Japan (approx.) $2,695 USD - Year's high price for Japan (approx.) I'd really like to see a whole history and analysis of their world wide pricing. Read more [...]
