Danny Stewart

So, Apple’s tablet has finally been unveiled in the form of the iPad. John Gruber made a post over at Daring Fireball that got me thinking. You should read his post before you read mine.

There are some things he said that resonated with me; more than anything, that “the iPad is what they’ve been building toward all along” and how they’ve invented a totally new UI paradigm with the iWork apps.

Someone on Twitter said the other day that “this is the end of the desktop OS.” When I read it, I thought it was overdramatized, but after thinking about it, I see what they’re saying and I agree with it. This truly marks the beginning of a change in times. Not long from now, the mouse will die off, to be replaced by a keyboard/touch interface. The iPad is the start of that, and I think it’s a pretty big deal.

read more »

Here are a few simple AppleScripts I’ve written to make my life a little bit easier. They are not saved as “Run Only,” so you can open them up and poke at the code inside all you want. These are posted mostly so people can learn from them; untouched, they won’t be much use as they are written for me. Feel free to customize them for your own purposes. If you want to rerelease your own scripts, some credit is all I ask. The scripts include:

• Startup: A startup script I wrote to launch my most frequently used applications, depending on a few different things (whether I’m connected to the internet, which external hard drives are connected to my computer, etc.).
• Reinitialize: A very basic script that kills the Finder, Dock, and SystemUIServer. A nice way to reinitialize the core components of the system without logging out and back in. It was more fun to make than it is to use.
• Restart into Windows: My most useful script. Sets my Windows drive as the default startup disk for one restart only, allowing me to switch into Windows and then go back to Mac OS X the next time I restart without having to give it a second thought.

Click here to download the whole set.

For the past several years, I’ve been relying on Google for all my online personal information needs. That includes Gmail for my email, as well as Google Calendar and Gmail contacts for my basic calendar/contact needs.

That changed a bit once Apple came out with their new MobileMe service to go along with the launch of iPhone 2.0. In order to have the best experience using my iPhone, I wanted to manage my calendar and contacts through MobileMe instead.

read more »

Nothing groundbreaking in the final release of Safari 4, but it really feels like a polished final release instead of a beta. Everything feels faster (yes, folks, Safari seems snappier), the UI has improved noticeably, and there are lots of little touches and additions that just make it feel nicer.

The one thing I noticed right away after installing Safari 4 is that Tabs on Top seems to have been pulled at the last minute. It’s just gone, and all traces of the feature have been removed from Apple’s site as though it never existed. Ah well. I had gotten used to it, but I won’t miss it too much. It’s certainly nice to have my title bar restored to normality.

Well, WWDC ‘09 has come and gone. Here is my take on the most significant news from Apple.

The news

Other sites will do a much better job summing up the news than I will, so instead of bothering to try, I will simply link you to all the news as told by Gizmodo.

(Updated to point to Gizmodo’s summary post.)

Read on for my take on everything…

read more »