• Jan 16, 2008

    Macworld 2008 Summary

    Now that I'm done with Macworld 2008, here are my reactions.

    • Apple's announcements were pretty much snoreville.
      • The MacBook Air is an interesting device for some, but for me, it is lacking. I need a machine that is faster than my current 2.16 GHz MacBook Pro (Core Duo) and has a significantly larger hard drive (I have a 7200 RPM 100 GB drive). I only have one main machine, so I'm looking at a 2.8 GHz MacBook Pro with a 200 GB 7200 RPM drive. I'm going to wait as my machine is quite adequate for now (it does have a nice dent in the corner when I dropped it a few months ago when trying to put luggage on a cart; it works fine, but has a dent in the corner near the power connector).
      • The AppleTV announcement was pretty much a given based on the rumors. I'm excited to have the free software update, but will have to wait until someone hacks it so I can install the SlimServer software back on it.
      • The iPhone/iPod Touch updates aren't of much use to me, as far as I can tell. I did try out the GPS-like stuff in Google maps and it worked adequately.
      • Time Capsule - not a whole lot of use to me as I use a local Time Machine backup and use SuperDuper! to backup daily
    • There was still a lot of iPod/iPhone stuff on the floor, but less than previous years. I could do without this. How many iPod/iPhone cases can you use?
    • Nothing really new in the hardware front. A few new scanners, more junk from Canon, HP, and EPSON.
    • No new software that I didn't already know about. I think that BusySync is an interesting competitor to Spanning Sync (I've know the folks behind BusySync for years as they used to do Palm software.)
    • On the positive side, I'm excited about ReceiptWallet as I got some real good ideas for enhancements. However, I don't have enough time to implement them!
  • Jan 16, 2008

    Lazy Expo Goers

    The Expo that is going on at the same time as Macworld is the United Motorcoach Association Expo. I saw the sign in front of Moscone North that detailed their hotel shuttle schedule. It listed the hotels it goes to and one of them was the Marriott. You have to be real lazy to not walk from the Marriott to Moscone. It is a 3 minute walk and just over a block. You'd spend more time getting onto and off the bus than walking.

  • Jan 16, 2008

    Doh, fixed a blog issue!

    This week I've written a lot of posts and noticed that the "Previous" link didn't show up at the bottom causing people to potentially miss some of my excellent work! I finally took a look and discovered that one of my Wordpress plugins (Adhesive) caused the issue. I installed this plugin right after I ran my first marathon 1.5 years ago! Oh well, now people can see the older posts.

    BTW, I'm playing around the theme for my blog and will keep searching for one that I like. Please don't mind my mess.

  • Jan 16, 2008

    The bird had the right idea!

    I installed the software for the IRIScan Express and was not surprised to see that it isn't TWAIN compliant. However, the ReadIRIS software that comes with it DOES use TWAIN compliant scanners if they exist. In poking around, I see that the software opens up a bundle specifically for the scanner. (I used a tool called opensnoop to see what the app was opening.)

     501   1867 Readiris       6 /Library/Application Support/IRISScan/IRISScan 1.6.bundle 
  501   1867 Readiris       6 /Library/Application Support/IRISScan/IRISScan 1.6.bundle/Contents 
  501   1867 Readiris       6 /dev/autofs_nowait   
  501   1867 Readiris       7 /Library/Application Support/IRISScan/IRISScan 1.6.bundle/Contents/Info.plist

    TWAIN drivers live in /Library/Image Capture/TWAIN Data Sources. It doesn't look like the IRIScan folks did the right thing and create a TWAIN driver. Instead they created their own system for talking to the scanner. The scanner is a Plustek scanner (according to USB Prober). I haven't found Plustek drivers, yet, but will keep searching.

    So, the IRIScan scanners won't work with ReceiptWallet. Piece of crap scanner. I've sent email to them asked where the TWAIN drivers are as the sales guy told me it was TWAIN compliant and how can I return the scanner. I'm sure I'll get a great response to my message.

    I should have heeded the advice of the bird and returned the scanner while I still had the chance and before I left the show. Anyone have a need for a paperweight? Their software is so awful that I wouldn't even think of using it.