As my first year of diarmydotnet draws to a close, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas and a great big thank you to you all who supported DDN this year. I hope next year is a big success for all of you and that all your dreams may come true!
Nollaig Shona!
diarmy
I’ve been busy this morning! I’ve created a Mac OS X 10.4+ Widget for the Dashboard application. It automatically downloads the latest ten blog titles from my site and displays them in the lovely widget box (as displayed) allowing you to select one or more to read further by clicking on them. The following information is from Apple:
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is required. If you’re using Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget’s icon in the Widget Bar to open it. If you’re using a browser other than Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, unarchive it and place it in /Library/Widgets/ in your home folder. show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget’s icon in the Widget Bar to open it.
So if you’re running Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) then away you go and download this. The link is at the bottom of this blog, or you can click the widget preview image to the right and download through that.
diarmy
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In the 19 or so years I can remember things, I’ve never seen Daingean Uí Chúis so eerily quiet. Last weekend, I frequented what could be termed my local, MacCarthy’s pub in Goat Street in the town (Visit Website). Usually the scene of frivious banter and customary cats, the pub was silent, save for the locals and tourists who sit quietly in the bar area. I sat to the rear, beside the cat. This was 10 o’clock. By 11 I couldn’t hear myself speak, but none-the-less, there was room for manoeuvre.
Outside, the story was much the same. Quite all around. This makes no sense to me, as we’ve all heard the great stories of our booming economy and how we’re all having a bumper Christmas. From the looks of things, we’re having it somewhere else. Odd how Daingean Uí Chúis was so quiet though. Perhaps people couldn’t find it?!
Indeed a friend of mine is spending some time in the very near future in a foreign land. He and his partner are travelling to New York for the New Year celebrations. Another friend is travelling to the great state of Florida - home to brother-Governor of the Commander in Chief! Nice for them!!
diarmy
Microsoft announced this week that it will be ceasing support for the Internet Explorer offering it has for the Macintosh platform with effect from 31/12/2005 and ceasing distribution from 31/01/2006. Many Mac users will obviously not be surprised considering MS announced plans to shelve the MacIE browser over 2 years ago. Even today, you can download IE for Mac from www.mactopia.com and get absolutely the worst build of an MS product ever. Microsoft haven’t updated the product in over 4 years!
This is no great loss to anyone who’s on a Mac. When I had an iBook during the summer, I found IE useful for nothing except logging into my BlackBerry mailserver. But now Safari, Apple’s own browser, does that nicely so I’ve NO use for IE. As recently as 2 months ago I stopped building in support for Internet Explorer on the PC, the newest version of which is 6.1. Why? Well it’s simple, Microsoft have little or no support for new standards such as CSS2 and CSS3. Even right now, the back end of this blog is managed through a CSS2 interface designed by Steve Smith, but if I log into it using IE, I get the standard Dashboard from WordPress (the system powering diarmydotnet).
I’ve been a Firefox advocate for as long as the Mozilla browser has been in existance (since November 2004). IE just simply doesn’t cut it. The next release, IE7 is due for commission in the summer of 2006, a full 3 years after their IE6 offering that Windows users have been patching like a broken-down bicycle wheel for the past decade.
So what should we take from the IEMac demise? Well, not a whole pile really. Microsoft is more or less giving up on the Mac - perhaps because they feel Mac is a threat that they shouldn’t be supporting with their ‘precious’ browser. Or, maybe Microsoft is finally realising that there are better products out there than theirs… Safari, Firefox, Flock, Opera!?
diarmy
I wrote this yesterday while musing the onset of Christmas and the flicker of the annoyingly cheap lights on the lovely tree to my right:
“Christmas Morning”
by: Diarmaid Ó Conchubhair
“The Morning skies rushed through the autumnal curtains,
Fire and fervour filled the chill-ed rooms
Cheer and Joy, though subdued, was there
Festivities and Christmas-ness abound.”
“Present in the presence of presents
Happy faces smiling anon with eyes wide
Delight evident in every glance
A Happy Christmas all tonight.”
diarmy
