Beckism.com

Notice note about newly released Cornerstone Subversion application at Daring Fireball. Download Cornerstone. Launch it and connect to my free Beanstalk account (a.k.a. Mr. Sandbox). Create folder. Notice typo in folder name. Select folder and hit enter in order to rename. Fail. Right-click folder and look for rename option. Fail. View Info pane. Fail. View Properties pane. Fail. Go through every menu and sub-menu for a rename option. Fail.

Open up Versions beta. Connect to Beanstalk. Right-click folder and choose Rename option. Rename folder quickly and easily. Hooray!

Have a thought. Switch to Cornerstone. Click folder once, then hover cursor over it for a second or two. Folder name becomes selected with a typing cursor. Oh. Right.

Exit out of the renaming, since the folder is no longer typo-a-rific in the repository. Check toolbar for a way to refresh the repository. Fail. Right-click the main area. Fail. Double click the repository nickname in the sidebar. Fail. Right-click the repository nickname in the sidebar. Doesn’t even have a context menu. Open the gear menu in the sidebar (bizarrely positioned at the top). Fail. Go through every menu and sub-menu a second time. Fail. Attempt to rename the folder in the hopes that it will encourage the repository to refresh itself. Fail. Bizarre error message.

Quit Cornerstone. Trash Cornerstone. Hope for Versions to be a real product soon.

Mariner Software today released MacGourmet Deluxe. MacGourmet has long been my favorite recipe software (it’s interface is pretty badly cluttered and could definitely be improved on, but it’s far and away better than the competition and the fullscreen cook’s view is excellent), and now MacGourmet Deluxe offers all three of the plug-ins (cookbook, mealplan, and nutrition info) as integrated parts of the program. This is a particularly good deal if you already own MacGourmet 2 but neglected to buy any of the plugins, since the upgrade fee to MacGourmet Deluxe is a meager $10. It also has a snazzy new icon that I like a lot better than MacGroumet’s plastic spoon:

I highly recommend anyone who is looking for a better way to manage their favorite recipes to take a look at MacGourmet Deluxe. It’s a program that I don’t use all that often, but when I need to find that favorite recipe I can count on it being in MacGourmet and super easy to find and access.

MacGourmet Deluxe will also be available as boxed software, so good luck to Advenio and Mariner Software in spreading the word about the best recipe software on the Mac to an even larger crowd.

My girlfriend and I went to see Get Smart a couple days ago, and it was a lot of fun. Not the best movie I’ve seen this year, but funny, goofy, and well-acted. Some of the humor occasionally crosses into the crude or excessive-physical-pain-as-slapstick realms (neither of which are really my thing), but such moments are balanced by the large number of hilarious bits throughout the movie that don’t rely on more vulgar humor (”Mom, Mom, Mom!” “Sean, Sean, Sean! See how annoying that is?”).

I highly recommend Get Smart for anyone who enjoys spy movies, comedies, or the classic TV show. It was well worth a trip to the theater.

OfficeTime is, quite simply, the best time tracker and invoicing solution I’ve been able to find. Every so often I try the competition in the hopes that it will have covered more of the features that I need (OfficeTime is lacking in a couple minor areas), but the other time trackers never have OfficeTime’s simplicity and flexibility combined with its power.

Unfortunately, whenever I recommend OfficeTime recently people are put off by the price. It started at a modest $25 (when I purchased it), but as the developer has been adding features they’ve been steadily ramping the price up (currently it’s almost twice what I paid). Of course, the increase in price hasn’t mattered for me since they’ve never charged an update fee, but it’s a shame that such a great piece of software has become a much harder sell. However, today June 19, 2008 only OfficeTime is on sale for $25 once more from MacUpdate Promo. If you are a freelancer or otherwise need to track your time during the day accurately and easily, I strongly recommend OfficeTime. It’s ease of use and powerful reports are far superior to any of the other Mac time tracking software I’ve found.

Even if you miss the sale, you might be able to get OfficeTime at a discount since the MacUpdate promo usually runs decreasingly good discounts over several weeks. Try a direct link to OfficeTime on MacUpdate Promo to give it a shot.

InterWorld (or the Kindle version, which is what I read) by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reeves was disappointing. It’s not bad; I’d characterize it as mediocre but harmed by my expectations for the authors. Gaiman and Reeves have imagined a very vivid world, but the pacing and characterization (particularly in the beginning) leave the whole thing a bit flat. The last half is actually a lot better than the first; this feels like the kind of book whose sequels (if there are any) will outshine the original because they won’t be burdened with exposition. I think the problem is that we don’t get eased into the action at all; if it were a graphic novel the abrupt shift from mundane reality into wild science-fantasy would probably work, but as a novel I was left wondering just why I was supposed to care about some of the characters (or believe the over-the-top settings).

Pretty disappointing for a Neil Gaiman novel (even if he was collaborating). I have not been impressed with much of Gaiman’s work since Anansi Boys, and even that wasn’t as good as its predecessors. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s one of those authors who has a brilliant early career but isn’t able to sustain it.

I hate the fact that A&W now caffeinates their cream soda (caffeine makes me weird), so in my search for alternatives I picked up a 12-pack of Jones Cream Soda at the store the other day.

Unless you are a hummingbird, do not drink this stuff. It’s like drinking syrup (sans the viscosity). My girlfriend, who normally is of the opinion that more sugar equals more fun, ended up pouring most of a can down the sink. I drank a can with lunch, and while I made it all the way through the resulting headache argues I should have followed her example. This stuff is ridiculously sweet.

Perhaps Jones Soda has always been sickeningly sweet (I don’t know if I’ve ever tried it before, and lord knows there’s a market). If so, and you’re not already a fan (or hummingbird), consider yourself warned. As for me, the search for a lower budget cream soda alternative continues. I do love me the Thomas Kemper Cream Soda, but it’s hard to justify the cost for day-to-day consumption (as a side note, their Ginger Ale is also to die for).

Although it’s been a mere nine short months since the last time PathFinder was on the MacUpdate promo, it’s come back for another run. I highly recommend PathFinder; along with LaunchBar, it is one of the tools that I can’t make it through a work day without. Basically, if you haven’t experienced the PathFinder tabbed interface and drop stack, you haven’t lived. For today, May 8, 2008 only you can get PathFinder for $19.95, 43% off its normal price.

Even if you miss the deal, you’ll likely still be able to get PathFinder through MacUpdate for a discount a few days to weeks afterward. Here’s a direct link to the PathFinder page, so feel free to check it out.

Web Snapper is a fantastic little utility (most recent update released today). Web Snapper does exactly one thing: it takes screenshots of websites. However, it does this one thing extremely well, with multiple export options (including vector PDF), the ability to catch Flash and DHTML in the act (if you use the Safari plugin), and more. I’d never heard of it before, but as coincidence would have it I discovered it the day after I had to go through a bunch of websites for my employer and take screenshots. This entailed a lot of work stitching them together and so forth that would have been completely unnecessary with Web Snapper (which would also have provided better quality screenshots). D’oh!

Although the $15 price tag will probably dissuade casual customers, if you ever need to take a screenshot of a number of websites, Web Snapper is a godsend. I highly recommend it. It’s a particularly powerful tool in the arsenal of the website designer who needs to showcase sites in their portfolio.

The Tasty Apps website is a fun experience in worthless DHTML, too (worth a visit just for that, really). Dragging the price tags is my favorite. I only wish they had dedicated pages for their various apps; the all-in-one thing doesn’t work for me at all.

Although most people probably don’t need to be told, MarioKart Wii is out, and it’s loads of fun. The wheel takes a little getting used to (the first few races with it were brutally hard), but if you despise it you can always use the Wii remote + nunchuk or your old Gamecube controller.

I haven’t played all the races yet (two cups left to go!), but I highly recommend the game. Similar to the DS version (which rocked), MarioKart Wii offers 16 new races, and a full 16 races from selected past versions of the game (a mixture of DS all the way back to the SNES). Although the co-op goodness of Double Dash is no more, it’s still a great time with a friend, and also offers the ability to easily play online with up to 12 other people. Owning MarioKart is all but compulsory if you own a Nintendo system, so definitely give it a look. (And at the time of this writing, Wii Wheels on Amazon are only $10 as opposed to the normal $15, which is a bit more reasonable.)

Rented I Am Legend tonight from iTunes, and I was very pleasantly surprised. From what I’d heard when it opened in theaters, I was expecting a pretty terrible movie, but it was actually really good. Definitely an interesting twist on the typical zombie virus story.

Then again, I hear that about the only thing it shares with the book is the premise, so perhaps that’s why people were disappointed. The ending is, granted, a bit of deus ex machina and the “dark seeker” CGI was at times rather over-the-top, but what the hell. Last movie I rented was Beowulf; I can handle some CGI oddness and slightly wonked out storytelling.

If you like horror/zombie movies, I’d recommend I Am Legend. It is, at the very least, worth a rental.