New Computer Set Up

Today I was looking at a new way to set up some monitors for my work computer. After we move to Eugene, Oregon my job should change a little. It looks like I will be doing some business consulting and some UX designing based on the outcomes of this business consulting. Then for “fun” I will also be working with an archive digitizing some linguistics texts and publishing a few items which have been sitting on my “To – Do” shelf. As I was considering this, I was thinking about my computer use habits and how much do I want to be in Eugene and indoors on my computer. Continue reading

MacMini Server

I have been thinking about using a MacMini as a media / web server. I wonder if there might be some long-term financial benefit to running the server at home, with higher levels of RAM. Rather than paying an annual cost for a hosted solution.

There are several articles which have been interesting on the matter.

The Job

Today several people are getting together to have a meeting about my job(s)… So I thought I would post a few diagrams to try and explain my job(s).

Hugh's Life

A digram of different areas of my life

The core Area of my Job

My Core Area of involvement

The Core Things I am involved in

Some of the outside things I am involved in:

The Details

The Detailed Stuff

Apple App Store

I know I am bit late to the party, but I just updated to OS X 10.6.6. I have been resisting the App Store for ages. (I am doing a slide scanning project with Nikon CoolScan scanners, whose drivers require OS X 10.6 and lower.) But I needed to re-install Developer Tools and my OS disk was scratched. – A real pain. So I had to download 10.6.6 to get the new development tools to work. And a part of the package I get the App Store. So I might as well check it out. It is a real pain to use.

  1. There is no way to save an app I am interested in purchasing but am not going to purchase right now. – This is a feature in the iTunes store.
  2. No feature for saving interesting apps.

  3. The search algorithm for apps does not help me get the apps I want. – I thought I would try a search for a metadata editing tool. Some apps which I know are in the Apple App Store, and this is their primary function are not showing up. Disappointing.

Finding that Apple command symbol

I have always wanted to be able to type the ⌘ symbol for various reasons, including writing tutorials, but I have not know how to access it through my keyboard. A few, general, related notes:

  1. There is a nice wright up including some history on the Command Key, ⌘ on wikipedia.
  2. How Apple Keyboards Lost a Logo and Windows PCs Gained One
  3. PopChar is an application which helps users find obscure characters.
    PopChar

    PopChar is a utility for helping users find the Characters they are looking for

    This functionality is built in to OS X with Character Viewer, though it is likely that PopChar extends the user experience in some way.
    CharacterViewer-with-highlight

    OS X Character Viewer

    Shiftkey-in-characterViewer

    Shift Key in Character Viewer

  4. This discussion on the Apple Forums talks about a way to put these symbols in Pages’ auto correction so that Pages will auto correct a set of characters typed to the symbol desired. I have seen this used in MS Word too.
  5. A table of Unicode characters corresponding to Macintosh keyboard symbols, as they commonly appear in menus.
  6. The Next two Links are more detailed but like the above.

  7. Special Key Symbols
  8. Apple Keyboard Symbols
  9. Marginally relevant:

  10. Multi-stroke Key Bindings
  11. Keystroke mapping explained by SIL’s NRSI.

It is unicode point 2318 (the html hex code is ⌘ ) and so you can find it in the character palette under:

  • Code Tables>Unicode>2300>2318
  • or you can go into

  • All Characters>Symbols>Technical Symbols

.

Apple ⌘ symbol

Apple ⌘ symbol

There are a few other ways to get at it, but that should do it for you.

On OS X, if you switch your keyboard to Unicode Hex Input, then holding down opt allows you to type the four digits for a unicode symbol and get the ⌘ (2318).

The Alt/Option Symbol has also been elusive. It can be fount at Unicode point 2325. U+2325.

Alt Key U+2325

Alt Key U+2325

Unicode and Hex Keyboard symbols
⌘ – ⌘ – ⌘ – the Command Key symbol
⌥ – ⌥ – ⌥ – the Option Key symbol
⇧ – ⇧ – ⇧ – the Shift Key (really just an outline up-arrow, not Mac-specific)

⇥ – ⇥ – ⇥ – the Tab Key symbol
⏎ – ⏎ – ⏎ – the Return Key symbol
⌫ – ⌫ – ⌫ – the Delete Key symbol