journals

Fun Stuff: Inside Apple HQ

By Nick, February 5, 2008

Have you ever wondered what an average cubicle at Apple headquarters looked like? Admittedly I haven’t. But if that sort of thing interests you, Office Snapshots has a collection of photographs from inside the Apple campus, including the obligatory cubicle photos (somehow I expected Apple’s cube to be, I don’t know, less mundane), a shot of a conference room, a cafeteria, and what Apple employees do for fun.

Anyway, check it out.

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Fanurio 1.9: Time Tracking and Billing for Freelancers

By AtelierS, February 5, 2008

Atelier Software has announced the release of Fanurio 1.9, a time tracking and billing application designed for freelancers. With Fanurio, freelancers can easily organize their work, track time and create invoices.

Each time a contract is signed, just add a new client to the application and create a project. During the project, users can add project items and expenses, decide anytime if an item is billable or not, and if it should be billed using an hourly rate or a flat rate. Billable items can later be added to an invoice. When the project is completed, it can be marked as finished to hide it from other ongoing projects.

Freelancers don’t have to wait for the completion of the project to create an invoice. Partial invoices can be created anytime during a project, or multiple projects, as well as see which invoices are paid, unpaid or overdue. Fanurio uses a powerful template language that can be used to create both simple and complex invoice templates. Using a customizable template, invoices may be exported to a HTML file so they can be printed or e-mailed.

Fanurio has an iTunes-like mini view that gives quick access to the timer. The time spent on each item can be recorded using a timer or it can be entered manually. Work may be invoiced in one or more currencies and use automatic invoice numbering to save time.

Fanurio allows users to:

Organize work per client using projects
Mark invoices as paid and track those which are…
(Continue)

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Quick Tip: Prevent Safari from displaying PDFs

By Nick, February 4, 2008

Here’s a quickie…

For whatever reason, since upgrading to Leopard, Safari refused to display PDFs. Instead, they would automatically download, cluttering up my Downloads folder with PDF files I only wanted to look at once. I looked everywhere, but couldn’t find a checkbox or control anywhere that dictated whether PDFs should open in Safari or whether they should download to my hard drive. Some people might prefer PDFs to download directly. I didn’t.

Eventually, I got sick enough of PDFs downloading themselves against my will, so I decided to do a little searching. Not long after, I found the answer. Since I’m a nice guy, I’ll go ahead and share it with you here.

There is a Terminal command that allows you to turn inline PDF displaying on or off. To force all PDFs to download instead of displaying in Safari, type the following into the Terminal and press return:


defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool YES

To enable PDF viewing in Safari, type this instead:


defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool NO

It’s quick and easy to change, but not particularly accessible. A checkbox in Safari Preferences would be a welcome addition. At any rate, my PDF-viewing sanity has been restored.

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Microhoo: this could get very messy

By Nick, February 3, 2008

What can you do with $44.6 billion?¹

You can fill the California state budget deficit three times over.

You can buy 7.8 Steve Jobses (according to his 2007 net worth).

You can buy nearly 111.8 million iPhones (before tax).

Or you can buy a struggling dot-com pioneer.

If you’ve been following the news lately, you already know which option Microsoft chose. Me? I would have chosen the iPhones.

So what do I think of the Microsoft-Yahoo buyout proposal? This could get very messy very quickly.

Dollars and cents

In buying Yahoo, Microsoft would burn through just about all of their cash on hand. While any large buyout or merger carries the risk of failure, Yahoo’s failing fortunes as of late makes me question the logic behind this move. According to their latest earnings report, Microsoft’s Online Services Business division is still losing money, and the losses have actually deepened over the same period last year.

So Microsoft’s online services are struggling. Yahoo is struggling. I’m confused. How is taking on a company with similar problems is going to help Microsoft?

Platforms

How is Microsoft going to incorporate a company based on open-source solutions into the fold? After all, the rest of the company runs Windows and Windows-based servers. The only way I see Microsoft making this work is if they take a hands-off approach and let Yahoo be. Let it be!

Competition against itself

How will Microsoft deal with the fact that, once again, the company would be competing against itself?…
(Continue)

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Exclusive! CARS editor spotted with Brazilian model

By Nick, February 1, 2008

Coming off the heels of John Moltz’s announcement that Crazy Apple Rumors (CARS--beep beep!) is going on hiatus, Deep Thought has learned from an incredibly reliable source that Moltz has been seen with a Brazilian supermodel somewhere in Manhattan.

Our source tells us that the two were spotted around Midtown Manhattan on what could be best described as a “wild night out on the town--dinner at an Italian restaurant followed by karaoke at a local bar.” We’re told Moltz gave a rousing rendition of Tha Backstreet Boys’ Quit Playing Games With my Heart, while his date belted out Ricky Martin’s She Bangs. Our source also noted that Moltz has a thing for appletinis.

Hey, who am I to judge someone by their choice of karaoke songs? And for that matter, alcoholic beverages? Appletini...Crazy Apple Rumors...makes sense to me.

Deep Thought currently doesn’t have photos of the sexy couple, but we’ve dispatched the paparazzi, and we’ll post photos whenever we get them.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
CARS is awesome,
Moltz, here’s to you.