Ask Different Chat

Jason Salaz

00:01

iOS 5.1 is off-topic, Lion 10.7.4 is off-topic. Due to NDA for both.

anything less than that. Well, pretty obvious.

Nathan Greenstein

@daviesgeek Current prereleases of Lion and iOS are off topic.

We aren't reopening questions from before. See meta.apple.stackexchange.com/questions/580/…

Gilles

00:54

0

Q: Icon not showing in applications on OSX

I just re-installed Firefox, but the thumbnail is not showing in the dock applications folder. The icon DOES show both in dock and in finder. I have tried to re-install Firefox again but without success. Any advice?

^^^^ OSX GUI is on-topic for us over at Unix and Linux, but not something we have much expertise on, maybe an Apple denizen can shed some light on this question

Nathan Greenstein

@Gilles Yep, that's been handled on Ask Different before :)

0

A: Icon not showing in applications on OSX

This is a result of one of OS X's security features. This icon is shown to tell you that the program is potentially unsafe because you haven't opened it yet and it was downloaded from the Internet. The first time you open the app, you'll see a security dialog that says, "App Name" is an applica...

Part of the security stuff, but seems like a strange addition to me.

Most people just notice the bad icon and think that there's a problem

Gilles

@NathanGreenstein aha, thanks

Moshe

What might be a good place to put this blog post?

Kyle Cronin

you could try the SU blog

daviesgeek

01:20

@NathanGreenstein Ok, thanks

Daniel

@Moshe FWIW, what I've read is that Normal mode should be the norm whever you're thinking, reading, or doing but actively entering text. Most of your time writing something isn't spent pounding on the keyboard, for reasonably complex documents, so ESC back to normal mode whenever you aren't inputting. This applies to new writing, but goes double for editing.

Daniel

01:47

@DanielBeck I forgot -- if one has enough rep here, creating an account on SU starts with 101 rep, which means one can participate in meta.SU and upvote.

Jason Salaz

02:42

@Moshe I'm surprised at the lack of mention of append mode.

Well, insert mode, but the append key.

Daniel

Insert, append, and overwrite are different modes, no?

(OK, I use TextWrangler almost exclusively, but I've been trying to teach myself vim to see what all the excitement is about)

Jason Salaz

No, there is no 'append' mode. And overwrite is called replace.

But getting into insert mode via any of aAciIoO is a tutorial all on its own.

Daniel

this is why I should stick to TextWrangler :-)

Jason Salaz

Or TextMate, or Chocolat, or Sublime Text, or Xcode, or TextEdit!

Daniel

No, just TextWrangler. The others are all inferior.

Jason Salaz

02:53

I really do love vim, and will always have more to learn.

Daniel

But of course many great people use them.

Jason Salaz

:(

For the record, I use all of those minus TextMate.

Daniel

(I can do a Jason too)

So what's so great about vim? (Honest question; I'm trying to get excited about it)

I love a powerful regex engine, but it's intense enough programming that I like having a separate box to craft my searching in

Jason Salaz

Do a Jason?

I suspect you mean a Kyle :P

Daniel

Post things that are absolutely clear to people reading the conversation later

Jason Salaz

02:57

Ahhhh yes. A me indeed.

There are no edit indicators on mobile chat.

Daniel

:-)

What is this "mobile" of which you speak?

Jason Salaz

iPhone.

Daniel

I've heard rumors of this iOS. Not having any cell phone myself, I'm out of the loop.

Of course I use Lion, so that's almost the same thing, right?

Jason Salaz

The things I like about vim:
Feature Rich (coloring, auto bracket/tag matching, highly extensible). It fast, an it runs pretty much everywhere.

Even on an iPad.

Daniel

That is a plus, if you use an iPad.

Is it an app, or through terminal?

Jason Salaz

02:59

App

Daniel

Cool.

Jason Salaz

I've always been able to SSH somewhere and use vim.

Daniel

I suppose emacs could never get onto iOS because it's an interpreter.

Jason Salaz

Because its an OS.

Such a shame that it doesn't have a good text editor in it.

Daniel

It's LISP, which means it's everything.

except a good text editor

Jason Salaz

03:00

Interpreted is fine. Interpreted from external sources (read: Internet) is not.

Daniel

That's right, they changed that.

Jason Salaz

Yuuup

daviesgeek

05:22

I just got an iPad 1 running iOS 3.2!!!!

stuffe

10:58

Oh my, we really have a tag called [poo-storm] !?

Daniel

11:41

@stuffe Only on meta

There was some discussion earlier of whether the unicode character 💩 could be included in the tag, and the conclusion was that it sadly could not.

This community hardly needs one, but I can think of a lot of other sites where a [here-we-go-again] tag would be useful.

stuffe

I "roll eyes" one is often handy.

I don't see the unicode on my Opera/XP rig here, just get the square box with the code in. Is it the one with the smily face like on iOS Emoji? That thing always makes me laugh.

Ask Different Blog

12:03

Ask Different Blog: Graphics Editor Shootout: GIMP vs Photoshop vs Pixelmator

Nathan Greenstein on February 09, 2012

As someone who dabbles in both photography and graphic design, I spend a lot of time in graphics-oriented apps. There are several leading apps in this category, and this comparison is meant to help you chose which one is the best for you.

The free one. GIMP is free, open source, and cross platform. It has a reasonably good feature set, but doesn’t perform particularly admirably and has a user experience that is decidedly un-Mac-like. GIMP is free.

The big one. Photoshop has been around for a long time, and is the industry standard. Photoshop is the archetypical ‘professional’ …

Kyle Cronin

12:21

@JasonSalaz this is something that vi/vim users smugly say, but it has no bearing in reality. emacs is great at editing text, and I've yet to see an example of something that vi can do that emacs can't

Daniel

13:27

@KyleCronin If you count "accomplish task x in fewer than n keystrokes", there is a lot vi can do that emacs can't. If you count "fit onto a disk with n mb of free space", vi can and emacs can't. On the other hand, in terms of features, there are certainly things emacs can do and vi can't. But emacs certainly has a bigger disk footprint and some commands are much longer to type.

stuffe

13:41

I used VI a lot when it was important for me to shave time off a task. That was in work though, and I would never dream of bringing it's use into my hobbiest computing environment. Textedit does me well.

stuffe.net/2011/09/in-defence-of-inefficiency

Daniel

I enjoy perl-compatible regular expressions (how many oxymora does that phrase contain?) and don't care for the appearance of TextEdit, so I find TextWrangler to be more enjoyable for me to use for hobbyist programming and home use. I also use it to write text for work projects. But that's just my odd tastes.

Kyle Cronin

14:42

@Daniel I'm honestly curious, are there some good examples of this?

@Daniel most of the time I use TextWrangler's big brother, BBEdit

both have great HTML and Perl support

(though I don't code much in either, I think I remember you saying you do a lot in Perl)

wow, it's been over a year since TW was updated in the MAS

Daniel

@KyleCronin Not being much of a user of either, I'm hard-pressed to come up with a working example, but that sure was my impression while trying to teach myself both of them.

Kyle Cronin

here's hoping Jason has some good examples

Daniel

@KyleCronin, why were most of the questions in the Town Hall from users who don't have enough reputation on Ask Different to vote in the election? George Edison has 115, Michael Mrozek has 101, Shog9 has 101. I thought the point of the town hall was for voters to ask questions of the candidates, but most questions came from people ineligible to vote.

I understand Rebecca Chernoff was asking as a proxy for Nathan, and at 148 rep, it is reasonable to think she might be eligible to vote before the election ends.

Kyle Cronin

14:58

Shog is an employee, and Michael and George are mods on other sites that frequently hang out in the TL

Daniel

OK, but they still won't be voting in the AD election, I assume.

Kyle Cronin

probably not

even kiamlaluno is mostly active on other sites

and is a SO mod

Daniel

OK, but he's got >1K rep here; that's a legitimate member of the community.

Kyle Cronin

true

the town halls are announced network-wide, and there are some people that like to go to all of them

Daniel

But with a limited time window, it would have been nice to have more room for questions from, well, community members.

Kyle Cronin

15:00

I've been thinking a lot about that

Daniel

I wish we could have eligibility to vote in the election as a prerequisite to talk in the town hall -- anyone can read, of course.

Kyle Cronin

most of the candidates spend a lot of time in the AD chat, and as such any voter can come in here any time and ask you questions

or just talk to you

Daniel

sure, but it really slanted the sort of questions we all fielded.

Kyle Cronin

oh definitely

I think that, in some ways, the town halls are almost meant for SE and outsiders

as opposed to members of our community

Daniel

If a presidential debate had mostly questions from people from other countries, it would be a very different event.

Kyle Cronin

15:02

true

though I think Ask Different is a bit... different than the other SE sites

most of them view themselves as part of a larger network

(i.e. us states in the united states)

whereas I've always maintained that Ask Different is mostly independent

this is evident in things like when we close or migrate questions - I don't close a question as a duplicate merely because it exists elsewhere on the network

and I prefer not to ship people off to other sites if the subject matter is on-topic here, even if only marginally

Jason Salaz

16:49

@KyleCronin "smugly". I've never used emacs, so I'm simply repeating the joke that I hear from other people.

Kyle Cronin

that's what I suspected

Daniel

I have used emacs, and find that I type more characters to get the same thing done in emacs than in vi, but I'm so hooked on TextWrangler that I find both of them not particularly friendly environments for me.

Jason Salaz

The fact that emacs advertises it's ability to render a butterfly ascii art, a game of tetris, irc clients, mpd clients, etc. etc. etc. and not text editor improvements doesn't really hurt (help?) either.

Kyle Cronin

I even think that there's an audio editing extension out there somewhere

no idea how that would work though

Daniel

17:07

Transcript is up on meta

Jason Salaz

woots

Diago

blink

Jason Salaz

Hi Diago

Diago

Howdy

jaberg

good morning all

I'm having flashbacks to a Stallman "presentation" (rant) on emacs that I had the misfortune to attend.

Jason Salaz

17:32

From what I understand, many rants are only that.

huh

-3

A: 2012 Moderator Election - Town Hall Chat Digest

Shog9 asked: What tiny thing on Apple.SE makes you smile or has caught you off guard? Jason Salaz answered: Makes me smile: When it's called Ask Different. bmike answered: I really like how the discussion can get into the tiny things about a piece of software - the SO/SE way of running a...

Nice vote score.

Kyle Cronin

yeah, bad question all around

Jason Salaz

unfortunately it doesn't actually reflect on Shog9. Just Tim Stone.

Poor Tim Stone. :P

jaberg

Bad question, and yet in some ways the most revealing and most "AD centric". (Going from memory here--might be easily disproven.)

Kyle Cronin

it doesn't appear that he's an employee... I wonder why he's the one that has to put the digests together?

Jason Salaz

He isn't? Huh.

Perhaps a volunteer to the Area 51 process long ago? And has just kind of done it ever since?

Actually, elections pre-date Area 51 by a mile, so that likely does not explain it either.

┐('～`；)┌

Daniel

17:45

@JasonSalaz no rep on meta posts anyway, so it only shows up in a total if he runs for AD mod

Jason Salaz

Yeah, I know. I'm still an "attribution" geek.

jaberg

The first step is admitting the problem. ;)

Daniel

Well, he gets all the upvotes for the questions he didn't write also.

Jason Salaz

@jaberg I ADMIT NOTHING! YOU CAN'T PROVE ANYTHING!

erm, excuse my caps lock.

@Daniel Touché.

Daniel

I'd hope there are more of those, Jason.

jaberg

17:48

(Takes screen shot and files it away)

Jason Salaz

O_O

wtf?

Daniel

Actually, it's pretty close to zero. Interesting.

jaberg

So here's my random AD/SE musing for today: "Can a question that is completely answered in one line ever be a "good" question?"

stuffe

Sure.

Daniel

Yes

stuffe

17:49

If it's grade 1 math.

Daniel

Is your question a good question?

There are a lot of one-line answers :-)

(But are they complete?)

jaberg

My question is a ransom musing. I didn't post it.

Daniel

@jaberg Sure you did. Right there

jaberg

And I like @stuffe's modifier.

But was thinking in terms of AD, not elementary school.

Daniel

It's a great question for chat.

stuffe

17:51

That would be a better question than a lot of yesterdays

TOPIC OF THE DAY!

Daniel

Your topic of the day yesterday was good. I hoped more people would weigh in, though.

jaberg

My thoughts are as follows. For the most part, the answer is "no" because any question answered so simply is likely one that the OP could have readily discovered with a reasonable level of research BUT, a one-line answer to a complex question may be the true measure of genius and expertise on the part of the answering party.

stuffe

Most of you guys use grown up names not stupid false identities ;)

jaberg

hey, I'll go back to being hotlegzgurl19 if it makes you happy.

stuffe

I'd vote for that :)

Daniel

17:53

yeah, but what if @ArgyleMarionette weighed in?

stuffe

I'm going to look at the next set of questions when my next "repping" opportunity arrives and see if I can justifibly 1 setence answer them

jaberg

(switching gears for a moment) Picked up a Mommy Blogger as a Twitter follower. Note to self, open the valve on the firehose of profanity.

Daniel

@stuffe I just use half a grownup name. But there's no interesting backstory. Lile stuff.

jaberg

(Why did I *know* that remark was gonna get starred—one second after hitting "send".)
"

stuffe

My first nom de plume was "forsa", which some people mixed up with the Italian "forza" as in Ferarri fans

It was in fact Turkish for Galley Slave.

I would usually just leave it at that if asked, without adding the perfectly innocent "it was the name of a boat I stayed on once"

jaberg

17:58

FYI, specific question that sparked my meditation: apple.stackexchange.com/q/39827/11791

Daniel

Not a terribly interesting question, but non-trivial.

stuffe

I would hazard a guess that a user who cannot find that out, might not know the meaning of "~"

Daniel

A question answered by a dense one-liner shell script could be a good one.

jaberg

Good point @stuffe, I'll edit.

stuffe

And willl likely be using the finder not terminal

Daniel

18:00

@stuffe +1

stuffe

Also is ~/library hidden by default these days?

jaberg

Also a good point regarding Lion.

Daniel

@stuffe Yes

stuffe

So, in this instance, the answer remains "no" ;)

But it's a good one.

Daniel

No, in this instance the question doesn't apply, because a one-line answer doesn't answer the question. See the original question.

s/Applications Support/Application Support/

I'm afraid we all answered incorrectly to @NathanGreenstein 's question. The right answer was "I'd launch an inquisition into who didn't vote for me or who had ever downvoted my posts and ban them from the site."

Jason Salaz

18:07

@jaberg See below:

4

A: Weather widget in notification center of iOS5

Considering that the iPod/iPhone Weather app has never existed on the iPad, the answer to this is an extremely simple, and extremely disappointing: "Nope".

I was going to simply answer that question with "Nope", but I saved a little bit of face by providing some history.

jaberg

Beating me to my own edits now. I see how this is going to be. ;)

stuffe

@Daniel Technically my answer is consistent with this approach :)

Daniel

well, you said "no massive power splurge"

Jason Salaz

It looks like @bmike read "Meta Stack Overflow" and reacted with "Meta Ask Different" like stüffé originally did. -> meta.apple.stackexchange.com/a/1076/1346

stuffe

@JasonSalaz I was going to suggest a straight "Yes" or "no" could work, but would sound abrupt.

Daniel

18:13

@jaberg The rep is all yours

stuffe

you toned it right there tho

Daniel

I didn't know if you were still here, so I wanted the corrections filed. Sorry if you were working on it.

jaberg

Daniel, I appreciate the assist. I was getting there, but using more words--most of them that were in the box when notice of your edit appeared. I accept your edit.

stuffe

I'm not sure about @bmikes answer, I think it could read either way depending on who is reading it. Mine, however, was flat out wrong. Minus points for cardinal sin of not reading the question.

jaberg

@stuffe Given the frantic appearance of the TH chat (I didn't attend, but read the unedited "transcript" yesterday) I think you can be absolved of this particular sin.

Daniel

18:16

It was crazy intense.

jaberg

And I would have accepted "No" as a valid answer to the question.

stuffe

@jaberg Not really, I didn't even have the pressure of responding in real time!

jaberg

I'm even taking into account the fact that you didn't respond in real time.

It was messy, and as I said yesterday in some ways painful, to read.

stuffe

I replied to the questions in order before reading the transcript in full after, then I did the last question on final thoughts.

Shogs first question was so disrespectful, that just wasn;t taking things seriously.

2

The fact that it was out so fast before Rebecca could even set the agenda almost, you just know that it was in his clipboard.

Daniel

From an insider, I would have taken the question as a gentle warmup. From an outsider, it came off as a put down.

jaberg

18:21

FedEx has arrived--brb

@Daniel I had a similar reaction to yours.

Daniel

If Jason has asked it, for instance, I'd take it as "what do you like about this site"

Jason Salaz

Re-reading the transcript always makes me feel really good. The inter-user linking and referencing and what not really shows the strength of this community's bond.

stuffe

I wish I was there to answer and have it seen by him

I would (in hindsight, of course, easier to be witty there) probably have gone with something like "Saving the best questions till last I see :)"

Daniel

@JasonSalaz We never do that here

Jason Salaz

Not one bit.

58 rep until I have 5 digit network-wide rep.

Wheeeeeeee

.....eeee

stuffe

18:27

Is it just me, or have the questions in the last 2 days been, well, not much to get stuck into?

Daniel

@JasonSalaz The World Wide Web was created on the precursor to Mac OS X, and HyperCard was an amazing Apple product, so if we hyperlink well, it's in our ecosystem.

5

Jason Salaz

@stuffe Do you mean that the questions in the last 2 days have been "light"?

Daniel

They come and they go

jaberg

Q: Why does iTunes continuously reset play count to zero. A: It's broken.

Daniel

It's broken. Best. One. Sentence. Answer.

darn it, I've got to actually work now. later.

stuffe

18:29

Yeah, a lot of first time questions that are borderline OK

Jason Salaz

wow, that was confusing

I just saw Daniel's icon "fall off", and "drop in" at the same time.

And immediately after those animations finished in tandem, then his icon was squeezed out/over by stüffé's...

I meant to screenshot it, and just couldn't react in time, even though it wasn't going very fast.

stuffe

Push over a bit, there's plenty of room :)

Jason Salaz

Indeed, and even multiple rows.

jaberg

@stuffe I get that. I'm just wondering what people expect the answer is going to be.

stuffe

Chaos, confusion, disorder. My work here is done. Time for the commute home. Might be on later

jaberg

18:35

Have a safe and relaxing commute.

So goes the umlaut.

daviesgeek

@JasonSalaz Nice!!

Ok, so as I said earlier, I got an iPad 1.

Jason Salaz

I saw

daviesgeek

I knew that an iPad was awesome, but apparently I underestimated its awesomeness.

It is awesome!!!!

Even for being an iPad 1

Jason Salaz

millions and millions of users, can't be wrong.

daviesgeek

It is a bit slow running iOS 5

Compared to an iPad 2

Jason Salaz

18:48

Well yeah.

daviesgeek

However, I can't complain. It was a gift

Jason Salaz

A4 -> A5 was no small bump.

daviesgeek

I knew the processor was different, but I didn't know how big.

And since I wasn't in the world of iOS, I had no idea

Jason Salaz

;)

bmike

@JasonSalaz I did read and answer assuming it was meta Apple, but the fourth time I read the question - I went back to make sure my answers fit for both.

daviesgeek

18:54

Hello @bmike

bmike

It's important for mods here to be active on both the meta for Ask Different and the main meta. The main meta is where most of the site overview gets chatted - so if our mods aren't there reading and commenting, we'll be seen as even more backwards and "soft".

daviesgeek

Definitely.

It is really nice to ask a question on meta and get an answer within hours.

bmike

I'll be on the watch for that - you can be sure I'll poke at comments that continue to express doubts about our site...

daviesgeek

It shows that Nathan and Kyle really care about this site.

@bmike Are you referring to one of my questions?

jaberg

@daviesgeek I still struggle along with a 1G iPad myself. I think I can hold out for the next rev.

daviesgeek

18:57

Well, I got it as a gift (you probably already saw that), so I can't complain.

jaberg

In the next Moderator election I intend to run on a Backwards and Soft ticket.

2

daviesgeek

And in all reality, it will probably be my Mom's more than mine.

@jaberg ;-)

Jason Salaz

@jaberg You may have less than 2 more months to wait.

bmike

@daviesgeek no - not at all - I would have commented or pinged you with a link. Should I be looking for one of your questions now?

jaberg

@JasonSalaz Okay, in the next, next election then.

Jason Salaz

18:58

@jaberg That was in reference to the next iPad / your iPad 3 and holding out for the next rev.

bmike

@JasonSalaz Do elections get triggered by site growth in addition to annually?

daviesgeek

@bmike no

jaberg

@daviesgeek After much deliberation, my mom opted for the "devil she knew" and chose a MacBook Air for email and web browsing. But your mom should be very pleased and it's even better as a gift.

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