Another day, another cool desktop wiki. This time it’s a macosx implementation of moinmoin that’s been bundled up and runs like a desktop app. It’s as easy to get up and running with as instiki is, but moinmoin is a more feature-rich wiki and the OSX gui that’s been wrapped around it makes it a bit easier to manage than instiki does and it comes with a handy data export/import feature. If you’re running OSX check it out, it’s a small download.

Check out Aquafold’s aqua data studio, an sql visualization and editing tool that’s free for personal or educational use. Folks pay $$$ for tools like this in the commercial environment, it’s cool to see a company offer up a tool like this for free. If you’ve ever tried tinkering with mysql and struggled on the command line you will find this tool’s a godsend. Works across all platforms via java and also has binary downloads for Windows and OS X. If you’re running OS X these days there’s actually been a proliferation of these tools – YourSQL is my favorite but cocoamysql is also quite good. Any of the three is worth checking out if you’re interested in tinkering with mysql.

Regular readers know I’m obsessed with wikis. I have a new favorite desktop wiki that’s already displaced my last pet favorite (voodoopad). This one is cross platform compatible and free. Check out instiki. It couldn’t be easier to install, it has a clean simple interface, and you can be up and running in just a couple of minutes.

Wow. Wow! Mediaportal is like the answer to my media box prayers. I’ve played around with a bunch of different front ends for my home-brew tivo (things like Meedio, Beyond Media, and Xlobby), and nothing has come remotely close to mediaportal. It worked with my remote, my favorite DVD/movie file player (immatrix’s zoom player), my ancient copy of winamp, and it recognized my network shares and my album cover art collection, all without me having to do any configuration. Or almost none anyway. I’m completely impressed, and it’s completely free. If you’re on a PC you should check this out. Between this and hauppauge’s new sub-$75 mpeg encoding card you can build a home-brew tivo on the super cheap. Mind that I haven’t tested the tv recording module yet since I already have Beyond TV and it works great, but the rest of the modules are fantastic.

Remember writing out calculations longhand on a piece of paper when you were in primary school? One wouldn’t initially think that a calculator that mimics this process would be anything other than a novelty, until one actually tries such a thing – go get longhand and decide for yourself. It’s Mac only. I like it lots, it’s replaced the built-in calculator on OS X for me. Oh, and it’s free.

Work is finally starting to settle down and I have a few moments to post here. Apple announced the mac mini while I was too busy to comment. I love the thing. We got one in at work immediately and I’ve had a chance to tinker with it a good bit. I’m going to dump linux as my hosting environment at home and swap over to OS X, after about 6 years on the same hardy little linux box. I’m also going to switch over from winamp to itunes for managing my music collection. That’s the cool news. The bad news is this will delay me fixing my weblog such that comments work again. I’m going to wait to pick up the mini until after the next OS X revision (Tiger) ships, presumably sometime before the end of March. I have to hand it to Apple, they’re really firing on all cylinders right now. Most folks didn’t notice but they’ve grown back to the annual revenue they were seeing at the height of their success during the last 2 quarters. If they keep it up for the next 2 quarters they will have their largest annual revenue ever. It’s well deserved. I love my ibook after having loathed the last one, the mini is just brilliant (yeah, it’s the Cube again, just rationally priced this time), and they’re the only company to really figure out how to handle digital music and DRM that works for both consumers and the content companies. Want to lay odds on the mini being the gateway device to them making the same deals with hollywood they have with the music industries? I’m not sure but I sure hope it turns out to be true.

I selfishly like to think someone’s paying the price for their complete failure to recognize that by bending over for entertainment industry they’ve sunk their chances at keeping their market (see my numerous previous posts on the subject), but the company that invented the PVR is actually more likely to be paying the price for market commoditization (is that even a word?) coupled with some poor business decisions. What am I rambling about? Both the President and the CEO of Tivo have announced they’re leaving the company over the last 2 weeks. Good riddance, they appear to have steered the company into dead end. Maybe new leadership will help them get back out again. I’m not holding my breath, but anything is better then what they had been doing. My guess is someone is going to be owning Tivo at a bargain price pretty soon now, one of the cable companies is my completely uneducated speculation.

I’ve been using Gaim on windows as my instant messenging client for several years now. For quite a while now there have been some unfortunate bugs in the user-interface which have something to do with Windows and the windowing toolkit Gaim uses (GTK I think). Anyway the long and short is I haven’t been particularly happy with it lately. Over Christmas holiday my brother showed me the latest Adium. I’d tried it a couple of times in the past and while there were things I liked about it, it was very crash-prone and I never seriously considered switching to it. Until now that is. Whatever was causing all the crashing seems to be gone – no crashes so far in a couple of weeks of use. It’s got an excellent, very customizable interface, it’s based on the same libraries as gaim so its compatibility with the various IM engines is very high, and it’s got some clever scripting hooks built in. It’s mac-only, sorry windows folk, but well worth a look if you’re on that platform. It’s caused me to move my IM stuff off of the PC altogether, home and work.

Many (most?) folks aren’t aware that there’s a lot of free, over the air (as in, not cable) broadcast content these days available in HDTV. Most folks also aren’t aware that over the air broadcasts for HDTV work tons better than the old rabbit ears from the 1970’s we all remember from our youth. If you’ve been eyeing those Time Warner or other cable company ads where they’re trying to sell you a new cable box and additional monthly services, consider trying a small antenna and trying the broadcast stuff first – football, a lot of the main primetime broadcast tv shows (CSI, for example, not that I am a fan), and a lot of PBS programming is already out there for you too see, for free. And if you think you’re too remote for these broadcasts to reach you, consider this: I’m totally in the boonies and I get 6 channels. Then use antennaweb.org (note that you don’t have to tell them any of the info they ask for – just use your zip and you are all set) to check your location and see what channels you can get. You don’t even need an HDTV set, you just need a tuner and a computer with DVI-in and you can watch and record the content.

If you don’t yet have a tuner, consider picking one up before June of 2005. That’s when the FCC has mandated that HDTV tuners must have Broadcast Flag support built in, meaning any devices sold after this June will be crippled – HBO can, for example, set their programming such that you can’t record the Sopranos if you’re tuning it using a Broadcast Flag-enabled device. So buy your tuners now (they start at around $200) as a hedge against the shenanigans you are going to see later this year. Not that I don’t think we’ll see hacks to get around this bullshit, but they won’t be for the average consumer, you’re better off just buying a tuner now.

It’s human nature to bitch about things, and I’m as guilty of it as anyone is on their blog, so to mix things up, some praise – Voodoopad, from flyingmeat software, kicks ass. A desktop wiki engine with a free server script that’s trivial to get running. If you’re the kind of person who has sticky notes everywhere, you need this app. $25, worth every penny. Mac only. My life is pouring into this little app as fast as I can type.