If you’re one of the lucky ones to have Safari 4.0 (beta) still hanging around or a copy of 3.0, follow along with me:

1. Do a search in Safari. You’ll notice that clicking the arrow in the query box will show you a list of all the recent searches you’ve performed as well as an option to clear that list.
2. Next, let’s take a trip over to your browser history. If you’re using 4.0 (beta), you’ll be able to do a search for the same terms. In the results you will find the Google search results page you just opened in our last step.
3. Finally, clear your searches using the “Clear Recent Searches” option in the Google field.
4. Perform that same history search as in step 2. The results are the same aren’t they?

When you cleared your recent searches, all you were doing was clearing the list of search terms in the Google field… not the actual searches. This provides a false sense of security which is NOT good. By removing the “Clear Recent Searches” option, Apple is forcing users to use “History > Clear History” instead; resulting in what the user would expect. While this upsets some users who would like to simply clear that list, it helps those whose intentions were to leave no trace of their searches at all.

Personally, I never clear anything (history, search terms, etc). It’s there for a reason. It’s my collective computer-related memory (for those who know me, my conventional memory is shoddy at best). If I lose that, I don’t have much else to go by… This was a good move by Apple, it will just take some getting used to.

If Apple offered a solid online platform that supported the service-side of iPhone apps with a friendly framework, they’d solve the problem entirely. Services like Amazon’s A3 charge a price (albeit a small sum) since they aren’t making any money on the end product. Apple comes at it from a different perspective.

Every app that’s added to the store builds an even more compelling argument for buying an iPhone over an Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, or Palm device. With Apple selling well over a billion apps so far and tens of millions of iPhone OS devices, they could even host the services of paid-for applications for free. If the app’s a success, Apple makes money. If the app’s a flop, the service won’t burn any cycles and would cost nearly nothing to host in the end.

Anybody have any other ideas?

As of this morning, the $199 white iPhones have all but vanished from stores and from the Web, a sign that users are picking them up at a faster rate than the black version of Apple’s latest smartphone. It could be a sign that iPhone users are sticking with what made Apple and its products the icons they are: the crisp white casing that differentiates it from the pack of others with their matte or shiny black outer shells.

What’s more likely is that Apple has an excellent inventory management process and has studied its customers’ preferences over the years. By understanding that, Apple can produce fewer of the white version while keeping it basically in line with the availablility of its black-shelled sibling. Over time, Apple will adjust and broad availability will return. Until then, maybe the harder-to-find phone will see an increased popularity due to its cachet quality.

I then did a quick search for “Google”… only to find out that it too was subject to it’s own vice grip on my search results. Crazy. Google clearly has a bug in that feature or they just hate me.

In an effort to stop the zombified group of computer users that no longer read warning dialogs (aka me), Google doesn’t even provide a link to continue to the site on the warning page. They simply print the full url of the page you were intending to go to.

Now, of course… as I’m finishing this blog, Google is back to normal. Looks like they fixed whatever issue they ran into.

I just noticed Bank of America upped it’s Anti Phishing security in recent weeks by getting an Extended Validation Cert from VeriSign. Do I feel more secure? I guess…

Before this update, the slick-looking menus and options were limited to their public-facing portion of their mobile site. With this recent update, the enhanced experience stretches into the login only areas of “Accounts”, “Bill Pay & e-Bills”, and “Transfer Funds”.

Here’s a quick run through of all the newly revamped areas of the site with screenshots.

Recently, I downloaded Windows Live Writer and it works great. Because of that, I’ve been writing more and more. Adding pictures is a breeze and there are tons of plugins for it that it is trivial to add code snippets, upload attachments, and much more. That’s neither here nor there… at home, I own a Mac. Windows Live Writer for Mac? Exist it does not.

So this evening, I decided to go on a quest for something that could fill the void and I think I found it. It costs less than $20 and is totally worth it.

ecto blogging software for the Mac works with many Blogs such as WordPress and after a little digging around, Community Server.

Here’s a quick step by step tutorial on setting up ecto to use with Community Server on your Mac.

1. Download ecto from the Illumiex website.
2. Open ecto.
3. You will be prompted to “Select your blog system”. Choose “Cancel” and we’ll do it without the Assistant.
4. Choose New at the top of the Accounts Manager window.
5. In the area provided, type the Title of your blog (you can put whatever you want, it’s just a label for you).  
6. The access point is where I got stumped. I found this tutorial on setting up Windows Live Writer to work with Community Server. Fortunately, it had the url I was looking for in one of the screenshots. The url you want to use can be constructed like so: http://myblog.com/blogs/metablog.ashx
7. The System you need to pick is MetaWeblog.
8. Enter in your username and password and click Save.

In the end, you have a pretty good looking blogging tool for your Mac! I have mine set up to post to either my Atalasoft blog or my personal one. Now, time to download some plugins and buy this thing!

There is an endless number of checklist/todo applications on the App Store and many of them do a great job at what they advertise. I’ve been using the default notepad included with the iPhone to keep track of bigish ticket items that I want to buy for myself or my house. These items don’t have Due Dates so that starts to rule out quite a few of the list apps that are geared towards todo-type uses.

My qualifications for any great app include a few things: must be easy to use, must do exactly what I need it to do, and if there is an attempt at using custom graphics, they better be amazing.

The Checklist application on the App Store is dead simple: it’s just a single list (though a super simple way to manage multiple checklists would be nice). It works as expected and fills my void of a basic checklist. There was zero attempt at using anything but built in menus or graphics so it succeeds on that front as well. The main reason why almost every other checklist has failed to be downloaded to my iPhone is that the developer has insisted on using Paint on their Macintosh 128K to create the “check”. Beauty is hard to create… so, if you aren’t up to it, don’t try.

Since items are simply the one line of words that you type I describe them, entry couldn’t be easier. The app offers basic options such as reordering, editing and deleting of items. Nothin special, but exactly what I wanted. In the most recent version, they added the number of outstanding items to the icon on the home screen.

Get Checklist Here
Visit the Checklist website here

PC Rescue (Watch it Now)

Heh, all in good fun.

Watch It Now