Woodruff Research

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SuperDuper! Becomes Leopard Compatible!

Posted at February 5, 2008 10:27 am | In Software | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: Apple/Mac, Backup

The long awaited version 2.5 of Shirt Pocket’s SuperDuper! backup application for OS X has finally released.

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So I missed the Stevenote

Posted at January 16, 2008 1:19 am | In Technology | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: Apple/Mac, Software

Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs gave his annual keynote presentation in San Francisco today.
I was planning on watching it, but I thought  it was tomorrow.

He announced some really cool products.
There was the MacBook Air, which is an ultra portable notebook (but not the touch screen all the blogs were predicting), the new Apple TV (which wasn’t surprising), Time Capsule - which is basically just an AirPort Extreme Base Station with a hard drive stuck in it for Time Machine purposes (which is cool, I might consider it in the future, if it gets good reviews), updates to the iPhone and iPod Touch, and iTunes movie rentals.
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Dear Time Warner

Posted at January 12, 2008 5:15 pm | In Networking | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: Annoyances, Apple/Mac, Outdated, Research, RoadRunner, Software, Time Warner

Hello,

You dial access dialer does not work with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). I’ve confirmed this with tech support. It hasn’t been updated in a very long time anyway, so it’s probably time for an update.
Or, better yet, release the PPP script so that we don’t have to use your horribly outdated proprietary dialer and you don’t have to support it. That way it’ll work with OS X, Windows, and Linux.

Note: This may need to be forwarded to someone in the company who actually understand what PPP is.

Ben

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Adobe CS3: ExtendScript Toolkit 2 Error on OS X

Posted at January 7, 2008 8:24 pm | In Software | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: Annoyances, Apple/Mac, Media, Research, Software

I was reinstalling part of Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 (Web Premium) last night, and after it had reinstalled the shared components it asked me to “Please Insert Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit 2 to Continue Installation.” There isn’t any CD labeled anything like that with CS3.

I found the fix here: elaine montoya » Blog Archive » Workaround: Please Insert Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit 2 to Continue Installation.
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NoScript Provides Additional Security

Posted at December 16, 2007 12:16 am | In Software | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: Firefox, Security, Software, Web Browsers

The popular NoScript addon for Firefox, which used to be primarily used for blocking Javascript (for security reasons) now allows easier blocking of Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime, Sun Java, and Microsoft Silverlight content. This used to be possible using the Flashblock addon, but the catch 22 with that is that it only works on pages which you have javascript enabled for (which obviously defeats the point). (more…)

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Allow Non-admin Users to Update Firefox

Posted at December 15, 2007 12:06 pm | In Software | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: Active Directory, Administration, Firefox, Hacking, Networking, Security, Software, Web Browsers

We recently noticed a problem where Firefox would prompt users (who are not administrators on their workstations) to update to the latest version (ie, from 2.0.0.8 to 2.0.0.9). If they tried to complete the update however, it would fail, giving the error “Software Update Failed”.

We decided the best solution was to come up with a way to let users update Firefox themselves, without being made local admins. The reason we wanted them to be able to do this is that IT doesn’t get around to everyone’s workstation often enough to keep up with the latest version of Firefox, and we felt that it was important for them to have that (for security reasons). (more…)

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Hurricane Call Reporting System

Posted at November 30, 2007 9:52 am | In Programming | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: PHP, Programming, Work

So Shawn and I have been working on a new call reporting system for Hurricane. Our main goal is to make it easy to track requests from customers, and then the work we do to fill those requests.

Some of the sub-goals include some fairly extensive reporting on technician performance, possibly a way to update your calendar / time card, keeping track of mileage, and improving response times. (more…)

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Apple Updates

Posted at November 14, 2007 5:18 pm | In Software | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: Apple/Mac, Software

I just got a bunch of updates from Apple.

iPhoto, Pro Apps, and each individual pro app (at least each FCS2) all got updates, I assume to improve compatibility with Leopard.

I hadn’t personally noticed any problems, but I’m sure some users will be happy to see these.

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Rewriting URLs with Apache

Posted at October 14, 2007 7:18 pm | In Networking | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: Apache, Blogging, Hacking, Networking

As some of you have probably noticed I use Wordpress to manage this site.

Which is great, I like it, and my friend Jordan (hyper123.net) has a system that automatically updates it for me. Sweet. All is well, right?

Well… it was until today. The problem is that Wordpress works, and makes URLs “pretty” by rewriting them (which it does by putting a .htaccess file in your root install directory).

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DreamHost Consolidates Web Hosting Plans

Posted at October 3, 2007 10:28 am | In Technology | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: DreamHost, Web Hosting

Web hosting giant DreamHost.com has decided to merge all of it’s packages leaving you with only one option when you sign up. The new package is priced similarly to their former entry level package (”Crazy Domain Insane”), but has double the disk space and monthly bandwidth.

You’ll still have to pay extra for phone support, a unique IP, VPN access, etc.

I’ve emailed DreamHost support to see if existing customers are eligible to receive this package, but have yet to hear back.
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