John Lindal’s Blog

Debugging OS X Dashboard Widgets

April 6, 2007 on 11:29 am | In Programming | No Comments

If you’ve been going crazy debugging Dashboard widgets because it feels like one step backwards from debugging assembly on an old Apple ][+, then read this article! The console displays the output of alert() calls, and Command-R reloads a widget already on the dashboard.

Bathroom Door

April 2, 2007 on 10:33 pm | In House | No Comments

The door to our bathroom finally closes properly. When we moved in, I inserted shims for a lot of the door hinges because the doors did not close properly. Now I finally got the right configuration of shims for the bathroom door. It all started when the door threated to fall off because the screws were stripping due to stress on the hinges when the door was closed. I replaced the screws with one size larger and 1/2 inch longer, adjusted the shims, and now it’s probably the smoothest, best balanced door in the house, even though neither the door nor the frame is square!

I, Robot

April 2, 2007 on 10:29 pm | In Movies | No Comments

FX showed I, Robot this weekend. It was much better than I expected. The trailers that I had seen all focused on the action, and while there was certainly plenty of it, they did actually weave a decent detective story around it. I’m not a huge Asimov fan, but I do know the Three Laws, and the movie’s interpretation of them was not unreasonable. The product placement, however, rivaled that of Return of the Killer Tomatoes in shamelessness, though surely not in quantity