iWork and Version Control

I've been looking at the new release of iWork '09 from Apple and it's time to bring up the subject of version control and iWork documents again, after posting about it here last year.  

Maybe Apple have listened to their customers because in this release of iWork they have changed the format of Keynote, Pages and Numbers documents. These application now save your work as single files rather than document bundles. (I'd like to think somebody at Apple read my previous article, but that may be pushing it a bit!)

This is certainly good news for those with an antiquated version control system such as CVS and Subversion which, as I mentioned before, litters your working copy with version control.  To be honest, it's good news for any VCS since having to deal with one file instead of one directory. 

At igence where I work we're in the process of transitioning to git for our version control, replacing a 6 year old CVS repository. I've been getting to know git for good few months now, and I can see even it having problems with OS X bundles, especially when it comes to merging branches, since it works at the file level and would attempt to merge the contents of the bundle and most likely make a complete hash of it.

Of course, this still hasn't addressed the issue of which applications we use, but it does bring iWork back into the debate. We even have the option of OpenOffice.org as well now; the latest version of their suite (v3) is OS X native, rather than relying on the X Window System.

Thought for the day

Did Lee Majors do his own stunts when he played Colt Seavers in The Fall Guy?

Embedded comment forms

Cool. I just found about embedding comment forms in posts.

Edit your comment settings via http://draft.blogger.com/ and you should see an extra option under Comment Form Placement - 'Embedded Below Post'.  That's all there is to it.  More details here.

If you're using your own hand crafted template, this article  describes how to update it.

Rant: an amount of numbers

This is my rant for the day:

It really irks me when people use the words amount and number in the wrong context.  What just fired me off this time was reading this Macworld article about iPhone orders reaching 13,000 per second. (Anyway, that sounds way too high, surely 13,000 per minute is more realistic.)

But I digress. What got me was the quote from O2 "The amount of devices will vary depending on the store...". This should of course be "The number of devices...".

Amount should be used when you are referring to a portion of a single thing. If you can't pluralise the thing, then you should always use amount.

Number should be used to signify plurality. If it makes sense that you can count the number of objects, then use number.

Some examples might help...

• Correct: I want to buy an amount of sand.
  
• Incorrect: I want to buy a number of sand.
  

However, what would be correct grammar (though hardly appropriate in the real world) is "I want to buy a number of sand particles". Thus, an amount of sand particles is incorrect.

And consider the following:

• Incorrect: I want to record the amount of messages being sent.
  
• Correct: I want to record the number of messages being sent.
  

Thank you for listening. Rant over.

I have checked, but no doubt somebody will flame me for grammatical errors in this post!

WWDC 2008

Well, well. Lots of exciting stuff announced at this year's WWDC 2008 Stevenote.

The new iPhone. Hmmm... a much cheaper price, 3G and GPS makes it a slightly more compelling purchase than the old iPhone. We'll have to wait and see how much the contract will cost from O2.

Snow Leopard. Interesting. One of the goals of Snow Leopard is to reduce the footprint of OS X - I guess everything shrinks in the cold, right...?

MobileMe. An upgrade to .Mac? Your very own mail server! Access mail with your Mac, and iPhone or iPod touch.

6-day recording with Sky+

I was watching a 2 hour programme at the weekend, then all of a sudden my Sky+ box thought I was 6 days into it!

Separated at birth?

What do you think?

Benny from the Vatican...

And Genial Harry Grout, of HM Slade Prison...

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