Schollnicks

This is the newest version of the Indigo Security Script…

This now includes code that will check for out of date heartbeats (ie. Defective Units, or low/out of Battery) and either warn via Growl, Indigo Log File, or even Email!

Some of these changes were suggested by Scott Buchanan… And some where added after examining the Battery Dead Notify script from the Perceptive Automation User Contributed Scripts web page.

version 1.5 Changes

- Added Heartbeat inactivity detection (5/28/2008)
- Growl Support for Heartbeat inactivity detection
- Email on Heartbeat inactivity
- Added optional switch (Update_Heartbeat_After_Actions) to allow heartbeat to be updated after every action.

Added the following variables:

- Inactivity_Heartbeat_Watchdog
- Update_Heartbeat_After_Actions
- SE_IBeat_Address
- Send_Email_on_Inactive_Heartbeat

The new properties are:

property Inactivity_Heartbeat_Watchdog : 7200
– The maximium number of seconds before a warning will start appearing for an alarm heartbeat. If you receive an inactivity warning, please check the batteries, and test the contacts. The Deafult is : 7200 seconds = 120 Min = 2 Hrs before a inactivity warning will start logging.

property Growl_Notifications_List : {”Opened”, “Closed”, “Check Alarm”} — List the Growl notifications that you wish to use

– Advanced Settings
property Send_Email_on_Inactive_Heartbeat : false
– Send an email if the security Heartbeats have not been detected within the Watchdog value.

property SE_IBeat_Address : {”example@example.com”, “example2@example.com”}
– Send Email(s) to the following addresses, seperated by a comma.

property Update_Heartbeat_After_Actions : false
– Update the heartbeat after every action. Normal behavior is to not update Heartbeats after an action occurs. This forces the heartbeat to update after every action of the device.

Please feel free to use the script, I have just tested the email functionality…. And I have been using this script for the last few days, without any issues…

security sample v1_50A.scpt.zip

(See Macworld of the complete article…)

Macworld | Microsoft to bring back Visual Basic in Office for Mac

In summary, Microsoft will be adding VBA support back into Office, but the next version of the office suite (”VBA will return to the next full upgrade to the Mac version of Office”).

Wait a second, the next version of the office suite. Not a service pack, so we will have to wait until somewhere around 2010 - 2011 before we can use VBA on the Macintosh again.

First of all, the lack of VBA can seriously hamper interoperability between the Windows version & Macintosh version of Office. Is the finance dept really going to make a second version of your spreadsheet for Macintosh users? We have enough problems with people creating Web Sites that require Active X controls, I don’t think we will be able to win the fight over spreadsheet VBA usage….

If this is Microsoft’s level of commitment to their Macintosh users then we have to question the amount of resources that they are given, and their priorities.. This entire VBA fiasco is guaranteed to have a negative effect on Mac Office’s market share….

From Fortune, March 25, 2008 (http://bigtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/03/25/microsoft-looks-to-cash-in-on-the-iphone/).

The Mac unit’s work certainly isn’t charity – it delivers millions of dollars in profit for the company with its Mac version of the Office productivity suite. Microsoft doesn’t break out exact numbers, but we can extrapolate: Gibbons said the Mac Business Unit provides about a third of the revenue for the Specialized Devices and Applications Group, which also includes Windows Embedded, Microsoft Hardware, the Automotive Business Unit and Microsoft Surface Computing; the whole group did more than $1 billion in sales last year. So it’s reasonable to guess that the Mac unit provided about $350 million – and since Gibbons said the Mac group was one of the group’s more profitable units, it’s possible that Microsoft made somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million in profit from Mac software.

Maybe it is time to start to re-evaluate the Macintosh dependency on Microsoft, after all, Pages (iWork) can open Office XML files…. Same with Numbers, and Keynote. If Excel can’t open VBA, neither can Numbers, but Numbers is significantly more stable, and about 1/3rd of the price and supported by Apple.

- Benjamin

Pets on lap while driving may soon be a no-no in Calif.
(AP): “AP - Pull over and put down the dog. A California lawmaker wants to ban motorists from holding pets on their laps while driving and getting caught can net a $35 fine. The bill passed the Assembly on a 44-11 vote on Monday, and heads to the Senate.”

(Via Yahoo! News: Top Stories.)

Here’s my view on this….

A $35 dollar fine means that this is intended as a revenue gathering scheme instead of actually attempting to stop people from driving with their pets unsecured.

Quite simply most people that drive with their pets unsecured are not going to worry about a $35 fine, until it occurs. Even then, they may stop for a short while after being caught, but will probably not stop in the long term.

Here’s the California government attempting to mandate common sense. It just doesn’t work…

(More on FrontRow with Indigo later….)