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Microsoft released today Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2. With Remote Desktop Connection Client 2, you can quickly, simply and securely connect to Windows-based PCs to access Windows-based files, applications, devices, and networks from your Mac.

Amongst the features:

• New Multiple Session Support gives Mac users simultaneous access to multiple Windows-based PCs or to a network server that hosts remote applications and files. Since it works with Vista and is a Universal application, Remote Desktop Connection Client 2 is compatible with the latest technologies on Windows and Mac platforms.
• A redesigned user interface makes this application more customizable. Create your own keyboard shortcuts; and even access and change preferences during active sessions.
• Access and print from Windows applications to any printer that can be configured from your Intel- or PowerPC-based Macs.
• Network Level Authentication (NLA) is a new authentication method in Windows Vista that offers security enhancements that can help to protect the remote computer from hackers and malicious software. It completes user authentication before you establish a full Remote Desktop Connection.

A few weeks ago I blogged about Delicious Library and how helpful it is to take an inventory of your movies, gadgets, books and keep track who borrowed what and when.

While the software is great, I do not agree that I have to fork out $ 40 for the application and then have to find out, that when I publish my library on the web, Delicious Library embeds their own Amazon-associate IDs to get referral business. If the application was freeware, I would agree with such a practice. I have also contacted the company and asked to have this changed as a feature or remove it from the licensed product - but no response and sheer ignorance.

So I got crafty with the following little script - just adjust your associate ID and the location of your published HTML-folder:

Code:

Note, that Delicious Library currently uses 3 Amazon associate-IDs: deliciousmons-21, deliciousmons-20, deliciousmo0d-21 - but I am certain there are more. You can find the extra ones by search for the string "ref=nosim/" - this should provide you with a list of additional Amazon IDs - just adjust the above script.

It goes without saying that by now I have become a converted. If you are running OS X, you might not know about the Quick Look function: You can preview a selected file (or series of files) without opening it with the native application. Select any number of files and hit that space-bar and the files are previewed (including movies, office-documents or zip files):

My two favorite plugins are QLColorCode (allows preview of syntax-colored source-code) and BetterZip Quick Look (allows the previewing of compressed files such as zip-files).

Every day I find something new in OS X which makes me wonder, why this could not have done in any operating system. Every OS has nowadays a full-index search. Microsoft's Vista-search just sucks, as I have never been able to index everything properly, Google Desktop is better, but is very intrusive and CPU-intensive.

OS X Leopard's Spotlight search functionality seamlessly integrates in the menu-bar. You quickly activate it via CMD+Space and search results are produced as you type. It will categorise the search results (and will even show you the dictionary definition):

Spotlight also functions as a basic calculator and spits out the answer as you type it in and supports: * is multiplication, / is division, ^ is to the power of (exponents), ! is factorial, and then of course there’s + and - for addition and subtraction, respectively: