Isn’t it odd that with all of the very serious problems we face in this nation (including campaign reform), that Congress wants to spend its time breaking the Internet in response to the actions of a few losers in their parents’ basements? While MacSparky won’t be going dark today, I am most certainly against SOPA and PIPA. I believe they are the legislative equivalents of hammering a thumb tack with an industrial-grade jackhammer. My friend Gabe at MacDrifter has some excellent recommendations if you agree.

Mac Power Users Episode 69, Browser Wars, is live. I’m thinking we went a little Hollywood with that title. In fact, the episode talks about the best and worst parts of Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. We also spent some time discussing alternative iOS browsers. Get the episode over at 5by5. Also, don’t forget to subscribe in iTunes.

This week’s RSS feed is sponsored by one of my all-time favorite apps, Scrivener. Between Mac at Work and iPad at Work, I researched and wrote some 230,000 words in Scrivener. That doesn’t include the countless articles, legal briefs, and other bits of text I’ve penned in that app. Lovingly crafted by quality people, Scrivener is one bad-ass writing app.

Writing a book or research paper is about more than hammering away at the keys until it’s done. Research, shuffling index cards to find that elusive structure – most software is only fired up after much of the hard work is completed.

Enter Scrivener, a content-generation tool that lets you compose and structure long and difficult documents based on material from multiple sources. Adopted by novelists, screenwriters, journalists, lawyers and academics alike, the program allows users to split the editor and view documents, PDF files, multimedia and other research materials next to each other. A virtual corkboard and outliner help with structuring or providing an overview of the draft. Collate, read and edit related text without affecting its place in the whole using Scrivener’s Collections feature. Close out the world in Full Screen mode. And when you’re finished, export to e-readers or the most popular word processing programs for submission.

Available for Mac OS X and Windows at Literature and Latte.

Over the weekend, my brother-in-law and I took the kids to the Santa Ana Discovery Science Center where they have (until April 15, 2012) an excellent collection of costumes, props, and models from the Star Wars franchise. See my pictures here. There were also props from the prequels but, strangely, I didn’t take any pictures of those.

There’s a lot of people talking about the mute button today. Since the rest of the Internet echo chamber seems to be weighing in, why not me too?

The problem is that when you put an iPhone on mute, it’s not completely silent. Specifically, alarms and timers go off. If you open the Music or Video apps and start a media file, it will play as well even though the device is set to mute. This caused a hubbub at the New York Philharmonic when someone’s alarm went off during the concert. John Gruber thinks this behavior is right. Andy Ihnatko thinks it is wrong.

I first discovered the nuances of the mute button while sitting in the back of the Orange County Superior Courthouse with my shiny new generation 1 iPhone where, to my surprise, an alarm went off in open court despite my having flipped the mute button before walking in the room. If you’ve never been in court, I’d like to congratulate you for being generally smart and also let you know that in court electronic noises are frowned upon. Some judges are legendary for their disdain for things that go beep and buzz. There is one judge that has a sign prominently displayed in his courtroom explaining that any electronic noise results in a $500 fine, payable immediately.

So you can understand it’s important to me that my phone not make any noise in court. I couldn’t simply turn the phone off (as Dave Caolo suggests) because I need my calendar and sometimes my electronic notes when standing in front of the guy in the black robe. Moreover, text messaging (silently) is a great tool to keep in touch with the war room back at the office when the bullets are flying the courtroom.

Dealing with this problem really isn’t all that difficult. You just need to follow a few commonsense rules:

• Never set alarms to go off when you know you’re going to be a place where you can’t have any noise.
• Don’t open music or video files.

That’s it. So now I walk in a courtroom, set the mute button, and confirm no alarms or timers set. In four and half years, no problems. (I’ve not had any sounds from from any other apps but I’m pretty stingy about notifications to begin with.) With the arrival of the iPad, I am now able to turn the phone off entirely and use the iPad in silence mode for the same purpose. I must, however, still follow the same rules.

I feel bad for the guy at the Philharmonic. He must’ve felt terrible and I really don’t blame him. After all, I got stung the exact same way before I figured it out. Nevertheless, I don’t see this as requiring any type of software switch or change by Apple. I’m with the camp that believes it’s much better having people learn this lesson once or twice rather than have half the iPhone using nation late for work because their alarm didn’t go off that morning.

This whole story is pretty damning.

Big companies are made up of a lot of people. Sometimes, despite the best efforts of the people in charge, bad apples get mixed in that group. This story, however, feels different. Google was scraping the database from multiple countries and had an organized group of callers defaming Mocality. I remember shivering a little when I first heard Google’s company motto, “Don’t be evil”. It seems every time I meet someone who goes out of their way to tell me how ethical and righteous they are, I inevitably find that when given a chance, they are first ones to screw someone over.

I’m sure Google will have an explanation for this. Maybe their explanation will even make sense. I’m looking at this as another datapoint as I distance myself (and my data) from Google servers.

via Daring Fireball

Lex Friedman and Dan Moran wrote a nice article for Macworld forecasting the Apple event in New York next week. Setting aside the idea of disrupting the text book publishing business, the idea that this is the venue for Apple to release iWork ‘12 hadn’t occurred to me. That would be fantastic news if true. While iCloud support is a given (and, frankly, overdue), better ePub tools would be nice. I hope they are right.

As Macworld | iWorld approaches, I’m struck by the value in the new iFan Pass. Now you can get into the conference for a fraction of the price it used to be. There are some really great tech talks at the conference this year, including a few of my own sessions. Because it is easier to get a conference pass now (currently just a hundred bucks), the rooms will be packed and the vibe will be great. In addition to getting access to all of the Tech Talks, iFan passholders also score free tickets for the music experiences (including nightly performances), film events, art showings, the iWorld Midway, and the Exhibit hall. While in the past, going to Macworld just for the Expo Hall and skipping the conference could make sense on a budget, at just $100, you really should go for the whole enchilada this year. The iFan pass price will go up to $125 at the event so if you are planning to attend, get your pass now.

A well-deserved accolade for Brett Terpstra and his excellent Markdown/MultiMarkdown preview app. If you spend any time in Markdown, you really should check out Marked.

The next time you are feeling an itchy trigger finger for some new Apple hardware, check out Mac Rumors’s Apple Buyer’s Guide where Arnold Kim and his legions track Apple product timelines and rumors.