I’d like to show you a very common Mac OS X dating mistake – and how super easy it is to fix. What’s that? You don’t use your Mac for dating? Pshaw, people. If you’re letting CheckBook, our sweet personal finance manager, help manage your monies then you’re definitely – oh, wait, I meant date formatting mistake. You thought I was about to give out free dating advice, didn’t ya?

So, you’ve decided to tweak the way your Mac displays dates and found your way to the Language & Text preference pane in System Preferences. You’ve even gone into the Formats tab, looked around and hit the Customize… button. So far, so good. Here’s something similar to what you’ll see:

Default Language & Text Date Formats – Pay Close Attention to The Blue Around the Numbers

Now let’s say you want to change the Short format so that you get 4-digit years. What do you do? You get rid of that “11” with the nice blue background and type in a 2011, right? Like this:

A literal year in the Short Date Format

And you’re good to go! Until…well, until you notice all the dates in all your apps are showing up with “2011” as their year, no matter what you do or how many times you try to change the dates. It’s a little bit like you’re John Malkovich being John Malkovich. Only not as creepy. And not as messy in the end (promise!).

But what just happened?

In the first screenshot everything besides slashes and commas had a blue background. In the second screenshot, after we typed in our 4-digit year, that little bit we typed didn’t have a blue background. You’ve probably guessed by now: that blue background is the key. What’s so special about it, anyway? Well, everything with a blue background is actually a placeholder for a part of the date, like the day or the year. Behind the scenes, when the Mac has to show you a date it looks for these placeholders and swaps in the appropriate values – but the parts of the date format that don’t have a blue background are just copied to the final date you see on your screen. When we typed in “2011” in place of the old “11”, we replaced the placeholder for the year with a literal bit of text – and now every date gets a “2011” where the actual year should be. Drat!

How do we fix it? That’s the easy part! First, remove the “2011” you typed in earlier. Second, look at the lower half of the window, where you’ll see all sorts of “date elements” – and they all have blue backgrounds! Find the Year date element, which in this case is a “2011”, and drag it up to theend of your Short format, just to the right of the final slash. It should now look like this:

The Short Date Format with a proper 4-digit year

And that’s all there is to it. You made your mistake but an easy drag and drop made everything better. Now if you want to take this dating thing to the next level…take some initiative and see what happens when you click on the date elements that have little white triangles in them…

The Mac App store is set to open January 6th 2010.

Since the announcement this past October, many developers have discussed their opinions, excitement, and concerns.

One possible positive is that the store will be available to a very wide audience of potential users. I’m not up for listing worries about the store, because its the holidays and I’m way too jolly for that. Besides plenty of others have already covered the potentially negative outcomes.

I suppose only time will tell if the new store will be a mutually beneficial relationship between Apple and software developers.

What are your thoughts on the App Store?

As the year winds to a close looking ahead intensifies.

At Splasm Software that means creating goals for the new year and reading opinions about the future of the computer we know and love.

Recently, in a MacWorld article titled, “What’s with the Mac Doomsayers?” John Gruber looked at whether or not Apple would replace Mac OS X with iOS. (I really enjoyed reading this and I don’t want to ruin it by lame paraphrasing so I’ll give you as little as I can to entice you to read it.)

Gruber makes the case that Apple does not leave behind what he calls “legacy technology” in favor of things that are “shiny and new”, but rather leaves such products behind when it appears that the weight of the old will slow down the “pursuit of creating brand-new stuff.”

He goes on, in this very well-written article, to answer this question: “Is the Mac slowing iOS down or in any way holding it back?”

Like I said earlier, this is best read as the author intended, so read it there. After you read it, come back and share your opinion.

Is the Mac “legacy” or is it irreplaceable at the present time?

Can iOS do the work of Mac OS X?

Recently, I watched an episode of Man Vs. Food.

Standing in my kitchen this morning, I wondered how a bowl of cereal would fare in a fight with a couple of pancakes. The victor gets the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to help me balance my checkbook.

Weighing in at 10.4 oz, containing 9 serving at 1 cup each and priced around $3.50 is….Cereal.

Cereal steps into the ring, looking strong, feeling confident and ready to go.

$3.50 Divided by 9 servings is $0.39 per bowl

Can Pancakes beat a price that low?

A little scrawny, but fast and limber–Pancakes has been around the block as a breakfast staple. More than the sum of its parts, Pancakes knows it wouldn’t be here today without:

1 cup of Flour

1 tablespoon Sugar

2 teaspoons of Baking Powder

1/4 teaspoon of Salt

1 cup Milk

2 tablespoons of Vegetable Oil

This five pound bag of flour costs $3.39 and brings forth 20 cups of serious moxie. Always willing to lend a hand, Flour had no qualms putting 1 cup or $0.17 toward some delicious Pancake batter. Growing up in the same neighborhood, Sugar and flour have combined their efforts in a number of other recipes. With 180 tablespoons of power, priced at around $3.00, The tablespoon of Sugar in Pancakes costs about a half a penny and can’t be beat!

But let’s not forget about Baking Powder $0.07 ($2.00 for 10 oz. or 60 tsp with 2 going to pancakes), Salt (around $0.05), Vegetable Oil (2.68, tablespoon per serving yields 96 servings) equal $0.06, or Milk ($0.23 per cup).

Pancake Batter from this simple, but tasty team costs $0.63 and makes about three large servings of two pancakes a serving.

Pancakes is the Champ at 21 cents per serving! But wait, wait just a minute…what’s that? Milk was fighting for both sides? At least a 1/2 a cup of milk goes into a bowl of cereal or $0.12. Add that to $0.39 and this match is over.

Just don’t pour on a mountain of syrup. Use moderation.

**Feel free to check my math or let me know if you’ve seen different prices in your area. Co-workers included :)**

Gearing up to buy some presents?

Managing your finances is easy with CheckBook Pro 🙂

CheckBook Pro is the simply powerful personal finance manager that would make a great gift for – yourself (hey, managing your money makes for a jolly you andthat is a gift for everyone who crosses your path).

Starting tomorrow, December 1st, CheckBook Pro will be on sale for just $19.95!

Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.

Unlike Christmas with all its pressure to buy the right present (or to produce the right facial expression when opening a loved ones gift), Thanksgiving is about the food.

That delicious meal.

Just thinking about it makes me giddy. And I don’t care who know it (obviously).

Hope your Thanksgiving is full of laughter, memories, but mostly…delicious-we-are-oh-so-thankful- Food!