Archive for category tech
MacHiest Nano Bundle Review
I’ve been really jazzed about this latest round of the MacHeist bundle. They have some really useful software that I have already started ing in my workflow. For $20 you can’t go wrong, Not to mention that a percentage of the sale goest to charity, it’s a win-win.
- MacJournal – This is really great software that allows you to write not just blogs but also video and recordings as well. You can even do your own personal journals that are password protected. I can see this being great for students who need to write notes for classes. You also have the ability to import Word Documents, images and PDFs into the journals.
- RipIt – Looks like a really cool app. It will take a DVD and create an image of the DVD on your hard drive so you can watch it in Front Row or Boxee or another media player. I haven’t used it the app yet but I can’t wait to give it a try. It looks really slick.
- Flow – This is a pretty slick looking FTP client with a very Mac like interface. What I like about this app is that you can set up droplets for specific directories so you can just use finder to just drag and drop to upload. Really cool stuff. It currently supports the FTP and SFTP protocol, but it’s very nice.
- Tales of Monkey Island – All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. This is an adventure game that is using the charachters from Lucasarts fun The Secret of Monkey Island game. I just played it for a little bitt but it looks like a lot of fun.
Those are the apps that I have used. There are also Clips (a clipboard manager) and Coverflow that are in the bundle but to be honest if you only use one of these apps, it’s worth your money.
There is only 1 day left to the sale and (as of this writing) there were 43,960 bundles sold. If there are 50,000 bundles sold there is another app that will be released. Rapid Weaver – a web site design app. It looks really slick and I hope that it can get to the 50,000 bundles.
Amazon Kindle Review
After a long time debating about what to do, I finally decided to get a Amazon Kindle as my ebook reader of choice. There were two main reasons why I decided to get a Kindle instead of the other main devices that are out there, like the Nook from Barnes and Noble and Sony’s ebook reader line. The first reason is that it is the market leading ebook reader out there. In a new market, that does mean something;. You don’t always want to be on the cutting edge of technology. The second reason is that I have a lot invested in the Amazon universe. With the sales that come in through the Amazon Affiliate links (if you don’t have any ad blocking software, you can see the search box on your right) I’m able to buy books without having to actually spend any money.
I am really impressed with the weight of the device and how well the eink looks on the screen and how easy it is on the eyes. I was able to read on the Kindle on my flights to and from Pittsburgh without getting a headache that I usually get with reading on my iPhone. Speaking of the iPhone, there is a really cool feature with the Kindle and that is you can use the Kindle reader on your iPhone and it will sync where you are up to on your Kindle so you don’t have to remember and search for where you are up to in a book. I was able to try out that feature today and it was pretty handy.
The user interface could use some work but I think that it is limited because of the eink display. Quite honestly, the only thing that would have a better UI is the iPad. The down side to the iPad is that it’s not going to be using eink and won’t be as easy on the eyes.
Over all, I am glad that I finally decided to get an ebook reader and I’m happy with my choice.
Tech Support the easy way
Last year I posted about my mother and how I decided for her new computer that she should buy a Mac Mini. This was mainly a selfish decision on my part since it would allow me to use iChat to share her screen whenever she has a problem she wants me to look at. Such was the case on Saturday night when she called me and wanted to know how to do a few basic things.
As is my wont, I was complaining to a friend of mine about being tech support for a family member when he shared his tale of family tech support from Saturday. It seems that his father bought an Acer computer and was having some problems. My friend was on the phone with him and was trying to help him download the updated driver and whatnot. As you can imagine, helping a family member (a non computer savvy one at that) to download and install new drivers is not for the faint of heart. In the end it turned out that it wasn’t a driver issue at all.
This is why I decided that my mother get a MacMini instead of a Windows box. I’d much rather be dealing with questions of how to print or email something instead of having to lead her through downloading the latest drivers only to find that they aren’t needed.
Beam Me up
Well, we are now into 2010 and we still don’t have our flying cars. However we may be getting transporters somewhere down the line. Physicists Prove Teleportation of Energy Is Possible
Amazon vs. Macmillan
It looks like Amazon is starting to feel the pressure from the yet to be released Apple iPad. They have been pressuring publishers into accepting their prices for ebooks or suffer the consequences. It looks like Macmillan Publishing is the first one to pay the price.
After an negotiating session last week the CEO of Macmillan received an email saying that Amazon will no longer be selling any ebooks that are from Macmillan. It seems that it is not only ebooks but now it’s also their published books as well!
You can still get the books from third party stores that use Amazon but that means that if you are an Amazon Prime member (like I am) you won’t be able to get your books as quickly as you’d like. For me, this is a major downer. Especially since Tor publishing is one of my favorite publisher and they are under the Macmillan publishing arm.
I had mentioned in a previous post that I wasn’t sure what kind of ebook reader I would get, should I decided to get one. I think that my choices were just reduced by one. Based on this, I don’t think that I’ll be getting a Kindle. It is now between a Nook or a Sony ereader.
Thoughts from the subway
I’m standing on the subway on my way to a meeting listening to a podcast and alone with my thoughts. Here is some if the randomness that is my mind:
- Twitter needs to improve their API so that develoers are able to use to sync between a desktop application and its mobile counterpart
- Seeing women reading fantasy books like the ones from Robert Jordan or George RR Martin always makes me smile. Not there is anything wring with it but it’s just so uncommon.
- I was really disappointed that Apple didn’t talk about iPhone OS 4.0
- There is no such thing as personal space on the subway
- The more I think about the iPad announcement from yesterday the more underwhemled I get.
- I wish MTA would get off the stick and get some sort of 3G service in the subways.
- I don’t like landscape mode on the iPhone
- I’m considering switching back to Verizon and DSL although I’d rather have FIOS.
- I just had my first Nook sighting in the wild
iPad thoughts – why I don’t want one
I was out of the office all day driving up and down the coast line of New Jersey so I didn’t get the chance to watch the live blogging that of Apple’s Special event. After our lunch meeting and driving to our next meeting, my colleague picked up his iPhone and started looking at the coverage and what we missed. I have to say that I was left with an underwhelming feeling. Here’s why:
- The name – it’s not the worst name in the world but it’s not the best either.
- Lack of Multi-task – In something the size of the iPad, you are going to want to actually do more with the device. Not having that ability in a phone is one thing, but not having it in a 9.7 inch device? I think that it’s something you need. I do have a conspiracy theory about this and it has to do with Apple wanting you to buy music and not listen to Pandora and similar services.
- The genre of device – I am still not convinced that there is really a need for an iPad. I don’t mind using my laptop to watch TV (via Hulu – something you still can’t do on the iPhone or iPad) or showing off pictures on my iPhone. The latter since it’s especially portable and you have it with you at all times. To me there is just no place that I see a tablet fitting in my life. The only place that I can see it fitting is as an eBook reader and I’d rather just get a Kindle or a Nook, if I decided to go that route. We all know how torn I am about that.
- Wireless – I know that it comes with Wi-Fi but to pay an extra $15 or $30 for 3G? Really? That is just a plain old money grab. I mainly blame AT&T for that but I also blame Apple for not saying no. In my case, if I am just going to use it as an eBook reader, I’d rather have to not pay extra when I want to download a book and I’m not on an open Wi-Fi network.
- eBook – I’m grateful that Apple decided to use the epub standard but what about side loading other non encrypted epub books? That is the big question and I suspect the answer is that you won’t be able to get them onto your iPad.
Am I missing something?
My love/hate relationship with ebooks
There has always been a certain allure of ebooks for me. I started with ebooks way back when I had my first Palm PDA, a Palm V (it wasn’t my first PDA but that’s a different story). I love the idea of having a device that has your entire library in the palm of your hands. I have really been interested in getting an Amazon Kindle, Sony Digital Reader or a Barns & Noble Nook. I could very easily justify spending the money on one of these devices. However there is always something holding me back to really buying into the whole concept.
The first reason is when I do a bulk of my reading and that is over Shabbos which makes using an ebook reader impossible. Yeah I suppose that I can read at other times but I just don’t have the downtime and lack of distractions that Shabbos brings. You may ask “what about the subways?” and to be honest with you that is a good point. I have found it very hard to concentrate while on the subway. Believe me, the temptation is there because I see lots of people on the subway with their Kindles but for the most part it’s not something that I am comfortable with.
The other main issue is that I like to have the feel of a book in my hands and that is still something that an ebook reader can duplicate. The feel of the book in your hands and the physical turning of the pages has almost a calming effect. Of course there is the cracking open a new book for the first time. It’s almost like smelling that new car smell.
There are pros to getting an ebook reader as well. One of them I mentioned before which is having tons of books at your disposal whenever you want them. That is a powerful thing to have. Imagine being at the coffee shop of your choice, pulling out your ebook reader and choosing whatever book you want from your library.
The other advantage of an ebook reader is that the size of the book is no longer an issue. For example I have a new book (the latest in the Wheel of Time series) that I haven’t started yet but the book is over 700 pages and really thick. Lugging that book everywhere isn’t fun and I’ll most likely be just reading it at home because of that. But if I had an ebook reader that wouldn’t be a concern and I could read any time that I want.
There you have it, on one hand I’d love to buy an ebook reader and on the other hand I don’t want one.
Apps I can’t live without
It’s amazing how when you use someone else’s workspace or computer that you suddenly feel useless. I was in that postion today when I used Rivky’s Macmini. I have an account on her machine and I’ve tried to duplicate the workflow that I have on my main machine (13″ MacBook Pro) but there are some that I have forgotten to put on that computer and I missed them greatly. Here are the utilitues that I find the most useful for workflow.
- Quicksilver – Quicksliver is a great launcher like Butler or Launchbar but for me it’s better than the others. It’s not a question of what it can do, it’s more of a questions of what can’t Quicksilver do?
This is almost the first non Apple application that I’ll install on new computer. I almost feel naked with out it, as scary as that thought may be. - Dropbox – It’s more of a service than an application but what is cool about it is that you can install it on as many computers that you want and it will synchronize the dropbox folder (which you put whatever you want. You can also share folders, files or pictures.
- Stuf – I never thought that I would actually need a clipboard manager because they always seemed to take up a whole lot of memory. Then I bought Stuf as part of a bundle and have I been happy ever since. It stores the last 20 things that you have copied. I can’t tell you how many times I have found this little app useful.
- Typinator – This is similar to other applications that let you type a few letters and then have a whole bunch of text appear. It’s similar to TextExpander but it also allows autocorection for commonly misspelled word and includes several useful dictionaries like the one from Tid Bits.
Becoming a Socialite
For a long time I have been a fan of separate social networking apps (or sites) for getting the job done but I am now changing my ways and going with one unified app for most of my social networking needs. The app is called Socialite and it’s from Realmac Software. Although it has some additions and improvements I think it could make, it’s a great app for having everything in one place. I was going to review this about about a year ago when it was called Eventbox (before RealMac bought the software) but the beta ran out of time before I could get the review up.
The interface is very Mac like and easy to set up your Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, Flickr or Digg account set up. You can then use the preferences to set up how often each account is updated or you can set them to be updated at the same time. You can then view them all together in the unread view (or as they called in Socialite containers) or you can view them per each account. This is the first thing to I think should be added is the support for other social networking sites such as LinkedIn or Ident.ca.
You are also able to do the things that you are able to do at the services respective sites like add searches in Twitter, “like” someone’s Facebook status or comment on the status, star or share things from Google Reader. It still doesn’t support some new Twitter features like lists or geolocation.
Another nice feature of Socialite is that in the unread container when you are on someone’s Twitter post at the bottom of the screen there is somewhere that you can post your own tweets. You can also use what is called a quick send where you can determine what service you want to send the quick post. The only thing that I can think of that needs some improvement in the unread view it that you can only view by the most recent post and not the oldest unread posts. I would like to see an update down the line that corrects this.
If you are a keyboard jockey like I am then you can also set up a key combination to have a quick send pop up. Be careful with this since it will take over any other key combinations you may have. For example, I first used Command+N for quick send but when I was in Mail.app I tried writing a new email with that same key combination but quick send popped up instead.
Socailite is $20 and you can also try it before you buy it but are limited to setting up only 3 accounts.
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