Mac ← A Little Ludwig Goes A Long Way

Kind of sad that Apple took “bounce” out of lion mail

Oct

2011

I’m not the only one — “Apple forum discussion on bounce”:https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3201744?start=0&tstart=0. OK I realize it wasn’t actually that effective in stopping unwanted email, but I enjoyed using it as a kind of “f%^* you” message to certain senders. I got an emotional lift from hitting that button.

I’m struggling to understand why I would ever use iCloud storage.

Oct

2011

I’m struggling to understand why I would ever use iCloud storage. After a couple days of tinkering, I have two sets of data in iCloud — device backups, and Pages/Keynote docs. * I really don’t get the value of device backups. My apps are all recoverable from the iTunes store. I use primarily apps like ...

iCloud Photostream and DSLRs don’t seem to be a great fit

Oct

2011

OK so I am diving into photostream. I’ve enabled on my iPhone 4 (don’t yet have a 4s), iPad 2, my MacBook Pro, my Win7 PC. So the dream was — some set of my photos would be magically replicated across all these machines. Magically. I have two photo points of entry — the iPhone, ...

Software tips

Jul

2011

* “How to unhide your Library in Lion”:http://tidbits.com/article/12306?rss — chflags nohidden ~/Library. Yay. * “Making desktop web apps with Automator”:http://ihnatko.com/2011/07/22/making-desktop-webapps-in-lion/. All kinds of goodness in here. * “BBEdit 10 is out”:http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/bbedit10.html. Purchased. * “Marked”:http://markedapp.com/ seems like a super useful companion to BBEdit. * “Billguard is now free-er”:http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/07/billguard.html.

Recent software of note: Blogsy, Issue Bucket, Portal2, Office365, iPhoneTracker, …

Apr

2011

* “iPhoneTracker”:http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/. Cool toy to see where you’ve been and feed your feelings of paranoia. * “Portal 2″:http://www.thinkwithportals.com/. Of course. * “Qwiki”:http://www.qwiki.com/. I was kind of excited about this, but I can’t make my own Qwikis? Excitement way down. * “Acorn”:http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/. Haven’t bit yet but I’d love something less obtuse than Photoshop. * “Blogsy”:http://blogsyapp.com/. Seems ...

Recent Software Trials

Mar

2011

* “gfxcardstatus”:http://db.tidbits.com/article/11982?rss to let me fiddle with macbook pro graphics hardware. which is proving to be problematic. Why does the browser (Chrome) require the high end power-consumptive nvidia chip? Seems like this feature of the macbook is a waste if the browser is always going to force the power hungry chip on. OK hmm, this ...

Software to try over the holidays

Dec

2010

* “Printopia”:http://www.ecamm.com/mac/printopia/ to enable printing to any printer from iphone/ipad (via “Tidbits”:http://db.tidbits.com/article/11829?rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+tidbits_main+(TidBITS:+Mac+News+for+the+Rest+of+Us)) * “Textastic”:http://www.textasticapp.com/ code editor for the iPad (via “Read/Write Web”:http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2010/12/code-editors-for-the-ipad.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+readwriteweb+(ReadWriteWeb)) * “Postbox”:http://www.postbox-inc.com/ email alternative for OSX. * “Momento”:http://momentoapp.com/, a diary app. (via “TechCrunch”:http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/28/momento-app/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)) * “A whole bag of iphone apps for engineers”:http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2010/11/17/iphone-apps-for-engineers-electronics-and-more-an-adafruit-electronics-gift-guide/. * “Calvetica”:http://calvetica.com/ replacment for iphone calendar app. * “boxcar”:http://boxcar.io/. Don’t really ...

Year end link clean up

Dec

2010

* “Poor Halo play prompts stabbing threat”:http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattle911/archives/231642.asp. Doesn’t seem unreasonable. I’ve heard campers threatened with worse. * “How Secure Is My Password”:http://howsecureismypassword.net/. No idea how accurate, but fun. 17 thousand years for my typical password. * “Rich on photobooks”:http://www.tongfamily.com/archives/2010/12/photobooks-for-christmas/. I just always use the default in Aperture but perhaps I should branch out. * “AR.Drone”:http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/12/01/ar-drone-torn-down/. ...

Recent software trials — Camino, Shuffler, GIT, Wisestamp, Microsoft Windows Live Sync

Aug

2010

* Firefox is feeling increasingly bloated, maybe because I’ve got a bunch of plugins jammed in. But trying out “Camino”:http://db.tidbits.com/article/11548?rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tidbits_main+(TidBITS%3A+Mac+News+for+the+Rest+of+Us)&utm_content=Google+Reader on the Mac, seems cleaner and lighter. * “Shuffler.FM”:www.shuffler.fm. Eh, streaming music just doesn’t work for me. My primary listening time is while driving and I need music that I can put on an ipod ...

Recent Software Trials

Jun

2010

* “Default Folder”:http://db.tidbits.com/article/11217?rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tidbits_main+%28TidBITS%3A+Mac+News+for+the+Rest+of+Us%29&utm_content=Google+Reader — OK i really wanted to love this. But visually very funky. Ended up nuking. * “PopCharX”:http://www.ergonis.com/products/popcharx/. This is one utility I can’t live without, and the new version with favorites is nice. Software I haven’t tried but need to: * “Things”:http://db.tidbits.com/article/11389?rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tidbits_main+%28TidBITS%3A+Mac+News+for+the+Rest+of+Us%29&utm_content=Google+Reader. So frustrated with todo lists on the iphone. I want ...

Recent utility software of note

Jan

2010

My MacBook is entering middle age and as my intensity of use has grown over the last 6 months (due to coursework at UW) I’m finding I need to start focusing on productivity a little. Some tools that seem helpful: * “Popchar”:http://www.macility.com/products/popcharx/ provides much better special character insertion than the standard OSX tool. Helpful for ...

Matlab on OSX — pay attention to file names

Oct

2009

BTW, this is a powerful but incredibly finicky piece of software. It is an X11 app, and I wonder how much that is affecting it. One thing to watch for is the path length limitation on the names of m files. it is 63 characters total for the full path — that is right, the ...

Mac vs PC anecdote

Aug

2009

My Macbook had a motherboard failure two weeks ago. Both USB ports on left side blown, wifi chipset blown. (Blame Tekkcharge but that is another discussion). Discovered this at about 4pm on a Wednesday, went to Apple.com and scheduled a genius bar appointment at 830pm same day. At 830 I roll into the Bellevue Square ...

Software recently adopted

May

2009

* Tweetdeck. Duh. * ECMerge. I complained to Scooter Software about the lack of a mac version of BeyondCompare, they kindly suggested ECMerge or Araxis Merge. Araxis is way too expensive. ECMerge is solid but I still pine for BeyondCompare. * Toast Titanium. I want a way to watch my Tivo shows on my mac ...

Recovering my iTunes Library file from a dead Mac Mini

Mar

2009

My Mac Mini died. Won’t boot. Fortunately I keep all my data files (music, photos) on an external USB drive so moving them to a different machine is no biggy. However, all my playlist and song rating info is in the lookaside db file that iTunes refuses to store anywhere besides the boot volume. Smart ...

Force Eject a Stuck CD or DVD – Mac Guides

Mar

2009

Open Terminal and type “drutil tray eject” to eject the disc/tray, and “drutil tray close” to close the tray. via Force Eject a Stuck CD or DVD – Mac Guides.

Software/Services of recent note

Jan

2009

Prezi.com – The zooming presentation editor. Certainly a lot more visually entertaining than your typical PPT Animoto is a whole different way to go on presentations favorite mac apps per Merlin Mann. Skitch and Path Finder seem useful htmlsql. not sure why I care, just seems cool. TinEye. Reverse image search. Free MSFT downloads. A ...

Mac Halloween Screensavers

Oct

2008

CreativeTechs Tips: Mac Halloween Screensavers. The first one is nice and free. The second is $5 and a bit of a porker to download.

Grab bag of software tips

Oct

2008

* Playing AVIs on a mac. Thanks Rich. I’ve just been deleting these emails mostly. * Find open files preventing disk ejection on mac * How to MMS from iPhone. Thanks again rich * Bring the ribbon to notepad. not sure I really want… * Customize windows start menu folders * Bunch o chrome tips. ...

Google Mac Developer Playground

Sep

2008

Google Mac Developer Playground – Google Code — fun mac stuff here from google