No one should complain that there are not enough choices for web browsers on the Mac. Each one is unique and has its own merits. The only logical thing to do is to run them all, right. Well at least a few. Here is an abbreviated list.
Safari Firefox Opera Omniweb Camino Shira Devonthink
The problem comes when you start to gather bookmarks and cookies in different browsers. You end up with a rats nest of info and no way to find that bookmark to that site with that guy that was once in that movie (you know, that guy).
Not long ago I purchased TextExpander from Smile On My Mac. It’s a handy little program that inserts long snippets of text when you type an abbreviation. Like when you type “ddate” TextExpander can automatically insert the current date instead. This can be very handy for coding or writing HTML.
Sure, the software is nice, and the price was not ridiculous, but what really impressed me was the email I just received.
I tried out the new Amazon music service. I have to say watch out Apple! It is just about as easy to use as iTunes, although finding music isn’t as straight forward. The albums are a couple of bucks cheaper (for select titles) and the download process couldn’t be any easier. Once you are logged in on their website and have installed the Amazon Downloader, you just purchase the album and away it goes.
If I had any doubt that technology was not living up to my expectations, I'm a believer now. I just installed iPhone Remote on my Mac Pro and all I can say is WOW! My iPhone can control my Mac over the Edge network. iPhone Remote is brought to us by the good people at Google (code named Telekinesis). Maybe they got tired of waiting for the gPhone and decided to make the iPhone the device dreams are made of.
If you read through the posts on this site, you will see, on the whole, I love me some Apple products. I’m thinking of declaring Apple as a dependent on my next tax return. However, I’ll be the first to warn a new switcher to stay away from first generation products. They are always buggy! Worse, rather than fix our hardware, they just release version 2 with the added feature of having fewer bugs.
I recently picked up the Scottevest Fleece 4.0 Jacket. I don’t know if there were even versions 1.0-3.0, but I’m pretty happy with this latest build. It was on sale for $139.99 and I had a discount code. The whole thing came to $130 with 3 day shipping.
The Review First off, this thing is the best fleece jacket you can get for your gear. Before I get to all of the go-go gadgety goodness, I want to highlight what a great jacket it is.
What if your Mac is stolen? How much personal info do you have just sitting there on those hard disk platters? My Mac has Tax info for the past seven years, copies of bank statements, credit card PINs, and receipts for almost everything I have bought (see this post about archiving it all). It’s rather disturbing to think of all that info falling into mischievous hands.
Up until about 4 months ago, I was using Apple’s FileVault (see this post).
If you’ve been following along with this blog, then you know I love Apple’s Aperture application. I upgraded from iPhoto shortly after I started using my first DSLR camera (the Nikon D80). Aperture is pretty straight forward to use. It’s elegant and intuiative, but there are many different workflow options when managing a large photo library. I started by reading through the Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture 1.5 (Apple Pro Training)which is a wonderful reference.
Versiontracker and Macupdate are some great services for Mac owners. With a paid membership you get regular notices when new versions of software are released. I let my membership lapse though so I periodically have to go out and look to see if I have the newest versions (because it makes me feel good to have the bleeding edge). But now there are some new ways to accomplish this tedious task.
Tax time usually means that I remember how much I wanted to organize my finances last year. I’ve used a nice little application called iBank from IGG Software. It has suited most of my needs over the past year and is about half the price of Quicken for the Mac. But this year I had the itch to see if I was missing anything by using independent software like iBank. I purchased Quicken 2007 from my local Apple store and got to work moving all my finances over from iBank.
