I decided not to offer a sponsor post during holiday weeks.1
Instead, here’s some free advertising for stuff I use all the time.2
This is my homescreen on my iPad:
My home screen rarely changes unless an app dies or there is a successor for the function. My writing app or bookmark manager may change but their location on my home screen does not.
I’ll avoid talking about most of the default Apple apps other than to note that if they are on my home screen, it means that I use them about once a day.
Pinner is an iOS app for Pinboard.in junkies like me. I gave it a look when it first came out but the performance wasn’t good enough to keep up with the number of bookmarks I have in Pinboard.
I’m happy to say that Pinner 2.0 is great.
The caching and browsing is fast. I really like the addition of favicons to the bookmarks. It’s a nice little attention grabber when I’m browsing through my list looking for something to read.
This is my review of a bag you probably will not buy, The Saddleback Classic Briefcase.1 It’s leather and metal, weighs 8 lbs and is $600.
The Saddleback Leather Company makes rugged and elegant bags, suitcases, and accessories that look as if they came right out of an Indiana Jones fan-fic. Their products incorporate high quality, thick leather and real steel rivets. It’s something that could easily be handed down to the next generation of finicky nerds.
I’ve only had the Air for a few hours. My immediate impression is that it feels tiny. At first glance it looks like an iPad Mini. After waffling between the Mini and the Air, I’m glad I chose the Air. It feels like a Mini but works like a full size iPad.
I’m curious what the Mini will feel like. This iPad Air feels like the perfect version of the iPad.
Picatext is an unique application. It does something so unique that it’s hard to evaluate it, but that won’t stop me.
Picatext does one thing: It extracts text from screenshots.
There are two input methods in Picatext, the built in rectangular screenshot tool and file upload. Both work extremely fast for small images. Activate the Picatext menubar item and choose the appropriate method.
Picatext works better than I expected. It works better than I imagined possible.
I like a good pen as much as the next penophile. I bought my first fountain pen in high school with 3 weeks of gas station cleaning. It was a gorgeous silver plated heavy instrument from Yafa and it died a sad death on a busy street.
I’ve become more practical as I’ve gotten older. I typically just want something comfortable to write with that gets a sketch or sentence down on paper.
Junecloud’s Delivery Status is a on oldie but a goodie. It has a single purpose: Track shipments from a variety of carriers and provide optional notifications. The app is available for iOS and as a Mac Dashboard plugin. The iPad and iPhone apps are very good as well as attractive. Nice touch coloring the delivery by the carrier.1
But the best feature of Deliveries is the the online sync account available to donors or through the iOS apps.
I wrote a quick review of CopyLess back in January. At that time I had about a month of usage under my belt. Fast forward 7 months and I’m still using it every day. I’ve moved away from Keyboard Maestro for managing my clipboard but it’s also a great option.
I thought it might be nice to write a head-to-head comparison of each tool.
The Palette Both CopyLess and Keyboard Maestro present a floating palette with visual indication of the type of material in the clip.
I became involved with my Synology NAS about 9 months ago. We’re still in the honeymoon stages of our relationship, but I can honestly say that my storage has never been better.
But sometimes my eye wanders. I see the USB 3 and Thunderbolt drives and think to myself, briefly, I wonder what the throughput is with one of those beauties. But reason always takes over and I realize what a wonderful thing I have going with my Synology.
Max Masnick has a great review of moving to FastMail from GMail. I’m moving from, well, a bunch of stuff to one consolidated email account. I like the FastMail search options and web interface. But really, Max sold me.
I used Marco’s: http://www.fastmail.fm/?STKI=1335305, which means he made $6. Referral links are just one bonus of using FastMail so far.
Here’s my referral link if you want to give me some modest credit: http://www.
