Over on my Apple Reporter site, I’m running another contest. This time I’m looking for a logo design for the blog. Read more here.
Now Listening: Neighbor’s Lawnmower, Pounding Gnomes From Allergy Sinus Headache
Tags: apple reporter, apple contest, logo contest, apple logo, mac contest
It’s the Friday before a long weekend, and it has that lazy, sluggish, relaxed, summertime “why am I working” feeling in the air. Even those of us who work out of a home office are feeling the cabin fever after months of snow, rain, ice, wind and (if you are me) accident recovery. i have an appointment with the allergist next week to get my asthma back under control (it’s as if the accident knocked it out of whack. Haven’t been this wheezy and uncomfortable since before I was diagnosed and receiving treatment.). After that I can actually go play outside with my friends!
/begin shameless plug
If you have a Mac, check out my contest over here.
/end shameless plug
Also, I spent my evening last night making a friend a present. You can see her shiny new blog look and location here.
So what are your plans for the long weekend? Camping? Rafting? Gorging yourself on hot dogs, steak, burgers and beer like the rest of us? Let me know in the comments.
Our plans are up in the air. We’ve been invited to several barbecues. If I can get my allergyfst under control with OTC stuff, I want to go to most of them. Other than that honey will be mowing the grass and patching the roof, and I will be writing, writing, writing.
Now Listening: See My Mog
I’m running a contest over on Apple Reporter. If you have dressed up your Mac, you might want to check it out.
Today on my Apple Reporter blog, I wrote an op-ed piece on The Cult of Apple. Go, check it out, and let me know if you think I should go into witness protection for this one.
Article here.
Tags: The Cult of Apple
He got tired of watching me try to type one handed, so he bought me iListen. iListen is a software made by MacSpeech that allows you to type with your voice. It's pretty cool. It took me about 2.5 hours to train it to 80 percent accuracy. it is still learning every time I speak, and I estimate it is already up to 87 percent accuracy. I am using it to write this post. The software cost 149 dollars at the Apple Store in the mall, or you can pay a little more and get your own copy here . You can also buy it for 134 dollars through the Amazon page link in the sidebar. Visit Epinions and read my review of this product here .
Now listening: The Specials Ghost town
Yum. Just, yum.
http://www.apple.com/iphone/
It'd be nice if it had the memory of a 30GB iPod to cut down on pocket clutter, but this will do for now. I sense an upgrade in my future.
Update (Jan 11. 2006): Apple being sued by Cisco over the name iPhone. Lawsuit delaying release. Read the article here .
Now Listening: Social Distortion
Tags: Apple iPhone Cingular
Many, many “thank you”s go out to emeleel over at EA. The queen of steals and deals, she posted this link over there and I just had to share it with you. It’s just that good.
For the entire month of December, and only for December, one web site will be giving away Free Apps. For the Mac.
That’s right, y’all, Apple devotees are getting some love from the apps community, and you can share in the happy holiday feelings here.
Now Listening: The Specials Best Of The Specials
Tags: free mac applications
This post is coming to you from my New MacBook! (the crowd roars)
I’ve been using an ancient iMac G3 333mhz SE Kihei Edition that I upgraded with a larger hard drive and some more RAM along with a resurrected from the dead iBook G4 Graphite clamshell, also upgraded with more hard drive and RAM. I love Apple, their products last forever, and those had served me well, but the work load I was putting them through and the things they needed repaired just didn’t make them effective business tools. (Yep. Or I just wanted a new MacBook. Whichever works)
So I bought a white 2.0 Ghz 13.3″ MacBook with 1.25 GB Ram, a 60GB hard drive and a Superdrive. Along with that I got a laser printer (woohoo, no more 10 minute per page Epson!) and a backpack carrier. I’m so excited! I love new toys!
I am passing the iBook to my youngest sister, who is in art school and has been limping along using an iMac even older than mine – a green one! Under 300 Mhz! Yikes! So the iBook should help her immensely. I am selling the iMac to a friend who does not have a computer but does have an iPod and wants one for basic stuff. 
Spreading the goodness all around – love it!
I have to get back to work transferring data from the other computers now so I can get back to my poor clients, who have been waiting patiently for me to finish the transfer and get back to work already since yesterday.
Now Listening: Butthole Surfers Electriclarryland
If you have a Mac, like I do, you have lamented the lack of a really great ringtone maker for a while. There are plenty out there for the PC, but for the Mac? Not so much.
Until now. I downloaded Xingtone this week, and I haven’t been able to stop making new ringtones for my phone. I love it, it’s easy to use and it was cheap (under $20 bucks).
Not only that, it’s available for Mac and PC. The PC version has been upgraded to also record from DVD, the Mac upgrade for DVD compatibility is not finished yet, but it still works well for regular music.
It has tons of features you can play with, from fades to special effects and a voice over recorder. It takes about 1 minute to make a basic 30 second ringtone, although you can make the ringtones longer if you have a phone equipped to handle the longer tones.
I’m having so much fun with it, I had to share! If you have been searching for a PC and Mac compatible ringtone maker, search no more. Go try the free 10 day trial of Xingtone and see how you like it!
Now Listening: Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine
Tags: Ringtones Mac Xingtone
…to break up all the serious posting I’ve been doing lately. Enjoy!
Make use of the motion sensor with this.
Some Mac OS X hacking tools can be found here.
This is a nice page of Mac Keyboard Shortcuts.
This site offers iMovie Tips.
Try Adium for using multiple instant messenger programs at once. (PC converts, think Trillian, but better)
Try Smultron for your code editor.
Another code editor I’ve heard that people like is called Textmate. They also make a version of NotePad for the Mac, if you need that.
I hear nice things about CopyWrite for the Mac, however; I use WriteItNow and love it.
I use Safari whenever possible to surf the net. I adore its slick look and streamlined feel. When I have to, I use Firefox. Another up and coming option is Flock.
Did you know that you can clear out the icons folder in Safari and then make it read-only to prevent those stupid favicons getting piled up and bogging you down? Go to your home folder/library/safari/icons and clear the icons folder, then make it read only. All set! No more favicon slowdown.
I do not recommend using Apple Mail program for your email. It flat out does not have enough features and stability for email design, sorting or storage. You can’t make stationary files for business clients or anything else you can do in most email programs.
Eudora works quite well on a Mac, and does have some of the features that Mail lacks.
For organization issues, this usually ships as preinstalled Mac software. I’m assuming they haven’t changed that.
They had been shipping with this installed as well, which is a lot of fun.
If your Mac Book is running hot, try this fix.
A nice list of Open Source apps for the Mac can be found at this website.
Get some Mac protection in case of theft.
MAMP is a better web developer/server app for the Mac.
Handy Lorum Ipsum widget for Mac.
Dear, dear readers, please tell me you did not get the MacBook with BootCamp and Windows. Windows (and BootCamp) are as hacker vulnerable on a Mac as they are on a PC. It is Mac’s OS that keeps it 99% hacker free. If you got Windows, you get a “Shame on you! Now go get some virus protection that is NOT Norton.” Also, a better alternative to BootCamp if you must run Windows is Parallels.
I would wait on Photoshop for a while and use Gimp. Adobe is ALWAYS the last to update their software for the latest, greatest Mac OS version, and in keeping with tradition will not have their Tiger-native version out for a few more months. Photoshop works on the Mac, and isn’t agonizingly slow, but it isn’t optimized for top speed yet either.
Do you know of still more Mac Goodies? Put them in the comments! I love goodies!
Now Listening: silence, ahhhh, silence
