jkOnTheRun

Evernote 1.1 beta for Mac includes PDF support

I see from TUAW that the beta client of Evernote for the Mac got a revision boost recently; the latest version is 1.1 and there's some nice additions in the client. You can now take advantage of Mac OS X's native Print to PDF function as I just did with the silly picture of our coffee coaster. I wanted to use the coaster to test the iSight note feature along with the text recognition of what's on the coaster. Evernote nailed it of course... searching for text in the picture returns the pic in my notebook and highlights the recognized text.

There's also some new views in the new version to help you customize and organize the way you want to view your digital memories. I must have missed the location data that you can save to any note as well; it's probably been there all along. With it you can enter the latitude and longitude of your digital note; handy for pics. I wonder if the client can read and auto-insert that data from digital cameras supporting EXIF?

After a quick sync of my information, it's amazing to see such a seamless experience between the Mac client and the web interface; a quick look on my PC shows the same batch of notes and since all of the indexing is done on the server, it's irrelevant which client I use: Evernote finds the data I'm searching for every time.

Times Reader coming to a Mac near you

One selfish thing I love to do on my Tablet PCs and notebook computers is read me some New York Times using the very nice Times Reader application.  It provides a very newspaper-like reading experience without the black fingertips and I do it every day.  I have often lamented that I could not enjoy the same Times experience on my Mac but that has now changed with the introduction of a beta Times Reader for the Mac.  You still need a subscription to the newspaper or the Reader content and you'll have to install Microsoft's Silverlight on your Mac to use it but if it's anywhere near as good as the Windows version I can't wait to give it a try.

(via TUAW)

Latest Parallels version supports Vista SP1, XP SP3 on your Mac

Ever since I went on a "native application" kick with the introduction of Leopard on the MacBook Pro, I don't think I've booted into Vista or XP on the device. Yikes! I suspect that more of you are getting better use out of your Parallels license than I am and now you can take the service pack plunge. The latest update to Parallels, version 3.0.5600, now supports both SP1 for Vista and SP3 for Windows XP. Some additional bug fixes include Shared Folder improvements (like using a removable drive for them) and addressing extremely high CPU usage, something that I saw a little too often when I was last using the virtualization software. This upgrade is free for folks that have a licensed version of Parallels Desktop for Mac. Hey look: it's My Pictures and My Pictures above!

(via TUAW)

Genius Bar visit day- that's never a good thing

I guess I was missing the experience of visiting the local Genius Bar so my MacBook Pro decided to push me in that direction today.  Actually my problems began late last night as the MBP hung up and wouldn't recover.  I had to kill it via the Power button and when I tried to restart it got the familiar "3 beeps of RAM death".  I have experienced those beeps a few times in the past and just like before they meant my MBP was not going to cooperate and boot up.  After far too much time last night fussing with it I finally got the system to safe boot up and stay running long enough for me to run TechTools Deluxe which is available to AppleCare customers.

This good utility ran a whole bunch of diagnostics and determined that the 3 beeps were telling the truth, I had bad RAM.  It was by this time very late last night so I went to bed with the intention of jumping headfirst into the problem this morning.  I did just that too and it was like jumping headfirst into the shallow end and smashing my head on the bottom of the pool.

The MacBook still wouldn't boot up so I turned it over and removed both RAM cards (1 GB & 2 GB) and swapped slots.  I put it back together and hit the power button while holding my breath.  It got the gray boot screen without the 3 beeps of RAM death which was a step forward but after a while at that screen the device would just shut itself off.  Time to make an appointment with my local Genius and this afternoon off I went.

The Genius Bar experience itself is still very refreshing, good attention from the staff who actually listen to what I have to say and then act on it.  He plugged in his magic disk drive with Leopard on it and booted it up quickly, only to determine that the MBP was not able to mount the internal disk drive which was causing the boot failure.  He did some diagnostics which told him the only option was to erase the drive and reinstall Leopard to see if the drive was OK.  He did this over the next 20 minutes with me watching everything.  I wasn't concerned with his wiping the drive clean since I have been dutifully keeping the system backed up with Time Machine to my Buffalo 500 GB external firewire drive.  Silly me.

When the install finished his diagnostics showed that everything with the system was A-OK, RAM good, disk drive good, all was good.  I took the system home with the plan of restoring the Time Machine backup and getting back to work.  Silly me.  I plugged the external backup drive into the firewire port and watched the disk access light go berserk flashing.  After 5 minutes the flashing stopped, only for me to see that the drive was not mounted by Leopard.  Uh oh.  I ran Disk Utility in OS X which I was glad to see could actually see the drive was connected even though it wasn't mounted properly.  This let me run the repair option which took 10 minutes only to end in failure.  The log isn't very detailed but it tells me that the disk cannot be repaired so here I am now, no way to restore the only full backup I have and save all my data.  I will be very impacted by this failure of first the internal drive and then the external backup drive at the same time.  I'm still desperately trying to get the drive to a point where I can at least mount it in the hopes that I can keep it mounted long enough to restore my system, or at least as much of it as I can.  It doesn't look good for the home team, Casey's count is 0-2 and it doesn't look good.

OQO hacked to the Mac

There is an endless fascination with hacking all sorts of non-Apple hardware to run the Mac operating system, Kevin was not immune to that and enjoyed running OS X on his Samsung Q1.  Recently a video surfaced showing an OQO that apparently has OS X (Leopard) running making the smallest Mac ever.  It is cool to watch although there are several things that bother me about this installation.  First of all I am not aware of anyone else who has gotten OS X installed and working on the Via processor.  The OQO in the video certainly has the Via processor so there is a lot of confusion as to how this individual got OS X to even work on the Via.  Second, the video is incredibly blurry and it seems to me that for something so "first" a greater attempt would have been made to at least show the results more clearly.  Thirdly, recording the video in a location without connectivity seems a bit convenient to preclude showing how the little Hackintosh works with the web.  Fourth, the OQO has a Wacom digitizer which OS X supports natively and it would have been cool to see interaction with the UI by pen, something that hasn't been done before outside of the ModBook.  And lastly, I would have preferred to see the hacker showing more OS X applications running and not just the finder and iCal.  Maybe get iPhoto running or something else to prove that OS X works fully on the OQO.  It is definitely cool to see OS X running on a handheld though and we've been as vocal as many in calling for Apple to make one.  Have a look at the video and see what you think.

Final thoughts: Mac OS X on a UMPC

Wow, I had only planned to leave OS X Leopard on my Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium for a few days and it's been about two weeks. That alone probably says something right there.

In any case, it's time to say good-bye and get another operating system on the device. Some thoughts...

Mac to Mac Internet Sharing: an issue and the fix

We've shown you how to share a Windows Mobile Internet connection with a Mac and it's a very painless process. Apparently sharing that web connection between one Mac and another isn't as straightforward. Dan Moren over at MacWorld wanted to do just that between two Macs using a cable and the Internet Sharing setting, but ran into a snag that wasn't readily transparent.

Based on his experience, it turns out that while the second Mac could get an IP address, it wouldn't connect to anything beyond. Some digging on the web turned up this interesting and useful tidbit: the second port he set up gets the same subnet as the first. Dan figured out that he could assign a manual IP address to his Mac and do the same with the other Mac to get them on the same network to share the connection. I'd be surprised if this particular issue doesn't get addressed in a future update to Mac OS X. From an end-user standpoint, it should generally be as simple as checking the Internet Sharing checkbox in the Sharing settings.

jkOnTheRun video- using OS X on the HP Mini-Note via LogMeIn

Since I mentioned that I have been running OS X on the HP Mini-Note through LogMeIn I have gotten a lot of questions about the performance I get doing so.  I use LogMeIn to remotely access my MacBook Pro on the HP Mini-Note and it is quite productive.  In this video my intention is to show how responsive the LogMeIn connection renders OS X on the Mini and thus demonstrate how I am able to get real work done with this method.  The 17" MacBook Pro runs at a screen resolution of 1680x1050 and I demonstrate how the lower resolution of the Mini (1280x768) handles that using great utility built right into LogMeIn.  You'll also see how I can even access the external 2nd monitor on the Mac through the Mini.  Have a look at how cool OS X looks running on the HP Mini-Note in full-screen mode, it's just like being there.  :)  This is done using the free version of LogMeIn which makes it even better.

PS: Before you start jumping on me I know there are other remote access solutions out there.  I use LogMeIn because the free version is good enough for what I need and because I can run a Mac from anything else.

The 90/10 rule- why Apple generates fan loyalty

I had a couple of conversations today where the subject of Apple customer loyalty arose and it made me realize that I have never written about my feelings about that.  You find a number of terms bandied about describing those who are big fans of Apple products, from "fanboys" to the "cult", and while these are often used by Apple's detractors there is little doubt that there is a fair bit of envy behind them.  What company wouldn't love to have a customer base that is so happy with their products that they are recognized as zealots?

BusySync 2.0 arrives: full calendar synchronization between iCal and Google

I'm at the point where I now use Google for all of my calendar activities and I've convinced everyone in the family to do the same. We all share the calendars so everyone can see the "family calendar" at all times. This method comes in handy with all of the activities the kids have, and since my son lives with his mother, we jointly use this approach for me to keep track of his events.

Although it's easy enough to hit the Google Calendar web interface, I also use iCal on my Mac. Back in February, I started using the beta of BusySync to keep iCal in sync with my Google Calendar and it's been working great. It's a full two-way sync so appointments can be created or edited in either Google Calendar or iCal. It also supports the family approach we use because you can view and sync multiple Google Calendars with it.

BusySync 2.0 is now out of beta, so I'll be pulling out the credit card for a full license. The cost is $25, but we early adopters can catch a break: buy before May 1 and the cost is just $19.95. In my mind the price is well justified for folks using Google Calendar and a Mac. You can see for yourself with a free 30-day trial.

OS X on the HP Mini-Note the easy way

Kevin's dabbling with OS X on his Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium got me hankering to see the great OS running on the HP Mini-Note but I don't have the guts to do it the hard way like he did.  This past weekend I got to experimenting and found the easiest way to get it running on the HP Mini-Note.  I wanted to have the smallest MacBook around and I was able to do it very easily using LogMeIn.  It turned my MacBook Pro into a host for any PC with a web browser and the HP Mini sure has one of those so in just a few minutes I was running OS X on the Mini:

The speed was quite acceptable and this is using the free version of LogMeIn. I was very surprised to find that the HP Mini runs this better than the Fujitsu P1620. The screen updating is fluid on the Mini but choppy on the Fuji.  I even ran a Quicktime video on the Mini pretty well.

Mac OS X on a UMPC: first ink, some thoughts and challenges

I should probably start out by clarifying what I'm doing. Or rather: what I'm not doing. I don't intend to create a step-by-step guide on how to install Mac OS X on a Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium. I also won't be running the OS on the device for long. I simply want to get a feel for what it would be like to carry and use a UMPC with Mac OS X. Many readers have clamored for a Mac Tablet and aside from the Axiotron Modbook, this is the closest you can get today. The Q1 Ultra Premium has enough oomph in the 1.33 GHz Core Solo and the 2 GB of RAM I installed to even make this viable. I don't expect everything to work but it should prove an interesting experiment to see how usable the full Mac environment will be on a device with small keyboard and a 7-inch touchscreen.

So what would Mac OS X be like on a truly mobile device?

Unlike the picture above, I believe it's not about the destination. It's about the journey. During my two-year journey with UMPCs, I've run XP, Vista, and Ubuntu. Each experience offers more insight into what a mobile operating system can and should offer. Maybe it's time to temporarily travel for yet another experience. The journey begins...

Obrino Arista case for MacBook Air: luxury, style and functionality

Still carrying your MacBook Air in an envelope? Try stepping up to the new Orbino Arista case just announced today. You and your Air will be styling in a padded, hand-stitched leather Vertical Messenger Case. There's a front pocket for any extras and of course, a harness for the inevitable iPhone. Orbino offers the Arista in five colors: Brown, Black, Deep Red, Whiskey (don't lick it... it's just a color) and Mahogany. Just like the MacBook Air that the Arista holds, this style doesn't come cheap. The luxury cases start at $349... which would buy you a ton of envelopes if you want to stick with that route.

Remote Desktop Connection updated: connect to a PC through your Mac

Microsoft updated their Remote Desktop Connection for Mac last week and I'm just getting started with it. I've previously used RDP to view and control my MacBook Pro with my Asus Eee PC, but I want to kick the tires of using the Mac to connect to my new UMPC. The one obvious disadvantage of using RDP between any two systems of course, is that both have to be powered on. If you leave a desktop or notebook running while at home however, this could be another free alternative for remote access.

Once I get everything set up and working here at the home office, I'll look into true remote access while on the road between the two devices. For Mac to Mac connections, the "Back to my Mac" feature works well, but it's mainly an RDP client with a nice face. Quick note: on my Q1UP running Vista Ultimate, I had to enable the Remote Desktop access. The below screenshot illustrates it. By the way: that shot is from my Mac. ;)

(via MacUser)

Virtualization on the cheap: VMWare Fusion only $40 at Amazon

I've been pretty happy with Parallels on my MacBook Pro, which has offered me the ability to run Ubuntu, Windows XP and Windows Vista all on a single machine for the past year. There's a few little niggles, but by-and-large, 99% of what I need an alternate OS to do on my Mac is doable through Parallels. Still, I tried VMWare Fusion last year and came away equally impressed. I passed on it at the time because a license was over $70 and I just didn't see $70 worth of benefit when I had already had a Parallels license.

Last night, I noticed on MacUser that VMWware Fusion was $20 off at Amazon, which brought the price down to $59.99 from the $79.99 list price. On top of that is a $20 mail-in rebate which gets the software for $39.99, and that's with free shipping. Hmm... I'm thinking it's now worth having an alternative, especially since I'm running the older version of Parallels. If you're looking for a virtualization deal for your Mac, feel free to join me. I won't start any debate of Parallels vs. Fusion; I'll let you do that in comments as I'm sure there's a number of differing opinions on the topic.

MindNode: free mind-mapping app for Mac OS X Leopard

Here's a nice productivity nugget: a free mind-mapper for Macs running the latest operating system. MindNode doesn't have all the bells and whistles of my favorite comparable app (MindManager, if you must know), but as we like to say around here: "free is good".

You can export your mind maps as .tiff, .pdf, .html, or .opml (which should make Dave Winer a happy camper). Plus, MindNode plays nicely with Quicklook, Spotlight and iChat Theater; I suspect you can share or collaborate in a virtual meeting of the minds. Or "mind" if you only have half a brain between you. ;) The download link might be getting hit pretty hard as I was unable to grab the app, but this is on my "to do" list for sure.

(via TUAW)

Freeware of the moment: Crucial's memory scanner for Mac and PC

Although it's pretty easy to determine how much RAM you have in a PC or Mac, it can be pretty helpful to know how much total memory your machine supports as well as the specs for the type of memory you need. Crucial's System Scanner is a quick and dirty free tool that has only been around for Windows up to now. Mac owners can grab the 550 Kb application direct from Crucial.

Of course, Crucial is a major memory vendor, so along with your results, you'll find easy-to-purchase compatible memory sets but that's a small price to pay for a little data. I've never used this freeware on any of my UMPC memory upgrades in the past, but I gather it could have come in handy. As you can see above, I've already topped out the memory in my MacBook Pro.

(via Ars Technica)

Time Machine to AirPort Disk: good luck with that says Apple

If I had a real, working time machine, I think I'd go back to when Apple announced some of the exciting, new features of Mac OS X Leopard. Back then I seem to recall that the new Time Machine feature was touted as working on USB drives tethered to AirPort Extreme Base Stations as well as USB storage connected directly to a Mac. Not long after the announcements and hoopla died down, that little tidbit about AirPort Disks disappeared. What could a consumer do... go back in time to see if the details were actually changed?

Hit the gas pedal and zoom up to 88mph in your DeLorean and fast forward to present day. With the last round of updates to the AirPort Extreme back in March, Airport Disks were suddenly working with Time Machine and all was right with the temporal time-lines. Or was it?

Nova iSync plugin supports 158 phones for Mac synching

Got a handset that isn't natively supported by Mac OS X? Consider dropping $9.95 on Nova Media's iSync add-on. With the newest iteration, version 6, it supports over 155 cell-phones that don't play nicely with iSync on their own. Once installed, you can synchronize Contacts and Calendar events to and from your BenQ, Siemens, Motorola, Nokia, Samsong and Sony Ericsson device. You'll want to check the list of supported devices to see if your handset will work and you'll need Mac OS X 10.4.9 or 10.5.2.

(via Macworld)

Use scheduled Sleep in Mac OS X to unplug yourself

As a full-time content creator, I know I spend way too much time working online. When I forget that, my family is kind enough to remind me I should get out of my home office and leave the Mac alone. Note I said they were "kind enough to remind me"; I never said they're kind when they remind me. ;)

Earlier today we had a post on why do people care so much about computer boot times when Sleep and Hibernate functions exist. Although my on-line habits don't seem related to computer power management settings, some deep thought tells me they are. After all, if my computer is sleeping, I can't very well well be online. Maybe I can combine the two concepts to save power for both me and my computer.

Quick Safari 3.1 tip: double-click for a new tab

Not sure why it took so long for so useful of a feature, but I've been loving it in Safari 3.1 on my Mac for the past few weeks. I opened 82 tabs in the browser during a two-hour stretch yesterday (hey... I was bored and curious... a deadly combination) so opening new tabs quick and easy-like is a plus. Instead of hitting Command-T on the keyboard, you can simply double-click any blank space in the Tab bar within Safari 3.1 and poof! you've got a new blank tab. I'd screen print the area I'm describing, but you probably get the idea, plus I'm at the Quackertown Quakertown, PA Starbucks with the Q1UP.

Airport Extreme firmware updated today

Forget the intelligence behind releasing firmware upgrades on April 1st, Apple today released one for the Airport Extreme router.  I can't find any information posted on Apple's web site yet to determine what changes are installed with this firmware upgrade but I have been experiencing major intermittent slow-downs in my bandwidth today.  I wonder if the upgrade has anything to do with it?

Apple announces updates to iPod Touch, MacBook Air

Apple today stunned the tech world with the announcement of two new products to augment both the iPod and the MacBook lines.  First up is the newest entry in the iPod line, the iPod Grope.  The iPod Grope is bigger than the iPod Touch with a 5 inch screen and is almost one inch thick. 

Steve Jobs made the announcement for the Grope by offering it up to the geeks who "are too clumsy and inexperienced" to operate an iPod that is thin and light and thus requiring a feather touch.  Jobs iterated that the iPod Touch is just too small and requires a too light a touch to operate using two fingers and that geeks are not able to control it properly as they lack the finesse.  Enter the iPod Grope, a one pound brick of an iPod that requires five fingers to manipulate the screen which geeks everywhere will flock to for the ease of operation that manhandling the device brings to the table.  "Geeks need an iPod that they touch like they touch women when they get a chance, and that is what the iPod Grope provides.  It's an iPod that lets them grab things on the screen with their whole hand since they are too clumsy for anything less." said Jobs.  He went on to say "Nerds just want to grab something with their hand, not caress anything and the Grope is tailor-made for them.  The iPod Grope can also be used in conjunction with our next product we're happy to announce today."

Apparently Apple has been reading all the commentary about the MacBook Air, especially the sentiment that "thin" and "underpowered" doesn't cut it when the device could actually be lighter. It's now clear that the MacBook Air was a first-generation experiment because today Apple delivered a new model to select reviewers. Yes, you're viewing the first picture of a light, thin MacBook that's lighter than the Air. Say hello to the MacBook Helium.

There's several amazing accomplishments to highlight here. First, Apple is saving on production costs by using the original MacBook Air chassis. The key difference is on the inside. Apple has engineered the MacBook Helium to have Intel processors that typically power desktops, so no longer will performance be considered a compromise. The new MacBook Helium also uses a unique gas-cooling system that captures heat from the 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo chipset and uses it to warm up a helium-cooling-bladder. This incredible system does two things at once: it keeps the CPU and other components cooler and also causes the helium to expand, thus making the device get lighter the longer you use it!

"We're really excited about the new MacBook Helium as it's lighter than our MacBook Air. Not only that, we've made it lighter on your wallet by keeping it at just $999. One price, one model. It's that simple." said Steve Jobs in a video-conference.

"The most amazing part," he continued, "is the first commercial use of our patent-pending RDF technology which warps light around the MacBook Helium. It makes the shadow of this fantastic new model appear like a Helium balloon. How about that, isn't that great?"

I haven't been able to benchmark the new device just yet because I can't get over the RDF technology that Apple described. You can see for yourself in the picture... it's simply brilliant! My biggest fear is that the MacBook Helium will simply fly away during use, but Apple thought of that too. That new iPod Grope they just announced can be tethered to the bottom of the string. At one-inch thick, the Grope weighs just enough to keep your MacBook Helium within reach. What will they think of next?

SLOOF LIRPA

jk & kct

Pop-up of the day: XP virus scanner... for my Mac

I'm routinely running both Safari and Firefox on my MacBook Pro; it comes in handy when making site design changes so I can test on different browsers. Thought it amusing that this pop-up appeared a few minutes ago. You'd think that by now the malware / virus-scanner / waste-my-time campaigns would be smart enough to market to the appropriate potential user base. Why would I need an XP Virus Scanner for my Mac?!?

What's even more amusing is that when you click Cancel, it takes you to a product web page that shows a progress meter at the top. The meter is just humming along and various Windows .exe, .dll, and other file types are appearing under the meter as if it's actually finding these things on my "PC" and scanning them for viruses. Yeah... you folks keep scanning, 'k? Now that I'm done laughing, we return you to your regularly scheduled mobile tech programming.

Apple to Windows users- install Safari no matter what we say

Apple has taken a lot of grief for pushing Safari onto unsuspecting iTunes and Qucktime users on the Windows platform and Neowin points to something today that makes that whole situation pretty comical.  It seems the Safari End User License Agreement (EULA) prohibits the installation of Safari on any non-Apple hardware. 

Apple's Safari license says that users are permitted to install the browser on no more than "a single Apple-labeled computer at a time." This means that if you install Safari for Windows on a Windows PC, you're violating the license.
 
According to Jonathan Kramer, a tech-minded attorney with the Kramer Telecom Law Firm, you aren't in any legal danger if you install Safari for Windows on a Windows PC. Apple can't enforce a contract clause that doesn't make sense. "We call this an impossibility issue," Kramer told us. "You can't enforce a term that's impossible."

 

Do your Apple products "just work"?

We use a fair bit of Apple products and with the exception of a few Genius Bar trips have been pretty happy with how well they work.  That's not always the case as Xavier of notebooks.com will tell you as he's run into a whole bunch of Apple hardware that doesn't "just work".  Xavier has experienced failures with two iMacs, a  MacBook Pro battery and three iPhones.  Now I don't know about you but that's a fair dinkum of bad luck with Apple products.  Xavier is trying to determine if he's just snakebit or if others are finding problems with new Apple hardware.  How about it, are you happy with your stuff from Cupertino?

Why a .Mac service for PCs could be in the cards

The web continues to quake with aftershocks of "Safari-gate": the Apple Software Update that installs Safari 3.1 for Windows by default. I tend to side with the folks that claim this practice isn't the most forthcoming, but there are numerous examples of other companies doing the same thing for years. In the end, it's up to each individual user to actually examine which check-boxes are activated and therefore, which applications are installed.

Having said that, I started thinking about Safari 3.1 on PCs. Maybe I've been spending too much time writing about file synchronization applications lately, but it got me wondering if Apple is working on a ".Mac lite" service for Windows PCs. We're getting to the point where assuming there are PCs and Mac co-existing in the same household isn't that far-fetched.

Is Curio the answer to no OneNote on the Mac?

You know how I love and depend on OneNote on my Windows-based Tablet PCs and since switching to the Mac on my desktop (17" MacBook Pro actually) I have longed for a tool that approximates what OneNote does for me.  Today I was bouncing around the web as I always do and stumbled upon a program that I believe just might fill that need on the Mac.  Curio is a program produced by Zengobi that defies description as it does so much.  I am just getting started with it and I intend to write a detailed review of it when I get some time with it under my belt.  Meanwhile I can tell you what you can do with it and you can see why I am getting pretty excited about Curio.

Freeform notes:  Like OneNote you can take notes all over the page as you like.  There are even numerous templates in Curio to make them look like you prefer.  With a digitizer you can take ink notes too, could be a use for that ModBook that is now shipping.  Notes in Curio can be text, graphics, hyperlinks and just about anything you can imagine.  Just drop whatever you want to save in your notes

Embed audio and video:  In the latest version of Curio you can add audio and video snippets to your notes for review at any time.  A super usage for this is to record meetings for later referral when you wish to flesh out your notes without sacrificing concentration during the meeting.

Project Management:  Curio has a number of tools and templates to help you manage your projects right in the program.  You can even produce timelines for projects.

Project Center:  You can tag notes with a Project designation and get to all pertinent information about that project when needed.

Mind mapping:  Curio has some cool tools to make it easy to produce mind maps for brainstorming sessions.  It won't replace MindManager but it's pretty heady stuff.

Curio is a very full-featured data collection tool that may be daunting to get into but I have a feeling that once I jump in it with both feet I am going to be pretty impressed.  I am sure I will miss inking in Curio but we'll see how well it works for other things I do with OneNote.

Mahalo videos the Modbook Tablet

We haven't heard a lot since the shipping announcement about the Axiotron Modbook and I've been waiting for someone to give us a good video of the Modbook in action.  Mahalo's Veronica Belmont has done just that and the resultant video is a great display of the Modbook and also of how useful the Tablet format is for creative efforts.  She shows how the Modbook is helping artists, cartoonists, photographers, music creators and others to create the stuff they do with the greatest of ease.  Who knows, after seeing this video maybe buddy t lewis will be switching to the Modbook?

Microsoft Office 2008 installs Silverlight on the Mac

Anybody else notice that Office 2008 for the Mac installs Microsoft Silverlight?  I wonder what it does with it on the Mac?

SyncMate syncs Windows Mobile and Mac OS X, just not for me

There's a new sheriff sync tool in town: SyncMate from Eltima. The app is freeware for now, but my gut tells me that it won't be free forever, especially based on the "Expert" labels next to some of the items shown. Still, I'm all for cross-platform mojo, so I gave it a download, closed my eyes and plugged my Windows Mobile 6 Dash smartphone into my Mac and... BOOM! No, just kidding.

Actually, a BOOM! might have been better because the application never recognized that my Dash was connected to the Mac. What should happen is a small installation on the Dash and then I should be able to sync, but no dice for me. I suspect the issue is specific to either my particular device and I really wanted to try an alternative to The Missing Sync. Bummer. Well, I won't condemn a free app that's still in development, especially since some folks have it working. Instead, I'll leave it up to folks without a Dash to give it a try. It looks like you can sync over WiFi too, which is a nice feature, but you do need to connect via USB the first time for the program download on your device.

Smart Scroll X adds 'kinetic' scrolling to Mac OS X

Like that kinetic scrolling on the iPhone so much that you want it on your Mac? You'll definitely want to check out Smart Scroll X, a third-party application I read about on MacUser. The app is $19, but there's a free trial, which I took full advantage of to show you a short video demonstration. Smart Scroll X is easy to configure for a mouse, trackpad or keyboard and I like how you can reverse both the X- and Y-axis control. Even better is the Grab-and-scroll, a function similar to the Flicks navigation we Vista Tablet PC users have enjoyed.

I could see this coming in handy for folks that are tired of scrolling again and again in the page of an app since this works not just with Safari, but in native Cocoa apps on the Mac. It was a huge help to me earlier today in TextEdit for example. You can really get around fast with this software. Oh, and sorry in advance if I get you sea-sick with all the scrolling in this vid!

Axiotron ModBook on loan at SlashGear

Wasn't it just the other day when James asked "where are all of the ModBook owners"? Well I wouldn't call SlashGear a "ModBook owner", but they do have a review unit that just arrived. There's several pictures of the device along with some promised video and future impressions, so you'll want to stay tuned to catch it. The modified MacBook they have on loan is spec'd with a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo, 1 GB of RAM, integrated Intel X3100 graphics, 120 GB hard drive and Apple Super Drive. Oh, and there's a Wacom digitizer in there too of course... wouldn't be much in the tablet department without one of those! At five-plus pounds this is a bit hefty for a slate form factor, but I'm still very interested to see how it works out. I'm just not interested in carrying one. :)

BusySync: a two-way street between iCal, Google Calendar

It's no big secret that I've been migrating to the cloud with web apps over the past months and while the approach is far from perfect, it does become more compelling each month. BusySync looks to be another one of those compelling reasons as it provides a two-way sync between iCal on my MacBook Pro in the home office and Google Calendar. BusySync 2.0 is available in public beta right now, while the current production version is 1.5 and costs $19.95 per machine. Version 2 will cost $24.95 per license, but if you buy or currently own a 1.5 license, you'll get a free upgrade. After my 30-day trial is up, I'll decide to purchase or not.

My first impression is that the software does what it says; the above "BusySync test" appointment was entered in iCal and now shows on Google. My setup to this point was to use Google Calendar for all event entry since they filter down to iCal via the native calendar subscription method. After using BusySync, I see that I can enter events in iCal and have them automatically appear in my Google Calendar. It looks like there are plenty of customization options in terms of calendars you do or don't want synched, which is great for multiple calendar users, how often you want them synchronized and more. So far, so good for BusySync on day one. Folks looking for similar solutions should also consider Spanning Sync and the open source GCALDaemon.

(via Infinite Loop)

Gmail slowness caused by issue in Mac Mail?

Last week I shared a very strange Gmail IMAP issue that I was having: mail was delayed from 30 minutes to three days. Adding to the timeliness issues was the fact that mail wasn't coming in chronologically, so I never knew if my Inbox was actually up to date even when mail starting coming in. All in all, a terrible experience. The Google Gmail team has been responsive in requesting additional information, which is great for a free service. However, it appears I've found the issue through some research and testing. Looks to be a corrupt mailbox on my local machine: specifically, on my MacBook Pro.

Dwight gets full of Air

Fellow Houston geek Dwight Silverman was blessed by Apple with a MacBook Air to review and he's begun with the ritual unboxing photos on TechBlog.  He's promised some first impressions soon along with a complete review for the Houston Chronicle so I'll be interested to see what Dwight thinks about the wafer notebook.

Where oh where is the Modbook?

Remember the Modbook, the non-Apple produced Mac Tablet that was vaporware for over a year and then on January 1st of this year was reported to be shipping to customers?  So what happened?  We should be hearing reports from customers who received theirs and seeing reviews on the web but no, just the sound of silence where the Modbook is concerned.  So where are they and has anyone actually received one?  I'm just askin'.

Jerry Pournelle switches to the Mac

I have been following Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manor happenings since back in the old Byte Magazine days.  It helps that he's one of my favorite science fiction authors too.  After years of banging around in the Windows world Jerry has added an iMac to use for his writing work and he's written a nice account of how it's been going for him.  It is a good look at the Mac OS X from the viewpoint of someone who isn't familiar with it but who is a tech-savvy user in general and worth a read.  Plus he's Jerry Pournelle.  :)

Warp between Spaces in Leopard with a mouse

Hot on the heels of yesterday's Virtual Desktop freeware for Windows, we've got a similar one for Mac users courtesy of Dave Zatz. He shot us a note about Warp, a free Mac OS X Leopard download that allows you to use your mouse to navigate among Spaces. Once installed, you'll have a new preference pane in System Preferences to configure Warp and then you're set. The latest version supports item dragging between spaces, ignoring hot-corners, the Dock and Menubar and a few non-English languages. The app is free, but donations to Kent Sutherland, the developer, can be made if you see value from his effort. He's got a great video demonstration of how Warp works right on the product page. Meanwhile, I'm having fun moving around at Warp Speed: I've set the delay to 0.0 seconds, just for fun. ;)

How not to use an AirPort Extreme with a DSL modem

I'll definitely be chalking this up to user error, but wanted to pass it along in case other folks could benefit. For the past few months, I'd been having a sporadic problem with my AirPort Extreme that was always annoying. Without any warning nor pattern, I would lose my Internet connection: the status light would blink amber for a minute or two and then everything would resolve itself. This was happening in the middle of Skype calls, during blog posts, reading RSS feeds; the activities completely varied. I checked the logs of the AirPort Extreme and found no useful info other than an informative "Disconnected" message for every incident. After two months of troubleshooting, Googling and head-scratching, I figured out the problem.

Why is the MacBook Air configured with standard power settings?

Help me understand something here. The MBA is targeted to the truly mobile individuals right? I'm talking about folks that are on the run more than they're sitting still at a desk. In fact, I suspect most consumers really don't fall into this category as the bulk of them likely use their notebook at a desk.

Let's circle back to the battery situation on the MacBook Air. Yes, we've harped on the fact that truly mobile individuals will be challenged by the lack of a user-replaceable battery. Why? Because truly mobile individuals don't often rely on finding an electrical outlet during their daily travels; they instead plan ahead by purchasing and carrying a spare battery. Let's face it: if your first battery runs out and you're not able to find an electrical outlet, are you carrying a mobile computing device? I suppose so, but you can't use it for mobile computing at that point. Personally, I'd prefer to carry a spare battery than carry an AC adapter of any size as well; just my personal preference and it's certainly debatable.

Ars Technica- MacBook Air battery life is worst feature

A lot has been said about the fixed battery in the MacBook Air, the kind that must be sent back to Apple to be replaced.  A lot of reports of less than stellar battery life are starting to appear on the web and this one by Ars Tecnica gave me pause.  The author ran his battery down 4 times doing the type of work he does normally, web work, etc.  The average battery life was 2 hours and 33 minutes or half what Apple claims.  Equally disturbing was this statement:

Yes, Apple sacrificed some battery life for the bigger screen that I love so much, but it also advertises a battery life with wireless productivity that's more than double my actual average. It also takes me about twice as long to charge the battery back to 100 percent than it does for me to run it down. Something about this situation is wrong, and it's not how I'm using the computer. Since I named a best feature of the Air earlier, I'll go ahead and name battery life (and tangentially, the inability to swap out batteries) as the worst.

Poor battery life and long recharge times, that's what I'd call hot air.

Tnkgrl unboxes the MacBook Air

Buckle your seatbelts as our favorite mobile hacker, Tnkgrl, has gotten herself a MacBook Air!  She's posted a bunch of unboxing photos and I can't wait to see what mods she affects on her MBA.  Embedded 3G?  Ethernet?  I'm sure we'll soon know.

Win a MacBook Air from Boy Genius!

We chatted up the MacBook Air on the recent podcast and also both got a hands-on look in our local Apple stores. At this point, it doesn't look like either of us will drop the money for Air but that doesn't mean we wouldn't like to have a free one! The Boy Genius Report is offering up the MBA to one lucky commenter from the U.S. You've got until February 10th to enter because they're picking a random winner the very next day. Good luck!

Coffee break- using the Mac outside

It is a stunning day here in Houston, about 73 degrees, brilliant blue sky, few clouds and a very light breeze.  For that reason I am sitting outside a Starbucks, not my normal one rather one with a big outdoor patio area.  I am happily working away on the MacBook Pro that I received back from Apple yesterday.  So far I am happy that I haven't had a single issue like the one that has sent the MBP in for repair twice.  The MBP is working snappily and happily and I am getting caught up on the work that has been sadly lagging behind while the MBP was not working well enough for me to get after it.  I brought the MBP to the Starbucks, something I don't usually do since it's so big (17 inches) so that I could bang away on it and make sure it's working the way it should.  What has surprised me is that even though it is so large since it's so thin it is very comfortable to work outside on the little table.  It's nice having it back and I am right now as happy as a geek could be, outdoors and typing away on this awesome keyboard.  Life is good.  :)

The missing MacBook Air photo

The 7 duplicate posts were the fault of connectivity errors posting from the HTC Advantage in the Apple store.  I was getting an error during the post and not realizing that that first post was actually making it to the site any way.  In that mess one of the photos of the Air didn't make it so here it is:

More Air vs. 2710p

HP is much smaller

Air vs. the HP 2710p

Not THAT thin

The MacBook Air has landed

Here at the local Apple store

Back to the Genius Bar- the MacBook Pro is ready!

In a short while I will be heading back to the Apple Store to pick up my MacBook Pro.  I got a call from the Genius Bar late yesterday informing me that my MBP is ready to be picked up after repair.  It is with a bit of trepidation that I pick it up today as it doesn't seem they repaired anything at all.  The genius said they ran diagnostics non-stop for the three days they had the MBP and it only hung up once on them.  When they rebooted it he admitted he got the three beeps of RAM death from the hardware so he swapped the two RAM cards into the other slot.  I informed him that I've brought the MBP in for the same symptoms, frequent hang-ups followed by difficulty rebooting due to the three beeps and that the first time I brought it in the genius swapped the two cards into the other slot too.  Since that didn't fix it he ran hard drive diagnostics which flagged the disk as being bad and they replaced the hard drive.  That didn't fix the problem and hence the second trip to the repair center with the MBP.  I asked the genius yesterday why he thought that swapping the RAM cards into the other slot would work this time when it didn't work the first time.  Long pause.  He then said that after he swapped them this time it didn't hang up a single time.  I'm not sure how confident I should be at that statement since it only hung up once on them in three days when it's been hanging up on me frequently.

Anyway, I'll pick it up today and then bang on it to see how it fares.

TechBlog- things that confuse Windows users who switch

Macs are not like Windows machines and anyone who switches immediately runs into a few things that are different that take some getting used to.  Dwight Silverman is a true bi geek who knows both platforms as well as anyone on the planet and he's written a new article on TechBlog- 6 things that confuse Windows users who switch to a Mac that all switchers should read.  I haven't switched but I do use both platforms every day, at least when I have a working Mac, and I run into these almost daily.  It's a good read and one that shouldn't be missed by you switchers.

FastMac- new extended life battery for 17-inch MacBook Pro

FastMac has announced the availability of an extended life battery for the 17-inch MacBook Pro.  The $100 battery uses Lithium-Polymer technology to offer 71 wH of power in a standard sized battery for the big MBP.  The new battery uses FastMac's TruePower technology to provide safe extended battery life for the big Kahuna.  No word on how much extra battery life this new battery provides in the real world but it's certainly priced well enough to give it a try, if I ever get my precious MBP back from Apple.

(via MacMinute)

The MacBook Pro is back with Apple

An update to my continuing stability issues with my MacBook Pro.  This afternoon I hauled it back to the Apple Store and spent about 20 minutes with the Geniu