As a big fan of iTunes, I was quite skeptical that any service out there could offer a better experience for rich media – and although I still believe iTunes is king when it comes to music, video has an interesting new player in town. The site is hulu.com and for those of you who have been keeping up with the Apple/NBC drama, this is NBC's answer, which quite frankly seems a little odd considering the disagreement was (apparently) over prices - and hulu is free.
As I get older, I find myself yearning for a simpler, less complicated life. It doesn't feel like that long ago when I couldn't quite understand the phrase "they don't make them like they used to," but lately, I find myself echoing that sentiment over and over. Several weeks back my wife and I stepped foot inside an antique store and as we walked out (nearly two hours later) we were both surprised at the nostalgia and sadness we felt. So much has been lost for the sake of advancement and technology — and I'm afraid that the price we will ultimately pay will be too high.
Comments [0]
I am absolutely flabbergasted! About two weeks ago I ordered some flowers for my wife on our anniversary. They were slated to arrive on a Friday before we went out of town, but it turns out that even though I got the delivery confirmation email, my wife couldn't find anything outside our door. I was confused (and frustrated) and decided: oh great! These guys delivered it somewhere else.
Comments [0]
I still shudder when I recall the pain-filled days of OS9 freeware/shareware applications. They were often very good, but they were so few, and ran on a crash-prone operating system. Those were truly dark days. Things are looking much better these days though. The mac developer community is alive and well, and they keep pumping out fantastic software that makes macs even more pleasurable to work with. There are few tasks out there, in fact, that don't have at least one or two solid freeware/shareware apps to handle the work. Here is a short list of some of my favorites:
Anxiety: I just stumbled across this one this week actually, but it looks very promising and so far, seems like a great little gem that will stick around for a while. Tangerine: This one is one of my most indispensable tools. As a matter of fact, I have been looking for something like this for a long time, and I finally stumbled across it. If you're designing a number of web sites, each with their own color guidelines, this is a must! The price is a little steep, but it's worth it.
Quicksilver: Although I'm slowly phasing this one out of my workflow, it changed the way I interact with my Finder forever. I use it primarily as an app launcher but it's capable of so much more. If you haven't used it yet, what are you waiting for?
AppDelete: When you download and play around with as much junk as I do, this little app is a must. It essentially scans your drive for any .plist or supporting files for any application you decided to try on a dare — and trashes them. :) Ahhh. Always nice to do a little cleaning.
CleanArchiver: Sick of Aladdin Software's StuffIt? So am I. Enter the free and incredibly reliable (although not too pretty) CleanArchiver. All it does is compress files, but you can tell it to keep those pesky .DS_Store files or not - as well as archive to a number of different formats.
The Unarchiver: What good is a compression utility if you can't uncompress? This app basically replaces OSX's BOMArchiveHelper (which handles decompression of packages) and adds many more formats to the list. Nice and robust.
Transmit: Once upon a time, there was a nice FTP program that I feel sat on their laurels much too long. The folks at Panic software came into the picture and effectively kicked some collective bootie. Now, the FTP client market is saturated once again with great apps. My personal favorite is Transmit (mainly because it syncs with .Mac), but there are a number of them out there. I have also used YummyFTP with great results — although if you're looking for a free alternative to either of these, I'd recommend CyberDuck. (Seriously, who's coming up with these names).
Chax: For as great as I think iChat is, I also know it's missing features which all the other chat programs have adopted. Chax brings some of that back and does so quite nicely by integrating with iChat preferences. For those of you who can actually concentrate on more than one chat account at a time, Adium seems to be the preferred app there. But if you do that, I highly recommend heading here and grabbing a better-looking icon. What's up with ducks?
Flickr Uploadr: If you use Flickr for the casual photo update, you should take a look at their official uploader. It's easy and convenient, and sits quietly on my dock.
Synergy: This is a great app to control iTunes directly from your menu bar — or better yet, through keyboard shortcuts. Not only that, but it uses a very nice (and customizable) notification system complete with album cover, rating, song title, and artist. Which brings me to my next item...
Growl: I heard a lot about this one for a long time and I never understood what it was until I finally downloaded it and gave it a try. Growl is simply a system-wide notification system, and I know what you're thinking (why would I want that), but it has been a nice little app! Here's an example: say you're uploading something via FTP and you want to know when it's done, but you don't want to stick around. Well, let Growl notify you! Give it a whirl and see what you think. I believe you might get hooked.
Dolor Sit Amet: Okay, so it's not technically an app — but close enough. I use this gem of a widget daily, and that is not an exaggeration. As I design layouts I'm often caught in-between the client and the writers trying to determine content. In the meantime, I pop open my widget, type the number of words I need, and viola! Insta-copy! :) Just be sure to replace all that greeked-up junk with actual meaningful content! ;)
I'm sure there are many more amazing apps out there — but I have either yet to stumble across them, or haven't had any need for them. I'm curious to know if you know of any apps that you find indispensable which I have not included here.
Comments [0]
Now that I've had the opportunity to play with Leopard on a daily basis since its release, I have a clear idea of what things I love and what things I loathe about the upgrade. I'm happy to report that for the most part, I still feel like Leopard is a solid and worthwhile update, but there are some annoyances I have yet to get used to. Downloads Stack (Thumbs up) This seemed like a nice idea when I first played with it, and it has only gotten better since. I didn't realize just how much junk i download on a daily basis, and the fact that it sits there quietly waiting for my next move is so...polite. My Desktop doesn't look like I sneezed files all over it, and I haven't lost anything yet. The fact that it's a system-wide feature is an even bigger plus. Mail (Undecided) I'm still undecided on the new upgrades to mail. I have yet to use notes (I honestly can't think of what I'd use them for) and have had limited results with the To-Do items (perhaps because I'm constantly feeling behind on the list anyways). I can't say that I've noticed much difference in Mail - and if anything else, I'm discovering that Mail is quickly becoming my arch-enemy - not because of the program itself, but because I have too many emails, and too many accounts. Ugh.
Comments [0]
As I was casually surfing the web today It occurred to me that I should check out Adobe's Lightroom application to see what the reviews on speed and reliability look like (more on this later). So as I pointed my intraweb picture-looker machine to Adobe's site, I was surprised to see that they have finally given their home on the web a much-needed facelift. My frustrations with Adobe's site are plentiful and extensive, so I hope this new implementation takes care of at least half of them. I have yet to understand their archaic and overly-complex AdobeID mechanism - as if I don't have 3000 other "special" ids I have to remember already! Don't get me wrong, I understand the need for these logins, but there are simpler and friendlier ways of handling those, and I look forward to the day where OpenID rules the intraweb! :)
Comments [0]
Adobe announced an official update to their Flash Player today which supports the H.264 video codec and AAC audio - both of which have been widely used by Apple. I wonder if this is a way for the two companies to work easier with a little iPhone love in-between! We can only hope. :)
Comments [0]
Comments [0]
I'm stuck. You see I have this idea – a great idea – which I know would be successful if I could only get around to putting it together. The problem is, I'm much better at design than I am at code. As I look for a great developer who I can trust and feel like he/she would put as much heart into my idea as I would, I am getting a quick – and often disappointing – glimpse at what it's like to be on the other side of the client/vendor coin.
Comments [0]
A colleague of mine just forwarded me this great podcast clip from one of Jason Fried's recent presentations at the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association's (MIMA) Summit. For those of you who don't know who Jason Fried is, you will surely know his work (www.37signals.com) – and if you don't know his work, then it's time you get to know it! Either way, Jason Fried's talk was titled Unconventional Collaboration, and once you listen to what he has to say, you will understand why. I have to say that I am both impressed and inspired by his ideas. So, without further ado: Unconventional Collaboration | Jason Fried | October 2007
Comments [0]
Comments [0]