confessions of a web developer
Posts Tagged ‘Apple’
The Coolest Computer I’ve EVER Owned
Sunday, April 18th, 2010
When I first saw Steve Jobs demo the iPad just a few months ago, I was very heartbroken. I had such high expectations for the Apple Tablet and what I was seeing just wasn’t it. To me (and most everyone else) it just looked like a giant iPhone. At first I wasn’t going to buy one but the price made me change my mind. I ordered the 32GB WiFi version for $599 USD. Because I live in Canada, I had to travel down to the US to pick it up.
Touching is Believing
Within minutes of taking it out of the box and playing with it I was immediately hooked. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to use, and how much of a pleasure the simple things where such as, checking email and surfing the web. While most of the pictures show the iPad upright, in portrait mode, I find myself using it about 95% of the time in landscape mode. I just find it fits my hands better, and the interface allows me to do more in landscape.
A lot of the applications I use everyday are even better layed out on the iPad, then on the Mac itself. The Contacts app is just like using an old school paper version. You have small tabs with the letters on them so you can jump to each name. The entry appears on the right panel. The Calendar app is pretty much the same as the desktop OSX app, but still seems to have that handheld touch.
The Videos section was an interesting addition. Instead of just incorporating the Videos into the iPod (like on the iPhone and iPod Touch), they are separated into this video app. The video app is simple, but looks great. It organizes all your content my Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, Music Videos, and iTunes U. Since I have so much video content I will be using with this device, I appreciate this small but important app.
Mail and Internet Usage
The Mail app was the most impressive app built-in. The simple things make it a joy to use. If you hold your iPad in landscape mode, then you have a side panel with all your mailboxes and folders. Clicking on a message or folder will display the contents on the right panel. When you turn your iPad to portrait mode, the sidebar disappears and only the message is displayed. This makes it very easy to switch between folders, messages, and then read the message you want with little distractions.
Using Safari to browse the Internet on the iPad is a fun experience. A lot of the news sites that I use to hate reading on my computer are very easy using the iPad. I can just sit back in a chair and read the news on any website, comfortably and relaxed. Some of the websites that I use with the iPad direct me to the iPhone version of the site. For example, Google Reader will send me to the iPhone version of the site, where I actually prefer the desktop view when using the iPad. Hopefully Google and others will fix this and maybe even make iPad tailored versions.
Conclusions
Don’t go out and buy one of these devices. Rush out and buy two! The iPad really is going to change my life, and make it easier for me to read, email, and browse the web on the go. These devices will change the way we use computers, and I don’t just mean the iPad. This is just Apple’s entrance into the market, but soon I expect every computer manufacturer will be joining in, because this thing is going to be a big hit.
I hope to share my love of the iPad and inform people of some of the wonderful apps that developers are turning out for this device. I can’t wait to see what the future holds in store.
Tags: Apple, Gadgets, iPad, Reviews
Posted in Apple | No Comments »
New 27" Intel Quad-Core i7 iMac
Sunday, January 10th, 2010
Today my new 27″ iMac arrived after more then a month wait. I ordered this machine on November 27, 2009 and it only arrived on Thursday. Today was the official unboxing and I’m happy to share the experience with you.
This is going to be replacing my existing iMac. Since I have a lot of iTunes media (TV Shows and Movies take up a lot of space), my needs for storage were fairly large. I am also going to be installing Windows 7 on this machine via Boot Camp so that I can play a few games (like Star Trek Online early next month). So taking everything into consideration I ordered the following specs:
- 2.8Ghz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
- 8GB 1066mhz DDR3 RAM 4X2GB
- 2TB Serial ATA Drive
- ATI Radeon HD 4860 512MB
- Apple Magic Mouse
- Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad
So far I am absolutely loving this machine and I can’t believe how much power they were able to fit into an iMac form factor. The draw back to this is heat. This machine runs HOT! The processor itself only idols at around 50c, but if you put your hand on the back of this machine, you could actually burn it if you left it there.
I used Boot Camp to partition the hard drive for the Windows install. I allocated 500GB for Windows, and left 1.5TB for OSX. There was a display issue when installing Windows 7, as the default driver for the ATI card is not compatible and leaves the screen blank. There is a fix for this that I will be posting tomorrow.
Overall I’m very happy with my new machine. I think this is a powerhouse of a computer, and the price is really good value considering everything that comes with it.
I was considering last summer moving to a Mac Pro for storage and power reasons, but now this iMac takes care of everything I needed to do, at about half of the cost. Granted there is still a need for the Mac Pros, especially if you want more than two monitors, but for most consumers and prosumers needs, this new iMac fits the bill.
Tags: Apple, Computers, iMac, Personal
Posted in General | No Comments »
My Top 10 Mac Applications (2010 Edition)
Saturday, January 9th, 2010
Another year has come and gone, and another set of applications have made there was into my everyday work flow. This was an amazing year for applications and four new applications have made it into my top ten list, including taking the top one and two spots away from previous top applications.
- Dropbox (new for 2010) No application or program has changed the way I use my computers more then Dropbox. The days of worrying about file changes and transferring files between computers are over! Dropbox syncronizes all your files in your Dropbox folder to all your Mac, Windows and Linux computers. The synchronization is so fast both ways that most files take just seconds before the changes appear on all your computers. All files are kept locally as well so you can access all your files even when you are offline. This is the one application I believe that everybody can benefit from.
Price: FREE for 2GB, $99.95/year for 50GB - LaunchBar 5 (new for 2010) is an application and file launcher taken to the next level. I was a little bit hesitant to try LaunchBar because I thought Spotlight did a good enough job, but when I finally took the plunge, I got hooked. LaunchBar can not only launch applications, but can access data within them, go through your contacts, add events to iCal and so much more. Any power user must check out this application.
Price: 30-Day Free Trial then $35.00 USD - FireFox (1st in 2009) web browser is still my favorite browser of choice. Though I am really starting to like Google Chrome, my day to day web development work is done in FireFox. The extension library is what I love most, and I would be lost without extensions like FireBug and Web Developer Toolbar. The browser is made by the company Mozilla which is dedicated to providing free open source software to the general public. FireFox has a huge community base and has thousands of extensions that are available to add to the functionality of the browser.
Price: FREE (Open Source) - TextMate (3rd in 2009) is the text editor that has been missing all my life. I just discovered this little jem last year and I still can’t believe how I ever lived without it. TextMate provides syntax highlighting for just about every programming language in use today. Using a simple drop down menu on the program’s bottom bar, you can change between languages on the fly. TextMate also comes preloaded with hundreds of code snipplets too for quickly adding text or special character encodings in. There are simple too many features to fully go into detail in this post. Please give TextMate a try today if you do anything but edit the most basic forms of text.
Price: 30-Day Free Trial then ?39 - 1Passwd (2nd in 2009) is a program that keeps track of all your usernames, passwords, and form data. The program not only keeps track of all your secure information but it also includes a secure password generator that automatically fills a password request field with a very secure password and then is remembered by the program. This allows you to do what you should be doing all along which is use a different password for each website. All you have to remember is your one master password and 1Passwd will remember the rest. It is completely encrypted using the keychain and can even be synced between your various mac computers using Apple’s Mobile Me.
Price: 30-Day Free Trial then $39.95 USD - Things (new for 2010) is a personal to do manager based on the principles from David Allen’s Book, Getting Things Done. Things allows you to create Projects and assign tasks and due dates around those Projects. You can tag your tasks for quick access later, and sort them by areas of responsibilities. Things also syncs with iCal so you can have all your tasks in your iCal and Mail for easy access. There is also an iPhone application for Things so that you can carry all your task along with you, and sync when you get back to your home or office. Things has made my life so much easier and I love the simple UI of this application and highly recommend for anyone who wants to really take control of their working life.
Price: 14-Day Free Trial then $49.95 USD - Transmit (5th in 2009) by Panic is simply the best FTP program I have ever used on ANY platform. The ability to upload to Amazon S3 and Apple’s iDisk is fantastic. Transmit also allows you to sync between different folders, use tabbed site management, has dock status updates, and syncs your saved FTP sites with Mobile Me. This is a must have app for anyone who manages websites or needs remote file management.
Price: $29.95 USD - Text Expander (6th in 2009) is a tiny application that runs quietly in the background of your Mac. It allows you to enter snipplets (small text phrases) that will expand into preset text or graphic strings. For example; say you keeping having to enter your email address like bob@something.com. You could setup a key so everytime you type bob@ the text is automatically replaced with bob@something.com. You can even program in complete email signatures, and photos to pop up, just about anything you can think of. This is a great time saving application that has saved me from a lot of excess typing.
Price: 30-Day Free Trial then $29.95 USD - Tweetie (new for 2010) is a Mac only Twitter client. Twitter broke out in a big way in 2009 really going mainstream, and that in turn gave us more and more people to follow each week. Tweetie uses a very Mac like UI to help you follow your Twitter peeps. Tweetie is really good for tracking conversations between different twitter users, and a double click on a reply will bring up the entire conversation thread so you can learn what they have been discussing. This is a must have for any Twitter user who wants a more powerful way to use the Twitter stream and take the Twitter experience to the next level.
Price: FREE (Ad Supported), $19.95 with no ads - Super Duper (4th in 2009) takes care of the task that all of us seem to avoid, BACKUP! SuperDupper can be setup to make a complete screen shot of your computer?s hard drive so you can be backup within minutes of a complete system failure. SuperDuper also allows for incremental updates so you don?t have to make a huge backup file every night. Super Duper was updated last year to work with Leopard’s Time Machine.
Price: Free for regular backup, $27.95 for advanced features
Tags: 2010, Apple, Applications, Mac, Open Source, OSX, Software
Posted in Apple | 16 Comments »
My Top 10 Mac Applications (2009 Edition)
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
Last year my most popular post was My Top 10 Mac Applications. I have decided that since I am always changing my usage and trying out new applications that I should make this an annually updated article.
Below are my top 10 mac applications I am using as of this writing. I have placed a comment if the position of the application on the list has changed or remained the same. Please leave whatever applications you are using in the comments as I think we could all benefit from seeing everyone’s different usage.
- FireFox (1st in 2008) web browser is my first and foremost application on any computer, running any platform. This great open source application is a secure alternative to Internet Explorer on the Windows platform or Safari on the Mac platform. The browser is made by the company Mozilla which is dedicated to providing free open source software to the general public. FireFox has a huge community base and has thousands of extensions that are available to add to the functionality of the browser.
Price: FREE (Open Source) - 1Passwd (4th in 2008) is a program that keeps track of all your usernames, passwords, and form data. The program not only keeps track of all your secure information but it also includes a secure password generator that automatically fills a password request field with a very secure password and then is remembered by the program. This allows you to do what you should be doing all along which is use a different password for each website. All you have to remember is your one master password and 1Passwd will remember the rest. It is completely encrypted using the keychain and can even be synced between your various mac computers using Apple’s Mobile Me.
Price: 30-Day Free Trial then $39.95 USD - TextMate (new for 2009) is the text editor that has been missing all my life. I just discovered this little jem last year and I still can’t believe how I ever lived without it. TextMate provides syntax highlighting for just about every programming language in use today. Using a simple drop down menu on the program’s bottom bar, you can change between languages on the fly. TextMate also comes preloaded with hundreds of code snipplets too for quickly adding text or special character encodings in. There are simple too many features to fully go into detail in this post. Please give TextMate a try today if you do anything but edit the most basic forms of text.
Price: 30-Day Free Trial then ?39
- Super Duper (10th in 2008) takes care of the task that all of us seem to avoid, BACKUP! SuperDupper can be setup to make a complete screen shot of your computer?s hard drive so you can be backup within minutes of a complete system failure. SuperDuper also allows for incremental updates so you don?t have to make a huge backup file every night. Super Duper was updated last year to work with Leopard’s Time Machine.
Price: Free for regular backup, $27.95 for advanced feature - Transmit (new for 2009) by Panic is simply the best FTP program I have ever used on ANY platform. The ability to upload to Amazon S3 and Apple’s iDisk is fantastic. Transmit also allows you to sync between different folders, use tabbed site management, has dock status updates, and syncs your saved FTP sites with Mobile Me. This is a must have app for anyone who manages websites or needs remote file management.
Price: $29.95 USD - Text Expander (6th in 2008) is a tiny application that runs quietly in the background of your Mac. It allows you to enter snipplets (small text phrases) that will expand into preset text or graphic strings. For example; say you keeping having to enter your email address like bob@something.com. You could setup a key so everytime you type bob@ the text is automatically replaced with bob@something.com. You can even program in complete email signatures, and photos to pop up, just about anything you can think of. This is a great time saving application that has saved me from a lot of excess typing.
Price: 30-Day Free Trial then $29.95 USD - Adium (3rd in 2008) is a aggregator of all your instant messaging applications. Using Adium you can connect to Jabber, AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, ICQ, or Google Talk. The interface is quite impressive and allows you to have all your IM contacts in a single application. The program is also expendable through skins, themes, and other extensions.
Price: FREE - Skype (8th in 2008) which is now owned by eBay is a cross platform application that allows free PC-to-PC calling (both video and audio). What makes this program so spectacular, versus just using a regular instant messaging service, is the amazing high quality video calling and conferencing you can do. Skype also allows you to dial-out to regular phones to bring anyone into your conversation. Whatever operating system or computer you are running you owe it to yourself to give Skype a chance, a great communication tool for keeping in touch with friends and family.
Price: Free for PC-to-PC, $9.95 a month for unlimited long distance worldwide.
- Transmission (9th in 2008) is a very lightweight BitTorrent client. The application is very simple and takes up little system resources so that you can continuing downloading while not bogging down your CPU’s cycles.
Price: FREE (Open Source) - Parallels (5th in 2008) allows you to run other operating system (like Windows) natively on your Mac. Unlike Apple?s bootcamp, Parallels allows you to run other operating systems inside a window running in OSX. Parallels supports a shared folder option that will allow you to keep the same folder for Documents, Music, Videos, etc. the same on both the Windows and Mac side. This is one of the most important programs you can have if you still have to run Windows.
Price: $99.95 USD
Tags: Apple, Applications, Mac, Open Source, OSX, Software
Posted in Apple | 1 Comment »