Aint that special » Review

Eye on the prize

Macgiver — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:36:38 +0000

I came across this great widget for tracking package shipments from the Dashboard. It has a really simple interface while remaining incredibly flexible. You can enter a title for your various shipments which is especially handy if you are an Amazon Prime member and order a lot of stuff.

Holly Panthera pardus Batman

Macgiver — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 02:02:06 +0000

I’ve used Leopard all weekend and I am hooked. I expected it to be just a mediocre upgrade without those gotcha features. I’ve been proven totally wrong. Since top ten lists are all the rage with the internets, here’s mine.

Top ten reasons to embrace Leopard

10) I actually like the Dock now (I don’t hide it in the basement between uses anymore)

9) Coverflow sucks less than I thought (It is actually handy for folders with images, but not much else)

Unified UI in all applications

7) Safari 3 no longer beta (it just feels more complete now)

6) Spotlight ROCKS! (if you are using Quicksilver just for launching, go with Spotlight now)

5) Stacks is handy (much nicer than folders in the dock)

4) Todo lists in mail—finally

3) Preview completely replaces Acrobat for most users

2) Time Machine actually works (if you need it)

1) It’s FAST AS HELL (seriously, my Mac Pro finally feels like a zippy machine)

I know some people will argue that my #1 might be due to a fresh untainted system, but I’ve reinstalled 10.4 several times on my Mac Pro, and it never felt this fast. OS 10.5 feels solid.

Apple, Leopard, Mac, OSX, Review, Tip

Too many browsers

Macgiver — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 22:08:38 +0000

No one should complain that there are not enough choices for web browsers on the Mac. Each one is unique and has its own merits. The only logical thing to do is to run them all, right. Well at least a few. Here is an abbreviated list.

Safari
Firefox
Opera
Omniweb
Camino
Shira
Devonthink

The problem comes when you start to gather bookmarks and cookies in different browsers. You end up with a rats nest of info and no way to find that bookmark to that site with that guy that was once in that movie (you know, that guy). There are a few choices out there for syncing bookmarks but I’ve settled on Bookit from Everyday Software. It’s kind of tough to setup, but then again it is only $12.

Here’s a great use of this little application. I have a Mac at home that I use Safari and occasionally Omniweb and Firefox. Bookit is great for syncing all of the bookmarks across all the browsers. The major problem though, is that I run Firefox on a PC at work. It gets frustrating to use my bookmarks through a .Mac portal. The best solution for me is to run Google Sync with Firefox (it’s only available for Firefox right now) on both my Mac at home and my PC at work. Now when I sync with Bookit, all of my browsers end up with the same bookmarks. This also ensures that my iPhone has all of my current bookmarks too. I’ve reached browser nirvana.

Technorati Tags: Apple, internet, Mac, Review, Software, Tip, Trick, Web

Shareware customer service

Macgiver — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 02:20:43 +0000

Not long ago I purchased TextExpander from Smile On My Mac. It’s a handy little program that inserts long snippets of text when you type an abbreviation. Like when you type “ddate” TextExpander can automatically insert the current date instead. This can be very handy for coding or writing HTML.

Sure, the software is nice, and the price was not ridiculous, but what really impressed me was the email I just received. Smile on My Mac sent me message full of tips for using the application. Keep in mind, I already paid for the software. I’m not using a demo so they are not just trying to lure me in. I think they just genuinely want their customers to get the most out of their product. That’s refreshing.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Review, Software

There’s a new Sheriff in town

Macgiver — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:39:14 +0000

I tried out the new Amazon music service. I have to say watch out Apple! It is just about as easy to use as iTunes, although finding music isn’t as straight forward. The albums are a couple of bucks cheaper (for select titles) and the download process couldn’t be any easier. Once you are logged in on their website and have installed the Amazon Downloader, you just purchase the album and away it goes. It loads straight into iTunes with high quality art work included. One minor benefit is that you don’t have to stop watching your video in iTunes just to download some music.

If Amazon is being truly honest about the “No DRM” claim for the music, then this will definitely give Apple some much needed competition. I am positive that this early pricing scheme will change after an introductory period. Kind of like free crack to get you hooked. I’m very skeptical of the major record labels. They have been throwing tantrums over Apple’s instance on $0.99 per track. I find it hard to believe they want to sell the music for less.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iTunes, Mac, Music, Review, Web

We are living in the future

Macgiver — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:29:22 +0000

If I had any doubt that technology was not living up to my expectations, I’m a believer now. I just installed iPhone Remote on my Mac Pro and all I can say is WOW! My iPhone can control my Mac over the Edge network.

iPhone Remote is brought to us by the good people at Google (code named Telekinesis). Maybe they got tired of waiting for the gPhone and decided to make the iPhone the device dreams are made of. The server software is a quick install. It’s a lot like a VNC server. It runs in the background and receives requests from some port that it is told to listen to. The server software then directs traffic to its own applications. Here is a quick run-down of what you can do remotely from your iPhone.

You can take a picture with your Mac’s video camera and receive it right on your iPhone (only one frame, not a video stream). Any file on your Mac at home can be accessed from your iPhone. How about taking a screenshot of your Mac’s desktop? Yup, you can do that. You want to do a Spotlight search for a file? No probelmo. I’ll illustrate a quick tour of the application below. The screen shots are taken from Safari running on my Mac Pro (since there is no way to take a decent picture of the iPhone interface). But you have to trust me, this looks great on the iPhone.

This first picture is of the iPhone Remote software running on my Mac. It’s very simple to use. Just open up the ports in your firewall and start the server. I like to have the “applications” open in a new window on the iPhone just for ease of use.

This is the main application view on the iPhone. Just tap one of the buttons. That background image is automatically pulled from the Mac running the iPhone Remote server. That’s my desktop.

This is the list of applications on my Mac. Did you forget to fire-up your BitTorrent client this morning? No problem. Just turn it on from your iPhone.

You can just as easily access your files. Click through directories and open up that PDF file right from your phone. I found a strange twist, that I don’t think was intended but could have very interesting consequences. When I clicked on a Subethaedit document that contained an HTML snippet, my Mac opened the document in Subethaedit (talk about remote control!) and my iPhone presented me with a rendered webpage, rather than the snippet of code. I don’t know which surprised me more, windows just poping open on my mac, or the iPhone rendering the HTML code. This opens up a very easy way to make your own web applications without having a web server. I’m not sure this method would support cgi though.

And if you don’t remember where that file is, just use the iPhone Remote’s Spotlight function. Here is a Spotlight search for the word “Perl”

A feature that has a lot of potential, is streaming media from your Mac at home to your iPhone. The server software can stream audio or video directly. You gotta have a remote to control that music, right? One is included.

While the Edge service may never be fast enough to allow for true Remote Desktop, there is a work around. You can actually select and then trigger Applescripts from your iPhone. This has potential to allow you to FTP upload to servers, start Backup software, or even secure a stolen computer.

Finally, for all those Leet Mac users, there is actually a Terminal application. Finally, we can run our cron jobs while we’re on the road.

The service works through a secure shttp connection, so you don’t need to worry too much about the data being transmitted. It’s all encrypted. However, it’s a little scary to think that if some nefarious person gets your user name and password, they can have complete snooping privileges. I like a suggestion I found on the Telekinesis Wiki which is to setup some Mail.app Applescript triggers. Send an email with the Subject “iPhone Remote On” and voila, your Mac starts up the server. Send another email to turn it off. It’s really just one more layer of security. You could even have the script look for a particular password in the body of the message before running.

iPhone Remote is a wonderful application. Apple may someday provide an SDK for the iPhone, but until then, a little creativity and elbow grease will carry the device a long way.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, Mac, Programming, Review, Security, Software, Tip, Trick, Web

Apple, why do you hate early adopters?

Macgiver — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 02:02:19 +0000

If you read through the posts on this site, you will see, on the whole, I love me some Apple products. I’m thinking of declaring Apple as a dependent on my next tax return. However, I’ll be the first to warn a new switcher to stay away from first generation products. They are always buggy! Worse, rather than fix our hardware, they just release version 2 with the added feature of having fewer bugs. Now I know nothing is perfect, but it’s pretty well know that Apple’s Version 1 releases are particularly bad.
I just received my new Apple keyboard to use with my MacPro. Sure, it’s sexy. It’s lightweight. The cord is slightly longer (which means I can recline and write). And… the function keys don’t work. Oh wait, that’s not a feature.

The first 4 function keys do nothing. In fact you can not reassign them to any function. I thought I got around the problem by just using the plethora of other F-keys provided. I just use F13-F16. But then I noticed the buttons on my Logitech MX Revolution mouse stopped working. I had a great work-flow that involved the side buttons on the mouse for Expose modes. Basically it looks like the keyboard breaks Expose and Dashboard triggers.

Has anyone else had this problem? The keyboard works just fine for my new iMac. I’ve installed and reinstalled the Apple Keyboard Software and Logitech Software as well as unplugging the keyboard several times.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Gear, Mac, Review

Go-go Gadget Fleece

Macgiver — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 15:04:27 +0000

I recently picked up the Scottevest Fleece 4.0 Jacket. I don’t know if there were even versions 1.0-3.0, but I’m pretty happy with this latest build. It was on sale for $139.99 and I had a discount code. The whole thing came to $130 with 3 day shipping.

The Review
First off, this thing is the best fleece jacket you can get for your gear. Before I get to all of the go-go gadgety goodness, I want to highlight what a great jacket it is. It’s made of pretty thick material. Almost too thick. This isn’t the kind of fleece you would were when it’s 70+ outside. This sucker is WARM. The cuffs have elastic banding, which I’m not really a fan of, but if you are then you’ll love it. The stitching is surprisingly not that sturdy, but definitely adequate. I have a Patagonia and a Northface fleece. As far as construction, the Scottevest is on par with the NorthFace fleece, but inferior to the Patagonia. But hey, this jacket is not about becoming an heirloom for your kids. It’s about hauling all that electronic gear around with you.The jacket has 12 pockets of varying sizes and positions. It almost has too many pockets if that’s possible. I can see losing stuff in this baby pretty easily. The jacket comes with little cards in some of the pockets describing special features. I really appreciate that level of concern for their users (I consider this jacket to be a piece of hardware more than a simple garment). Two of the cards actually have this printed on them:“Special Features: It’s a hidden pocket! Other than creating an extra pocket where there was none before, there are no special features associated with this pocket”. I think that says it all about the number of pockets this thing has.Several of the pockets have magnetic closures. Apparently magnets are the new velcro. They are definitely convenient, but I’m left wondering why some pockets have velcro and some have magnets, while others have zippers. I think I would prefer magnets instead of Velcro for most of the pockets.The pockets are positioned conveniantly for all of the primary gear. Many of the gadgets are accessable from both inside and outside of the jackets (this is a very handy feature). The jacket also has something called a Personal Area Network (PAN) which is essential a channel to route the various cables that usually end up dangling out of your pocket. With the Scottevest, your iPod headphones now run up the inside of the jacket to the colar.There is a microfiber cloth clipped inside one of the pockets. Now this proves the jacket was designed by fellow geeks. Several times a week, I wish I had a microfiber cloth in my pocket to wipe my iPhone screen (I even considered carrying a hanky in my back pocket like grandpa did).
The little extras
There are wide elastic bands inside some of the larger pockets. I mean large enough to put around your phone or iPod to secure it. The shoulders of the jacket are extra thick to help support all the weigh of your gear. My other jacket would really start to slide off my shoulders when the pockets were laden with tech treasures.An id badge clip is included inside the jacket, but it is far too flimsy to be useful. It’s actually surprising how crumby it is, as it stands out from the great quality of the rest of the jacket. The Key clip in the outside pocket is of much better quality, albeit too small for my keyring.The drawstrings at the bottom of the jacket are thick and sturdy. While the front zipper is smooth, it’s feels a little cheap in comparison the outer fabric of the jacket.There is a large pocket on the inside of the back panel. It is suggested that this be used for a hydration pack (such as a Camelbak). I can see using it to hold a magazine or files during a commute. I’m sure it wont go to waste.

Shortcomings
Finally, the two areas I would like to see improved in the jacket, is the quality of the mesh used for the pockets and the quality of the small zippers on the pockets. Considering that the pockets are really what make this jacket unique, I expected more attention to detail here. The mesh is fairly thin and I can imagine it getting ripped pretty easily. The zippers are small toothed and get snagged a lot. I with they would have gone with a more dense mesh and some large tooth nylon zippers like on a Timbuk2 bag. I’d like to see the innovation of Scottevest merged with the quality and simplicity of Timbuk2. I’d pay double for that product.

Conclusion
The Scottevest Fleece 4.0 Jacket is worth more than the $150 price tag. You get some really innovative layouts for your gear and a high quality fleece to boot. This would be a great jacket for the most of the year but I’m a little worried about the durability of the pockets. I’ll have an update at the end of winter on its durability.

Technorati Tags: Clothing, Gear, iPhone, iPod, Organization, Review

On Security

Macgiver — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 14:11:59 +0000

What if your Mac is stolen? How much personal info do you have just sitting there on those hard disk platters? My Mac has Tax info for the past seven years, copies of bank statements, credit card PINs, and receipts for almost everything I have bought (see this post about archiving it all). It’s rather disturbing to think of all that info falling into mischievous hands.

Up until about 4 months ago, I was using Apple’s FileVault (see this post). This is a great way to keep things secure. It essentially encrypts your data into a disk image that is unlocked on boot up. The problem comes when you want to migrate everything to a new disk, like I tried. FileVaults can not be migrated. You must install a fresh system on the new disk, mount the Apple FileVault disk image, and drag everything over manually. No thanks.

I quickly switched back to using the excellent software Knox from Marko Karppinen. Knox also uses encrypted disk images to keep out prying eyes. They can be opened on any mac (given the correct password), which makes them easily portable. Knox also runs as a system wide extension that will auto-mount an image on boot-up, backup encrypted disks, and (this is the big one) the disk images are searchable by Apple’s Spotlight. Basically, it’s like just keeping a separate secure drive with all of your sensitive data on it. Sure, you can do most of this with Apple’s disk utility, but Knox really makes it all seamless and easy to maintain.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Security, Review, Software, Tip, Trick

Aperture training

Macgiver — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 13:22:54 +0000

If you’ve been following along with this blog, then you know I love Apple’s Aperture application. I upgraded from iPhoto shortly after I started using my first DSLR camera (the Nikon D80). Aperture is pretty straight forward to use. It’s elegant and intuiative, but there are many different workflow options when managing a large photo library. I started by reading through the Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture 1.5 (Apple Pro Training) which is a wonderful reference. It has some gorgeous color images on every single page. Detailed descriptions of the various tools and nice step by step instructions. It is well worth the price for both beginning and intermediate amateur photographers. It even comes with a DVD that contains all the images for the lessons and examples shown throughout the book.

After working with this book for a couple of months I was really working more efficiently in Aperture and taking advantage of some very cool features. But I still felt like I was missing out on some features that the professionals over at Inside Aperture took for granted. After some Google searching I came across Aperture 1.5 Beyond the Basics and bought it off Amazon. It was kind of pricey but I knew Derrick Story and Scott Bourne would not do a bad job. I regularly listen to the iLifeZone podcast and it is usually chock full of good tips. I was not wrong. The DVD is essentially a stand alone application with a simple user interface. You can watch an entire chapter at once, or just a single lesson. The video quality is very high and professionally produced as well. The best feature is that the material is completely un-biased. It is not certified or sponsored by Apple in any way, so you get the truth about what works and what does not. Click on a topic in the list shown and a video pops open and starts playing. You are even given the option to run in windowed or full screen mode. This publisher really gets it.

The training DVD helped so much, that I went over to Lynda.com (the publisher) to check out some of their other training products. WOW!! They have a lot of great stuff. On-line training videos as well as “ship to your home” DVD training is available through the site. They already have an Adobe CS3 training package available.

Technorati Tags: Aperture, Apple, iPhoto, Mac, Nikon, Photography, Productivity, Review, Software, Tip

Easy application updating

Macgiver — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 10:48:58 +0000

Versiontracker and Macupdate are some great services for Mac owners. With a paid membership you get regular notices when new versions of software are released. I let my membership lapse though so I periodically have to go out and look to see if I have the newest versions (because it makes me feel good to have the bleeding edge).

But now there are some new ways to accomplish this tedious task. The first is a little program called AppFresh from Metaquark. This is a great piece of code! When you fire it up for the first time it scans your applications, plugins etc and builds a list of your applications. Then it compares them to what versions are currently available.

AppFresh then provides a great list of available versions along with your own versions. Unfortunately (or thankfully) AppFresh just downloads the new version to your desktop. There is no magical Sparkle integration, so you need to run the installation by hand.

UPDATE

I’ve been using AppFresh a little more and it is really a fantastic piece of software. Metaquark really has an eye for detail. They’ve integrated a window pane for release notes as shown here

What’s more, you can enable I use this rating which is integrated with the web site. There’s even some kind of versioning for updates. I’m not sure how well this works. I’m not even sure what exactly it does since the help section is not complete yet. This is a great start for a new application.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Review, Software

It’s that time of year

Macgiver — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 20:06:03 +0000

Tax time usually means that I remember how much I wanted to organize my finances last year. I’ve used a nice little application called iBank from IGG Software. It has suited most of my needs over the past year and is about half the price of Quicken for the Mac. But this year I had the itch to see if I was missing anything by using independent software like iBank. I purchased Quicken 2007 from my local Apple store and got to work moving all my finances over from iBank.

The real drive for me was that Quicken claimed to be able to link up with my accounts online so that I didn’t have to remember to download my transactions. Well, guess what… no program will do that. Quicken does have one nice feature. It will import your bank info from the account activity. This means that if you import your activity from Wells Fargo, Quicken will recognize that the account is with Wells Fargo. It’s not really that big of a deal.

Both programs allow you to reconcile your account during import, both show all your assets and both show how you use your money. I really can not recommend Quicken over iBank. iBank does everything the average home user needs and you’ll keep some money in that bank account.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, puppy, Software

Meander

Macgiver — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 03:11:35 +0000

Remember back in the day when you had to BUY mapping software? I can. I plunked down $30 for some mediocre software that was out of date in a year. Then Mapquest saved us. It brought forward free software to find out where we could go and how to get there. Google has since elevated online maps to an impressive level. There is still a major issue with creating waypoints and paths. Recently I came across a great little app that does this one thing really well. It’s called Meander. The principle is simple. It creates a transparent window that hovers over any map window, be it Google, Mapquest, or Microsoft Live. It can even be a PDF of a map. You set the scale of the map as shown, then draw your path over top of your map. It’s that simple.

What Meander does is create a line drawing (which can be seen with a white background) and measures that line. It’s so simple, it’s amazing.

I find it pretty handy for all kinds of mapping. Scheduling dog walks, bike paths and even some crazy road trips.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Map, Review, Software

A band-aid for the Finder

Macgiver — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 22:29:24 +0000

Yes, the Finder could be better. I think many of us are hoping that the next OS release brings tabbed finder views and a simple way to deal with moving and viewing files. But until that day comes, there is Pathfinder by Cocoatech (PF4). It’s been touted on 43Folders a couple of times, here and here. Cocoatech have produced a quality product that feels right at home on my desktop. It takes some practice to get used to it though, so I’ll outline some cool features here.

The dropstack is a temporary holding place for files. Think of it as a more useful and forgiving command-select. You just drop files in the square and it keeps track of all of them. Then when you are ready to manipulate the files, you can easily grab each or all of them. YOu can even ctrl-click the stack to compress, burn, or email the lot. I use this for organizing my directories. I just browse through a bunch of folders throwing misplaced files in the dropstack. When I’m ready I just switch to the folder I want them in and unload them all.

There are a huge number of options when working with files. The contextual menu for a single file allows you to do almost anything with it. Pathfinder not only gives you the option to copy the path of a file but it gives you the option of copying the UNIX, HFS, Terminal, URL, or name as a path. Honestly, it’s more than I have use for, but I’m sure some uber power user out there would love this feature.

As far as file paths go, PF4 has multiple optional drawer that you can setup to display the curent file path. As shown below, I also like to keep a folder histroy displayed so I don’t have to keep back tracking to folders that I use regularly. You know, those folders that are good enough for favorites, but you might make a desktop alias to.

The last feature I want to mention is the optional Running Processes tab. It’s kind of like having a mini-dock attached to the window. You can kill a process, switch to an application or bring up a contextual menu with loads more options, such as launching another instance of the application as root.

These are the kind of features that only a dedicated and Apple Fanboy would think about including. I bet the developers at Cocoatech all love their macs and started making great software that they wanted to use. I, for one, am grateful that the mac community is made by companies like Cocoatech

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX, Productivity, Review, Software, Tip, Trick

Upload your photos

Macgiver — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 00:48:20 +0000

Now that we all have a bunch of new holiday photos it’s time to get them uploaded to Flickr and other various photo sharing sites. If you’re running either iPhoto or Aperture on the Mac you have limited choices to automate the upload process. I have used the plugin ApertureExport in the past, but to purchase the full version is kind of pricey for a one trick pony. After trying out some of the options out there I’ve finally settled on PictureSync from uVerse. You can upload to just about any service you can think of (check out this list) with tags, descriptions and complete group control. It will even pull in all the metadata from Aperture. PictureSync is free for the casual user but they ask for $15 for heavy users.
One of the coolest features is the Automator like scripting. This allows you setup rules to control how information gets added to the photos during uploads. For example, if you don’t want your keywords from Aperture added to your photos on Flickr, just create a rule that substitutes new keywords to the photo before uploading.
PictureSync is also application aware. It can pull selections directly from Aperture, iPhoto or Adobe Bridge. It’s pretty universal.

A close runner up to PictureSync is 1001 from the makers of Ecto and Endo. I really like this application too. It does far more than upload photos, it’s also a photo stream viewer. Similar to using iPhoto to view photostreams, but 1001 allows you to set the time intervals for checking streams as well. It does a good job, but I just liked PictureSync better.

Technorati Tags: Aperture, Apple, iPhoto, Mac, Photography, Review, Software

Sync two macs at home

Macgiver — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 02:56:46 +0000

Thanks to Apple’s aggressive release cycle, many Mac owners have a couple of different machines sitting at home. My particular setup is a Mac Pro in the study and an older 17″ Powerbook in the living room. You would think that this would be ideal. I have a powerful workstation for Aperture and a nice portable for couch surfing. But, eventually you realize that there is a fly in the ointment. Many items only exist on one machine or the other. Apple’s “Sync” utility does work great with a dot mac account. But their Backup application just doesn’t work very well. Sure, all of my bookmarks, contacts, and keychains are all in sync between the two machines, but it just doesn’t handle large data backups very well. Today I was just thinking, “wouldn’t it be great if I could do the same with all of my other documents?” Then I suddenly realized I own the must have application Chronosync by Econ technologies. This application is one of those little gems that just works well.

What it does

It can synchronize two directions, archive deleted files, and even email a log file to you when it’s all done. I’ve been using it for about a year now for nightly backups to an external drive and it works great. As the name implies, Chronosync has a built in scheduler that will run any script at a predetermined time. It only syncs files that have been modified, so it saves time and drive space.

How to do it

Here’s a brief breakdown of how to setup Chronosync to keep two machines up to date. There are some particular caveats that I will emphasize to keep from screwing up either machine.

Mount the remote machine (in this case it is my laptop). The first time you run the script, choose “Left to Right” sync. I am starting with the idea that my desktop has all of the master documents and I want to do an initial sync to replicate everything to my laptop. After the intial sync, you’ll want to setup two way syncing to keep both machines identical. The instructions that follow will outline bidirectional syncing since it is slightly more complicated.

I find it easier to use a series of Chronosync scripts to sync specific items rather than just doing a sync of the two home folders. While my Mac Pro has 750GB of drive space, my poor Powerbook only has 120GB (upgraded myself). I don’t want to run out of space on my portable. Also, the iPhoto and iTunes libraries are handled very sepcifically. I only sync those one way (from the desktop to the laptop). Make sure to read the Macworld article about using multiple libraries.

I create a new Chronosync script and set the left source as my “documents” folder onÂ my desktop and the right source as the documents folder on my laptop. Now choose “options” so that Chronosync can auto-mount the remote machine when it is time for the scheduled backup to occur.

Choose bidirectional sync and check the “Synchronize Deletions” box. I save deletions to an archive which I will go through and remove periodically. This is a nice safe guard to prevent accidental deletions on both machines.

We’re going to be pretty general with the sync triggers. If any of these attributes are different between two files, Chronosync will copy the new version. See the image below for the specific settings I use

Chronosync has many individual settings for each sync. I will just briefly outline my settings in the images below. In Error handling, I set “Ignore extended attributes and access control errors.”

Setup the email notification so that any errors are identified.

I don’t bother with the rule based sync because I want to capture all changed files.

That’s it

Just go try Chronosync. It’s a great application that gets the job done. It has just enough complexity to solve most archival needs but not so much that it is impossible to get anything done.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Productivity, Review, Security, Software

Fun with Aperture

Macgiver — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 02:59:31 +0000

The new D80 has kept me pretty busy. This is my first “Pro-sumer” camera. I’ve never even focused a camera my self let alone adjust the f-stop and shutter speed. It’s all quite interesting. I rely heavily on Wikipedia and the Nikon user groups for help.

But when it comes to the processing side, I’ve taken full advantage of the 30 day trial of Aperture. After playing around with it for a week or so, I can say that it is far superior to iPhoto, but you will pay the learning curve tax. You not only need to be committed to the $300 price tag, but also to the time commitment to really take advantage of the features. Aperture adds many more options for controlling metadata. In fact, there is more metadata than the casual photography could really use. After all, it’s really meant for photographers that want to know what f-stop and ISO the photo was taken with.

The photo editing tools are not a replacement for Adobe photoshop but they are quite advanced. Once again, Apple has integrated elegance into the user experience. The Loupe is a magnifier that allows you to fluidly move across photos to check for imperfections. The red-eye reduction is easy to use and very effective as well.

Even though Aperture is aimed at the advanced user Apple has included a plugin architecture that allows third party tricks for amateurish tricks such as a Flickr plugin for Aperture (there is also one for iPhoto). Apple finally got it right. Third party plugins!!!! Why not let someone else finish the product for you? The Flickr plugin is still beta and managed to crash Aperture a couple of times. But for the most part it worked as I had hoped. I selected a photo and chose Export to Flickr. The plugin provided a screen to input a title, description, tags and even let me choose the image size. Everything I could need.

My final analysis is that Aperture is good but I’m still not ready to part with $300 for Aperture when iPhoto can now handle RAW photos for the D80.

Technorati Tags: Aperture, Apple, iPhoto, Mac, Nikon, OSX, Photography, Photography, Review, Software