Tag Archives: mac

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No More iDisk? No Problem?

October 16, 2011 – 6:14 PM

I love the Mac environment. Since we purchased our first Mac several years ago, we have slowly turned into a Mac-only household. With iPhones, iPads and Macs, I love how simple the syncing works. We each have a seamless experience no matter which device we’re using. We can easily keep our contact list up-to-date, as well as our calendars. The four of us tend to stay pretty busy, it’s awesome how simple calendar syncing and sharing are in the Mac / iOS environment.

Then, there’s iDisk. My own personal thumb-drive in the sky. Or, as has become popular lately, in the “cloud”. iDisk, which came with our mobileMe (formerly known as Dot-Mac) account has always been one of my favorite features of the service. I kept all of my important files there and had no problem accessing it from any computer or iPhone. I liked that I didn’t need to carry a thumb-drive.

But, with iCloud, iDisk’s days are numbered. After June 2012, I won’t be able to use iDisk.

Oh no. What will I do?

Those that know me well know that the only technology I love as much as my Apple gear is Evernote.

Evernote is so much more than a place to keep notes. It’s where I keep everything! Given it’s powerful indexing and searching (text in images is searchable!), it is a far superior place to store documents. You no longer need a premium account ($45 per year) to store all types of files, but the free account does have lower usage limits. There is a 50MB max per note (25MB for free users) so I won’t store my video projects on Evernote, but 99.44% of my files will work just fine.

So, goodbye iDisk. You’ve been a good friend for many years. And thanks for the one-year notice on your shut-down. That will give me plenty of time to move my files over.

 

Another post about Evernote… Use Evernote to Track Your Accomplishments

 

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Flipboard for iPad

December 22, 2010 – 8:47 PM
flipboard-logo

Flipboard for iPad was released earlier this year. Billed as the “world’s first social magazine”, its interface is meant to replicate a magazine – the kind you flip through. It is designed to gather all of your social feeds and present it in a magazine style app with full web and video functionality. Its layout is simple and very clean with not overly fancy. With its first release, it only had the ability to display Facebook and Twitter feeds, along with select RSS and Flickr feeds.

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With Facebook and Twitter, your friends’ posts are displayed with their avatar. If they posted a link, the text of that page is displayed beautifully in Flipboard.

The most recent update finally gave me what I had been waiting for: Google Reader and Flickr login access. Now, the app truly is amazing! One stop shopping to check in on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and, most importantly for me, Google Reader.

Logging in with your Flickr username and password will attractively display your friends’ pictures.
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The best part of Flipboard is its integration with Google Reader. Log in to your Reader account from the app and it becomes thebest interface for keeping up-to-date with your RSS feeds!
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Flipboard has quickly become one of my all time favorite iOS apps. At the low, low price of FREE it is a must-have for any iPad user.

Check out the Flipboard video here and then go download the app for yourself.

http://www.flipboard.com
http://www.facebook.com/flipboard
http://twitter.com/flipboard

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Apple TV

October 9, 2010 – 9:02 PM
Screen shot 2010-10-09 at 4.25.11 PM

The Apple TV is awesome! I considered leaving this blog post as just that one short sentence but, alas, I’ll elaborate.

I was never excited about the previous version of the Apple TV. First, until recently, we only owned a very old (and pretty small) standard definition television for almost 18 years. Second, I was always turned off by the on-board storage. We have a couple of computers in the house, and plenty of external storage. I didn’t care to fuss with syncing yet another device. When I first heard that the new incarnation of Steve Job’s pet project would be streaming only, I had to have one.

We picked one up from the Apple Store in Modesto a couple days after they hit store shelves and after a little help from my friend Manny, we were good to go. For the record, it couldn’t be more simple to connect. Just takes an HDMI cable between the device and the TV. My audio setup was a little wonky between the cable box, TV and surround sound receiver.

Ok, that’s enough back story.

read more »

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Why I Like Ping

September 5, 2010 – 9:39 PM
pinggrp

Last week, Apple announced Ping, calling it “a social network for music”. Like a lot of comments I read online, I thought, “great, do I really need another social network?”. After downloading iTunes 10 and setting up my Ping, I realized I do need (or should I say, want) another social network.

I like Ping. Here’s why.

  • It lives within iTunes. I care most about what music my friends are buying, listening to, recommending, when I am in iTunes
  • It’s focus is narrow. Very narrow. I am interested in music and learning about other styles of music. I can see Ping helping me discover music I would’ve not otherwise discovered
  • I actually enjoy reading reviews, they may not sway me, but I like them nonetheless. When the reviewer is also a friend of mine it helps put the review in better context for me. Being able to easily read friends’ reviews is a big plus

As a first generation social network, Ping has promise. Some improvements I hope Apple makes are:

  • Greater delineation of genres. This goes for iTunes as a whole. Rock and Pop are pretty wide. And there is no category for Bluegrass. I don’t consider Sam Bush country
  • Should have custom URL that will forward to iTunes app (rather than telling people to go to iTunes and search for… )
  • The ability to “Like” and “Post” about podcasts and audio books
  • Re-activate the Facebook friend finder. I saw it there when I first signed up but it seems it might’ve since been removed
  • Allow me to change my user name to be different than my billing name; “Matthew” is too formal for me

Interested in what music I am buying or recommending? Look for me on Ping, as Matthew Beckwith.

 

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iPhone 2.0

July 14, 2008 – 11:48 PM

After returning home from camping, I finally downloaded iTunes 7.7 and iPhone 2.0. Even though I’m not getting the new 3G iPhone I have been really looking forward to the new software.

I had just won a $50 gift card from Stacey over at Pill’s Place so I decided to get an iTunes card, just in time for the opening of the App Store (and the purchase of Alan Jackson’s Good Time).

In addition to the App Store, 2.0 has some new features, such as the ability to do a screen shot (Jason Tucker explains how). Now I can easily show the applications I’ve downloaded.

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So far, my favorite apps are:
Remote – now I can control my iTunes from my iPhone… awesome!
Guitar Toolkit – A great portable guitar tuner
Where To? – An app that shows nearby restaurants, attractions, etc.
Super Monkey Ball – fun game, kids will probably play more than I do
Fuel Gauge (MPG) – helps me track my gas mileage
Tetris – amazing game for the iPhone, a must have!
AOL Radio – I know, it’s AOL, but the interface is beautiful and the music choices are great!

I was also thrilled to see the push services work. Since I rely heavily on iCal and Address Book (and, oh yeah, Mail) I can now go about my day no longer worrying that I may double book myself. Another new feature I really like is the way passwords are masked. Now, the last character is left un-masked until the next character is typed – very helpful when I fat-finger a password and forget what I’ve already typed.

So, thanks Stacey, for letting me go wild on the App Store!

Do you have an iPhone? What are some your favorite apps? E-mail me (mb@mattbeckwith.com) or post your favorites in the comments section.

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Leopard Arrives!

October 26, 2007 – 10:49 PM

Months after we were first teased with demonstrations of the next release of Mac OS X, Leopard was unleashed today. I arrived at the Apple Retail Store about 4:30 and waited with a bunch of other Mac faithful. The best part was seeing the reaction on the faces of the passers by asking what we were standing in line for. Just as the Apple website countdown clock hit zero (we were all verifying on our iPhones) the doors flung open to enormous applause from the gang of Apple employees. As they cheered and high-fived us, we piled into the store to claim our copy of Leopard.

desktopleopard

Now for a couple of observations. Leopard was not the only thing flying off the shelves. It’s no secret that Apple retail stores are sales powerhouses (see Apple Stores Now More Profitable Than Tiffany’s Per Square Foot) and anyone at an OS launch day can easily see why. Anecdotcally, nearly half of the people I saw snatching up Leopard were also buying external hard-drives. I recommended theLaCie Big Disk 1TB drive to a fellow shopper but they sold out of all of them in just a few minutes. Gone, too, were the 500GB LaCie drives among most other high capacity external hard-drives. The cool thing was to see just how many new Mac users there were joining in on the fun of a new OS launch.

Two hours versus twenty? Waiting on line for the iPhone was great fun, but doesn’t come close to the excitement of the Leopard launch. Sure, it might’ve been because we got my iPhone at an AT&T store but I still think the excitement of the crowd was still higher today. I mean, the iPhone is cool because it is a phone and it has the look and feel of Mac OS X… but Leopard is Mac OS X!

Well, I just glanced over to the PowerBook and see that the installation is complete… time to get to work. I opted for an erase + clean install on that computer. Later this weekend – the iMacs get the upgrade.

Rock on Leopard!

Did you get Leopard? Waiting on the fence? Mac-curious? Check out the greatest Mac podcast on the net - Typical Mac User.

Check out some pics here.

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Macworld San Francisco

January 12, 2007 – 10:54 PM

My first trip to Macworld was great! We had an absolute blast at the expo and afterward at the Mac Podcasters meet up. Check out the piece I wrote for the Typical Mac User Podcast (http://typicalmacuser.com/wordpress/?p=237).

The non-Mac highlight of the day had to be meeting Sinbad. He is a true Mac fan and it was great to talk to him about his thoughts on the iPhone.

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Check out the pics here.

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Macworld is Almost Here

January 6, 2007 – 10:54 PM
macworldlgbg


Macworld Conference & Expo is next week and Mike and I will be there on Thursday!

We have all been inundated with rumors of the iPhone and an early release of Leopard; iTV seems to be a no-brainer, as does a re-vamped iLife / iWork.

Here are my predictions (ok, some of them are merely hopes) for Tuesday’s keynote presentation:

1. There will be no iPhone (although Jobs will make jokes about it).
2. Leopard will be released earlier than originally announced.
3. iWeb will be completely re-vamped to integrate one-touch publishing for hosting services other than dot-mac. It will also finally give us a simple file management system and easy editing of css attributes.
4. iTV will be the grandest announcement at the event as it will contain many more features than we were led to believe.
5. Mac Spreadsheet will be lame.
6. The 100 GB iPod will be finally come out, the next version will be WiFi and Bluetooth.
7. dot-Mac will be upgraded with increased storage space and iCalendar sharing improvements.
8. A mammoth 42 inch iMac is released.

Maybe, just maybe, there will be some other updates as well:

lisa2macxl-2a new lisa?

newtonmessagepad a new Newton?

There you go. Enjoy Macworld!

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