Mac OS X 10.5 has some amazing features and as a recent switcher from Windows to Mac I've spent a lot of time using as many of them as I could so that I could really become proficient with my Mac. This morning I got to thinking: if I had to choose one single feature in OS X that I would have a difficult time without, what would it be? For me that feature is Spaces. My use of Spaces has become highly tuned now. On my dual screen Mac Pro I have 6 Spaces and keep certain types of … [Read more...]
Adding a Mic to a Mac
July 2, 2008 By Leave a Comment
The other day my buddy Jeff sent me a link to a video someone had put together that was one of the funniest things I had seen in a long, long time:The Web Site is DownWarning: you have to have been in an IT capacity to really appreciate the support desk style humor involved. What was amusing about this was that Jeff and I both thought man, Skype (which figures prominently in the video) looks pretty cool. Determined to check it out I decided that I needed to add a microphone to my Mac Pro in … [Read more...]
Making TextMate really dance with PeepCode
July 1, 2008 By 1 Comment
Since I've been learning Ruby on Rails I decided to take a step back and become as proficient as possible with TextMate. For those that don't know about it, TextMate is a fantastic editor available exclusively on the Mac platform. What makes it such a great editor is not that it has a wonderful editing surface or is able to save files faster than some other tool - from that standpoint it's not really all that different than TextEdit. What make TextMate so cool is that it provides some … [Read more...]
Some cool Firefox add-ons
July 1, 2008 By Leave a Comment
For the last week and a half I've been trying out Firefox as my primary web browser. Back when I was a Windows guy I switched to Firefox because of the innovations it introduced and most importantly the extensions available for it. Now that I'm exclusively a Mac / Linux guy I figured I would check out the Firefox add-on market and see what's available.It's important to note that the web browser is more than just a device to view web pages. I personally do a lot of data entry through web pages, … [Read more...]
Out with the Logitech driver, in with USB Overdrive
June 30, 2008 By Leave a Comment
I've had a little problem with my Logitech Control Center driver for a while now. I would get this little LCC Update icon appearing in my Dock every once in a while. It seemed as though the updater was trying to tell me something. I would click on the icon but nothing would appear. Going to the Logitech site would result in seeing the same version available for download that I already had on my machines. This was occurring on both my MacBook and Mac Pro so I was pretty sure it wasn't hardware … [Read more...]
My critical applications 5 months after switching
June 30, 2008 By Leave a Comment
It's now been 5 months since I switched to Mac, time to update the list of Mac applications I use regularly and have found invaluable for me. My list has changed over time as applications have fallen in and out of favor and the tasks I have done with my Macs have changed. I've done this a couple times before so you can see how the list has changed.QuicksilverWhen I sat down to write this article I outlined the applications I use frequently and Quicksilver was not even on the list, yet here it is … [Read more...]
Living with the MacBook Pro
June 28, 2008 By Leave a Comment
It's now been a couple of weeks since I bought a MacBook Pro and handed my MacBook down to my youngest daughter. In that time I've used the MBP quite a bit and overall I'm quite happy with the upgrade. The only issue that I've had with it has been the heat it generates, though to a large degree I haven't really noticed it any longer. Either my left wrist has adjusted to being slightly warmer than my right wrist or the Fan Control I installed has helped keep the machine running a little cooler. I … [Read more...]
Roll your own Dashboard Radar Widget in 30 seconds
June 26, 2008 By Leave a Comment
I spent the first 30 years of my life in sunny Southern California where the weather report primarily consisted of a recitation of the smog alert levels and information on what was happening in the rest of the country. Having lived on the East coast for the last 15 years weather has become a little more important to me - we actually have a lot of it. I was playing around with the Dashboard yesterday, looking for a decent widget to help me get a good radar picture of my area. The weather … [Read more...]
Fixing a Windows virus makes me appreciate my Mac
June 26, 2008 By Leave a Comment
A good friend of mine called me on my cell this morning."Yo! Hey brother, I have a problem with my laptop. Can you help me out?"Walt's a really bright guy but isn't into computers at all. Computers are just another tool for Walter, giving him access to e-mail and the web while he is out on job sites. He works from his truck so it has become his mobile office, with a little Sprint broadband device allowing him to get electronic access from nearly everywhere.The company he works for is small and … [Read more...]
Common Myths for the Macintosh
June 25, 2008 By Leave a Comment
There are lots of reasons that people don't want to switch from Windows to Macintosh. I assume the most common reason is simply because Windows works for the people that are using it. The old adage "If it ain't broke don't fix it" tends to apply here. These people are not upgrading to Vista either, they're staying with Windows XP or even Windows 98 and are just fine. There are however an increasing number of people that are moving to Macs now - many of them people like me that … [Read more...]
Screen sharing with Leopard
June 25, 2008 By Leave a Comment
It was a beautiful day outside so I decided to grab the MacBook Pro and enjoy the delightful weather out on our screened in porch. I had some online reading to do as I am trying to get a handle on Git, the version control system I am going to be using.While sitting here enjoying the breeze and working through the Git documentation I remembered that I had left Adium running on the Mac Pro downstairs. Many of my friends contact me through AIM and I usually put up an away message if I'm gone for a … [Read more...]
Learn by blogging about it
June 24, 2008 By Leave a Comment
To say the internet provides a revolutionary amount of information quickly and easily is a tremendous understatement. When I sit back and look at how I acquire information now compared to how I did it back in the pre-internet days the changes are profound. What is interesting for me is that fully half of the guidance I obtain these days comes from the tips, rants and raves of people that simply use products the way I do. They just happened to get there before me and were kind enough to write it … [Read more...]
