did you ever stop wondering? — thoughts on software and consumer technology among other things
Apple unveiled OS X Snow Leopard at WWDC’s Keynote and I’m excited mostly because of the following features:
Finally an official developer build of Google Chrome from Google. Apparently it’s still incomplete, but it should suffice for my quick browsing needs.
How incomplete? So incomplete that, among other things , you won’t yet be able to view YouTube videos, change your privacy settings, set your default search provider, or even print.(via The Chromium Blog)
After switching to the Mac, I had to find software that would help me do stuff I like doing. So far, the following are the software I’ve tried and that survived in my Applications folder.
VMWare Fusion – Since I switched from Windows, there are still a handful of apps I use on Windows. I also use it for browser testing (specially IE6). It’s the first OS X app I paid for and I think it’s worth it with all the things I am able to do with it around.
TextMate – Now my primary text editor. The bundles just make it easy for me to code in just about any language I need to code on. I’m still discovering a lot of things about it but so far it has helped me to code faster and keep my code cleaner and more organized. There’s also a certain magic I feel when I’m writing code on it.
Transmit – I tried FileZilla since it was my main FTP program in Windows, but it just didn’t feel right on OS X, so I tried Transmit and it fell just right into place. After learning new and adding custom keyboard shortcuts it fits perfectly with how I work. I especially like being able to edit stuff on the server seamlessly.
Yojimbo – Currently it serves as my password repository. Hopefully I’ll use it more as a repository of other things that I need to take down.
DestroyTwitter and Tweetie – After trying out a host of desktop Twitter clients (like EventBox, TweetDeck, Twhirl, Nambu, etc.), I’ve settled with the two. I use DestroyTwitter if I want to keep Twitter less intrusive (i.e. when I’m in The Zone). I use Tweetie when I’m actively exploring the Twitterverse.
Finally, there’s official support for Google Sync in S60 via Mail for Exchange. I haven’t been syncing my calendar on the E71 as much since it required me to manually sync via GooSync after NuevaSync stopped working for me. Now I can have calendar sync automated again. Good times.
(via Google Mobile Blog)
It’s been a year since I made the “switch” and I’m slowly and gradually moving the way I work with computers from a Windows to a Mac paradigm. With regards to normal computer use, I’d like to think I’ve done a lot already — organized my stuff, installed several applications, setup a backup strategy among other things.
However, for productivity and development, I think I’ve barely touched the surface. I’m still learning about Folder Actions and AppleScript. I’m remembering how much I loved doing things on the command line (during the DOS days) when I use Terminal. I’m still figuring out how to customize TextMate (which I’m starting to really love) with the way I think about code. I’m also picking a whole lot of things from the community of indie Mac developers, which I want to be part of really really soon.
I’m still learning and I guess sometimes it’s harder for me to learn how to do things in another way after being so used to Windows for most of my life. But, I’m enjoying the process and I’m still happy that I did make the switch.
So because of the Jungle Disk + Cloud Files hoopla that seems to have been addressed now, I decided to try out Backblaze for a couple of days as a possible alternative/complement to Jungle Disk. And from what I see, it is a hassle free online backup solution. Something I would recommend to a regular Internet user if asked what online backup solution they should get.
I’m trying out the following Mac software for the next couple of weeks:
Jungle Disk, one of the services I use for cloud storage, now has Cloud Files support. Previously, it only supported Amazon S3, which made the sign up process a bit cumbersome. You had to sign up for your own Amazon S3 account before you are able to use the Jungle Disk service.
I just signed up for a Cloud Files account a couple of days ago because I wanted to try it out with Jungle Disk. However, after updating my Jungle Disk to the latest version, it never prompted me for my Cloud Files account when I created a disk based on Cloud Files. Apparently, it’s already integrated to your Jungle Disk account. I guess this is because Jungle Disk is now under Rackspace owner of Mosso, provider of the Cloud Files service.
There are some caveats though with regards to the Cloud Files integration though. There seems to be no clear way of tracking how much space you’re using on Cloud Files since you’re not using a personal Cloud Files account. Also, migrating your files from an S3 disk to a Cloud Files disk requires you to manually copy from service to service (which I am doing now). They are developing a service for data migration but can’t give a timeframe as to when it will be available.
[via Jungle Disk Blog]
Hotmail apparently has a beta version of their mobile interface (accessible via http://m.mail.live.com on your handheld devices). It looks a lot cleaner and seems to show more information than the current version. You can also click anywhere on a message row to show the actual message. The current only allows for clicking on the subject. But as with most things Hotmail, it’s slow and not very responsive, compared to the mobile interfaces I’ve tried — i.e. Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. Screenshots below. Continue reading ‘Windows Live Hotmail Mobile Beta’
