Macworld Feature Speakers 2010

The Macworld feature speaker list is looking pretty good. If you are heading to San Francisco next month it is time to start filling in your dance card.

Thursday, February 11

9:00am – 10:00am = Late Night with David Pogue

11:00am – 12:00pm = Macworld DEMO: Best of Show, Matt Marshall to host

2:00pm – 3:00pm = Q&A with Kevin Smith

4:30pm – 5:30pm = The Photoshop 20^th Anniversary, David Biedny to host

Friday, February 12

9:00am – 10:00am = Revolution from the Rest of Us, Guy Kawasaki

2:00pm – 3:00pm = Macworld Live! with Leo Laporte

4:30pm – 5:30pm = The Gruber 10: Apple’s Top Issues, John Gruber

Cinch Review - Window Resize Made Simple

As Mac users we are always trying to give the operating system that additional little tweak. While watching the advertising blitz for Windows 7, I must admit one feature I was a tiny bit jealous of was the ability to drag a window to the side of the screen and automatically have the OS resize it to fill half the screen. Apparently someone at Irradiated Software felt the same because they have released a small application that brings this resizing trick to OS X called Cinch.

Using Cinch you can set the top, right, and left edges of your screen as “hot zones.” It is pre-configured the first time you open it. By dragging a window to the menu bar and holding it a second, Cinch allows you to fill the entire screen. It works the same on the left and right giving you a half screen. If you want to put two Finder windows side by side, it is very simple. If you drag the window away from the side, it returns to the original size. It doesn’t support keyboard shortcuts. It also doesn’t replace Mercury Mover for customizing window layout but is great for the quick resize.

If you are using spaces you, it also supports moving windows to other spaces and the timing is adjustable. Using Cinch with a multiple monitor set up takes a bit of finesse but works. A license for Cinch costs $7. When I try some software it may take me the full 30 day trial period before I decide if I want to buy it. For Cinch it took me five minutes. You can download it at IrradiatedSoftware.com.

You can listen to this review on the Surfbits Mac ReviewCast.

PGP for Snow Leopard Shipping

PGP 10.0 is now out of beta and shipping for Snow Leopard. The new version includes several nice upgrades including support for Boot Camp, Windows 7 (32 & 64 bit), and Linux support. I've been running the beta a few months and had no troubles. Encryption and decryption are faster and PGP reports there are additional safeguards against boot disk corruption. If you have sensitive data on your Mac, I've found no better solution than PGP.

Home Screens - Bart Busschots

This week, I'm featuring another international home screen. This one belongs to Bart Busschots of Ireland. Bart is a prolific podcaster contributing to the International Mac Podcast, the Mac Roundtable, and Allison Sheridan's NosillaCast. Bart also blogs at BartB.ie. Bart was kind enough to share his home screen and a few of his thoughts.

The app I've come to rely on most heavily is ShopShop. It's an app that does one thing but does it very well - it lets you create shopping lists. It remembers items you've bought before, so it rapidly auto-completes when you add things to your list, each item in your list can be checked off as you go around the shop - and you can have as many different lists as you want. I used to never end up buying the right things. I'd buy stuff I already had in the fridge, as well as coming home without loads of really important stuff. The reason this works so well for me is that I always have my iPhone with me, so as soon as I see we are out of something I instantly grab the phone and quickly and easily add it to the relevant list in ShopShop. Then, when I get to the shop, I just open up the app and grab everything I need and nothing more than I need. It's not glamorous, it's not cool, but it really helps me day in and day out!

What is your favorite app?

It's so hard to pick a favorite! But, if you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose I think I'd pick StarMap. I just love star gazing, and it's fantastic to have a full planetarium app in your pocket when you're out under the stars. It really uses the multitouch interface well, and it has a night vision mode too!

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

As sad as it sounds - it's Solitaire! If I'm ever in a queue anywhere I just whip out the iPhone and fire up solitaire. Same goes for plane or train journeys.

How many screens full of apps do you have?

I have 5 screens but they are not all completely full. If I were to fill every screen I'd say I have about 4  and a half screens full.

What is the app you are still missing?

What I'm missing isn't so much an app but a crucial missing feature. I need a common space on the app where files and be stored and retrieved from any app. The Photos folder does that for photos and videos, but I need something like that for generic files.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone?

Too many to count. It's the only phone I use, the only iPod I use, and I consider it as a portable computer with a lot of apps on it I use many times each day.

What is your favorite iPhone feature?

The interface wins hands-down. Directly manipulating thee things on the screen by touching the screen is just such a wonderfully natural way to interact with technology. The fact that when you flick things they have realistic momentum really adds to the feeling that the things on the screen are real, and you really are moving them around with your finger. This is what Apple have done so so right with this device, and what no one else seems to have done as well yet.

If you were Steve Jobs, what would you add to the iPhone?

Storage. It doesn't have to be a traditional file system, but something. In fact, a database driven storage area could be a lot better. If the files had metadata to describe what they are, and apps were allowed to specify what they could and couldn't do, then it would be easy to only ever present you with the files that are relevant to you in what ever app you are using. A word processor would only show text documents, an image editor images, a video editor videos etc.. General purpose apps like email could show all the files, as could Spotlight. We really do need to be able to store and access more stuff more easily on the iPhone.

Anything else you'd like to share?

The app store review process really worries me. I don't have any confidence that Apple have my best interests at heart in how they vet apps. I don't want Apple telling me what is and is not appropriate for me to do. I'm an adult, I don't want to be mothered by Apple!

Thanks Bart!

Apple's MobileMe Gallery App

 

I think I am among the minority of MobileMe customers that takes advantage of the MobileMe gallary integration with iPhoto and Aperture. I find it a very convenient place to share pictures with family and friends, as opposed to my SmugMug gallary for more public photos.

Today Apple released an iPod Touch/iPhone MobileMe gallery app to share your MobileMe photos. It allows you to view your friends' gallaries as well as your own and also gives you the ability to cache photos in your mobile device memory. The App is simple but contains lots of polish. The MobileMe Gallery is free and available in iTunes.

Update on Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 1:54PM by David Sparks

Apple's online tutorial for the MobileMe Gallery app is right here.

Bento Contact Managment

Since Filemaker released version 3 of Bento, I've been using it quite a bit. Today the company released an attractive and useful set of contact management templates definitely download worth.

iPhone Kayak

Lately I've been setting up my travel arrangements through the Kayak.com service. I'm impressed with their 2.0 iPhone application. It makes things easy to manage and arrange. Also, the trip management service (with a free Kayak account) is handy.

Palm CEO "I've Never Used an iPhone"

Strange quote from Jon Rubenstein. If I was in the smart phone business, I'd be spending lots of time with competing handsets.

Home Screens - Katie Floyd

Katie Floyd is my podcasting partner on the Mac Power Users and a terrfic Mac Geek. Katie also has her iPhone with her "at all times" and agreed to share her home screen. In addition to the Mac Power Users, Katie also blogs at KatieFloyd.me.

 

I’m old school; I keep almost all of the original Apple apps on my home screen. I’ve been using the iPhone since it was released and just got use to having the applications where they are. Though some of the apps (like photos) I don’t use all that often and could be replaced.

Notes has been replaced by Evernote which is what I use for notes and everything else. I use Things for task management and Tweetie is my preferred twitter client. I also use NetNewsWire to keep up with my RSS feeds. Seems like most of the dust has settled since the move to Google Reader as a backbone for the service. Lastly, I’ve added Apple’s remote. I have an AppleTV and a couple of Airport Express remote speakers around my house  and it’s nice to have the ability to control my content from anywhere in my house. So these are the Apps I have added to my home screen.

What is your favorite app?

I don’t know about a favorite – but the App that has changed my life since getting an iPhone has been Mail. Having email on my iPhone and available at my fingertips has been a game changer in the way I manage my personal and work email. It allows me to never be out of touch, though maybe that’s not such a good thing. 

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I don’t’ really have one. I never got into gaming and I really use my iPhone more to keep in touch and organized. I guess Facebook and Twitter are arguably non-productive things I use my iPhone for. Does that count as a guilty pleasure? 

How many screens full of apps do you have?

Five – and the organization is really based on usage rather than dividing apps by category. My most used apps are on my home screen, next most used are on page 2 and so on. There are probably a few apps I could purge but I just keep them around incase I might need them.

What is the app you are still missing?

Google Voice. I use this service quite a bit for filtering calls and making long distance calls. There was a blow-up when Apple rejected (depending on the story you believe) this App and the FCC got involved. Personally I think AT&T had more of an issue with the App than Apple.  I never heard what became of the whole situation. Hopefully the parties can get together and get Google Voice back on the phone. There is as basic web version but it’s not as easy to use as an App would be.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone?

Constantly. It’s never more than an arms reach away. 

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone?

It’s really a combination of a lot of things – but it’s really the ability to have a small computer in my pocket and keep in touch almost anywhere. Probably my least used feature of my iPhone is the actual phone. But the ability to have my email, web browser and everything else at my fingertips has been a real life changer. When the iPhone was introduced, it was the first smart phone I ever owned. I never really saw the need for a smart phone, now I can’t imagine my life without it.

If you were Steve Jobs, what would you add to the iPhone?

I would build in more hands free functions.  The reality is, people are stupid and they will use their phone in the car and be distracted. Voice Control on the 3GS was a big step in the right direction, but how about the ability to put your phone in a total hands free mode where it will read incoming email and text messages, respond to basic commands and have speech to text recognition. We’ve already seen third party apps and accessibility mode of the iPhone do some of this so the technology is there. I’d like to see Apple put it all together.

Anything else you'd like to share?

Poor AT&T coverage has been a constant complaint of many people who use the iPhone. I have no coverage at my house and there are many people who are in the same boat. I’ve found a solution that works well for me and may be a help to someone else struggling with the same issue.

Knowing my poor coverage, it became obvious I would have to get some kind of home phone. Thankfully, it’s actually cheaper to bundle my cable, internet and basic phone from my cable company (Cox) then it would be just to buy cable and internet service. So the home phone line really costs me nothing.  

I use Google Voice to manage my calls. Since Google Voice can be confusing to those who aren’t familiar with the service, I just tell people it’s my home phone. It’s become habit that as soon as I get home in the evening I set my iPhone to forward to my Google Voice number. That way anyone who calls my cell phone rings my home phone and I don’t miss calls. Any calls I make from home in the evening I place through Google Voice using either the web interface or by dialing my Google number from my home phone and placing an outbound call. 

By using Google Voice I get free long distance within the US and my Google Voice number (which my friends should already have) shows up on their caller ID to avoid confusion. When I leave the house and turn off call forwarding, any calls to my Google Voice number ring both my home and cell phones, so I don’t miss any calls. One disadvantage is that AT&T counts any calls it forwards from my cell phone against my plan minutes and I don’t know when my home phone rings whether the call is coming direct or from my cell. Between night and weekend and rollover minutes I never have a problem with overages but it’s something I keep an eye on. If an incoming all sounds like it’s going to be particularly long, I usually just ask the person if I can call them right back to avoid burning AT&T minutes.

I’ll admit this method adds additional hassle, but Google Voice has other benefits so it’s a work around until the coverage issues are resolved.

Thanks Katie!

Bowers & Wilkins iPod Speakers

Thanks to Bowers & Wilkins for sponsoring the feed. Their iPod and iPhone speakers both look and sound fantastic. For outstanding audio click the ad to the left.