Lion FileVault? Yes Please.

I’m starting to notice benchmarks concerning the impact of Lion FileVault on portable Macs. I don’t think benchmarks are the right context for this discussion. You either need encryption or you don’t. If the thought of someone, who just stole your laptop, rifling through your files, browser passwords, and other data, doesn’t bother you, move on. Otherwise, use FileVault. I use it and can’t see or feel any appreciable system slowdown on my Fall 2010 MacBook Air. Neither can Ben Brooks or Federrico Viticci. To me this is a complete non-issue. Laptop + Lion = Encryption.

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1Password Gets Lion Friendly

When I first started running the Lion betas, there was no 1Password extension for Safari and it felt like someone hacked off one of my arms. I knew the 1Password team was hard at work but not this hard. The new 1Password Safari/Lion extension is fantastic. They’ve folded several features into the extension that used to require launching the app. Read more about it here. I dig it.

A Map of Paranoia

Macdrifter explains his backup regime. Gabe is my kind of nerd.

Office ♡ Lion

I almost named this post “Hell Freezes Over” but that wouldn’t be fair. In truth, the Microsoft Mac Office team is as big a bunch of Apple nerds as there are. It is impressive that they can get Office, which is legendary for its refusal to follow Apple programming protocols to take advantage of all the Lion goodness in just a few months. Nice work Office for Mac team.

Dragon Dictate 2.5 and my iPhone

In case you missed it, Dragon Dictate hit version 2.5 this week. As a long time user of the Windows version (Dragon was the only thing tying me to a Windows machine), I’m thrilled to see Nuance giving my favorite platform the love and attention it deserves.

Of note with release 2.5 is the ability to dictate to your iPhone (using this app) and have the words appear on your Mac. While you are giving up “hands free” it is really nice being able to tap a button on your iPhone, start talking, and see the words appear on your Mac. The developer explains that since the connection is Wi-Fi, it is better quality and less prone to error than Bluetooth. I never had many problems connecting to Dragon with Bluetooth so I’m not sure about that.

Regardless, if you are a Dragon Dictate user, upgrade and try dictating with you iPhone. You’ll get hooked.

Byword +1

Merlin talked about using Byword in the most recent Back to Work episode. I couldn’t agree more. The Byword developer was active as Apple finished up Lion and had a Lion compatible version out even before Lion released.

The app works with Markdown flawlessly and does no more. I’ve been playing with BBEdit and TextMate but can’t seem to find a reason to use them when I am just writing Markdown text and Byword does it so well. I’m planning a future MPU episode on power text editing and looking forward to talking to some friends about why I should be using big boy tools for text editing. For the meantime though, I’m really satisfied with Byword.

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Mac Power Users 54: Q&A and 5by5

Mac Power Users Episode 54 is available for download. This episode focusses on some of the larger listener questions including:

1. How to manage a major Mac upgrade 7 years in the making;
2. Dealing with RSI through Ergonomics;
3. Keynote with changes in iOS;
4. Best battery practices;
5. Privacy and dropbox.

We also announce that MPU is moving to the mighty 5by5 Network. This is a great move for the Mac Power Users. I’ll post more on this later.

You can download the show on iTunes here or on the web right here. If you haven’t already, why not subscribe?

Dear Alex, You're Fired

With the release of Leopard, Apple added a great human sounding voice to Mac OS X, Alex. Alex was so much better than every other voice that had ever been on the Mac that it became the only voice I ever used, for years. I use the voice to read back text and, with some Automation, read Instapaper articles to me on my drive.

As great as Alex sounds, I’m really tired of his voice. Lion fixes this. There are several high quality voices for Mac OS X Lion, but you have to go fetch them.

Start out in system preferences and click Speech.

Next, tap the selection arrows next to Alex.

Lion just displays a few voices. The trick is clicking the customize button.

That opens the motherlode. There are a lot of voices to choose from. Scroll through the list and pick your favorites. There is a Play button to preview. The selected voices get downloaded through software update. Be warned, the files are big.

My new favorite is Fiona with her Scottish accent. (Aren’t all Americans secret anglophiles?) I haven’t updated my automator script yet but must admit I’m really looking forward to listening to Fiona read John Siracusa’s Lion review. My only regret is that they didn’t use the dulcet tones of my friend from Liverpool. So Alex, thank you for your loyal service. Now hit the bricks.

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A Few Points on the New Cat

Lion, the new Mac OS X operating system is available for download today. Hooray for us nerds! For the authoritative review, take a look at John Siracusa’s Tome.

Having used Lion for several months, here are some of my favorite parts.

FileVault X

Until today, FileVault was the ugly stepsister of the Mac OS X operating system. Nobody liked it and anybody with serious security concerns used other disk encryption options. I would have given it a different name since FileVault was such slug. Regardless, Mac OS X now ships with some real security teeth. It includes whole disk encryption, Time Machine disk encryption, remote wipe of your Mac, and sandboxing. So long PGP.

Better Laptop Backup

If you are using an external Time Machine disk with your laptop, the laptop now keeps track and local copies of Time Machine snapshots.

When you plug into the external drive, the laptop offloads the saved snapshot data. This way, if several days pass between backups, you don’t have gaps in your Time Machine data. Nifty.

Mission Control

Since I’m already a trackpad gesture convert, I was all over Mission Control. At this point it is second nature to me. I do wish there was a way to reorganize the order of the full-screen apps in Mission Control. I’ve tried every key combination I can think of and had no luck.

Also, I’ve developed a workflow for how I use non full-screen apps. I keep two desktop screens. The first one stays empty and all the remaining apps reside in screen 2. Flicking up with three fingers in screen 2 provides all of the apps in screen 2 along with all of the full-screen apps. Moreover, if I need to do some file management, screen 1 is always open. See the below screenshot.

There is a lot to like about Lion and a $30, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to install it. If you’re going to make the upgrade, check out the Mac Power Users Ready for Lion podcast.

Work Awesome Podcast Appearance

Mike Vardy was nice enough to invite me on the Work Awesome podcast awhile back and it published this week. When I recorded it, I was starting to think more about the big and little touches I wrote about this week so you can hear my early thoughts on it if that blows your hair back. My favorite part was when I spent 5 minutes turning off my phone ringer. Ack.