It wasn't so long ago that Quicksilver developer, Nicholas Jitkoff, was painting a pretty glum future for everyone's favorite free Mac application, Quicksilver. The story is not over though. It looks like the gang over at Google, where Nicholas now works, has been busy putting together a new incarnation of Quicksilver under the Google banner with the recent release of Google Quick Search Box. The beta software isn't near the functionality of Quicksilver (yet) but this may be one to watch for all keyboard jockeys.
In addition to my job at Macsparky (the business card really does say "Chief Slacker"), I have another job that actually pays money as a business attorney. So every year in addition to looking for things new and geeky at Macworld Expo, I also take a look for tools useful in the practice of law. Here is this year's take:
Marketcircle's Daylite has become the “go to” applicaiton for running your law practice. This year they had a strong presence at Macworld including numerous demonstrations, presentations from the David Allen company, and previews of their soon to be released iPhone client. It supports full synching with your Daylite database. This is excellent news for Daylite users.
Livescribe’s Pulse Smartpen is coming to the Mac. This is, essentially, a computer in a pen. It records all pen strokes and then recreates the pages on your screen. It also records audio while you are taking notes and indexes it to your notes. You must use their paper (printed with the required microdots to give the computer context) but I could use this every day in my practice. This could also be a nice gift for any university students in your life.
The new version 10 of FileMaker took several lessons from their consumer product, Bento. It still uses the same file format so the upgrade should be relatively painless. With features and improvements such as persistent sorting, dynamic summary reports, and editable table views, it is clear this upgrade is all about the user experience.
MacSpeech has now been with us a year and the software is showing its maturity through increased stability and additional features. Speaking with the developers I was most impressed with their sense of urgency. These guys are working hard to leverage the Dragon engine on your Mac. If you are practicing law without this tool, you are missing out. Give your fingers a break and check this one out. You can read my full review here.
The Mac software community has exploded with task management applications. I have been running my practice out of OmniFocus now for a year and a half and consider it the best tool for the job. It allows management of tasks by both project and context, allows for easy capture of new tasks from anywhere on your Mac, and includes a robust, syncing iPhone application. Furthermore, it is fully supported by a reputable Mac developer, the Omni Group. The cost for both a desktop and iPhone license is under $100 and while there are cheaper solutions, I've not seen anything better. You can read my full review here.
One of the most notable new technologies was Microvision’s laser based projector. This tiny projector (about the size of an iPhone) easily fits in your pocket and projects at 10 lumens. Because it is laser based, it focuses at any viewing distance. It looks really sharp and you can get 2 hours of projection off the battery. The unit is expected to be available this summer in the $500 price range.
While Timeline 3d has been out now a few months, BeeDocs' presence at Macworld should be noted. The developer continues to refine and polish this excellent timeline application that is extremely useful in presentation work. You can read my review here.
These digital white boards combine the benefits of your analogue whiteboard with the technology of your Mac. This could be useful both in the conference room and the courtroom.
While a lot of people still refuse to look at iWork as a serious business tool, I continue to make other attorneys look bad using Keynote. It just about 10 years ahead of PowerPoint. The new improvements, particularly "Magic Move", will save me hours of fiddling. The increased mail merge hooks between Numbers and Pages will increase your ability to set up forms. I still must admit I do all of my serious writing in Scrivener (review here). Regardless, for me Keynote is worth the price of admission.
While Apple appears to keep focusing its energies toward the Mac as a consumer device, the third party developer community continues to develop excellent resources allowing you to get the edge in your practice with your Mac.
I wrote earlier about typing iPhone email in landscape mode. Since that time, I've upgraded to a similar "paid" application, EasyWriter Pro. The improved version costs $2.99. For the equivalent of a small bag of chips, you get several additional features including a spell checker, email favorites, and and text snippets for frequently used text. The spell check and snippet functions put this application above the rest. If you frequently find yourself emailing your pizza order with a triple order of Jalapeno peppers, you can simply save it as a snippet and order your fireball pizza with a few key clicks.
Once the email is complete, you tap the "Send to Mail" button and EasyWriter Pro drops it in for you, ready to go. It is remarkable to me that Apple never upgraded its iPhone mail application to rotate to landscape for easier typing. With EasyWriter Pro, that itch can be scratched immediately.
The social aspect of Macworld should not be underestimated. Imagine being surrounded by 14,000 fellow mac geeks in one big pool of geek soup.
Of course you can hone your geek skills in any of the number of conferene tracks but this atmosphere manifests itself in many ways. Groups of attendees spontaneously drop to the floor of conference halls and whip out their laptops of the conference halls to share their latest cool application and applescript mojo. People break out into arguments over the best use of PHP while simultaneously complimenting one another over their vintage T-shirts. Strangers walk up to you and tell you about the latest booth swag with a conspiratorial grin. It really is a fantastic gathering.
In addition to meeting users, you also get face time with your favorite developers. I have reviewed software and hardware for several attending developers and it truly is a pleasure to meet these people who work so hard on making fantastic Mac products. Not only does it afford you opportunity to catch up but also a chance to explain particular requests. The developers are there to hear your feedback and Macworld floor discussions often result in new features and tweaks in your favorite applications.
This year, IDG also introduced “Birds of a Feather” sessions allowing groups of interested users to have an after hours conference room to discuss particular Mac topics. I attended one hosted by Adam Christianson of the MacCast where several experienced podcasters shared their tricks.
In addition to the show room floor friendships, there are a variety of nightly parties and gatherings. This year I attended several. On Tuesday night, MacRumors.com and iPhoneAlley.com hosted an excellent gathering at Jillian’s (across the street from Moscone.) At it I made several new Apple friends and got to reconnect with some older ones. I also got to commiserate with Arnold Kim about MacRumors getting hacked in the middle of the Keynote.
My favorite Macworld party remains the Cirque du Mac. The Macworld Allstar Band played including folks such as Bob “Dr. Mac” Levitus, Chris Breen, Dave Hamilton, an others. This year it was held in a burlesque club (turned PG rated for the geek crowd) and included a trapeeze artist.
The best social aspects of Macworld for me, however, is the reunion of friends. Meeting up with my gang of podcaster friends makes the trip absolutely worth it. We shared many meals and laughs and I already look forward to seeing them next year. A well placed grenade at the below lunch could have put a serious dent in Mac podcasting.
I reviewed BusySync several months ago and still use it regularly. BusyMac is taking the next logical step releasing their own calendar application, BusyCal. It is not ready yet but they had a good looking version at their booth. While at first you may wonder why you would pay for a calendar application when iCal is free, after spending some time with the BusyCal beta, I’m very interested. This app was clearly designed by people aware of iCal’s shortcomings. BusyCal provides a variety of features not available in iCal including:
* Bonjour Sync * Google Calendar Sync * Multi-user editing * Security * Offline editing * Graphics, icons, and themes * Sticky Notes * Live Weather Feeds * Rich Text * Recurring ToDos * List views
It works with and syncs out of the iCal database so it will cause no problems with your MobileMe sync. It will retail for $40. Keep your eyes posted for this one.
This case actually fixes the iPhone camera with a sliding lens. With it you can take pictures of documents, business cards, and menus that are actually in focus. This makes mobile Evernote much better.
Although most Macs have a built in camera, this wireless bluetooth camera releases you from the fixed position and works to about 10 feet. It charges from a mini-USB cable.
While Screenflow has been on the market some time, it is new since last year and certainly deserves a “Best in Show” award. This paradigm shifting screencasting application changed the game for all screencasters.
G-Technology, the same folks that made a portable hard drive that still worked after being run over by a truck, have come up with a Raid-0 solid state drive drive that screams. Data transfer rates top 60MB/sec write and 75MB/sec read speeds when using FireWire 800. Using eSATA, it blazes up to 195MB/sec. This drive is obviously for the high end video market priced at $2,199 for 500GB. This is a sign of things to come and it is good to see G-Technology taking the lead.
For us mere mortals, they also have the perfect Time Machine Drive, the G-Safe. It simultaneously writes to two independent hard disk drives providing instant back up of your time machine as you save it. For instance, the G-Safe 500 GB includes two 500GB drives and automatically puts one copy of everything you save to it on each drive. I think the 500GB model, priced at $449, is perfect for an external time machine solution.
Ocarina is the fantastic 99 cent iPhone musical instrument. The Smule booth featured a regular serenade of Ocarina music and other fun audio iPhone applications. Everytime I walked past it, people were listening. Also, during David Pogue’s Macworld Live, Ge Wang, one of the Smule developers played several songs on it along with David Pogue. It was incredible. I really need to learn how to play my Ocarina.
Livescribe’s Pulse Smartpen is coming to the Mac. This is, essentially, a computer in a pen. It records all pen strokes and recreates the pages on your screen. It also records audio while you are taking notes and indexes it to your notes. This is very slick for students and anyone who frequently takes notes.
I recently reviewed the new Audioengine W2 wireless iPod/iPhone transmitter. It was the best iPod accessory in Macworld this year giving you a pain free wireless solution for playing your tunes directly from your pocket. Audioengine also displayed a set of unpowered speakers using their same technologies for users providing their own amplification (pictured below).
Best Work from the Mother Ship
While Apple’s keynote has already been dissected ad nauseum, I spent some time working with the new applications and am impressed with several things:
* iPhoto face recognition is impressive, well implimented, and very useful. How long until this finds its way into Aperture? My magic 8-ball says six months. The incorporation of geo-tagging is a nice; * New Keynote features and transitions - Chocolate covered goodness. Some of the new animation features will be immediately useful to me. * Creating Pages forms fillable with Numbers spreadsheets is probably useless to most but very helpful for me. * Additional functionality in iMovie - It is much better. This should please those that were unhappy with the rewrite in iLife ‘08.
Best in Show The Macworld Experience.
The best in show award this year goes to the Macworld experience. There was nowhere else in the world this week that I could learn about some of my favorite Mac software and hardware, make new and lasting friendships, attend great parties where it IS cool to talk about Quicksilver, AND I got to dance with YouTube’s Matt. For this reasons, I’m naming the entire experience as this year’s best in show.
I was privileged to participate in the live recording of the Mac Roundtable at Macworld San Francisco in front of a live audience. During the recording we discussed our thoughts and impressions on the Keynote, how important Apple is to Macworld, why we come to Macworld, our favorite picks from the show floor, discussion of Macworld 2010 and we took questions from the audience.
Things have been busy on my end lately and I'm going to be heading up to Macworld Expo Tuesday morning. While I fully intended to have my plans set by now, sadly that hasn't happened. I can, however, report the following:
Mac Roundtable Recording on Show Floor
I'll be participating in the live Mac Roundtable recording on Wednesday January 7 at 4:00 p.m. at the Mac Learning Center in Booth 3036 in the North Hall. Along with me will be several of my favorite Mac Podcasters. Please stop by and say hello.
Other Interesting Events
I'm also planning to attend several events:
Following the Mac Roundtable recording, Adam Christianson of the MacCast is organizing a user event that should be social and fun.
IDG is also planning a town hall meeting Wednesday night concerning the future of an Apple-less Macworld.
The Cirque-du-Mac party Wednesday night should be a blast. This one requires a ticket but they are not impossible to obtain.
David Pogue's Wednesday morning Letteresque spoof of a Mac based late night talk show is always entertaining.
Leo Laporte is giving a speech Thursday morning. I have no clue what he will talk about but he is always intelligent and entertaining.
I'm sure there will be more. Follow my twitter at "macsparky". My most important Macworld advice is to make some friends and have fun. See you there.
Audioengine’s newest product, the W2, is perhaps the coolest iPhone gadget on the market. Have you ever wanted the ability to stream music wirelessly from iPod or iPhone to your home stereo without monkeying through a remote interface? Now you can. The W2 allows you to connect your iPod or iPhone directly to your stereo wirelessly.
With the W2 you get a wireless receiver about the size of a pack of gum that is USB powered. You can attach it with the included USB AC adapter and plug the stereo out jack to any audio device, including your home stereo. The transmitter is an even smaller device the same width as an iPhone with an iPod connector pointing out the top.
There is no software to configure. You simply plug the receiver into your stereo and the transmitter into your iPod. I took it to a friend’s home and played Christmas music through his stereo off my iPhone. Lets just say, hypothetically, that you have a nice collection of Yo-Yo Ma on your iPhone but your wife would prefer Duran Duran off her iPod Touch. It is easy with the W2. Speaking hypothetically, you can simply pull the transmitter out of one device and attach it to another. Marital bliss restored. Streaming music from your iPod just became stupid easy. It will work on the iPod classic, 2g Nano or later, iPod touch, and the iPhone.
This device stems from the same technology in Audioengine’s W1. It creates a 2.4GHz network that works for about 30 feet. When you get out of range, the music starts cutting out intermittently or drops all together. When you get back into range, it picks right back up. Consider it a 30 foot invisible cord. Latency is reported at less than 20 milliseconds. My high-tech test for this involved watching movies on my iPhone while streaming the soundtrack through my stereo. I did not notice any delay.
The audio quality is good. The manufacturer reports it can keep up with uncompressed CD-quality. In my tests, it did. I played high bit rate music ranging from classical to rock and did not notice any difference between the sound through the W2 and the sound transmitted over a conventional stereo cord plugged directly into my iPhone.
I found the W2 even more useful than the W1. While I still like my home entertainment system streaming through iTunes on my Mac, the ability to change playlists, tracks, and volume using the built-in iPod interface is much easier and my kind of geeky.
The W2 includes both the sender and receiver units, the USB power adapter, the 3.5mm to RCA adapter and an audio cable for $169. You can find it at AudioengineUSA.com.
My day job requires me to spend a great deal of time working with PDF documents. For a long time, that meant I needed to have a license for Adobe Acrobat on all of my computers. This is no small task on the Mac platform since Adobe only sells Adobe Acrobat professional for the Mac which will cost you $450. Fortunately, there are other options. Apple's own Preview application does a pretty good job of displaying PDF documents and allowing basic editing. For some people, this will be plenty. If you need something more robust however, Smile On My Mac's PDFPen may be just what you're looking for.
The tools in PDFPen are much more robust than those offered in Preview. Accessing a PDF document with PDFPen, you can add text, images, and signatures. You can also highlight a text field and open it as an editable text block. So when you receive a PDF document within mistake or typos, you can easily fix it yourself. Additionally, PDFPen has a variety of useful editing tools including highlighting, underscoring, and strike through. It even includes a library with common proofreading marks allowing you to simply drag and editing marks to PDF documents before sending them back for processing or correction. This isn't as efficient as simply using a red pen yet, but when working electronically with someone in another state, you really can't beat it. You can also add notes and comments just as in Adobe Acrobat.
Another nice feature in PDFPen is the ability to use your digital signature. You can use a scanned copy of your signature and literally drop it in a PDF document before returning it to the sender. This provides a truly paperless option for entering contracts or other transactions. This works hand in glove with another PDFPen feature, the library. The library can hold frequently used images and information including your signature. If you work with PDF forms, PDFPen also will accommodate you. It allows you to fill out and save PDF forms easily. While it is possible now to delete pages and reorder pages using Preview, PDF Pen's implementation of this feature is much easier to use.
One of the improvements with the latest version 5 is the inclusion of optical character recognition. Often PDF documents, when provided you, do not have OCR already performed. PDFPen can now either automatically or a request perform its own optical character recognition on your document. In my tests, the performance was not significantly better or worse than that obtained with Adobe Acrobat. As with all OCR functions, it is a function of the original source document. If you have something typed, the OCR will be much better than if something is handwritten.
For $49.95, I believe PDFPen to be an excellent value. If you need to create your own PDF forms, you can upgrade to PDFPen Pro for $99.95. Another added feature at the pro level is the inclusion of the table of contents. This works with the "bookmarks feature" of Adobe Acrobat. I often send PDFPen bookmarked documents to my PC brethren who are none the wiser.
If you currently are using Apple's Preview application without feeling its limits, you're probably okay in terms of PDF manipulation. However, if you are running into its shortcomings or wish you had some of the Adobe Acrobat features without the Adobe Acrobat price, you should take a serious look at PDFPen and PDFPen Pro. You can find them at Smile on My Mac's website.
