Macworld Bound 2009

Last year I was fortunate enough to get to spend a few days in San Francisco at the Macworld Expo. I must admit, however, that my Macworld experience did not follow the usual path you would expect. I spent the majority of my time slumming the halls meeting tons of great readers, podcasters, developers, and other miscellaneous mac geeks. Indeed, I would have to say the best part of the experience by far was all of the great people I met and new friends I made. I made a point of finding people to eat meals with, visit events with, and even troll the display booths with.

For the benefit of this website, getting to shake hands with individual developers and have them answer my questions made a huge difference in my ability to report and review for the past year. Another nice benefit of the trip was my inspiration for the resurrection of the Mac Roundtable which is doing quite well again.

I had so much fun that I just recently booked travel arrangements for my return. If any readers are going to be up there, let me know. I'll be there Tuesday through Thursday. I thought about going to the Steve-Note but when I realized the extra expenses for that would be about $450 plus a night on the sidewalk, I decided I could avoid the reality distortion field for another year. Also, if you are planning on heading up, don't miss visiting Macworld Bound, where you can get great tips and information for your trip.

Doozla Contest - 1 Week Left

There is still one week on the Doozla contest. Don't forget to get your entries in!

Wiretap Anywhere Review

In a different lifetime I was a studio musician and spent a lot of time with microphones and soundboards. As a result, I’m a bit of an audio nerd. The thing is, I remember how hard analog audio was to pull off. But today we live in the digital age and suddenly Audio gets much easier. This week I’m looking at Ambrosia Software’s latest application in its stable of audio tools, Wiretap Anywhere.

To put this application in layman’s terms, wind the clock back about 80 years and imagine one of those old telephone switchboard stations. You have a board on one side with incoming calls and the operator would then physically connect the plug into where you wanted the call to go. “Oh hi Eunice. You want to talk to Doc Jones about your lombago, let me patch you in.” Now imagine that same concept but much cooler on your Mac and instead of just patching one call, you can patch five calls into one line. That gives you a rough idea of Wiretap Anywhere. With it you can take any audio generated by your Mac and pipe it across to any destination. Do you want to share your latest GarageBand project with your pal in Walawala over iChat? Its simple. You just set a line from GarageBand to iChat and you are in business. If you are a podcaster and want to get a Skype call, your local microphone, and some funky iTunes background music into your audio application but leave your system alerts out of the recording, it is simply a matter of making the proper connections in Wiretap Anywhere.

Wiretap Anywhere turns all of your applications into audio inputs which you can then mix and combine and patch into any application on your Mac that accepts an audio signal. The concept is not really that complicated but, depending on your level of audio needs, extremely useful. You can put the individual source applications to their own channels or you can mix them to a combined stereo signal from within Wiretap Anywhere.

One use that I particularly enjoyed was routing my Midi keyboard, Logic, and iTunes into one feed for recording. Pulling this off “back in the day” would have have been possible without some very high end, and expensive, recording equipment.

In some ways it is like Soundflower. It is just easier to configure and more stable. The interface, presented through a preference pane, is obvious. I’ve been putting Wiretap Anywhere through its paces now for for several weeks. Processing and redirecting all of this audio did not seem to cause any latency problems for me. Ambrosia knows audio. For about 10 months now I’ve been recording my reviews on another Ambrosia product, Wiretap Studio.

Wiretap Anywhere is certainly not for everyone but is an excellent tool for for people who need this sort of granular control over their audio. A license will cost $129. If you are interested, there is a demo version available from Ambrosia Software’s website. Ambrosia also has some nice tutorial videos to give you a better idea of how to use the application.

Apple Notebook Sales Soar

AppleInsider reports today that one in five notebooks bought in the back-to-school period were Macs. A lot of Mac owners secretly worry about the bad old days when Apple marketshare was abysmal and people were talking about chopping up the company. With growing marketshare (especially with college kids), and the increasing OS irrelevance with cloud based computing, I think those days are over.

Vintage Mac Sickness

Lately, I've come down with the vintage Mac bug. "Back in the day", I first started using the original toaster style Macs. I then made a regrettable side turn into PCs before being able to return to the fold. The thing is, I still miss my old 512k Mac. The one with the tortoise and the hare preferences. The one that said "hello" to me when I turned it on.

I realize that this sickness is purely nostalgic. My "underpowered" MacBook Air can do more computing than an entire room full of networked vintage macs. Nevertheless, I've now caught myself several times haunting the vintage Mac sales on ebay and watched several very familiar looking old Macs sell in the $50-$100 price range. A part of me wants to buy one of these really badly. The problem is, I have no clue what on earth I'd do with it. I certainly don't have space in my home office for another computer and I have no idea how anything I would write on a 20 year old computer could even get onto my current rig. Frankly, I'm afraid to ask if anybody does use these old machines productively because I suspect it would just enable me. As things currently stand, every time I get tempted, common sense seems to take over. Does anybody else have Vintage Mac Sickness?

Doozla Contest

You can read my review of Doozla right here. The nice folks at Plasq have agreed to let me give away two Doozla licenses. So I’ve decided to do this with a contest. Download the Doozla demo and send me your kid’s masterpiece. My 6 and 11 year old daughters will then pick their two favorites and the winning artists will get Doozla licenses. Send the pictures to me at email link on the left and mark the email as “Doozla Contest”. I can’t wait to see the creative kids in your world produce. I’ll announce the winners next week.

Doozla Review

Plasq, the makers of Comic Life and Skitch, is one of those developers where you should just automatically download their new applications. So when Doozla was released, I put it on the family iMac and I’ve watched my kids enjoy it all year.

Doozla is a drawing program aimed firmly at the little ones. When you first start it up there are four icons that send you into its four drawing functions. The top icon leads to a virtual coloring book with a several fun images the kids can color in with the mouse. My six year old reports this is her favorite part of the application. Another icon leads to a blank canvas and gives you a variety of simple to use tools for drawing pictures and adding text. Another of the opening icons brings you to a screen with a variety of colorful backgrounds upon which you can add your drawings and finally, there is a fourth icon that allows you to take an iSight picture and mark it up. My kids found this particularly fun when marking up a picture of their dad. That is right: they had me with big blue hand drawn glasses and lipstick.

Behind all of this fun is a fancy bit of programing. Doozla uses curves, not pixels, to draw so using the mouse, even the youngest Mac geeks can make smooth lines. You can run it in full screen mode so the kids don’t stumble into things like ... I don’t know .. the system preferences or terminal?

Doozla is like Skitch but for kids. If you are looking for something fun on the Mac with your little ones. Give it a try. The application costs $24.95 and you can download a demo at plasq.com.

You can listen to this review on Surfbits episode 179.

Guest Post - Slife Review

By John Chandler
Like many Mac users, Merlin Mann holds a strange power over me and I am compelled to do whatever he suggests. A few weeks ago on MacBreak Weekly, his pick of the week was Slife. Like Merlin, I had taken a look at the program before and didn't think it would be of much benefit for me. But Merlin gave it a second chance, and so, like Merlin, I did too. And, like Merlin, I'm glad I did.

Slife is a free program that runs in the background and measures how you spend your time. After it has been running for a while, you can go back and evaluate what you've been up to. It gives you a visual breakdown of what apps you've been working in, hour by hour, as you can see in the image to the right. It can be helpful...and guilt-inducing.


That was my first impression of the program when I saw it a few months ago. It didn't seem to offer much...other than guilt. Now that I'm using it, I am finding a lot of benefit to mingle in with my guilt. Besides showing what programs I use, it can also show a breakdown of what documents and websites I've been lingering on:



If you do work where you need to track time for clients, this, of course, can be useful. But, it is also helpful to get a good idea of how much time I'm spending on certain things. I can define the values I want to hold, but seeing the reality of where I am spending my time is an opportunity for me to be honest with myself and then begin to grow from there.

All of this is nice, but what makes Slife worth the CPU cycles is a feature called "Activities". You can lump programs and documents into different activities, or categories. So, for instance, if you want to know how much time you spend social networking, you could lump Facebook.com, Twitter.com and iChat into a single activity. Any combination of apps, websites, and documents can be measured.

Defining activities could become tedious and eat up more time than it is worth. I have found it best to define some general categories to get an idea of where my time is going -- creating, collecting, connecting, and planning:



Right now these are activities are defined only by apps. I don't think I will take the time to define them further by websites or documents. It's not a perfect system, but it gives me a good opportunity to reflect on how I am spending my time.

I've had Slife collecting data for about two weeks now. In another week or two, I'm going to start reshaping my workflow around what I am learning. I'll share some my journey on Creativityist -- you are welcome to come along for the ride.

A special thanks to MacSparky. I stumbled on his blog early this year. I am always pleased to see a new post appear in my reader, and I appreciate the voice he brings as an avid day to day Mac user.

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A note from MacSparky.
I just want to thank John for contributing this post. I'm now in week one of what looks to be a three week trial and having friends like John help keep things interesting on MacSparky is absolutely priceless.

You're a PC. That's Great!

The day job has been keeping me busy as of late. When I finally got a moment to check my RSS feed, I found a lot of jabber about Microsoft's latest ad campaign where they "take on" the long running Apple adds. My first thought was, so what? Why do so many Mac people get obsessed about what Microsoft is doing? Despite the fact that I love my Macs, I don't tell people to buy them. If windows does it for you, by all means use Windows. If Linux rocks your world, rock away. Just because I don't evangelize, doesn't mean people around me tend to buy Macs. I would like to think that is more a result of them using my Mac and seeing the results I get from it more than anything else. Regardless, I think as a community, us Mac users need to stop getting so obsessed with Windows and just enjoy our Macs.

iPhone LED Football - I'm Done For

Growing up in the 70's, I was lucky to have one of the very first hand-held electronic games, Mattel Football. This was old school electronics. There was no pass key, no lifelike football players. No. All you had was a couple of flashing LED dots, your imagination, and a burning desire to "pound the rock." That being said, I wore those little plastic buttons into oblivion as I trounced imaginary foes.

This is probably lost on younger readers but my nostalgic middle age head still pines away for that football game. As one reader explained in an email to me, "Your prayers are answered." That is right. Mattel Football found its way to the iPhone. I've installed it and I love it. They nailed the layout. They even nailed the sounds. I do miss my well-worn analog buttons but it sure is a trip pulling Mattel Football out of my pocket ... again.

Windows, You are Dead To Me!

My office runs a windows network and, as a result, I keep a Parallels version of XP on my Macs. I've recently, however, set up a VPN solution with the office PC that allows me to tunnel in without needing to bother with Parallels. This left the approximately 12 gigs of windows on my computer solely to run one legal related application. However, in the last six months I've actually booted that application on my Macs 2 times. I could have easily just run it remotely via VPN and with an ever shrinking hard drive, today I officially put a bullet in the head of the XP files on my Mac.

So there you have it. I have 12 gig more space, slightly less flexibility, and no regrets.

I'm a Creativityist, Are You?

I've been corresponding with my friend, John Chandler, on and off for sometime now. What I didn't realize until very recently is that John runs an excellent blog himself called, The Creativityist. In it John writes about everything from art to using Quicksilver to drop ideas into my favorite writing application, Scrivener. This one is very RSS worthy.

Sena Macbook Air Pullino Case Review

Sena Cases specializes in high end leather cases for your portable devices like Blackberries and iPhones. These leather cases bear little resemblance to the mass produced cases you are used to seeing in your local big box retailer. Naturally, I was interested in their MacBook Air cases and they kindly agreed to loan me one for a few weeks.

First I must comment on the unboxing. The case came in a cloth bag and makes you feel like you are buying something special. I think a lot of Apple consumers appreciate careful packaging and Sena certainly does that.

The particlar case I reviewed is called the Pullino. It is a sort of leather envelope custom tailored to hold your MacBook Air and nothing else. This is not a case to hold your power supply and other gear. It just holds the computer. I didn’t carry it alone so much as put my computer in the Pullino and then carried the Pullino protected computer in my briefcase or bag. It is tailored from Italian napa leather and sewn up on three sides with the fourth side open for you to slide your computer in. The stitching appeared sturdy and attractive with a contrasting leather color on the edge. Also inside is padding and velvet lining to protect your MacBook Air while parked inside.

The most unique feature with the Pullino however is its design. Built into the case is a wide leather strap that loops to the bottom and up the back side of the case. When you push your computer in, it pushes the strap down leaving just the handle at the top which you can then fold over the open side of the case and tuck into a small enclosure. When you need to get your computer back out, you lift the handle end and pull. The other end of the handle, which is looped under your computer, lifts the computer out of the case for you. It is kind of like those fabric ribbons you put underneath a set of batteries. The whole mechanism is deliciously analog and pulled off with leather strips and some tricky sewing. I get a kick out of the fact that this ultra modern computer has a case using technology that is literally thousands of years old.

My only gripe with the case was the fact that while the handle folds over to protect some of the open end, it does not protect all of it. There are several inches of the edge of the computer exposed on each side of the case. I worried about it damaging the edge of my MacBook Air banging around in my briefcase. It would have been nice if the case were about a half inch deeper so the edges of the computer could have been recessed.

If you are looking for a case that can make a statement, this one is worth a close look. This case retails for $240 and can be found at senacases.com

You can listen to this review on the Surfbits #177 Podcast

Everything is Going to Be Okay

Have you ever noticed how creative a lot of Mac users are? One of the perks of being a Mac geek is that you get to meet a lot of those folks. One such person that I like to call a friend is Dorothy Yamamoto who, among many other great talents, is a fantastic artist. Dorothy decided to do a collection of drawings of some of her friends (several from the Mac community) making the "OK" symbol with their hands. It looks fantastic, even mine! Check it out here.

Manage Tasks Under Fire

I write about personal productivity quite a bit. What I don’t do often enough is talk about how much I truly suck at it. The day job has been real busy lately. A looming jury trial and a colleague’s vacation have combined into a perfect storm of anarchy in my life. The last three days I’ve been putting out fires, and completely ignoring my OmniFocus data while watching the unread email multiply like rabbits.

Finally, this afternoon I shut the door, put the calls on hold, and did what I knew in my guts had to be done. I got caught up. I sorted and processed emails. I prioritized and adjusted projects. All in all, it took about an hour and a half. Several of my projects have been pushed back but at least they are done so under my terms. Of course in doing this I found several time bombs which I was able defuse in their last seconds. I am so much less stressed now that I have a handle on what I’m up against and amazed at how quickly things can descend into chaos when you don’t pay attention.

This whole exercise of falling off the wagon and getting back on reinforces something for me. When you have the least amount of time available for keeping track of your projects and tasks is precisely when you need to stop and do it the most. In other words, when the chips are down, you really need to suck it up.

New iPods

Isn't it strange how the hard drive based iPods haven't changed much in overall design but the Nano seems to get made over every year? Last year my youngest daughter got a "fat nano" and it worked perfectly for her hands. It is such a better solution than the "made for kids" type mp3 players. All that being said, the new Nano looks really sharp and I like the way they used the accelerometer. It is almost like a gateway drug to the iPod Touch and iPhone. Hmmmm. I've still got my g1 Nano that works like a champ. A little scratched up but it is a podcast/audiobook/smart playlist beast.

Any Macsparky readers getting the new Nano and want to write up your thoughts for the blog? Let me know.

Bento Syncing Done Better

Awhile back, I posted a tricky little Applescript I made to make syncing the Bento database easier. I was so busy patting myself on the back that I completely missed a much more elegant solution. Thankfully reader Neil shared it in the comments. It was so much better that I decided to give it a separate post. As Neil explained ...

I have a somewhat simpler approach (I think). All I did was copy my Bento folder from ~/Library/Application Support to my iDisk folder. Then I deleted the Bento folder and replaced it with a symbolic link. That way, when I start Bento, it looks in ~/Library/Application Support/Bento and is redirected to the copy on my iDisk. That way, it is always synced between the local computer and iDisk whenever I sync iDisk.

When it comes to computers, simpler almost always equals better. Neil, I bow my propeller beanie to your chocolate covered Mac-ness.

NoiseNinja Screencast

I reviewed the NoiseNinja Aperture plug in just a little while ago. This week I was pleased to see the folks at PictureCode posted their very own NoiseNinja screencast. Check it out.

Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 Review

This week I’m back to photography. A good friend and reader recently turned me on to Nik Software that has a series of excellent photography software products. In particular, their Color Efex Pro plug-in for Aperture and Photoshop.

I know I’m supposed to be objective as a reviewer but I just have to say this plug in rocks. Have you ever seen those photoshop svants that can take a picture and then work their black magic on it. I’ve always admired it but at a certain level accepted that I’m about as likely to learn how to do that as I am to build a fission reactor in my attic.

This is where Color Efex Pro steps it up. It installs as a plug in for Aperture or Photoshop and it has a pile of digital filters that enhance your photos with the touch of a button. I’m not just talking black and white here. This is 52 filters with over 250 effects that make your photos look professional.

Pro Contrast Filter

These filters include several traditional filter effects such as polarization and color gradients. Since I don’t shoot with anything but a UV filter, this allows me to experiment on my shots.

Sunshine Filter

That is just the beginning though. There are also a host of filters that just make your photos look better or more interesting. There is one that softens your skin. Solarizer gives you an incredible contrast for portraits. One darkens the edges and lightens the center. Another takes your modern fancy image and magically turns it into an antiqued old photograph. Are you taking glamour shots? One click sets you up. Need extra light, the sunshine filter allows you to add it in with a large degree of granularity. You can turn day to night with the midnight filter or get that hazy James Dean look with the Monday Morning filter. I’ve spent hours playing with these filters and could ramble on. In the plug-in it even organizes the filters in convenient tabs such as portrait, landscape and traditional.

Bleach Bypass

Applying these filters in Aperture is easy as selecting the image, activating the plug-in and clicking on your filter of choice.

Nik Software explains the benefit is that you can do your edits faster. I think they are missing the point. Color Efex Pro allows you to do edits that are completely unreachable to us mere mortals. It is like having your own little photoshop genius in your pocket.

Glamour Glow

The Color Efex Pro filters do come at a price. There are three versions that range from $100 (with 15 filters) to $300 (with 52 filters). I know for the “point and shoot” crowd that is probably more than their camera cost but if you are an SLR owner and serious about dramatically increasing your digital enhancement skills, this one is worth a serious look. You can see samples of all the filters and download a trial at Nik’s website found at NikSoftware.com. Check it out.

You can listen to this review on Surfbits Episode 176.

OmniOutliner on the iPhone

Unable to drop my infatuation with the Omni Group, I started a thread months ago in the Omni Forums pleading my case for OmniOutliner on my iPhone. While the Omni gang has been mum on this point, the thread has slowly grown with additional apostles. The most recent advocate, random1destiny, gave an excellent tip for viewing current OmniOutliner files on your iPhone.

For everyone else, until the OO iPhone app comes out, a good view-only solution I found is to buy the Files iphone app which lets you upload any type of file. Then export your OO file as HTML(Unordered List) and transfer and view it using Files. This results in a fairly readable copy that you can keep on your iPhone.

Why didn't I think of that?