Pagehand Review

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If you’ve been reading me for any length of time, you’ll know that I have a “thing” for word processors. This is partly because I spend so much time writing but also because I remember the cowboy days of word processing when our computers were 8 bits and there were 20 different developers trying to build a better mousetrap.
Gladly, the Microsoft Word stranglehold seems to be loosening and independent developers are once again bringing their own particular take on word processing to the Mac. One of the most recent additions is Pagehand.
This version 1.0 application is all about the words. The interface is simple and tasteful developed to stay out of your way and let you get to the hard work of writing.

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Thankfully, you can spend a lot of time writing in Pagehand without ever straying into the menu listings and there simply are no inspectors. All of its tools are presented in the toolbar and sidebar. One nice touch is font are grouping by style so if you are looking for a nice decorative sans serif, they are easy to find.

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It is always refreshing to see a developer create an application with no regard to feature lists. However, there are a few things missing from Pagehand that could make it a deal breaker for some. You can’t track changes and there are no footnotes or endnotes. For me, that severely limits my ability to use Pagehand. Likewise the page layout and table support is present but not nearly as robust as in Apple’s Pages application.

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The thing is, those features that Pagehand does include are done extremely well. I’ve always used paragraph styles but I’m the only person I know who does (and I talk to a lot of writers). I think part of the problem is implementation. Pagehand has made developing, customizing, and naming paragraph styles very intuitive.

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In terms of character and paragraph customization, Pagehand excels. There are four different styles of underline and four styles of strikethrough. You can apply shadow and control the angle, offset, blur, and opacity. The hyphenation control includes sliders for the current paragraph and entire document.
Pagehand also changes the rules with file format. Pagehand’s native file format is called Pagehand PDF. This way, any saved Pagehand file can be opened in any PDF reader on any platform. What a great idea. In addition, Pagehand also imports and exports to the usual suspects including Microsoft Word and several text formats. Although importing Microsoft Word documents that include unsupported features, such as footnotes, led to some grief.
I can’t help but really like this application. The simplicity of the user interface and the moxy of simply ignoring several of the word processing features everyone expects is endearing. If you don’t need those missing features, Pagehand may be the answer you are looking for.
I suspect there will be some feature creep with future versions and look forward to seeing how the developer does this and keeps the elegant simplicity.
You can download Pagehand from Pagehand.com. The introductory price is $40 but that will eventually go to $50.
You can listen to this review on the Mac Review Cast.

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Managing Recurring Lists on the iPhone

During the recent Mac Power Users episode on task managers, I neglected to mention how I manage recurring lists. We all have lists that are not necessarily task lists but get used over and over again. I have them for the grocery and hardware stores with things like bananas and duct tape. I also have them for packing an overnight bag or heading out to a presentation (extension cord? check). These lists don’t lend themselves to OmniFocus but there is a solution, the free web service and $2.99 iPhone application, Zenbe List. (iTunes Link)

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Zenbe Lists has a very simple web interface that allows you to build lists straight from your browser or iPhone.

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You can then share your list or even publish it to the web as a widget. More importantly, using the iPhone application you can sync it to your pocket.

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While this architecture builds a perfectly adequate task management system, for me it creates an even better recurring list manager. I keep the application on my iPhone right next to the OmniFocus application and while it doesn’t get used as often, it serves nicely when required.

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Adding a Mail Folder to IMAP Mail Accounts

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My friend, Tim, has recently “seen the light” about using IMAP mail services to sync between multiple accounts. (If this sounds like greek to you, watch my E-mail Sorcery screencast, episode 15 right here.)
Having successfully set up his IMAP mail accounts, he now wants to add several folders to also synchronize through IMAP. I thought his question was worthy of a short tutorial so here goes:

1. Create the Folder

In Apple Mail, Go to the Mailbox menu item and click “New Mailbox”

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2. Make it IMAP

Next a dialogue will show up asking what type of mailbox you want. Click on the selection arrow.

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The click will open a list of your current accounts. You want to select the root level of your IMAP account. In the example, I am doing this on my MobileMe IMAP account. This is where mistakes are made. If you create the mailbox “On My Mac” or within an old POP account, it won’t synchronize.

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Then you simply give it a name and you are done. It should show up in both Apple Mail and your other linked IMAP devices, such as your iPhone.

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Apple Users and Fear

It seems there is a bit of underlying fear among Apple users that stems from the old days. Many remember how dominant the Macintosh was over the original PC and how that position changed so drastically that by the 90’s, Apple seemed everyone’s favorite candidate for hostile takeover.
For Apple enthusiasts, those memories are never too far from their mind and every Apple move, product, decision, market statistic, and rumor gets passed through that filter. “Is Apple going to crash again?” “Am I going to be forced back into Windows?” Users are so dependent on Apple’s products that they fear losing them in the future. This collective mindset is not unknown. Reporters and pundits often examine Apple moves in light of “what went wrong” back in the 80’s and 90’s and predicting Apple’s next demise is great sport. Joe Wilcox just wrote a much linked piece attempting to apply this to the developing iPhone/Android market. (Gruber responds here.)
The thing is, this fear is irrational. Nobody at Apple is afraid.
Apple has its own, fairly obvious, plan: Dominate the top of the market. They make a high-end product with very few compromises. They are happy to sell 10% of the market with high profits and let the rest of the hardware manufactures race to the bottom for small profits on volumes of junk. I think this is also true for the iPhone. As demonstrated by the the meteoric rise of Apple’s stock combined with the company’s piles of cash reserves, this plan works.
There is a significant portion of the market that wants a controlled, superior interface and is willing to pay for it. Apple simply needs to continue to make superior products. Market percentages are not what will hurt Apple, corporate indifference to making superior products is. I think Apple is aware of this and I don’t think Apple users have anything to be afraid of.

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Band in a Box Review

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Before I got a day job, I used to be a professional musician. This goes back some time. Back to the 80’s and the days of big hair and skinny ties. That was also the time that MIDI really started to take off and there was a fantastic little application (that came on 3.5 inch floppy disc no less) called Band in a Box. I loved it back then and I’m very pleased to report (20 years later), Band in a Box continues to amaze.

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If you are a singer or a musician and want to practice a song, one problem you will face is the fact that your band members are not always around. Using this application, it doesn’t matter. You don’t need any musical talent to operate it other than the ability to type in chord changes for your favorite song. Once they are in you set beginning and ending points and pick a genre of music and hit “play”. It is that easy. The application generates a convincing back up group, including piano, guitar, bass, and drums for you to play and sing along with.

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The genius of this application is that it creates a full back up band for any song in just about any style for you to sing along with or accompany on your instrument. The standard version comes loaded with backup styles from salsa to straight ahead jazz. You can also buy supplemental style modules to fit your taste and needs.
Since its inception Band in a Box has played through the MIDI instruments in your computer. That was great 20 years ago but, if you don’t have the right hardware, can sound strangely like a bad e-card. Band in a Box has expanded beyond this applications MIDI roots and include wave files of actual musicians playing their instruments in place of MIDI signals. This “RealTracks” feature provides a noticeably better sound.

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Once you complete your arrangements you can freeze the song so there is no delay in loading and starting. This would be great for live performances.
You can record your melodies right into Band in a Box or export a MIDI file for use in GarageBand or Logic Studio. This can provide a great jumping
off point for laying down your basic tracks.
The newest release of Band in a Box also features the ‘Audio Chord Wizard’, which will take an MP3 file and extract the chords from it remarkably well. Think about it. Any MP3 song converted to chord changes. No fakebook required. I tested this on John Coletrane’s “Giant Steps” which, has some complex changes and Band in a Box did well.

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For guitar players, Band in a Box also includes ‘RealCharts’ with an on-screen guitar display so that you can hear the audio performance and learn from on-screen notation, tablature, or visual guitar fretboard.
This application could be extremely useful for students, musicians, singers, and music teachers. For music students in particular it is a fantastic tool teaching chord structures as well as providing an excellent back up band to play along with. It would also be nice for the karaoke crowd in that you could make a back up tape for any song you have chord changes to in the style of your preference.
You can learn more about Band in a Box at PGMusic.com. They have a variety of licenses starting at $129 and some versions (with the large real tracks and real drums files) ship on a USB hard drive. They also have an educational discounts and a generous upgrade policy. A few years ago I got the upgrade price from my original purchase of the application on an Atari ST in 1986. Check it out.
You can listen to this review on the MacReviewCast Podcast.
FTC (Keep MacSparky out of jail) Disclosure:
While I have paid for Band in a Box (several times) over the years. The version upon which this review is based was a review copy.

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MiFi iPhone Application

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The iPhone Appstore now has a little app that tells you how much time is left in your MiFi battery. It is free and simple to use. Just sign into your MiFi and punch the MiFi App to get all the gory details. While the screen display is nothing to write home about and I’d prefer something a bit more specific than just the four bars for battery life, it does provide critical information and the App is free.

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