Palm Folio and the Radio Shack WP-2.. A New (old) Idea

Radio Shack WP-2


I was looking at the new Palm Folio  and it reminded me of my old beloved Radio Shack WP-2 that got me through lawschool.  In many ways it was the best laptop I ever used.  I didn’t need to plug it in.  It ran about 20 hours on a pair of AA batteries.  I beat the hell out of it and it just chugged right along for 3 years.  I could fill it with a text file of notes and then go back to my apartment and dump it into my Atari ST Computer and I was good to go.  Granted I love my MacBook Pro but it would be really nice to have an updated WP-2.  Perhaps something with a simple screen and a decent keyboard that does raw text files and has an SD card slot in it for <$150.  Something you could pull out on a train or plane or anywhere else with no fear whatsoever.  I actually still have my WP-2.  I’ve been letting my kids play with it for several years as a toy.  They’ve beat it up more than I ever did and it still looks fine.  Maybe I’ll put some batteries in it this weekend and see what happens.

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Rock and Roll Baseball

 

Apple Logic


Take Me Out to the Ballgame – MacSparky style
I’ve got some really great footage of the kids playing baseball. I wanted to put it to the music for “Take me out to the Ballgame” and decided to record it myself. Using Band-in-a-Box, Logic, and my MIDI keyboard and WX11 Wind Controller (MIDI Sax), I came up with the attached as my first attempt at using Logic. For some reason it makes me laugh to think I laid down the Hendrix guitar with a MIDI Sax. I really like the instrument sounds but clearly have lots to learn. Its kind of funny that my first recording as an avid jazz fan is more along the lines of hard rock. My sister in law (a SERIOUS baseball fan) thinks it an abomination. Enjoy anyway.

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Mozy No More

Mozy Logo

Well my month long experiment of the Mozy service is concluded. Over the course of about a week I was able to upload a lot of my document files and my 10gb iPhoto library. The thought of spending a month uploading my 40gb iTunes library makes my brain hurt. I can see the benefit of online storage but I’m not sold. Instead of renewing I spent $80 on a USB hard drive that I keep in a secure location away from my home.
Mozy in summary:
Pros:
1. $5 a month, unlimited storage
2. Offsite
3. Presumably Secure Services
Cons:
1. SSSLLLOOOWWWWW Upload (1 week for 12gb)
2. How secure is my personal data once I send it out into the ether?

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Review – iShowU

iShowU


One of the things I quickly gravitated to after joining the world of macintosh, was screencasts. In case you’ve never seen one, a screencast is essentially a moving screen capture. These are a sort of on-screen video where some generous soul walks you through the operation of a specific application or nuance of OS X. There are some excellent podcasts that do this along with a few other folks who just post them on their websites.
While making screencasts to help fellow mac users understand their computers is great, there are a lot of other good reasons for a screencast. For instance, if you are having some strange application behavior, why not screencast it and send it to the developer. I’ve written those long convoluted developer emails and I’m betting if I had just sent a screencast things would have been easier for everyone involved. Or perhaps you have a friend who needs some gentle persuasion why OS X is the way to go. Make a screencast of yourself using iLife and send it to him. Another example would be to make a private tutorial, like to show your Mac Mom how to attach a picture to an email. Really the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.
While I have been enjoying these screencasts for sometime now, I never really thought much about making one myself. Frankly, I had no clue how this is even possible. That is, until I started playing with iShowU.
This application, which can be found at shinywhitebox.com takes all of the work out of screencasting. It is a snap to use. The interface satisfies the Jekyll and Hyde in all of us Mac users. That is, while iShowU initially strikes you with its simplicity, before long you realize it is also very customizable. When you open it up the left side has a slew of presets that make screencasting as easy as picking a self explanatory preset and pressing “Record”. Alternatively, the right side of the interface has a series of self describing buttons that allows you a variety of options for fine tuning the resolution, quality, audio, and export codec just to name a few. In very little time you’ll find yourself either using one of the many presets or perhaps tweaking it just a bit and then you are off to the races. The output options are very versatile and you can make a file as big and pretty as the job requires. Tweaking the frame rate and compression type, it doesn’t take long to find out what works for you.
Once you start recording, you are free to roam your mouse over the screen while dictating into your mac with a running narration. It doesn’t overly tax your processor and doesn’t get in the way. As a test I ran it on top of Garageband, which can be resource heavy, and iShowU hung in there like a champ. One nice feature is the setting to allow the camera to follow your mouse. This way you can make a high resolution file with a smaller screen.
If you need a screencapture tool, iShowU will get the job done with very little work on your behalf. By including multiple presets, the developer gives you the ability to immediately use the program while still giving you a large degree of control. If you don’t need a screencapture utility, I still recomend you give this a try. You’ll be amazed at the ways you can use this application. Shinywhitebox has a demo available on its website. A license will run you just $20 and I think it is an excellent value.
Using iShowU, I can easily see myself adding a few screencasts to MacSparky.com in the future. While I’m not sure I can do them to the high standards of some of the regular screencasters out there, I certainly can see small clips to demonstrate some interesting feature.

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Waiting for OmniFocus …

OmniFocus

Its been a few weeks now since the Omni Group announced the beta of its quasi GTD product, OmniFocus. I know I’m on the list and must admit I’m curious to give it a try. Depending on how well it works I’ll have to decide if I’ll run it as a sandbox application or actually re-enter my roughly 200 iGTD entries. I’ll keep you posted.

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The Left Side of My Brain

LightbulbI’ve recently upgraded my iLife applications to some of the pro versions, specifically Final Cut and Logic. While I toyed with these things on computers before (I used to be a professional musician), I never really grasped how much a computer could be a tool of my creativity until switching. I’m going crazy with creative outlets lately, just ask my wife. It is just too easy. Well, the short of it is I plan on not only updating this site with lawyer/productivity items but a bit of the creative as well. As Captain Jack would say, “Ye be warned.”

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Review – OmniGraffle

OmniGraffle

 

As usual, this review was recorded and written for my friend Tim at www.surfbits.com and released with Surfbits episode 108

 

I have a confession. I diagram everything. I think it has something to do with the way my brain is wired but I am always pulling out a sketch pad whether I’m trying to understand some complex client problem or simply explain to my kids the difference between a phillips and a slotted screwdriver. An offshoot to this diagram fixation is that I like to include them with just about anything I write or present. As a trial lawyer, I have personal experience that a few good diagrams can help the jurrors and judges understand exactly what it is I am trying to explain.

 

It is needless to say that when switching over to Apple one concern I had was “how am I going to continue making brilliant diagrams?” I knew with the OS X interface there had to be a program to meet my needs and indeed I have found it in OmniGraffle by the Omni Group.

 

OmniGraffle is a diagramming application used to create simple diagrams, flow charts, and illustrations. What I really like about this program is the way it combines powerful diagramming tools with a simple interface. It has a streamlined set of inspectors that, after spending some time learning, make it very easy to alter just about every parameter of my diagrams. It also has a unique set of “Palettes” which are pre-defined objects you can simply drag and drop right onto your diagram. Out of the box, OmniGraffle has multiple sets of Palettes but there are even more on the Omni Group website. These include such things as logic flow, idea mapping, website planning, GUI planning, architecture, and a host of other subjects. There are also several websites with many professional looking user created sets of palettes. I found www.graffletopia.com particularly good and it is now on my RSS feed. In addition to the palettes, there is also a robust set of drawing tools. One nice feature is the ability to double-click on a tool in OmniGraffle Pro’s tool palette and it stays active for multiple creations.

 

When creating complex diagrams you can create them in multiple layers which is really helpful to me when explaining complex concepts. Related to layers, are canvases, which are somewhat akin to separate pages for related diagrams. With OmniGraffle Pro you get an unlimited number of these which allows you to go crazy with related diagrams.

 

OmniGraffle takes full advantage of Mac OS X’s Quartz graphics layer. This allows for antialiasing, smooth scaling, transparent drop shadowing, and other features. It also allows for Bézier shapes although the Bézier tool is not particularly easy to control with any degree of accuracy, but it is fine for the diagram work I do.

 

Often I make adjustments or additions to my charts as I get closer to presenting them or exporting them to Keynote. With my old software this was always a pain because then you would have to re-align all of the arrows and lines attaching everything. This is not the case with OmniGraffle. The program “magnetizes” the lines and arrows to stick to the object you attach them too. I can drag boxes and objects around the screen and everything stays attached unless, of course, I tell them to unstick. It also has tools to allow me to adjust precisely where on the object these lines and arrows stick.

 

An interesting feature is the ability to create hotlinks on the diagrams themselves. This allows me to click an object on a diagram that brings up a separate object. I use this to link pictures and pdf’s that relate to my work files but it also could link websites, video, music and just about anything else on your Mac. If this isn’t enough it works with OmniOutliner allowing me to import an outline as a framework for a diagram.

 

Once your masterpiece is completed, OmniGraffle can output to PDF, TIFF, PNG, JPEG, EPS, HTML image map, SVG, PICT vector, Photoshop and BMP bitmap documents. With OmniGraffle Pro, there is better support to import and export to Microsoft Visio. The Pro version also gives you the ability to merge objects and other advanced tools.

 

I spent several weeks using this program and strongly recommend taking advantage of OmniGroup’s support tutorial and sample documents as well as some of the great user created webcasts to help you learn to take full advantage of this powerful program. Realistically it took me about 3 hours to really get my arms around it. Time well spent in my case.

 

OmniGraffle costs $79.95 and OmniGraffle Pro costs $149.95. These programs aren’t cheap but if you have a need of a diagraming application, they are well worth the investment. You can download a free trial at the company’s website and try them for yourself. I am so pleased with this program. It is well designed and easy to use, once you get over the moderate learning curve. Best of all, my diagrams have never looked better or more convincing.

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Review – Periscope

Periscope

 

Freeverse recently released its new program, Periscope. This program allows you to use your iSight camera, or any other recognized USB camera in new and different ways. When I boot it up on my MacBook Pro I immediately see a preview window with my mug in it. A nice touch to the interface is the border to the preview window that makes it look like the tube border on a pre flatscreen era television.

 

On the left side of the screen is the interface which is very simply broken down into three tabs: capture, share, and review. Each tab has multiple options underneath it. For instance on the capture button, I can choose to take picture when it is triggered by motion, sound, a timer, an Applescript, or using my Apple remote. Likewise the second tab, called “Share” allows me to output the pictures to a variety of places such as iPhoto, FTP, a folder, .Mac, Flickr, or even email. Finally the third tab allows me to preview the photos taken. The picture quality is not all that great but that probably has more to do with the quality of the iSight camera than the software. Freeverse should be complimented on the interface. Whether you want to send a motion triggered shot to your work email or drop your apple remote triggered shots to you iPhoto library it takes all of about 10 seconds to configure.

 

Periscope is a program that fills two distinctly different roles. It is a gadget but its also a security device. As a gadget it is simply a blast. I hooked it up with my kids and they were fighting over it. One was using the remote to take pictures of herself mugging it up while the other one would do the James Bond act and attempt to walk all the way across the screen without setting off the motion trigger while I blasted the theme from Mission Impossible over iTunes. My daughter already informed me she wants it on her iMac.

 

As a security device I think it also does a pretty good job. I’m sure there are more complex security systems but it still probably is enough for most of us. I don’t own a USB camera but I don’t see why you couldn’t point it at your door or yard and tell it to email you a picture at work if something moves or on the hour. It could also be used to keep an eye on your pets while you are out. Interestingly, the program takes pictures even after my screen goes dark so the crooks would be none the wiser. Another good use would be if you travel and leave your MacBook in your hotel room.

 

A license for Periscope will cost you $29.95 and can be found at www.freeverse.com. As an aside the confirmation email is the best one I’ve ever read (and I buy lots of software). I particularly like where Freeverse’s president invites me, the “Esteemed Customer Person”, to write if I have any questions about “life in general.” I just love Mac developers, or at least most of them anyway.

 

I really like the interface in Periscope. It is easy to use and you can quickly set it to your needs. If you are interested in the entertainment or security aspects of this program, check it out.

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