This post, and also the previous one, have been published using Blogo, an application for mac that helps you to post entries to one or various blogs, easily, even with images.
Its description in iusethis gave me curiosity and decided to test it. To download the demo one must register, and the demo works for 17 days.
For which I go using, I have to admit that is a quite useful program, for whom have various blogs that are dedicated to different things, or that are different because admits Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad and Movable Type.
In Preferences, in Accounts, all the blogs can be added to handle. And then in the Blogo window (Create/Edit) at the side of the entry title, a cascade menu appears that says in which of the various blogs you will be publishing. It also lets you use HTML "snippets" or "widgets" as the embedded Youtube videos or embedded Flickr photos and other sites.
I think this is one of the nicest apps I have tested these days. I love my mac.
Thursday, 29 November 2007
Blogging with Blogo
iWeb again....
Yesterday I was using iWeb, to bring up to date the family site. And playing around to publish the blog entries in Facebook, I found me with the surprise that the file rss.xml, also brings failures of publication. I'm referring to the same errors of linking that presented the RSS link of the blog's homepage. It appears always a "ghost folder" that refers to the folder in which the site is published inside the mac. But, at least me, when publishing to the web through FTP, I do not upload the folder where iWeb publishes it, but I upload the files directly to root directory ( / ). This is why that problem always appears to me and I always have to erase (in Textwrangler) that "ghost folder". That means I have to do the same thing with the files rss.xml that are the ones that serve to the feeders and news readers.
Surpassed that matter, all works perfectly in the site, although thinking about it, I believe I am going to have to upload the whole folder to avoid the juggling of erasing the funny "ghost folder".
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
My Mac and my Sony Ericsson
I have a Sony Ericsson W200i. It's black with the orange edges. It's one of those phones that can have it all (agenda, calendar, radio fm, mp3 reader, internet, play, camera for photo and video). But it only has synchronization software for PC with Windows. When I realized this it was a little late, but anyway. Seeking on the internet, I found some programs that say to function with telephones mobiles in Mac.
For example, FoneLink of Novamedia that can also do backups of sms messages. But does not work with my telephone. It works from W300i to W910i, and other models. And also works for some Motorola and some Nokia. If you do not see your phone in the list they have, you can ask them to include it using the Phone Inspector they provide for download. And it's already compatible with Leopard.
Or also the Plugins for Sony Ericsson of Feisar, that do that they function with iSync that already comes with the Mac. But here we have another problem, and the fact is that the update 10.4.10 of the OS X has broken with the ability of iSync to detect telephones connected by USB. So if you still want to use the plugin, you would have to do the first USB synchronization in version 10.4.9 and only later do the upgrade. The site does not say anything 10.4.11 neither Leopard. Seems that Bluetooth works fine, but my telephone does not have that. UPDATE 11/Jan/2008: Feisar Site has released the plugin also for Leopard and USB synchronization is now working.
There's also this tuner for the "walkman" to work with iTunes, called iTuneMyWalkman 0.941. Still unavailable for Leopard. It only works to be able to synchronize the music, to do it as easy as between the Mac and the iPod.
UPDATE 28/Feb/2008: My dearest brother show me an app called Dreamsicle that let you synchronize or manage your Sony Ericsson Walkman with iTunes and iPhoto and also has video support. There is a demo download and costs $11,95 (€ 8).
And there's also PhoneAgent 1.4.3. Functions only with Sony Ericsson phones, and well, not with all of them. My W200i is not neither in the list of the phones that "perhaps" works although without official backup. But it is prepared for Leopard.
Except by iTuneMyWalkman (that is open source) all the other are payments. They are not very expensive.
Finally, I tried to connect the telephone from Windows to the Mac but for some reason, it did not work. After almost half an hour I gave up and I left Windows to return to Tiger, and oh, wonder! the phone was recognized as a USB drive. As simple as that. So using Finder I passed some music from the computer to the phone and some photos from the phone to the computer. It's what i have, but makes me happy.
For example, FoneLink of Novamedia that can also do backups of sms messages. But does not work with my telephone. It works from W300i to W910i, and other models. And also works for some Motorola and some Nokia. If you do not see your phone in the list they have, you can ask them to include it using the Phone Inspector they provide for download. And it's already compatible with Leopard.
Or also the Plugins for Sony Ericsson of Feisar, that do that they function with iSync that already comes with the Mac. But here we have another problem, and the fact is that the update 10.4.10 of the OS X has broken with the ability of iSync to detect telephones connected by USB. So if you still want to use the plugin, you would have to do the first USB synchronization in version 10.4.9 and only later do the upgrade. The site does not say anything 10.4.11 neither Leopard. Seems that Bluetooth works fine, but my telephone does not have that. UPDATE 11/Jan/2008: Feisar Site has released the plugin also for Leopard and USB synchronization is now working.
There's also this tuner for the "walkman" to work with iTunes, called iTuneMyWalkman 0.941. Still unavailable for Leopard. It only works to be able to synchronize the music, to do it as easy as between the Mac and the iPod.
UPDATE 28/Feb/2008: My dearest brother show me an app called Dreamsicle that let you synchronize or manage your Sony Ericsson Walkman with iTunes and iPhoto and also has video support. There is a demo download and costs $11,95 (€ 8).
And there's also PhoneAgent 1.4.3. Functions only with Sony Ericsson phones, and well, not with all of them. My W200i is not neither in the list of the phones that "perhaps" works although without official backup. But it is prepared for Leopard.
Except by iTuneMyWalkman (that is open source) all the other are payments. They are not very expensive.
Finally, I tried to connect the telephone from Windows to the Mac but for some reason, it did not work. After almost half an hour I gave up and I left Windows to return to Tiger, and oh, wonder! the phone was recognized as a USB drive. As simple as that. So using Finder I passed some music from the computer to the phone and some photos from the phone to the computer. It's what i have, but makes me happy.
Wednesday, 31 October 2007
iWeb ’08 and my other site
My first impressions after using the new iWeb are good. Its useful HTML widgets and integration with Google Adsense works smoothly. I used a JAXTR widget and also a Blogarithm panel for people to subscribe via email notifications. Better handling of images makes iWeb a bit faster.
I didn’t used embedded video or photo from my YouTube or Picasa Web Albums, but I’m thinking there will be no problem with that when I decide to use them. Or even with the mySkitch service.
About comments, I will keep my free Haloscan account and my free Statcounter account for web stats, so still iComment for me. And about that rare link for the RSS feed, still there. I still have to open the files with any editor (using Textwrangler here) and my old script worked fine.
I have to say that FTP uploading (Cyberduck) is going way to fast for what I expected. So I am a lot happier with this iWeb.
I’m planning to add an Skype Me button, but for now I’m very pleased with the final product of my site!
I didn’t used embedded video or photo from my YouTube or Picasa Web Albums, but I’m thinking there will be no problem with that when I decide to use them. Or even with the mySkitch service.
About comments, I will keep my free Haloscan account and my free Statcounter account for web stats, so still iComment for me. And about that rare link for the RSS feed, still there. I still have to open the files with any editor (using Textwrangler here) and my old script worked fine.
I have to say that FTP uploading (Cyberduck) is going way to fast for what I expected. So I am a lot happier with this iWeb.
I’m planning to add an Skype Me button, but for now I’m very pleased with the final product of my site!
Friday, 28 September 2007
My iWeb ('06) site and FTP uploading
I must say it. I really like iLife's iWeb app. I know how to use Adobe Golive and Dreamweaver (in a very novice way) and I managed to make a professional site with both of them, but for what's worth, I like to make my family site with iWeb. It's easy to understand, everything is WYSIWYG.
Ok. Maybe it's not so easy for everyone, but I caught their way pretty fast. And that applies to other apps for Mac.
Anyway, back to the topic. When I write new entries to my site -blog or album catalog- I use "publish to folder" from the File menu. This function republishes all the site with a new date, so most of the time you end up uploading all your site over and over again, using an FTP uploader. I see this as a waste of time, band with and net traffic.
One of my big concerns was the fact that the link for the RSS was wrongly created by iWeb Publish to Folder. Dont' know why, but creates the link with a route to a non-existing folder (same name as the local publish folder but inside domain), where the rss.xml it's supossed to be. First I thought that it was a problem with the rss file. But after some time I realized that thing about the folder.
And what I had to do, was to open all the files with the rss.xml link and erase that phantom folder from the route. In my site I have one blog for my family stuff, and another one to write about everything that comes into my mind. So I have 2 blogs, that means 2 archives and 2 front pages. That makes 4 files with rss.xml with a bad link, 2 or 3 times per file.
So I used Textwrangler to do the job. When I finally got into it, I created a script to make Textwrangler to do the job for me!!!! It's just as simple to start recording the actions of selecting the 4 files, find "phantom folder", erase and save.
After that, I'm ready to FTP publish. Now I' using Cyberduck, opensource/donation ware, and after a few times managed to understand it. Just drag what I want to be uploaded into the FTP favourite of my site. Missing the two-panel view but not a problem at all. So, by now, I know what files and folders of my site changed each time I write. Most of the time is only blog and photos, so I just select these two to be updated. And that saves me the time of uploading the whole site each time.
I was looking forward to the new iWeb'o8 as it was said that they would improve something about FTP but that didn't happen. That leaves out the "one-click publishing" feature because only works with a .mac account. Hope at least the rss.xml problem is solved in this version.
Ok. Maybe it's not so easy for everyone, but I caught their way pretty fast. And that applies to other apps for Mac.
Anyway, back to the topic. When I write new entries to my site -blog or album catalog- I use "publish to folder" from the File menu. This function republishes all the site with a new date, so most of the time you end up uploading all your site over and over again, using an FTP uploader. I see this as a waste of time, band with and net traffic.
One of my big concerns was the fact that the link for the RSS was wrongly created by iWeb Publish to Folder. Dont' know why, but creates the link with a route to a non-existing folder (same name as the local publish folder but inside domain), where the rss.xml it's supossed to be. First I thought that it was a problem with the rss file. But after some time I realized that thing about the folder.
And what I had to do, was to open all the files with the rss.xml link and erase that phantom folder from the route. In my site I have one blog for my family stuff, and another one to write about everything that comes into my mind. So I have 2 blogs, that means 2 archives and 2 front pages. That makes 4 files with rss.xml with a bad link, 2 or 3 times per file.
So I used Textwrangler to do the job. When I finally got into it, I created a script to make Textwrangler to do the job for me!!!! It's just as simple to start recording the actions of selecting the 4 files, find "phantom folder", erase and save.
After that, I'm ready to FTP publish. Now I' using Cyberduck, opensource/donation ware, and after a few times managed to understand it. Just drag what I want to be uploaded into the FTP favourite of my site. Missing the two-panel view but not a problem at all. So, by now, I know what files and folders of my site changed each time I write. Most of the time is only blog and photos, so I just select these two to be updated. And that saves me the time of uploading the whole site each time.
I was looking forward to the new iWeb'o8 as it was said that they would improve something about FTP but that didn't happen. That leaves out the "one-click publishing" feature because only works with a .mac account. Hope at least the rss.xml problem is solved in this version.
Thursday, 27 September 2007
Instead of having a .mac account
Since I started using my mac, I decided to try most of the apps that come pre-installed, and I also decided not to pay for a .mac account. Some may say that I'm losing the capabilities of synchronization or else, but I have a backup in a external hard drive (Ok, I have to make it more frequently, but that's not the point).
I decided not to use .mac just because I already have lots of services for free. I use a lot of Google services just with one account:
I decided not to use .mac just because I already have lots of services for free. I use a lot of Google services just with one account:
- Gmail, with almost 3 Gb storage space. And I set up Mail to download my two gmail accounts. Working just fine.
- Picasa Web Albums, now 1 Gb storage space for photos. And you can use the Picasa App for Mac or the Picasa plug-in for iPhoto. And works with my Blogger account, too. Works great.
- Google Calendar. Not as neat as the iCal but I need just to keep track on birthdays there. For my personal to do's i use iCal, I just need it at home.
- Google Reader for RSS subscriptions and you have a plug-in for Firefox to notify you as you open the browser.
- YouTube for my family videos.
The items above just count for the Google services I use but for example, you can use Google Browser Sync for Firefox to keep your bookmarks, cookies and history synchronized between two computers, and you also have del.icio.us but I haven't tried this one yet. For the newly added .mac feature called Groups, you have Google Groups. If you are interested in turning your gmail account in a storage device maybe you are interested in gDisk, donation ware. For backing up, if you search in Google, you will found a lot of alternatives.
And more, I registered my gmail in Microsoft .Net Passport, so I can still use the same email to sign in in MS Messenger (so bad they don't plan to further develop the mac version, one thing I miss is the voice, video and Remote Assistance from the windows version). Not a lot of my people have macs so iChat is out of the question, but for video and voice I use Skype for Mac.
For my personal website, I use iWeb's Publish to Folder and a free host (with a domain bought from doteasy). I agree that it's not very nice when FTP uploading the newly published site but I've already found a way to avoid not changed files. But I'll write about it in a future post. But using iWeb I can link my picasa albums here, as well as my youtube videos, and with iComment (license: 7 euros) you can use the free Haloscan comment service and the free StatCounter service. I'm only waiting to get my hands on iWeb'08 to revamp the site, insert some code and embed the photos (from my PicasaWeb, Flickr or Skitch) and the videos in the site.
And FYI, i know there is one service that works a lot like the .mac but it's a german site (so all in german). Anyway, if you're interested here it is Macbay. As for a free hosting service you can try the one I tried, Hostistry (UPDATE: This hosting service has died). I tried others but site never appeared on any browser on any computer.
And more, I registered my gmail in Microsoft .Net Passport, so I can still use the same email to sign in in MS Messenger (so bad they don't plan to further develop the mac version, one thing I miss is the voice, video and Remote Assistance from the windows version). Not a lot of my people have macs so iChat is out of the question, but for video and voice I use Skype for Mac.
For my personal website, I use iWeb's Publish to Folder and a free host (with a domain bought from doteasy). I agree that it's not very nice when FTP uploading the newly published site but I've already found a way to avoid not changed files. But I'll write about it in a future post. But using iWeb I can link my picasa albums here, as well as my youtube videos, and with iComment (license: 7 euros) you can use the free Haloscan comment service and the free StatCounter service. I'm only waiting to get my hands on iWeb'08 to revamp the site, insert some code and embed the photos (from my PicasaWeb, Flickr or Skitch) and the videos in the site.
And FYI, i know there is one service that works a lot like the .mac but it's a german site (so all in german). Anyway, if you're interested here it is Macbay. As for a free hosting service you can try the one I tried, Hostistry (UPDATE: This hosting service has died). I tried others but site never appeared on any browser on any computer.
Thursday, 20 September 2007
Using Skitch
About a month ago, seeking those little special apps that exist for Mac, I found myself in a site with one call Skitch. They were giving invites in Mundo Mac (because still is in closed Beta) to be able to test it. They said that still they remained 9, so I wrote and after an hour I received my invite. This application, Skitch, was created by the same people of Comic Life. I haven't used Comic Life that much, but is an amusing application if you want to see your life becoming a comic. In that sense, Skitch has also that amusing side, and besides, is super easy to use (it's mostly visual). Here you have the video, directly from the site of the creative plasq.
I'm still thinking to whom I will give the invite I have left, as there is few people that know with a Mac, and of the 2 invites I had, one was for my little bro.
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
Virtual machines and Emulators in Mac OS X
I talked here about my need to use Windows Xp before, because the Autocad and the Studio Viz applications. So I decided to give a try to some of the emulation and virtualisation apps that are out there.
In order of cost, these is what I’ve found (and they run not only Windows but also Linux and other OS):
- Q (open source) easy installation of any other OS
- Xen (open source)
- Wine (open source)
- iEmulator (commercial with demo) $24
- Crossover for Mac (commercial with demo) $59
- Parallels Desktop for Mac (commercial with demo) $79 you can use your Bootcamp partition if you follow the instructions
- VMware Fusion (commercial with demo) $80 but will work either with your Bootcamp partition, or with a new one.
I went through tutorials and forums, and decided to try the Parallels Desktop for Mac, for the simpliest reason: I didn’t want to go through a new installation of WinXP, and as Parallels Desktop for Mac claimed to use the Bootcamp partition already on the machine, that was my shot.
I must say that there’s a lot of good feedback about Q. Just didn’t try for the same reason. They don’t have the Bootcamp partition support yet.
Back to Parallels Desktop for Mac, installation was simple and I had to do almost nothing, the app recognized my Bootcamp and I started to use it right the way. So, I needed the Autocad (I have a 2007 version) and it worked just fine, for lines and plans, that’s 2D drawing. I tried some 3D basic drawing (like extrude function and 3D views, nice). Then, even as I knew that Studio Viz wouldn’t work, I tried it anyway. Something about network license not found.
Later on, rebooting in Bootcamp, WinXP asked me to re-authorize my OS. I was worried about the Studio Viz installation, but it worked as usual.
In global terms, I must say that it’s very nice not having to reboot just to draw some lines or make revisions in others’ dwg files.
In order of cost, these is what I’ve found (and they run not only Windows but also Linux and other OS):
- Q (open source) easy installation of any other OS
- Xen (open source)
- Wine (open source)
- iEmulator (commercial with demo) $24
- Crossover for Mac (commercial with demo) $59
- Parallels Desktop for Mac (commercial with demo) $79 you can use your Bootcamp partition if you follow the instructions
- VMware Fusion (commercial with demo) $80 but will work either with your Bootcamp partition, or with a new one.
I went through tutorials and forums, and decided to try the Parallels Desktop for Mac, for the simpliest reason: I didn’t want to go through a new installation of WinXP, and as Parallels Desktop for Mac claimed to use the Bootcamp partition already on the machine, that was my shot.
I must say that there’s a lot of good feedback about Q. Just didn’t try for the same reason. They don’t have the Bootcamp partition support yet.
Back to Parallels Desktop for Mac, installation was simple and I had to do almost nothing, the app recognized my Bootcamp and I started to use it right the way. So, I needed the Autocad (I have a 2007 version) and it worked just fine, for lines and plans, that’s 2D drawing. I tried some 3D basic drawing (like extrude function and 3D views, nice). Then, even as I knew that Studio Viz wouldn’t work, I tried it anyway. Something about network license not found.
Later on, rebooting in Bootcamp, WinXP asked me to re-authorize my OS. I was worried about the Studio Viz installation, but it worked as usual.
In global terms, I must say that it’s very nice not having to reboot just to draw some lines or make revisions in others’ dwg files.
FTP software for Mac OS…
Since I decided to have my own personal site, where I write about my family and the developments of my little girl, I learned some things about publishing on the net, and there are a lot of protocols, but the most used is the FTP (file transfer protocol).
As I use iWeb (Publish to folder) for my personal site, I tried the Easy iWeb Publisher that is donation-ware. Simple, easy and minimal. But you don’t get to see a list of the files, neither local nor remote server.
Specific for iWeb, we also have found these:
• iWeb Uploader (freeware – site in French)
• w2w (freeware) when we use iWeb Publish To Folder, the application re-writes all the files with a new date, and this little app claims that you’re not going to re-write all files in remote server, because it recognizes the changes in files, but I didn’t try.
If you are more into FTP, and need to visualize your local files and your uploaded files, you can try these:
• FTP on Mac OS X (Connect to server)
• Cyberduck (freeware - donation) Nice and easy to use app, but I was having problems as it was re-connecting every 3 minutes or so and when saved location to favourites, the login didn’t work.
• Transmit (commercial $30 with full working demo 15 day) I must say that I’m still in demo version, with doesn’t allow you to save your favourites but keeps running and works fine.
• FileZilla (freeware – platform independent)
• One Button FTP (freeware – donation)
• Yummy FTP (commercial $25 with demo 30 day)
• Fetch (commercial $25 with demo 15 day)
• CrossFTP (freeware, commercial if you want PRO features) This one is platform independent, as I understood, it’s java-based.
And there are these ones too. I think all apps have their demo, just didn’t try them.
• FTP Client (commercial)
• Captain FTP (commercial)
• Crush FTP (commercial)
• Cute FTP for Mac (commercial)
• FTP Portal (commercial)
• Interarchy (commercial)
• Simple FTP (commercial)
As I use iWeb (Publish to folder) for my personal site, I tried the Easy iWeb Publisher that is donation-ware. Simple, easy and minimal. But you don’t get to see a list of the files, neither local nor remote server.
Specific for iWeb, we also have found these:
• iWeb Uploader (freeware – site in French)
• w2w (freeware) when we use iWeb Publish To Folder, the application re-writes all the files with a new date, and this little app claims that you’re not going to re-write all files in remote server, because it recognizes the changes in files, but I didn’t try.
If you are more into FTP, and need to visualize your local files and your uploaded files, you can try these:
• FTP on Mac OS X (Connect to server)
• Cyberduck (freeware - donation) Nice and easy to use app, but I was having problems as it was re-connecting every 3 minutes or so and when saved location to favourites, the login didn’t work.
• Transmit (commercial $30 with full working demo 15 day) I must say that I’m still in demo version, with doesn’t allow you to save your favourites but keeps running and works fine.
• FileZilla (freeware – platform independent)
• One Button FTP (freeware – donation)
• Yummy FTP (commercial $25 with demo 30 day)
• Fetch (commercial $25 with demo 15 day)
• CrossFTP (freeware, commercial if you want PRO features) This one is platform independent, as I understood, it’s java-based.
And there are these ones too. I think all apps have their demo, just didn’t try them.
• FTP Client (commercial)
• Captain FTP (commercial)
• Crush FTP (commercial)
• Cute FTP for Mac (commercial)
• FTP Portal (commercial)
• Interarchy (commercial)
• Simple FTP (commercial)
Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Freecall VoIP calls in Mac OS
For those of you that use VoIP software for calls (international or not) I must say that I’ve been using my Frecall account with Express Talk for Mac, and it’s working nicely. I was using Freecall over Windows because they only provide a Windows softphone. But now that I found the alternative, I’ll avoid the rebooting every time I needed to make a VoIP call.
As I said here before, I use Frecall because it’s the cheapest I’ve found for my necessities. But you can always try Voipbuster – brother of Freecall – or other. There is Gizmo Project that supports all major OSs as I remember. And then you have also Jajah, which is supposed to be the “easiest” as it does not need us to install any software, we just need your web browser to sign for an account and to start communication phone-to-phone (initiated over the web). Still, Jajah price for my international calls are higher than Frecall.
Anyway, returning to The Express Talk softphone, I can say it is free, it has a Mac version and we can configure 6 different lines – this means we can have accounts in 6 different SIP providers.
If we want to configure our Freecall (or Voipbuster) account we just need to open the application Preferences panel, then click on Lines, and use our username and password with sip.voiparound.com (or sip.voipbuster.com) as our server.
Hope this information is helpful for anyone. Let me know.
Related Posts:
As I said here before, I use Frecall because it’s the cheapest I’ve found for my necessities. But you can always try Voipbuster – brother of Freecall – or other. There is Gizmo Project that supports all major OSs as I remember. And then you have also Jajah, which is supposed to be the “easiest” as it does not need us to install any software, we just need your web browser to sign for an account and to start communication phone-to-phone (initiated over the web). Still, Jajah price for my international calls are higher than Frecall.
Anyway, returning to The Express Talk softphone, I can say it is free, it has a Mac version and we can configure 6 different lines – this means we can have accounts in 6 different SIP providers.
If we want to configure our Freecall (or Voipbuster) account we just need to open the application Preferences panel, then click on Lines, and use our username and password with sip.voiparound.com (or sip.voipbuster.com) as our server.
Hope this information is helpful for anyone. Let me know.
Related Posts:
Telephone en Google code (para VoIP)
Monday, 13 August 2007
Some fun on my Mac (and another PS)
Lately, I spend a lot of time at home, playing with my little “earthquake”, cooking, cleaning and of course, surfing the web.
When my child and me have some computer time, I love to take pictures with PhotoBooth. As our photo camera died some months ago, and as we need to buy more important things for house now, we don’t have a device for my loved photography activity. But with the built-in iSight camera and PhotoBooth, we can have some fun taking pictures (yes, must be in front of computer), that can be complete normal, but then you have maybe 10 effects to take your picture: mirror, x-ray, sepia, pop, and more. And the “3, 2, 1, shot” makes you feel like your inside and actual “photo booth”.
Then today I found FunBooth. Don’t ask me how because I can’t remember what I was doing when it came in my way. Well, as you can read in the name of this application, it’s about fun pictures, because it let you “disguise” or create a personality for your picture. Trial version, but price is as little as €7.31.
And I love card games, tetris and cross-words. And I found for me, Cubes (tetris-like) and Freesolitaire from GrassGames.com, they’re not too stylish about looks but they’re fine to play. I also like Otis from Wonder Warp Software. And this tetromino and very good looking app called Quinn from simonhaertel.de.
PS: Remember when I said that I keep Windows because of three applications and one of them called Freecall, for VoIP calls? Well, I just found that I can use my Freecall service (account) in any SIP softphone for Mac OS!!! I tried X-Lite from CounterPath, but didn’t like it’s visual. And I tried ExpressTalk for Mac from nchsoftware.com and works fine, and also it’s visual is easier and more Mac style. I’m so happy I can make my calls without rebooting in a different OS!!!
When my child and me have some computer time, I love to take pictures with PhotoBooth. As our photo camera died some months ago, and as we need to buy more important things for house now, we don’t have a device for my loved photography activity. But with the built-in iSight camera and PhotoBooth, we can have some fun taking pictures (yes, must be in front of computer), that can be complete normal, but then you have maybe 10 effects to take your picture: mirror, x-ray, sepia, pop, and more. And the “3, 2, 1, shot” makes you feel like your inside and actual “photo booth”.
Then today I found FunBooth. Don’t ask me how because I can’t remember what I was doing when it came in my way. Well, as you can read in the name of this application, it’s about fun pictures, because it let you “disguise” or create a personality for your picture. Trial version, but price is as little as €7.31.
And I love card games, tetris and cross-words. And I found for me, Cubes (tetris-like) and Freesolitaire from GrassGames.com, they’re not too stylish about looks but they’re fine to play. I also like Otis from Wonder Warp Software. And this tetromino and very good looking app called Quinn from simonhaertel.de.
PS: Remember when I said that I keep Windows because of three applications and one of them called Freecall, for VoIP calls? Well, I just found that I can use my Freecall service (account) in any SIP softphone for Mac OS!!! I tried X-Lite from CounterPath, but didn’t like it’s visual. And I tried ExpressTalk for Mac from nchsoftware.com and works fine, and also it’s visual is easier and more Mac style. I’m so happy I can make my calls without rebooting in a different OS!!!
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
My little girl and my Mac (and a PS)
I’m the proud mom of an pretty and intelligent little girl 19 months old. She’s used to the computer since birth, because I communicate with my family in Peru via webcam and she loves the keyboard.
Well, the thing is, that sometimes I leave the mac to go anywhere in the apartment and my lovely and informatic girl takes my seat and starts hitting the keys. So I went out there to search for something to entertain her. And I found some nice applications for mac.
Giggles Computer Funtime for Baby (for Mac and Windows, english and spanish) has three different themes: shapes, animals, and numbers & letters. There’s Baby Banger but it’s not universal since version 1.2.1 is from 2003. Also, there’s MiniKidsGames that freeware at sourceforge.net (if you like, yo can make a donation). And last but not least, there’s Baby Shield (only english).
UPDATE 29/Feb/2008: I found AlphaBaby. Lots of fun. There's also Baby Safe, has a 15-day-trial and cost $20. In Pure Mac : Kids you can find a list with more software for kids.
PS: the new iMacs are already out, as well as iLife ’08 that is €79 and includes iPhoto, iWeb, iMovie, iDVD and Garage Band. Also “.mac” has been upgraded with 10 times more space and lots of nice features integrated with iLife. For what I saw, iWeb ’08 is more powerful and rocks.
Well, the thing is, that sometimes I leave the mac to go anywhere in the apartment and my lovely and informatic girl takes my seat and starts hitting the keys. So I went out there to search for something to entertain her. And I found some nice applications for mac.
Giggles Computer Funtime for Baby (for Mac and Windows, english and spanish) has three different themes: shapes, animals, and numbers & letters. There’s Baby Banger but it’s not universal since version 1.2.1 is from 2003. Also, there’s MiniKidsGames that freeware at sourceforge.net (if you like, yo can make a donation). And last but not least, there’s Baby Shield (only english).
UPDATE 29/Feb/2008: I found AlphaBaby. Lots of fun. There's also Baby Safe, has a 15-day-trial and cost $20. In Pure Mac : Kids you can find a list with more software for kids.
PS: the new iMacs are already out, as well as iLife ’08 that is €79 and includes iPhoto, iWeb, iMovie, iDVD and Garage Band. Also “.mac” has been upgraded with 10 times more space and lots of nice features integrated with iLife. For what I saw, iWeb ’08 is more powerful and rocks.
Tuesday, 7 August 2007
There’s always more on the web....
Looking around to know when iWeb 2.0 will be released (because I’m pretty curious about all the capabilities they are talking about and I’m waiting for this before I finally decide between iWeb and Sandvox), when I found more information on what else you can for now use for iWeb. As for create “multi-sites” there is iWebSites.
Also found another web creation application called Blog.Mac at Largemouth Software, and for what I read it may serve to publish to .mac and not mac sites, although I found the appearance of all the sample sites quite boring.
There’s one open-source multi-platform application (not mac intel ready, though) called Nvu. If you are interested in something between MS Frontpage or Adobe Dreamweaver, take your chance. I must say it’s not the friendly iWeb kind application, and you may need HTML and that kind of knowledge.
Also found another web creation application called Blog.Mac at Largemouth Software, and for what I read it may serve to publish to .mac and not mac sites, although I found the appearance of all the sample sites quite boring.
There’s one open-source multi-platform application (not mac intel ready, though) called Nvu. If you are interested in something between MS Frontpage or Adobe Dreamweaver, take your chance. I must say it’s not the friendly iWeb kind application, and you may need HTML and that kind of knowledge.
Monday, 6 August 2007
Looking around for more
I’m always curious so I kept looking around for more. I found that there’s an script called iWeb Optimiz(o)r that converts all png to jpg and, in a very big site means a significant reduction of the size of image files and time to load when viewing the pages.
And I found that you can have 5 more SV designs if you subscribe for the newsletter, there are two companies that sell a few SV designs, and that you can tweak designs with the SVDesignMiner (20 days demo, €11).
I must say that the SVDesignMiner lets you change most of the things that makes part of a design like the images that you can edit with any image editor, but for some things you must know a bit of HTML and more complicated stuff like CSS. But if you know how to edit images, you can make your own design based in any of the provided templates.
And the same team that created the SVDesignMiner had created the RVThemeMiner before. They also have one application called Camaleon, to change themes and templates for other webcreation stuff. You can check it out in To The Point Software.
And then you still have three more programs to try. They are Flux (€36), Goldfish (€30), Freeway Express (€69) and Freeway Pro (€195). So choices are a lot.
And I found that you can have 5 more SV designs if you subscribe for the newsletter, there are two companies that sell a few SV designs, and that you can tweak designs with the SVDesignMiner (20 days demo, €11).
I must say that the SVDesignMiner lets you change most of the things that makes part of a design like the images that you can edit with any image editor, but for some things you must know a bit of HTML and more complicated stuff like CSS. But if you know how to edit images, you can make your own design based in any of the provided templates.
And the same team that created the SVDesignMiner had created the RVThemeMiner before. They also have one application called Camaleon, to change themes and templates for other webcreation stuff. You can check it out in To The Point Software.
And then you still have three more programs to try. They are Flux (€36), Goldfish (€30), Freeway Express (€69) and Freeway Pro (€195). So choices are a lot.
Thursday, 2 August 2007
Rapidweaver and Sandvox tests
Yesterday I tried the Realmac software Rapidweaver (RW) and the Karelia Sandvox (SV) for website and webpages creation.
I started with RW demo, only 3 pages to publish (you can publish to –mac or to FTP and more). It’s a nice application, easy –but not as easy as I thought-, has a lot of themes and they’re quite easy to customize. I found nice the side bar but after creating a blog page and a photo album page, I got a bit disorientated as I couldn’t find the way to show the same sidebar from the homepage in these ones. I also find that you need a lot of add-ons, snippets and plug-ins for things like inserting boxes for raw HTML code (like the adsense or the counter code). For me, it was a bit difficult to re-create my iWeb site in short time, one day spent but the result was not satisfactory. To have a collection of photo albums you need Collage. To add buttons you need the Blocks. And for integrated sitemap creation you may need Loghound Sitemap.
So I move on to test SV. I must say it was pretty easy to use and re-create the iWeb site in about 4 hours. Themes, here called Designs, look nice and some look very professional. After choosing a design you can’t customize it as in the other applications but I didn’t care, I found them well built so for me, they don’t require more personalization. For professional web designers this is a minus. Anyway, I loved the features. The collections have the blog and the photo blog and also the photo albums. You have the text pages and more pages to insert. The pagelets, these are very nice features for the sidebar. And if you want to add raw HTML and some advanced features like integrated Google Analytics and Webmasters, you can go Pro. Take in account that the demo version only let you publish the homepage (to .mac and FTP or other).
All of this makes you think about Money. Using a demo made you able to use most of the add-ons for free (for a while), but when you calculate the cost of things together you have at least: RW € 38.04; YourHead (3rd party) applications Blocks € 18.20 and Collage € 7.26; and Loghound (3rd party) Sitemap € 7.73. Total amount €63,50. And you have some more that you’ll find nice, like Accordion or Lockdown, adding some €18 more.
As for SV, you can have it for approximately € 36. And if you need the Pro features, get it for € 58 approx.
So for me, I think I will enroll the list of Sandvox users, that’s if the next iWeb does not meet my spectations (it’s supossedly to come out with the next iLife more or less at the same time as Mac OS Leopard)
I started with RW demo, only 3 pages to publish (you can publish to –mac or to FTP and more). It’s a nice application, easy –but not as easy as I thought-, has a lot of themes and they’re quite easy to customize. I found nice the side bar but after creating a blog page and a photo album page, I got a bit disorientated as I couldn’t find the way to show the same sidebar from the homepage in these ones. I also find that you need a lot of add-ons, snippets and plug-ins for things like inserting boxes for raw HTML code (like the adsense or the counter code). For me, it was a bit difficult to re-create my iWeb site in short time, one day spent but the result was not satisfactory. To have a collection of photo albums you need Collage. To add buttons you need the Blocks. And for integrated sitemap creation you may need Loghound Sitemap.
So I move on to test SV. I must say it was pretty easy to use and re-create the iWeb site in about 4 hours. Themes, here called Designs, look nice and some look very professional. After choosing a design you can’t customize it as in the other applications but I didn’t care, I found them well built so for me, they don’t require more personalization. For professional web designers this is a minus. Anyway, I loved the features. The collections have the blog and the photo blog and also the photo albums. You have the text pages and more pages to insert. The pagelets, these are very nice features for the sidebar. And if you want to add raw HTML and some advanced features like integrated Google Analytics and Webmasters, you can go Pro. Take in account that the demo version only let you publish the homepage (to .mac and FTP or other).
All of this makes you think about Money. Using a demo made you able to use most of the add-ons for free (for a while), but when you calculate the cost of things together you have at least: RW € 38.04; YourHead (3rd party) applications Blocks € 18.20 and Collage € 7.26; and Loghound (3rd party) Sitemap € 7.73. Total amount €63,50. And you have some more that you’ll find nice, like Accordion or Lockdown, adding some €18 more.
As for SV, you can have it for approximately € 36. And if you need the Pro features, get it for € 58 approx.
So for me, I think I will enroll the list of Sandvox users, that’s if the next iWeb does not meet my spectations (it’s supossedly to come out with the next iLife more or less at the same time as Mac OS Leopard)
Tuesday, 31 July 2007
The Shutterbug test
Today I’ve been fooling around with Shutterbug (Xtralean) web design program. When I first read about it, it looked like it was going to be easy and quick, and with its featured Xtra boxes for inserting external services as counters, ads, comments....
Hmmm.... For a Demo, you have nice and simple templates. But things are not always what they seem. I was trying to, somehow, re-create my actual site made in iWeb. You can change a lot the templates and that I consider a plus but... after an hour, and this looking for help in their forum and user manual still can’t find the way to make a blog!!!!
I created a welcome page and that’s, more or less, fine for now. Then I’ve made a Group for photo albums and a Group for what’s supposed to be the blog. I also manage to create and album but I’m not very pleased with it.
... (time break)...
After going through the online user manual, I now know how to create Xtra boxes for HTML and other stuff like creating RSS feed, but still can’t get the way for a blog with entries as I did in iWeb. So I looked again in the Internet, and came across an almost clear definition for what Shutterbug does: it’s the perfect tool for quick galleries for journalism or photographers. So, no easy blog with Shutterbug.
That’s all for today.
Hmmm.... For a Demo, you have nice and simple templates. But things are not always what they seem. I was trying to, somehow, re-create my actual site made in iWeb. You can change a lot the templates and that I consider a plus but... after an hour, and this looking for help in their forum and user manual still can’t find the way to make a blog!!!!
I created a welcome page and that’s, more or less, fine for now. Then I’ve made a Group for photo albums and a Group for what’s supposed to be the blog. I also manage to create and album but I’m not very pleased with it.
... (time break)...
After going through the online user manual, I now know how to create Xtra boxes for HTML and other stuff like creating RSS feed, but still can’t get the way for a blog with entries as I did in iWeb. So I looked again in the Internet, and came across an almost clear definition for what Shutterbug does: it’s the perfect tool for quick galleries for journalism or photographers. So, no easy blog with Shutterbug.
That’s all for today.
Monday, 30 July 2007
When I tried iWeb
I’m not a web designer but I’m very curious and love the Internet. Back in the nineties, I made a very simple page with Frontpage in Windows. After that, my second experience with webpages was a bit different.
First year of the PhD, each student had to make a website for their own city. We had some introduction about HTML and then started with Dreamweaver. I wasn’t difficult and the city page looked just like had to. But that’s all I learnt about web creation and web designing.
Then I tried to keep my far away family informed about my life through the web. So I used Blogger; after that I used Yahoo 360, and then Live spaces. But I wanted something more customizable.
So one of the things I wanted to try was iWeb. As I don’t have a .mac account, I publish to a folder and then, using another program (Easy iWeb Uploader – Shareware) upload the site and blog via FTP. I must say, it’s pretty easy to have a good-looking personal website with iWeb. But then you want more.
After the first entries, I decided to add a visit counter and to have comments. So I register with Haloscan and Statcounter, both free. How do you use this in iWeb? It’s not difficult but you have to remember to use the additional program that makes this possible (iComments – Demo). And you have two other programs (iWeb Enhancer –Demo- and iWeb More –Shareware) to add a lot of stuff like Flicker, Google Ads and more, but I didn’t try them. If you don’t run the program after each and every time you publish the site to a folder, you won’t see those things working on the published website.
I would love this kind of features integrated into iWeb, but I’m not sure if it’s ever going to happen, as the iWeb is prepared to be fully integrated with a .mac account, where you can have the counter and the comments without worrying to enrol outside services and running other programs.
And yes, I’ve been thinking a lot about having a .mac account, but for me, I don’t think it’s worth. My Gmail account has lot more space. And you can have a lot of free services if you know where to look.
So now I’m looking forward in trying the 3 demos I’ve downloaded: Rapidweaver (may need some add-ons); Sandvox (you must go Pro for the advanced features); and Shutterbug. The 3 have the FTP fully integrated, that’s a plus I like.
There are other web creation applications like Goldfish, Flux or Freeway (Express and Pro). And for blogs creation you have iBlog or Wordpress. If none of the 3 demos convince me, later will see.
First year of the PhD, each student had to make a website for their own city. We had some introduction about HTML and then started with Dreamweaver. I wasn’t difficult and the city page looked just like had to. But that’s all I learnt about web creation and web designing.
Then I tried to keep my far away family informed about my life through the web. So I used Blogger; after that I used Yahoo 360, and then Live spaces. But I wanted something more customizable.
So one of the things I wanted to try was iWeb. As I don’t have a .mac account, I publish to a folder and then, using another program (Easy iWeb Uploader – Shareware) upload the site and blog via FTP. I must say, it’s pretty easy to have a good-looking personal website with iWeb. But then you want more.
After the first entries, I decided to add a visit counter and to have comments. So I register with Haloscan and Statcounter, both free. How do you use this in iWeb? It’s not difficult but you have to remember to use the additional program that makes this possible (iComments – Demo). And you have two other programs (iWeb Enhancer –Demo- and iWeb More –Shareware) to add a lot of stuff like Flicker, Google Ads and more, but I didn’t try them. If you don’t run the program after each and every time you publish the site to a folder, you won’t see those things working on the published website.
I would love this kind of features integrated into iWeb, but I’m not sure if it’s ever going to happen, as the iWeb is prepared to be fully integrated with a .mac account, where you can have the counter and the comments without worrying to enrol outside services and running other programs.
And yes, I’ve been thinking a lot about having a .mac account, but for me, I don’t think it’s worth. My Gmail account has lot more space. And you can have a lot of free services if you know where to look.
So now I’m looking forward in trying the 3 demos I’ve downloaded: Rapidweaver (may need some add-ons); Sandvox (you must go Pro for the advanced features); and Shutterbug. The 3 have the FTP fully integrated, that’s a plus I like.
There are other web creation applications like Goldfish, Flux or Freeway (Express and Pro). And for blogs creation you have iBlog or Wordpress. If none of the 3 demos convince me, later will see.
I have an Apple Mac now!!!
I switched to Mac early this year when we needed to change the slow old computer, but thinking in the new Intel Macs as we had to stuck with Windows because we still need to use very few software (but very important to us) made only for this OS. I knew something about Apple computers, I used one in my last work; the place where I used to read emails some years ago used Mac, too, and my brother had one I loved. I knew, that they were a bit different, not only in design and style but in price and performance. But anyway, as my birthday present, I bought the iMac Intel Core Duo.
I can’t say how happy I am with this machine. I amazed with its performance, the Mac OS loads 4 times faster than the Windows OS, it never crashes and very few times software stuck but you can always recover the work done.
I have discovered a new of doing things and have to say that I like it. Ok, I say I have to keep my win xp because of the very few software I need. Two of them are Autocad and 3D Studio, and yes, I did try with other CAD software like Archicad and Vectorworks and there is still something that I miss from Autocad in both of them, that’s the UCS function; and for the 3D, I’m really not in the mood for learning something new like Maya or 4D Cinema or even Solidworks. The other one is Freecall, offering the cheapest VoIP calls I found (they say in their site they are working in more OS but no news for now). But for everything else I have great programs for Mac and they so easy to use.
So, from now on I’m staying with Mac forever (and keep asking the programmers of the few win software I use to work on Mac development!).
I can’t say how happy I am with this machine. I amazed with its performance, the Mac OS loads 4 times faster than the Windows OS, it never crashes and very few times software stuck but you can always recover the work done.
I have discovered a new of doing things and have to say that I like it. Ok, I say I have to keep my win xp because of the very few software I need. Two of them are Autocad and 3D Studio, and yes, I did try with other CAD software like Archicad and Vectorworks and there is still something that I miss from Autocad in both of them, that’s the UCS function; and for the 3D, I’m really not in the mood for learning something new like Maya or 4D Cinema or even Solidworks. The other one is Freecall, offering the cheapest VoIP calls I found (they say in their site they are working in more OS but no news for now). But for everything else I have great programs for Mac and they so easy to use.
So, from now on I’m staying with Mac forever (and keep asking the programmers of the few win software I use to work on Mac development!).
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