Wishlist additions

(The truth is that I should be doing another thing instead of writing this post, but that another thing would be easier to do if had one of the apps what I am going to write about).

I have been seeing so much the screencasts of the different functionalities of Mac OS X Leopard, that I know want it so much. The integration of Mail with iCal and with Address Book is interesting, besides other nice things. Cost in euros: €129.

The other thing that right now would serve me a lot. MacSpeech Dictate (or final version of iListen - 1.8) with the Spanish LanguagePak. I have to create a speech of 45 minutes and I don't want to write it all again, for which I would love to be able to dictate it to the Mac. Thus also could help to stop the hand pain of typing. After writing 150 pages for a thesis, one gets tired. But in short, the date of release of Dictate according to the site was 15 of February, but only for the ones that upgraded to iListen 1.8 and registered.
Price of iListen1.7 + Audio/Microphone Plantronics in the Store Apple UK: £130.
Price of iListen1.7 in the Store Apple US: $150.

Well then. Lets begin to work in which I must to.

Google alternatives to .mac

Since I wrote this past entry, I was trying to get the most from all what my iMac and Google can give users. Since then, I found two useful things I wanted to share.

One of them is the Spanning Sync app, that allow users to sync iCal calendars with Google calendars (one account). You can make changes in iCal and they will show in Google, and all the way round, too! I think this is one of the useful things someone without a Macbook can use. Just don't agree with the price ($25/year or one time payment of $65 - €17/year or one time payment €45). I guess the one time payment is a better option than a yearly payment. Anyway, it's a very nice useful app and you can try the demo for 15 days.

There's also gSync, having it's main difference to Spanning in being capable of managing multiple Google accounts. They have a commercial demo and the price is £10 ($20 - €13.50). It looks very nice and has also been Staff's Pick at the Apple Downloads site.

But if you still want something open-source, you can give a try to GCALDaemon. I gave it a try but it's just to difficult for me, because I'm not into terminal language. So if you are that kind of terminal Mac user, go on.

Another things I just found, Google Notebook. Now you can make notes in your online notebook and have access to them anywhere you are. It also has a Firefox and IE extension. You can even have bookmarks as notes. And best of all, it's free.

Wishlist of Mac apps

WISHLIST of Mac apps that I found very useful and good stuff but that are commercial:

iComment $9,95 (€6.75)
Blogo $25 (€16.95)
myNotes $14.59 (€10)
iShowU $20 (€13.55) (demo works fine but the green letters saying demo are distracting)
Audio Hijack Pro $32 (€21.68)
Giggles for mac (3) $19.99 each (€13.55)
Parallels Desktop for mac €79.99
Mac OS Leopard €129
Adobe CS Design
-premium €2420
-standard €1540 (still a high price)
Cepstral Voices (Spanish: Marta) $29.99 (This one I've already bought but don't know why it sounds cutted like a bad connection call)
iSoftphone €35 (still can't make the demo to work with my VoIP provider)

Using Pages and Keynote

What can I say about this two pearls? I'm impressed.

Not only because they are nicer, easier and more friendly than MS Office Suite, but all the templates are good looking and simple at the same time. And one very important thing: both Pages and Keynote open very quickl, even when opening big *.doc format documents.

I didn't give a try to iWork when I bought my Mac, I had too many *.doc documents, and received so many (very annoying and wasting-time) powerpoint slides, that I didn't even considered the Apple's app.

Then, 2 or 3 months ago, I needed to redesign my portfolio and my CV. So I turned my eyes to iWork and started from scratch. Using a template in Keynote, I was able to finish my portfolio in 3 hours (I'm a 8-year experienced architect and have a lot of images of work). And then again, using another template in Pages, I was able to complete the CV in less than 30 minutes.

And there was more!!! A month ago, I needed my portfolio again, but has to be short one, the best projects, no more than 12 pages. I grabbed my last portfolio from Keynote, but really looking at it, I didn't like the theme, so I tried and changed it to a more sober and white theme. Almost everything was kept in place (I did some tweaking at the basic slides) and I only selected the pages I wanted to delete. Finished in no more than 20 minutes.

Now I find myself quickly opening all the *.docs in the clean interface of Pages, and avoiding the slow opening of Word and it's cluttered interface. I'm seriously thinking to unistall Office. Pages can export to *.doc, and other formats as well. I suposse Numbers can export to Excel format (although I have no need for it right now), and I guess that Keynote can open all those powerpoints that I never see.

See you.