This 'N That » Mac

Wrap up your work and pick up the next day from the same spot

LobsterMan — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:02:09 +0000

Ever been working on a project, and you have a bunch of tabs open, and you want to finish work for the day, and lets say, read the news or watch a movie?
So, you can always open a new browser window, and even minimize the work one, but you are always at risk of accidently closing the wrong window, and loosing all your locations.
But here’s a fool-proof way of doing it, without worrying about you or someone else closing your browser window.
1. In Safari, have all your important locations opened in tabs in the same window.
2. In the bookmark menu, select “Add bookmark for these XX tabs”
3. Select a name and save your bookmark in the tabs bar.
4. Next day, just click on the bookmark and all your tabs will open the way they were.
5. Now you an just drag the bookmark off the bookmarks bar to delete it.

Office 2008: Still no right-to-left support

LobsterMan — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:56:24 +0000

I live in Israel. When I tell friends about Macs and how good they are, the first question they ask is: “Can I use MS Office on a mac” And sadly, I have to say, Nope, you can’t.
Microsoft Word for mac does not support right-to-left writing, so it can’t be used for writing in hebrew.

Yes, I know there’s NeoOffice, but the whole user experience is not quite mac-like yet, and it takes ages to load. Of course there’s Mellel which is quite great, but unfortunately, the standard format is MS Office. Myself, If i need to type in hebrew, I just use TextEdit. OS X has RTL support built in very nicely.

I was hoping that the release of Office 2008 would solve this problem, and I’d finally be able to write something positive about Microsoft. But no, Satan Bill’s gang from Redmond had to do it wrong again.

Let’s hope that by the time Microsoft releases Office 2012, The standard document format will be the Open Document Format will be standard, and there will be plenty of good Word Processors that use the open doc format.

AirMail – Envelope sleeve for the MacBook Air

LobsterMan — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:27:34 +0000

When Steve Jobs dramatically pulled out the MacBook Air from a manila envelope in the his Macwold 2008 keynote, nobody thought of a manila envelope as a real solution for storing their MacBook Air, except two. Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans actually took the inspiration to the next level. They created a protective sleeve for the MBA, shape like your standard inter-office envelope. Their product is called AirMail and this is what they have to say about it:

The AirMail laptop sleeve is handmade out of durable upholstery-grade vinyl, and lined with fuzzy, soft fleece. All AirMail sleeves have the same dimensions as standard interoffice manila envelopes, which will serve to remind you — and everyone around you — that your new MacBook Air really is the thinnest laptop in the world!

Pretty cool if you ask me. Now I just need to get my hands on a MacBook Air first.

iTunes movie rental and the 30/24 rule

LobsterMan — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:01:10 +0000

Apple launched iTunes movie rentals yesterday. Basically, you pay $2.99 or $3.99 per movie and can start watching it within the next 30 days. One you start, you have 24 hours to watch the movie.
I think the 30/24 rule (30 days to start, 24 hours to finish) is a bit off:
First, nobody will rent a movie online in order to watch in a month. A week would be more then enough.
Second, I think that the 24 hours to finish is a bit tight, sometimes someone might start watching a movie after work, get tired, and want to continue the next day after work, which is too late because it’s been 24 hours already. I think 48 hours would be fair.

If you agree with me, why don’t you Let Apple Know

MacBook Air – The future of laptops

LobsterMan — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:50:59 +0000

Yesterday, the MacBook Air, an ultra-light laptop was announced at Macworld 2008.
Although it doesn’t yet have all the power you normally find in a full powered laptop, what they did is amazing. They shrunk the size of the Core 2 Duo chip by %60, and were able to slip it into a computer so thin it can fit into an office envelope.
This chip is about the size of a coin, 30 years ago a processor that size would have filled a hall. They could’ve theoretically slipped something like that into a casing the size of an iPod, and created a full featured computer like the mac mini, just plug in a monitor, keyboard and mouse.
The faster processor they stuck in there now is 1.8Ghz, but I’m sure the next upgrade will change that.
They also have an optional solid state drive (SSD), which is more durable and faster. Currently they only have 64 GB, and the price is in the sky, but let’s not forget that the technology is new, and this is the first mac ever offered with a SSD.

My bet is that in about 2 years SSD will be standard for all laptops, as will be the minimized chip size and 1.8 drives. Can’t wait.

iPhone ringtones – not cool

LobsterMan — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 05:52:24 +0000

Let me start and say: I love Apple. I love their products and their creative approach to everything.

BUT… their music industry partners have taught them some uncool tricks. The latest one is the iPhone ringtone service. With the new version of iTunes, you can take songs you purchased on iTunes (well, some of them at least) and convert them into ringtones for an additional $0.99

So far not cool but not that bad, considering all the music industry BS about how legally playing the song to anyone else is also a violation etc. But where it really gets annoying is that you can’t create ringtones from your own music files, and if you use a 3rd party app to do so, iTunes will delete them on the next sync. Meaning, If i created MY OWN music using, let’s say, Apples own Garage Band, I can’t use it as a ringtone on my iPhone. Just for the record, Most Cell Phones allow you to use any audio file on the device as a ringtone.

Steve, not cool!!!

More info @ MacRumors.com

iPhone hacked, thrice!

LobsterMan — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 09:00:37 +0000

In the last 2 months since the iPhone was released, many people have been trying to hack it so it can work with other mobile carriers. This is useful for people outside the US, as well as people that don’t want to pay a premium for the AT&T plan offered.

1. The iPhoneSIMfree.com team broke the lock with software only. They plan on selling their services to people wishing to unlock their phones.
Read More at engadget.

The iPhoneSIMfree.com unlocked iPhone, on T-Mobile

2. George Hotz, a 17 year old from Glen Rock, NJ broke the lock again. His hack includes hardware modification and isn’t as simple to do. He posted instructions on his blog.
He was interviewed on CNBC, here it is:

3. A group of israeli hackers claim to have unlocked the iPhone, they provide pictures, and will post instructions soon.
Their site (Hebrew)

The Israeli iPhone, on the Cellcom network

Mac Software Review: Downsize

LobsterMan — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 10:08:39 +0000

Downsize is a simple Mac app for batch processing images before uploading them to the web. With Downsize you can resize, add watermarks and even add frames to your images. It also integrates with iPhoto, so you can process whole iPhoto albums at once.
If you take a look at my photo albums, I used Downsize to resize the images to 580 pixels, and add the watermark.
Downsize is shareware, and is totally worth the $19.95 they’re asking for. A free limits-free trial version is available.

Safari 3 Public Beta Available for Mac and PC

LobsterMan — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:51:13 +0000

Check It out. Safari, the worlds best browser, and the Mac users favorite, is available in version 3 beta. And it’s available also for PC users!
I’m downloading it now, (for my Mac of course!) And I’ll probably post about it once I have a chance to play around with it.
Update: For some reason, it doesn’t work on my computer. I will try again some time later.

iPod vs. Zune

LobsterMan — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 01:57:45 +0000

The new and “amazing” Microsoft multimedia player, the Zune, was released to the stores in the USA, and besides the fact that they’re ugly and big, there’s 10 more reasons why to stay away from them:
10 iPod vs. Zune Myths at roughlydrafted.com