Tag Archives: macintosh

Brett Terpstra’s sweet Mac setup

June 15th, 2012

Brett Terpstra, the guy behind nvALT (among many other things) which is literally open all day long on my Mac, was recently featured on Shawn Blanc Sweet Mac Setup series. Excellent all the way through.

So much software. I’m an app junky, and I try everything that I’m remotely interested in. Even some things I’m not. I can actually help you find a good cross-stitch pattern app because my mother-in-law asked me about it and I spent an evening trying a few out.

A non-minimalist setup for sure.

Kyle Neath on Designing GitHub for Mac

June 29th, 2011

I’m always looking for validation of my hair-brained ideas. In Kyle Neath’s post on his designing GitHub for Mac I found this nugget which backs up my assumptions that I made about GitHub for Mac being a big deal.

“Eventually, I (well, many of us) decided that better native clients (OSX, Windows, Linux, Eclipse, Visual Studio, etc) was the best way to grow GitHub.”

Boom.

GitHub for Mac is a big deal

June 22nd, 2011

Many command line elitists may not be all that excited about GitHub for Mac, an application for managing your local and GitHub-hosted Git repositories by the GitHub team, but I’m sure they’ll respect what I feel is its ambitious goal.

You see, with one application GitHub has just expanded its potential customer base many times larger than it already is. GitHub isn’t just for command line elitists anymore. Now just about anyone that can use a Mac application, and understand what it is to commit a new version of their work here and there, can use Git and GitHub to help control their source.

Before today GitHub’s potential customer base, or target-market if you will, has been those that fully grok Git, the command line, and source control. Or, people willing to put in the work to go through the tutorials to become one of these people. Their website was simply icing on the cake for people already using that workflow. In fact, their service was so compelling that many have switched from other source control platforms to Git just to take advantage of GitHub. However, now for all of the designers, copywriters, hobbyists and even solo development shoppes that didn’t seen the need to learn and fully understand source control – Git just got easy and GitHub made it happen. And that is many, many, many people.

Some, including myself, would argue that this could breed a bunch of people that understand GitHub for Mac more than they understand Git. And I think it is fairly obvious that understanding Git, for any professional, is more valuable than understanding GitHub for Mac. However, now that I’ve thought it over for these last few hours I’m beginning to see this application as an extension of GitHub’s many other offerings to make Git easier. You see, GitHub has always provided documentation, events, online training and tools to try to make Git easier for everyone. If Git is easy to use more people will use it and therefore more people will sign up and pay for GitHub. GitHub for Mac is simply an extension of these educational efforts that GitHub has always offered since the beginning. It is yet another lily pad for people to jump on as they cross from shore to shore. Brilliant.

GitHub for Mac isn’t the first application to give Git a UI on the Macintosh but it is the first that came from the guys behind GitHub and that alone will be enough to make many people make the jump. It also helps that the application is very good. If they work as feverishly to keep GitHub for Mac up-to-date as they do all of their other services I think everyone will look back at this app’s launch as a major point in the company’s already incredible story.

Reeder for Mac hits the App Store

June 10th, 2011

I just did something I’ve been waiting months to do. I purchased Reeder for Mac from the App Store.

It isn’t very often that I am so anxious to pay for something that I have been using for free. In fact, I can’t remember any other application that I’ve wanted to purchase more than Reeder for Mac. For months I’ve been using Reeder for Mac’s “beta” builds and they have progressed steadily and swiftly from a pretty good application to an indispensable one. Its workflows are so well refined that it allows me to accomplish a task that – at one point in my life – used to take hours and hours of my time each day. With Reeder for Mac I’m able to keep up-to-date with everything going on in my world in only minutes per day instead of hours. I’m able to use the same workflows no matter which device I happen to currently be on because I use Reeder on my Mac, my iPad and my iPhone. In fact, I simply can not imagine owning a Mac, iPad or iPhone without having Reeder installed.

I suppose I’ve wanted to pay for the application for so long because I’ve wanted to put my money where my mouth was and to finally pay tribute to those that have worked so hard on it. To provide them with the resources they need to keep the application in existence and, dare I say, improve it. I’m really looking forward to the future of these applications.

So, I guess it goes without saying that I recommend you pick up Reeder for Mac too. Oh, and for iPad. Oh, and for iPhone. You’ll thank me later.

 

Use your Mac with AirPlay using AirPlayer

December 17th, 2010

Erica Sudan has made a nice little utility called AirPlayer (look for the download link in the list at the bottom of the page) that makes it dead simple to use your Mac as an AirPlay destination device. Sort of like turning your Mac into a TV with an AppleTV attached.

I just used the YouTube application on my iPad and played the video back on my Mac using this utility and it works just fine. Simple too.

/via Lifehacker.

Browser market share. The war that never ends.

November 15th, 2010

Usually when there is a war there is a winner and a loser and a lot of casualties in between. It would seem that in the browser wars there is no clear winner, no clear loser, and the bodies are piling up. With no end in sight.

Browsers - Google Analytics

Here are the statistics for the last 30 days here on my personal site. Internet Explorer is still #1 in spite of every single geek on the planet wanting it to simply go away. But it isn’t winning by much. Firefox and Safari are pretty close behind and Chrome is catching up quickly.

The Safari number includes both iPhone and iPad as well as the Macintosh and Windows. The Mac and iPhone split up the biggest portion of this with Windows and iPad nearly tying.

Interestingly, if you combine Chrome and Safari, which both run the Webkit rendering engine, then Webkit clearly stands out as the #1 rendering engine for all HTML/JS on my site.

So it looks like it is Internet Explorer vs. Webkit – at this point – as being the two main contenders in this war. Firefox, which is doing very very well on its own, is beginning to show signs of lagging behind both Safari and Chrome in their growth rates. This could all change in one day with one killer update from Mozilla – but I’m not holding my breath.

So why do I say that there are ton of casualties in this war? Because the people who spend all of their time building websites and applications have more browsers to build against than ever before, not less. More screens, more devices means more problems. Choice for the end user means headaches for the builders.

This problem probably won’t go away even if every browser manufacturer united under the banner of Webkit. If they did the spirit and motivation of competition would be gone – leaving only the end-user to suffer from lack of progress.

It appears that this war is not going to end and the bodies will continue to pile.

Good can come from squeezing Adobe.

November 6th, 2010

What do I think about this recent “movement” to uninstall Flash? Glad you asked.

I think it is great. Flash has certainly been a tool to help us get to where we are today and no one could argue with its ubiquity. It is a tool that was good enough to get the job done and pretty much everyone had it.

But tools have cost and some are more expensive than others. Flash has proved to be a bit too expensive on the Mac for some people. At the cost of performance and battery life – some would rather do without that particular tool and go with another one. One that costs less, seemingly has the same quality but maybe less features. HTML5 video playback, on most up-to-date Macs, outperforms Flash video playback in nearly every way except features. But, arguably, most every day uses for video do not need many features.

So why do I think it is great that so many are uninstalling Flash? Because there hasn’t been enough pressure on Adobe over the years to improve Flash’s performance on the Mac. Adobe has been updating Flash for years but (and this point is probably arguable) they’ve been worried less about performance on the Mac then they’ve been worried perhaps about features. They’ve spent more time making Flash do more instead of simply doing it better.

Apple started putting pressure on Adobe by releasing the iPhone without Flash. Apple never said Flash didn’t do anything useful – they simply pointed out what needed to be improved in Flash for it to run on the iPhone. Performance and stability were the two biggest complaints from Apple. The two things Adobe seemingly hadn’t been focused on. And Apple also thought Flash didn’t have very good interactions with a touch-based interface. Something Adobe could probably address rather easily.

With the success of both the iPhone and iPad obviously the guys at Adobe should have been striving pretty hard to make Flash run much better on these mobile devices. Obviously they haven’t done that or been able to accomplish that because – well, Flash still isn’t on the iPhone.

Then Apple decided that the new Macbook Air performs much better without Flash being installed and so they’ve left it out of this model by default. Something they learned from not having Flash on the iPhone and iPad. The new Macbook Air can boast a considerably longer battery life and better CPU performance simply because it does not have Flash installed.

Sure, many new Macbook Air owners will still install Flash the moment their browser tells them they don’t have it – but I’d bet they are selling boat loads of these Airs so there are still going to be a lot of people without Flash running around the Web.

This recent fad of Flash being uninstalled en masse by the Mac tech crowd, the Fireballers if I may, is simply the next squeeze on Adobe. Yet another reason for Adobe to step up and alleviate the reasons people are uninstalling Flash.

Put simply, if Flash didn’t cause our Macs to melt and our batteries to die this conversation wouldn’t be happening. The iPhone would have shipped with Flash, the iPad too, and we’d all be happy to have Flash installed on our Macs. But the truth is Flash really sucks on the Mac. And as a Macintosh user and someone who works for a company with a very big Flash product – I’m hoping that Adobe is being squeezed hard enough now to make something finally happen. To finally make Flash better on the Mac.

Acorn 2.6, now with Tilt-Shift filter

October 22nd, 2010

Acorn, my photo editor and general image-manipulation application of choice for the Mac, has been updated and now includes a Tilt-Shift filter.

Above is an image I took with my first-generation iPhone in July 2007 in Philadelphia while attending BlogPhiladelphia. Acorn’s Tilt-Shift filter made an old photo interesting again.

Well done Gus.

“I told you so.”

October 5th, 2010

Fred Wilson quips about how he doesn’t like to say “I told you so” because he thinks it sounds mean but, deep down, really wants to say it. Fred’s direct involvement in some of the best services on the Web (besides Viddler sadly (hint Fred hint) shows that the guy can see a winner a mile away.

I think I can spot a winner too, honestly.

Take the Mac for example. When I switched I told everyone I knew that they should switch to the Mac. Most people gave excuses (some good, most not) about why they “couldn’t switch” or “it wouldn’t work for them”. Now nearly everyone that I suggested the Mac to has at least one in their home as well as an iPhone and I wouldn’t doubt an iPad is next. Oh, and they’re all on Twitter too.

To them I say – I told you so.

Steve Jobs says “Nope” to Mac App Store

April 26th, 2010

In my “Is there a future for Mac software?” post I postulated:

“I sometimes sit and wonder what sort of applications could have been made for the Macintosh if, say, Apple had opened up an App Store that supported iPhone, iPad, and Mac? Would the river of money have been split into three smaller tributaries? Would people flock to the Mac the same way they have iPhone and now iPad? Arguably the main reasons people buy iPhones and iPads is the ease of finding/installing software and content. Imagine if things were that easy on the Mac. And imagine if developers were excited to build applications for the Mac again!”

Well, I needn’t wonder anymore. In answer to an email asking about a Mac App Store Steve Jobs has replied “Nope”.

I know developers wouldn’t want the closed nature of the current App Store in any type of Mac App Store but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be in favor of a Mac App Store to help promote/sell their applications.

Oh well, software on the Mac will have to find another way to survive.

My Top Sites in Safari

April 12th, 2010

I’m back to Safari. I still love Chrome but Safari’s latest update made it edge out Chrome for speed. Speed, it seems, is the killer feature for me in Web browsers.

Until this latest release the Top Sites page in Safari was too slow for me to find useful. Now, however, it is much faster and I’m liking it very much. I liked Chrome’s New Tab page a lot. However, unlike Safari it wasn’t really all that useful for more than giving you a clickable tile to go to your favorite sites. Safari’s Top Sites page does a bit more.

First, it shows a ‘page-curl white star on blue’ icon to show which pages have been updated since you visited them last. This makes is quick and easy to go to the pages that have been updated rather than checking them yourself. Second, Safari allows you to choose how many sites show up on this page. Chrome does not. Depending on your screen size you can choose between Small, Medium and Large tiles for each site. Small is more, large is less.

Third, but not necessarily specific to the Top Sites page, Safari allows you to search your history in a visual way right from the Top Sites page itself. As you type in your search query a coverflow like window shows you a thumbnail of the Web sites that match it. It makes finding pages you’ve been to in the past much, much easier than in Chrome.

So, for now I’m back to Safari.

My Top Sites in Safari are (from left to right and down) this site, my WordPress admin, Twitter (although I rarely use this because I use Echofon so it may be replaced soon), Facebook, Gmail, Instapaper, Tumblr, 37Signals Launchpad, Flickr, Viddler’s Recently Uploaded page, GitHub and Google Reader.

Is there a future for Mac software?

April 4th, 2010

Warning: This post may have a slight taste of jealousy when you bite into it at first but I tried my best to only use a teaspoon.

iPhone was, as Scott Forstall recently put it, a gold rush for developers. Simple, relatively inexpensive applications for iPhone that hit the top paid, popular or featured lists on the App Store have made some serious dough for their developers. This caused a lot of developers to focus on iPhone either exclusively or in addition to their offerings for either the Mac or PC. They’ve spent a considerable amount of time focused on iPhone app development.

iPad is creating a similar environment. iPhone applications are being ported over to iPad and new applications are being developed and released as quickly as possible – and exclusively for iPad. A lot of time and effort is going into building these applications and I’m sure it will mean a lot of money in the pockets of developers.

You can’t blame the developers for going where the money is but I fear for the future of Mac software and I’m even beginning to fear for iPhone’s. I fear that one day all of the great work, the great applications, the incredible design will have migrated exclusively to iPad. That may not happen for some time and people are still making some serious money on making both Mac and iPhone applications – but the tide is definitely on its way out to the iPad sea.

I sometimes sit and wonder what sort of applications could have been made for the Macintosh if, say, Apple had opened up an App Store that supported iPhone, iPad, and Mac? Would the river of money have been split into three smaller tributaries? Would people flock to the Mac the same way they have iPhone and now iPad? Arguably the main reasons people buy iPhones and iPads is the ease of finding/installing software and content. Imagine if things were that easy on the Mac. And imagine if developers were excited to build applications for the Mac again!

Apple isn’t out of position yet to make this happen. With a single move, adding Mac software to the App Store, they could start a gold rush for Macintosh developers the way they have for iPhone and iPad developers. Unlike iPhone and iPad, though, it should be just another way to download applications – not the only way to do so. This way both developers and consumers could decide how to get applications themselves and not be forced one way or the other. I think, ultimately, developers would decide to distribute their applications through the App Store because that is how users would choose to get their applications but at least they’d have the choice. Wouldn’t that be great?

But this may never happen and that is why I fear for the future of Mac software.

Hud Growl theme from Komodo Media

April 2nd, 2010

Several years ago I turned off Growl. I found it to be far too distracting. The little blobs of horribly designed text popping up above my work every few moments reminded me far too much of the Windows’ pop up bubble thing. You know, that incredibly annoying yellow bubble that pops up to tell you that you’re computer is out-of-date? Yeah, that.

Anyway, the Hud Growl Theme by the immensely talented Rogie of Komodo Media has brought me back to Growl. I’ve reinstalled it, tweaked the settings to be far less annoying and installed this theme to make my Growl experience better than ever – and valuable.

Open a file from Terminal with Coda

December 6th, 2009

If you’re like me, you love Coda. Well, you may find the need to open a file, or set of files, from Terminal in Coda. Gregory Tomlinson has created a bash script to let you do just that.

Update May 20, 2011: It turns out that Tomlinson’s website is down. So, here is a brief synopsis of what you can do to add this functionality to your Mac.

  • Open Terminal
  • In terminal, enter: open .profile
  • Add the following lines of code
    # TextMate
    # set path and simple shell function
    export TEXTMATE_PATH=/Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/Resources/mate
    mate () {
    $TEXTMATE_PATH $1 $2 $3 $4 $5 $6
    }
    # svn for TextMate (default editor, end-of-line types)
    export EDITOR="$TEXTMATE_PATH -w"
    export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8

    # Coda
    # set path
    export CODA_PATH=/Applications/Coda.app
    # function roughly like 'mate .' by expanding '.' to '*.htm*'
    coda () {
    if [[ "." == $1 ]]
    then
    open -a $CODA_PATH *.htm*
    else
    open -a $CODA_PATH $1 $2 $3
    fi
    }

  • Save .profile
  • Quit Terminal
  • Restart Terminal

There is also a slightly more robust script written for Coda by Aditya Bhargava that handles a few more tidbits and it is available on GitHub.