Andrew Daley's Interweb

Quick & Dirty Tips :: Twitter

2009-02-16T09:37:00.000-08:00

If you are like me and use Twitter as a way to communicate in a "quick and dirty" way then reading this post by Grammar Girl will help with etiquette. Micro-blogging is much more difficult than it seems, 140 characters is limiting.

Grammar Girl's Strunk & Twite: An Unofficial Twitter Style Guide

Nerf N-Strike Raider CS-35: Lil' Dick Tracy's Automatic Tommy Gun With 35-Dart Drum Magazine

2009-02-15T14:49:00.000-08:00

I would love to have this new Nerf Tommy gun for the next office war! Oh, it's on...

Nerf N-Strike Raider CS-35: Lil' Dick Tracy's Automatic Tommy Gun With 35-Dart Drum Magazine

If you are wondering what an office war looks like then check out this Youtube HD video.

Office War!

The Death Of “Web 2.0″

2009-02-14T11:11:00.000-08:00

I think that Robin Wauters over at TechCrunch has a great summation of the death of Web 2.0. Check it out and leave a comment.

The Death Of “Web 2.0″ .

Nano's Become Accessible

2008-09-10T01:56:00.000-07:00

First a little about me. I am visually impaired and work in the Assistive Technology field. When I heard that the new iPod Nano was going to have spoken menus I almost fell out of my chair. This is the one feature that has eluded blind and visually impaired iPod users since the beginning of the line resulting in hacking the iPod to put a Linux distro on it that does this same thing. As a visually impaired Mac user, I say thank you to Apple for making this monumental step in what I consider to be the right direction. You can read a great article on TUAW about this ne feature here if you are interested. Me I am very happy about this. I would be really, really happy if they rolled this feature out to all iPods, and the iPhone via the new 2.1 firmware release on Friday.

Podiobooks.com Is Amazing.

2008-09-10T01:37:00.000-07:00

I am a huge fan of audiobooks. The free ones, like a free cup of coffee are the best. I was watching 'Internet Superstar" and heard about a great author who is offering his serialized audiobook on line for free through a website called Podiobooks. I thought as an avid audiobook listener it was worth a look. Let me tell you, this is an amazing audiobook site full of excellent work under the creative commons license and totally free (donations optional). I am listening to two audiobooks currently, '65 Below' and 'Infected' and loving them. When you sign up for an account, you subscribe to the audiobook(s) of your choice from the catalogue, and then select how often you want a chapter delivered to your itunes account (or other podcatcher) in the form of a podcast. I have mine set for every three days. Check this site out if you love audiobooks like I do!

Apple Anouncements

2008-09-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

Well Apple had their big event today and I have to say that I was underwhelmed. I have yet to figure out if it was due to the fact that there where no surprises as a result of leaks from the past few weeks or that Steve just made a general menton of the 2.1 update which still does not (I assume) include cut and paste. I will have to report on the outcome on Friday when the update drops.

Dropbox Invites To Give Away

2008-09-08T01:26:00.000-07:00

I have been using Dropbox as a Mobileme's iDisk Substitute for cloud storage mainly because I use the Mac GTD app Things. The purpose of Dropbox in this context is so I can sync across several Macs by pointing Things at the Dropbox folder on each Mac. The suggestion came from the Cultured Code Things forum that I give Dropbox a try, and it works like a charm. Without any question this is the best iDisk alternative. You can check it out at www.getdropbox.com if you like. And Dropbox has created a snappy iPhone web interface to boot. Unfortunately it is an invite only beta at this point, so....

I have 9 Dropbox invites to give away. First come first serve.

"Things" on my iPhone 3G

2008-09-03T02:03:00.000-07:00

Well after trying all of the GTD apps for the iPhone, I have finally settled on "Things". At 9.99 on the app store Things comes in at about mid-range in price. The desktop version of "Things" is free for now and will be 49.99 by the end of this summer. I tried all of the free GTD apps and even went as far as to buy the holy grail of GTD apps "Omnifocus". While "Omnifocus" was a robust GTD solution for the iPhone it was hampered by the fact that in order to sync you had to have two things. On, was a mobile me account (Which I have.) and a beta copy of the new desktop version of "Omnifocus" for the Mac. There is a non-beta version of "Omnifocus" but it does not sync with the iPhone app. Not with standing the fact that you have to shell out another 79.99 for the desktop app after paying 19.99 for the iPhone app, I like "Omnifocus" but beta software is never a trustworthy system as depicted by the GTD methodology.

As far as "Things" is concerned, it is not quite as robust as "Omnifocus", but it certnly does what it promised, including following the GTD methodology.

I will post a full review of things by the end of this week to follow-up this post.

iPhone G3 Love

2008-07-23T03:05:00.000-07:00

I have returned from a moritorium on posting due to work and school with a shoutout to Apple for blessing us Canadians with the iPhone 3G. What an amazing device. Once I have a week of use in on the device I will post my thoughts and a list of my favorite apps.

WordPress on iPhone

2008-07-23T02:56:00.000-07:00

Well I am happy to report that the iPhone WordPress app works swimingly! Well done. To bad I switched to Blogspot...

Back Seat Driver

2007-04-27T00:08:00.000-07:00

WOW!!! I wish I could have been in the passanger seat on this one...

Bugatti Veyron at top speed
Uploaded by Flabber

Joost Invites To Give Away

2007-03-16T03:15:00.000-07:00

Apparently Joost is not as popular as I thought... Or, I spend to much time one the net compared to those I associate with. I have asked all of my friends if they would like a Joost invite, and the most common response is "What is Joost?" from the look of absolute horror on my face in response to this people ask "what is wrong?" To that I say "am I the only person plugged into the Internet?" I realize that it is just series of tubes, but dang... Joost is everywhere in the space isn't it? Anyway, I have two invites that expire on the 22nd, and am now offering them to the first two posters to this comment.

Andrew

Services Scrubber Hurray!!

2007-02-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

Mac OS has a Services menu where all the tasks associated with each app on your system are found in one location. I had for the longest time items in my services menu that where out of place like "convert to simplified chinese". I went looking for the location of each of these services in an attempt to remove them. This can be a difficult task in itself, so I googled "how to edit the services menu in OSX" and found an app that simplifies the process of disabling services you don't use, and removing those that are orphaned when uninstalling software. The App is called Services Scrubber, and it can be found here. Give it try. I am glad I did.

(Via My Trick.)

Searchmash

2007-01-09T02:13:00.000-08:00

Searchmash is googles new search engine that has a web 2.0 feel, and is customizable to the searcher. If Google implements this search engine as a replacement for their current offering, they will most certainly secure an already tight grip on the search engine game. I am using this as my default search engine and I suggest you give it a try. Happy searching...

(Via http://www.searchmash.com.)

My Gift To You (LotsaSnow)

2006-12-24T04:14:00.000-08:00

I came across this awesome screen-saver for Mac OSX. I thought I would share it with you. Enjoy!

LotsaSnow:

(Via wakaba.c3.cx.)

Below is an image of the screen-saver in action:

And Happy Holidays.

iphoto to Gmail Plugin...YESSSS!!!

2006-12-08T09:27:00.000-08:00

I am glad to report that someone has finally come up with a plugin for iphoto that I will use on a regular basis. If you are like me and convey images of birthdays and holiday to family via gmail, then this is the plugin for you! You can find the plugin here. Enjoy!

Microsoft beats Apple to the TV with Xbox Live Video, SD and HD shows

2006-11-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

Beginning on November 22, Xbox 360 owners will be able to buy and rent over 1,000 hours of TV and movie programming using the new Xbox Live Video Marketplace.

read more | digg story

Time Magazine's Best Inventions of 2006

2006-11-07T04:13:00.000-08:00

Time Magazine has released a list of what it considers to be the best inventions of 2006. YouTube is the number one invention, but they also list many winners in other categories, like cars, food, and health. For all the geeks out here, there's a Tech Toys category. (The talking head has to be my favorite.)

read more | digg story

Robert Scobles' thoughts about Zune vs. iPod

2006-11-05T02:35:00.000-08:00

I respect the thoughts of Robert Scoble, and have to say I agree with him on many points regarding this hot topic. Below is his post that has made news lately.

My thoughts about Zune vs. iPod « Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger: " October 26, 2006

So, you’ve seen the Zune video. Here’s my thoughts about whether Microsoft is going to be successful.

I’ll come at it from a number of different angles:

THE FUNDAMENTALS

Box design: good. As good as iPod.
Look and feel and overall hardware quality: good. As good as iPod. I actually even liked the brown one a lot.
Screen: better than iPod.
Hard drive size: worse than iPod.
Features: mixed bag, we’ll get into that below.
Price: in the right neighborhood.
Marketing: unknown, but Apple has set such a high bar that I doubt Microsoft can even get close.
Software experience: unknown.
Updateability: better than iPod (if I were Apple I’d worry about this).
Conversationality: (Does it cause a conversation). Here Apple wins with the white headphones hands down.
Integration: beats the iPod cause it works with Xbox.

EDGE CASE

As an edge case, IE, someone who tries all the latest stuff and gets excited about a lot of it, the Zune abjectly fails"

(Via Scobleizer.com)

To Further the discussion, David Caulton a Zune contributor had this to say about the Scobleizer's comments comparing the Zune and iPod.

Macworld: News: Touch-screen iPod leak by Apple?

2006-11-02T08:42:00.000-08:00

Macworld: News: Touch-screen iPod leak by Apple?: "Touch-screen iPod leak by Apple?
By Kevin Railsback, Infoworld

In an iPod developer feature guide on the Apple website, they apparently have leaked a confirmation of the upcoming touch-screen iPod. On page 10 of the PDF the following text appears:

Note: Linking to photos and videos is supported only for 5th generation iPods running iPod Software version 1.2 or later. All other Notes feature capabilities described in this document are supported for iPod models with display screens, beginning with the touch-screen models.

In the PDF that section shows a bar off to the left, like it is still text undergoing editing and most likely was not meant to be released to the public."

(Via Mackworld.)

Mac OS X Hints: Make sure your mailboxes really are empty

2006-11-02T08:39:00.000-08:00

Mac OS X Hints: Make sure your mailboxes really are empty: "Here's how to get to the Account Info window in Mail to view what's actually sitting on your mail server."

(Via Macworld.)

Gear Guide: For your private enjoyment

2006-10-29T23:41:00.000-08:00

This is what I am talking about, an ipod gear guide for the masses. With Christmas coming this is just what I needed. Not to mention it is from one of my favorite sources too.

Feature: Gear Guide: For your private enjoyment: "We kick off our winter gear guide with a look at iPod-friendly headphones, speakers, and software aimed at your personal listening pleasure."

(Via Macworld.)

Can I Get an ‘Hallelujah’ for Auto-Completion With the Esc and F5 Keys?

2006-10-29T12:04:00.000-08:00

Can I Get an ‘Hallelujah’ for Auto-Completion With the Esc and F5 Keys?

"The Cocoa text system has a built-in auto-complete feature that is tied to the system-wide spelling checker dictionary. Start typing a word in app that uses a Cocoa text editing field, hit the Esc key, and you’ll get a drop-down list of suggested completions."

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Love it or hate it movies

2006-10-29T10:07:00.000-08:00

Love it or hate it movies: "Why are the top five most requested netflix movies also on the list of movies that people either love or hate? What makes these movies so contentious?"

(Via digg.)

Addiction level set to 10 - Marvin Spectrum

2006-10-29T03:51:00.000-08:00

This game is one of the most addictive games I have come across on the net in a while. Dubbed the Marvin Spectrum, you run through an obstacle course where you use the up, down, and left arrow keys. I have lost hours of my life I will never get back... First seen on Digg, then on Lifehacker Marvin Spectrum has all the trappings of something viral.

I am In Love....again

2006-10-28T06:34:00.000-07:00

The new Blackberry Pearl is the coolest phone I have seem yet, packed with features, and a 1.3 megapixel camera with a flash it is amazing! Check it out here for more details.

Vines Everywhere

2006-10-28T06:25:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of one of the many rows of vines I visited this summer at the Grand Pré Winery in the Annapolis Valley, in Nova Scotia. A beautiful place to visit, and one of Nova Scotia's great tasting wines can be samples while you are there.

I suggest you stop at the patio restaurant for a bite, and a glass of wine. 4 stars for sure.

Google Trickery

2006-10-28T06:06:00.000-07:00

I was cruising Lifehacker this morning, and came across this link that details how to use the google search engine to find .mp3's on the net. This is an alternative to using limewire or other p2p software solutions, but without taking up any HD space for the app, and any accompanying spyware.

Marsedit

2006-10-28T05:31:00.000-07:00

So now that I am using Wordpress, I need a good post creator that i can use off-line. Enter stage right MarsEdit. MarsEdit is a light weight software package for Macintosh, produced by Ranchero makers of my other favorite Mac app NetNewsWire.

Welcome!

2006-10-28T05:19:00.000-07:00

I hope to post to this blog on a regular basis. I am excited about the prostect of having an outlet for my techno-lust.