TheJoey.Net

Recently a couple of my friends got macs and have been asking me for tips. Another one is getting his soon and will undoubtedly also be calling me. I’ve had mine since January (actually six months this week) and I’m very happy with it. I also had some guidance from friends who’ve been around the block Mac-wise and were willing to offer some tips. I’m going to break this post down into four sections- the Dock, Finder, Apps, and Widgets.

The Dock- Like the Windows Start Bar, it’s where there most important stuff will go. As well as all of your running programs being there, you can keep program icons there for quick and easy access. To do that just open up your Applications folder and drag the apps you want onto the dock. I have ten there at all times, the big ones being Firefox, iTunes, Adium, Finder, and Quicksilver. You can also hide your dock by clicking on the Apple icon in the top left, and going to Dock>Turn Hiding On. Then it will only appear when you mouse over the bottom part of your screen. I did this for more screen real estate.

Finder- The file system of sorts for your Mac. From Finder you’ll be able to access all of the files on your computer. One thing to note is you start in your user folder (username that is, mine is joe). Directly from there, you can get to Applications, Music, Pictures, Movies, Documents and a bunch of other things. You can also customize the “Places” section of Finder to include the folders you frequent most. Just drag that folder and drop it under “Places.” Mine contains Desktop, joe, Documents, Applications, iTunes Music, Widgets, and Fonts. The last three I added myself because I found myself copy and pasting or dragging and dropping to those folders the most.

Apps- The biggest question I get is, “What Apps should I download?” It really depends on what you’re into, but a few (either built-in or free) that I have found useful are:

• Adium- This multi-protocol IM client lets you connect to all of your screen names in one app. I can use it for AIM, Yahoo!, GTalk, and rumor has it Facebook support is coming. The only thing native IM client iChat has on it is support for video chat.
• Quick Sliver- This robust little app is the quick-launcher to end all quick-launchers. Run the program, which will run in the background, press control+spacebar and type in the name of the App you want to run, document you want to open, or even song you want to play in iTunes. Lifehacker is also quite the fan.
• Transmission- For all your Bit Torrent needs.
• Dictionary- a built-in app that will search for definitions, synonyms and Wikipedia for whatever word you put in.
• Preview- a built-in app that natively converts to PDF, and reads PDFs and all sorts of other image files. Much faster than Adobe Reader.

Widgets- The final feature I want to talk about is the Widgets. On newer Macs, by default press F4 and you will be presented with your ‘Dashboard,’ with all of your widgets. Ones like weather, calc, etc. come pre-installed, but there are literally hundreds of widgets out there to download for free. The only one I really recommend is Maintidget, which will run clean up and maintenance scripts on your Mac weekly. I am personally a fan or the PHP, Movies, and Lyrics widgets.

Besides my short rambling, Lifehacker writes quite frequently on how to make your mac-using life easier, including a guide to switching. MacUpdate is also a great site for free Mac software.

posted on June 14th, 2008 in Software| | show comment » « hide comment

This is a continuation post from Google I/O Day 1.

With a fresh perspective after the Day 1 sessions, I reworked my schedule to try and make the most of what Google I/O had to offer. The keynote for Day 2 was given by Marissa Mayer, which admittedly made me a little star struck. I read about her in The Google Story- she was the first female employee and part of the first handful hired at Google. I thought it was pretty cool that she was addressing us. Of the advice she had to offer, she mentioned something also mentioned in The Google Story; have a healthy disrespect for the impossible. It was this thought that constantly lead Larry, Sergey, and the rest of Google to do the things they do. It’s what made Larry and Sergey start Google. So with that phrase in mind, I went on to Day 2 of the conference.

I did two things I didn’t get to do on Day 1: A Code Lab and a Fireside Chat. For the code lab, I worked with the Google Maps API. The lab was incredibly helpful. There was a website with about 24 slides showing different things you can do with the API, some of them being demonstrated by the Google developer running the lab. Then we were given a link to instructions and got to work at our own pace making different API calls. Developers, of course, were there to answer any questions we had.

Then there was the Fireside Chat I attended, which was on the topic of Android. Eight engineers from the Android team were there to informally answer questions as long as we could come up with them. I didn’t ask any, but plenty I had [or should have had] got answered.

All in all, this was a pretty great learning experience that gave me a lot of new insight not only on Android, GAE, or other Google products, but Software Development in general. Just hearing some of the engineers speak was truly inspiring. It was also eye opening to the fact that there is so much I need to learn (not that I didn’t know that already, but this made it a little more concrete). And not only did I learn about software development, but also about running a business, how to treat users, and some new ways of thinking and problem solving. I feel they took the “Cura Personalis” approach the University of Scranton takes (translates to ‘Care for the whole person’). The people at Google know what it takes to teach and to get people to learn.

So will I do it again next year? You better believe it.

posted on May 30th, 2008 in Software, Thoughts| No Comments »

When I first got to Google I/O I made note of a few things. “It’s like 85% male,” “Wow there are a lot of smart phones,” and “There are a lot more Macs here than I thought there would be.” Of course, once I was all checked in, settled and the keynote started, I was nothing less than blown away by what they had to show us. I can’t really recap everything covered, however I was really struck by the Google Web Toolkit. The GWT allows you to write programs in Java and then convert them to AJAX (Javascript, etc.). To be honest, I didn’t even think that was possible. The app they demonstrated was incredibly powerful, seamless and fairly quick. You’d never think it was a web app. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Google I/O Day 1 showed me the raw and very real innovation going on at Google.

Aside from GWT they wowed us with a working Android prototype, which you can check out here. What really got me was the compass mode, which gives you a live street view that moves based on what compass direction you’re facing. The android talks I attended gave us a quick intro to and the basics of creating an android app. Those talks helped me get my own environment up and running, which I was able to do in no time flat. While I didn’t look that much into it today, I also gained an appreciation for Google Apps Engine and am going to learn Python so I can develop on it. But it wasn’t all work at Google I/O today.

Aside from the numerous breakout sessions and coding labs, Google offered it’s attendees colorful beanbag chairs, pool tables, a candy bar, and fully stocked cooler. From 6-10pm there was also “Google After Hours,” which was a mixer with a DJ and live band, food, open bar, a few Wii consoles with the games projected on giant TVs, and arcade games and pool tables scattered all around the room. In short, Google can throw a party.

What I got out of today’s session was learn Python, and get better at Java. On tomorrow’s agenda is GWT, more Android, and AJAX design patterns. As nerdy as it sounds, I’m pretty excited. I’ll be posting pics and a follow up to this post tomorrow night.

posted on May 29th, 2008 in Software, Thoughts| No Comments »

A few weeks ago I made the switch from my longtime feed reader, Bloglines, to Google Reader. Bloglines has been growing stagnant, their new site has been in beta for quite some time now, and I feel like there were better features in feed readers out there. I’ve got to say I have been very happy with Google Reader.

First off, I feel Google Reader (Reader) has be a better design. It’s much cleaner and laid out better than Bloglines. Bloglines gives me the same look and feel I’d get from using a site with frames. Reader also has a lot more information readily available; this info is easier to find because of the better design choices made by Google.

Reader recommends feeds to you based on what you read. It also tells you your trends- IE how many stories you’ve read, which feeds you read the most and the % of stories from each feed you read. My favorite feature of Reader, however, is the shared feeds.

Reader has a list of all my friends (from my Google Chat list) who also use Reader. If they share a particular story they like, it will show up in my reader under “Friends’ shared items.” I think this is a particularly cool features because it’s an easy way to share stories. Between this and staring items, I’m quickly moving away from using del.icio.us. If Google integrates a way to star websites not in your feed reader, I will probably drop del.icio.us all together. If there is a way to do so already, please let me know!

Finally, with Google Gears, I don’t even need to be online to use Reader, which is an awesome feature. All-in-all my experience with Reader (as with every other Google product I use) is great. I’m very glad I made the switch and can’t see myself going back to Bloglines any time soon.

UPDATE 5/6/08: It’s like Google is listening directly to me..

posted on April 27th, 2008 in Software| No Comments »

Lately there’s been a lot of talk of Getting Things Done, or GTD. Lifehacker recently asked the readers about the five best GTD apps. My feed reader has also featured numerous articles on the topic of GTD; so in traditional blogging fashion I thought I’d weigh in. My best GTD ‘app’ is Google.

Really it’s broken down into three different, nicely integrated parts with Google as the main player. Google, Firefox, and Remember the Milk make my life significantly easier. With GCal, GMail, Google Notebook, and Remember the Milk I don’t need a desktop application. And each app is accessible from within the others. Remember the Milk even has a Firefox extension that integrates it with GMail so you can not only view or edit your tasks, but add an email right to your tasks list. And of course, we can’t forget Google Gears.

Gears allows me to access sites like Remember the Milk, Google Reader, and Google Docs even when I don’t have an internet connection. If/when they integrate Google Calendar, it will be perfect; I won’t need a desktop calendar program (sidebar- GCal also autosyncs with my Blackberry, so I don’t need to connect it to my computer either).

All in all, Google has made my life easier and is quickly replacing the desktop applications I use. I’ve even been considering using Google Docs instead of MS Office, but that probably isn’t likely- though I am using it more frequently.

posted on April 19th, 2008 in Productivity, Software| No Comments »