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Xyle scope for free. Not sure when this happened. Used to cost $20. I'm guessing this choice has a lot to do with the great success of Things. I wrote about Xyle scope in Jan. 2008. My conclusion then:

I almost bought this application but, in the end, I decided to stick with two free tools that perform most of the same feats as Xyle, even though I think they are much less elegant. I use Firefox when I'm working on websites, and have grown to rely on Chris Pederick's Web Developer and Joe Hewitt's Firebug.

I'm definitely adding Xyle scope to my toolbox now.

Opera is installed by Adobe as part of the Creative Suite.

Turns out Adobe has been using Opera for years as a rendering engine. I've read that it's used in all kinds of places: to display Adobe Help files, in Device Central (to preview how applications would look in different mobile devices), in Photoshop, in Bridge, and in Dreamweaver (which has apparently been using Opera since Macromedia days). I'm sure this is only a partial list.

With a little digging, I found the hidden Opera installation in the bundled contents of Adobe Bridge (you need to view the application's package contents to peer inside).

I discovered Opera was on my system when opening a torrent. Expecting Transmission to open up, I was surprised to see an Opera browser window. This, it turns out, is a common occurrence. If you run in to this, the easy solution is to right click the .torrent file, choose 'Get Info,' and then choose Transmission. Then choose 'Change All' so that all future torrent files will open with Transmission.

While I was a bit annoyed to see a browser I never installed on my machine, I'm not going to do anything about it since it's needed by my Adobe apps. But it should stay there, behind the scenes. I think I know how this happened. I recently reinstalled Mac OS X and reinstalled all of my applications. I installed the Adobe Creative Suite, and I later installed Transmission. When I opened a torrent link, the Mac OS had was still associating all .torrent files with Opera, as that was (prior to installing Transmission) the only application on my system that would accept this file type. That explains why I had to re-associate the file type. So the real problem here is that the Mac OS associated a file type with an application that is hidden inside a bundle. That seems like odd behavior to me.

And since I'm talking about Adobe applications, I can't pass up the chance to rant about Dvorak-Qwerty. All Adobe apps that were once Macromedia apps (Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks) function as expected with the Dvorak-Qwerty keyboard layout. All other Adobe apps do not support the D-Q layout.

This drives me crazy. We're now on the fourth iteration of the Creative Suites, and this inconsistency persists. Guess it's time to send Adobe another message.

Aviary, a collection of online design and editing tools, is an amazing technical feat.

A couple of weeks ago, Aviary brought their online vector editor out of Beta. It's called Raven, and it joins, well, an aviary of other online applications: Phoenix (image editor), Peacock (dubbed a 'visual laboratory'), Toucan (color manager), and Phoenix (an image editor).

These tools are powerful, free to use, and tightly integrated (meaning you can pass your work of art seamlessly back and forth between the different applications). But what really intrigues me about Aviary is where it's heading.

In addition to the current flock of Aviary applications, there are many, many more interesting creative applications coming. We're talking everything from an audio editor to a terrain generator to a word processor. And the Aviary team plans to eventually offer offline versions of their tools via Adobe AIR at some point in the future (interesting to note that Adobe already has an online office suite, and I've read that they plan to bring many of their creative tools to the web, a la Photoshop Express).

The tools at Aviary are free to use, and are well worth your time to check out. No, Phoenix is not as powerful as Photoshop. And no, Raven is not as powerful as Illustrator. But how many users really need that much power? For casual creation, artistic exploration, and simple projects, Aviary is fun and easy to use. I especially like experimenting with Peacock. If the interface seems weird, it's only because we've become so use to Adobe's way of doing things.



Basic usage is free. The catch is that Aviary is, at heart, a social site. So free usage means you are prepared to share your work of art with the world. Also, while you own the full rights to all works you create, Aviary retains a license to display any works you make viewable to the public "within Aviary and in any external publication provided it's in a way that promotes Aviary." Also note that your work will be accessible by others, so someone else can mash up your image and repost it. In this case, your name will appear in the attribution in the new derivative work. It's a great model for encouraging social creativity and sharing.

If you want more control (and more privacy), a pro-level subscription is $10 a month. If you are interested in using these tools to create artwork for, say, a Web site, you'll want to pay the fee. Not a bad deal when you factor in the considerable capabilities of these applications and compare with the cost of Adobe applications. No, Aviary is not as powerful as an Adobe app, but if you can't afford or don't want to purchase an Adobe app or Suite, Aviary offers some powerful tools to create some great art.

I'm an Adobe CS owner and daily user for work and home tasks. I like my Adobe applications. But I hope that services like Aviary thrive. I'd hate to see Adobe completely own the design and editing tool space both on and offline (... and they already own the offline space).

Competition is good, and Aviary is one of many alternatives out there offering innovation and quality service.

I spent the past month on a ship out in the Gulf of Mexico serving as a data manager for a research expedition. I won’t bore you with details about what I was doing, but I want to share some observations about my computing experience. I brought aboard a new 15" Macbook Pro running Leopard with a virtual install (using VMWare Fusion) of Windows 7 Beta. Windows was essential, as the database in which I did my day-to-day work was not Mac compatible. Here are some highlights:

- Data sharing: While many of the people on the trip used Macs, several people used PCs. Among us, we probably had about 30 Terabytes or so of external disk storage. Problems arose when we needed to share data. The PC people’s drives were generally formatted in NTFS. The Mac people typically used HFS+. The NTFS-formatted drives would mount on a Mac, but were read-only. The HFS+ drives would not mount on Windows PCs. No one used the FAT32 format, which is the only format that I’m aware of that is read/write on both platforms. We ended up formatting a few drives in the FAT32 format so these drives could be moved around and shared. Since my disk was one of the external drives that had to be shared around more than others, my solution was to set it up with multiple partitions: an HFS+ partition to use for my SuperDuper Clone backup, and a FAT32 partition for shared data. One interesting note: I formatted a 1TB drive with multiple partitions on a Mac in a matter of minutes. In comparison, it took about eight hours to format a 1TB drive with one FAT partition on a very robust and powerful PC laptop. Egads.

- Data backup: I was surprised that many people did not have a backup solution on the cruise. If their laptop tanked, they would not only potentially lose data, they would be out of commission for the duration of the expedition. I choose a cloned backup over Time Machine for this trip. The reason is simple: if something went terribly wrong with my laptop’s OS, I could at least boot from the cloned external drive and keep working until a point in time when I could take a time out to restore from the clone back. With Time Machine, I would have had to stop working until I solved the problem or restored the backup to the laptop (which can be very time consuming).

- Force-eject a CD: It’s good to know how to do this. At one point during my trip, I placed a corrupted DVD in my SuperDrive and couldn’t get it to eject. Usually, I can get a stuck disc to pop out by evoking terminal and typing the command ‘drutil tray eject.’ That didn’t work. I tried disk utility. That didn’t work. The solution: I had to disconnect the drive from Windows, as it was in use by Windows via VMWare Fusion.

- TextExpander: Data entry often entails typing the same thing over and over again. TextExpander is unbelievably useful for these sorts of repetitive tasks. In my case, I needed to paste the same blocks of text into my Windows database. I wasn’t sure if TextExpander would work from Mac to PC, but it did. It wasn’t as easy as it is on the Mac (i.e., I couldn’t use TextExpander abbreviations in Windows), but it did the job. Once I had TextExpander populated with a slew of repetitive text snippets, all I had to do was select a snippet from the Mac drop-down menu, then click on it to paste it to the clipboard, then paste into the relevant field in my Windows database. It was a bit cumbersome, but much easier than typing the same thing over and over again.

- Screenshots: I was planning to use Little Snapper to capture screen shots, but found this application to be too cumbersome and bloated for my tastes. I like the idea behind Little Snapper. It looks great. But it just didn’t fit into my workflow. I found myself turning to Yellow Mug’s SnapnDrag. It’s tiny, unobtrusive, and does the job well. It stays out of the way. I’ve tried so many different screen shots apps, and I keep coming back to SnapnDrag.

- iPhone: The only entertainment I brought on my trip was my iPhone. I brought music, books-on-tape, games, and some books to read via the Kindle and Stanza book reading apps. Overall, the iPhone did the job. I was duly entertained. The one exception is this: the tiny screen didn’t cut it for reading a book. It’s a nice idea. It’s not bad for quick reads like poetry or short stories. But it’s just not a comfortable or enjoyable experience when it comes to reading an entire book in my opinion. Next time I’ll bring a real book. Or perhaps I’ll have one of those Mac tablet-touchscreen-Kindlesque-thingies rumored to be just around the corner. Final point: the iPhone also served me well for screenshots on the go. In case you didn’t know this, if you press the two buttons on your iPhone or Touch at the same time, you device will take a snapshot of your screen and place the image in your Photo library. Very handy.

- VMWare Fusion: I can’t speak highly enough about this app. The ability to seamlessly run Windows alongside my Mac, to switch back and forth on the fly, to share folders, and to drag-and-drop between the two operating systems was priceless. Perhaps we take this for granted now, but just a few short years ago this would have been unthinkable.

Now for something completely different.

Let's talk about entrainment, the process by which wave frequencies in two or more interacting systems with different periods eventually lock into phase. You see it nature, for example, when fireflies start blinking together in unison. You hear it in music when different instruments in a jam session start to vibrate together in harmony. It even happens in our bodies. When you slow your breath, it leads to a slowing of heartbeat and brainwaves.

Now let's talk about binaural beats. Binaural beats are perceived sounds which naturally arise in the brain when two slightly different frequencies are played separately into each ear. It's best explained with an example: if you listen to a 405 Hz frequency (sine wave) in one ear and a 398 Hz wave in the other ear, your brainwaves will start to oscillate towards a frequency of 7 Hz, or the difference between the two sounds. This process happens through entrainment.

Here's the interesting part: while human hearing is limited to an approximate range of frequencies between 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, brainwave frequencies associated with relaxation, REM sleep, meditation, and deep sleep fall below the 20 Hz threshold.

Huh?

What this means is that binaural beats can, in theory, be used to entrain your brain to frequencies that fall below perceived human hearing. If you search for brain entrainment on the Web, you'll find a slew of articles, thing for sale, and wild claims. And I know of at least one institute that will gladly take lots of your money to provide you with a life-changing (patented) brain entrainment experience at their facility.

My interest is more casual. I first came across the idea of binaural beats and brain entrainment back in the early 1990s while researching a paper in college. I found the idea intriguing. I played around with an oscilloscope to observe two waves suddenly lock together after growing closer and closer together. I found the idea of it fascinating.

Then, at some point (the timeline is a bit fuzzy), I came across a sound editor called Syntrillium Cool Edit Pro. This was a classy PC audio editor that once, to my surprise, included a somewhat-obscure menu for creating sound files for brain entrainment using binaural beats and pink noise. I tried it. I liked it. While I didn't have any crazy experiences, I did find that some of the files I created were effective for relaxation, meditation, and focus.

As I recall, the brain entrainment submenu disappeared at the next Cool Edit Pro software update after I started using it. I don't know why. Then, years later, Cool Edit Pro was bought out by Adobe. It is now called Adobe Audition.

Fast forward to 2009. While the auditory intrigue of brain entrainment (or, more accurately, the effects of this technique) remains in the speculative and hypothetical range, there are now several choices for the PC and the iPhone/Touch to try this out for yourself. The desktop programs are nice, but these are audio-centric apps that require headphones. It should come as no surprise, then, that the iPhone/Touch apps really shine.

Here's what you can get for your Mac, Windows, or Linux box

<1. SBaGen. (Mac, Linux, Windows) This is a good, free choice if you like to roll your own, are comfortable with the Terminal, and don't mind getting your hands a bit dirty. There are sample sounds for backgrounds you can download at the site. If you want to have some fun, and are the type of person who likes the DIY ethic, try it out.

2. BrainWave Generator. (Windows only) This isn't a Mac app, but I used it in my PC days. It hasn't really changed at all since those days, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's like SBaGen, but it has a Windows user interface and is much easier to use. It offers a lot of user control to fine tune frequency settings. It's shareware. It now costs $40 to buy a private license, which is steep for an app that hasn't been updated since 2005.

2. Pzizz. (Mac, Windows) I tried the trial when it first came out a while back. It uses binaural beats, but also mixes in sound effects, people talking, and music in some sort of fancy algorithm. Many people like it. I didn't care for it. Why? I can only say it's a matter of personal preference. I preferred the free SBaGen. I preferred it, that is, until I found the iPhone apps.

But this was made for the iPhone/Touch

1. Binaural Beats. Free. Offers presets with nice background music. You can also try Easy Relax Ultimate from the same company for $2.99. I found the free Binaural Beats app worked for me as a relaxation and sleep aid.

2. AmbiScience. Try the full app for $.99 or the Lite free version. For the price, the $.99 app is nice application that does the job well. It includes entrainment for relaxing, meditating, focusing, or sleeping. The interface is pleasant. I bought it. I use it.

3. mind Wave. The cost is $1.99. Haven't tried this one. It includes some interesting choices such as headache treatment, weight loss, and creativity boost. I'm a bit skeptical, but it's not very expensive. You can also opt for "mind Freek," a separate app from the same developer that also costs $1.99, and offers more esoteric settings such as astral projections, out of body experience, etc. Sounds wacky, and results may vary...but it's cheap and may be fun to try. I think I'll probably pass.

There you have it. Does this work, or is it pseudoscience? The truth is likely somewhere in between. I will vouch for it as a tool for sleeping, meditation, relaxation, and focus. What is certain is it costs next to nothing to try aural brain entrainment. So why not?

So, the site is back to normal. The question is how did this happen? My passwords consist of 12 randomly-generated digits/symbols, I’m using the latest versions of WordPress and various plug ins. It could be that I was just one of the lucky first few to have their WP 2.7 installs compromised. It could also be that the attack came from a hole in one of my plugins.

It appears that only my wp-config.php and index.php files were overwritten. My MySQL database and theme files were unaffected. It wasn’t that hard to recover from this, but it was a bit scary. The majority of my time was spent checking through all of my files to ensure I captured the extent of the damage.

Whatever vulnerability I had, this incident is a good opportunity to take stock of ways to minimize the chance of this happening.

1. Spend some time learning about hardening your WordPress installation. One thing I learned after this incident is that anyone can peek into my plugins folder.

2. Backup. Backup. Backup. Not just your WP files, but also your MySQL database.

3. Keep up to date with the latest plugins and WordPress version.

4. Make sure your file and directory permissions are correct.

5. Choose good, long passwords. Use a manager like 1Password so you don’t have to remember what they are.

6. If you have multiple WordPress installs (or Drupal, Joomla, etc.), ensure those sites are up-to-date as well. For instance, I had two Drupal installs and two other WordPress installs in the same public directory on my host. My Drupal installations were not up to date. This could be a vulnerability.

I’m not going to rehash all of the WordPress security tips and tricks here. It’s exhaustively documented. Start with the WordPress Codex. Learn a bit about the .htaccess file. Learn a bit about file permissions. I’ve linked to some of the more interesting documentation I came across. Hope it helps.

I’ve long wished for a flexible, well-integrated tool that would give me complete control over browser choice when opening links. A couple of new applications now in public beta meet this need quite well.

Choosy

The first is a preference pane application called Choosy from developer George Brocklewurst. Once you make Choosy your default browser, you can then use this tool to direct links to the browser of your choice. Choosy can serve up only browsers that are currently running, or it can offer up all browsers regardless of whether or not they are open. You can also arrange your selected browsers in order of priority via the preference pane and choose an option called ‘use best open browser.’ This will open up the link, as expected, in an open browser that is highest up on your prioritized list. I settled on the option to have Choosy present me with a choice of all browsers, regardless of whether or not the browsers are running (this option presents a nice floating menu similar to what you see with the familiar command-tab). It looks the developer has big plans for this little app: check out his development roadmap. He hasn’t yet announced how much Choosy will cost when it ships.

Highbrow

The second is called Highbrow from Helium Foot Software. This tool offers many of the same features as Choosy, but there are substantial differences (the most noticeable of which is that it’s not a preference pane). Once you place this app in your applications folder and run it, Highbrow appears in the menu bar (and automatically creates a login item without prompting…I personally prefer to be asked). Since it runs in the menu bar, Highbrow is faster than Choosy when you wish to change your default browser on the fly. The app offers three main options: you can select a default browser from a list of all of your preferred browsers; or you can choose to have your links open up in whatever browser you most recently used (something which Choosy doesn’t offer); or you can have Highbrow ask you which browser you’d like to use to open up a link (similar to Choosy, via a small floating window). Unlike Choosy, it does not offer you a choice among current open browsers. Highbrow will cost $14 (with a $12 introductory price. No details on how long this discounted price will be available once it’s released).

Which one is best?

I tested both out and decided to go with Choosy for now. While both tools do the job, I prefer the way that Choosy works invisibly in the background. It also offers more customization options in an interface that is a bit more polished than Highbrow. If you are the type of person who likes menu bar apps (my menu bar is already quite full), or prefer to manually change your default browser per user session, try Highbrow. If you prefer to select from your currently-open browsers, or always want to choose from among a user-defined list of your favorite browsers, Choosy is a nice, unobtrusive option. The good news is that you can try both out for free to see which one works best for you.

Why Bother?

Why would you want to choose your browser when opening up a link? Web development is a primary reason: it’s often useful to see how a page renders in different browsers. Beyond that, here are few other reasons I like to choose different browsers on different occasions:

Firefox plugins. Sometimes I receive a link in an email and I want to save it in Delicious. I want to send that link to Firefox in order to take advantage of my Firefox Delicious plugin. At other times, I choose FireFox to take advantage of plugins geared towards web development, such as web developer.

OmniWeb power. I often like to use OmniWeb to take advantage of some of this browsers powerful features. For example, this browser allows me to set per-page site preferences, save multiple pages into groups for easy retrieval later on, and set up search shortcuts so I can quickly search a particular website right from the search bar. I also prefer the tabbed thumbnail views of all my open pages.

Safari speed. Sometimes I choose Safari when I’m casually browsing because it’s quite fast.

Fluid. When I’m using Fluid (which I use for my work web-based email so it appears as a stand-alone browser application), I usually prefer to open up links received in my inbox with other browsers instead of in another Fluid window.

A few other apps

Here are a few other (semi) related apps worth a look:

- Bookit. This is a handy advanced bookmarking application that allows you to keep all your bookmarks synchronized across all of your browsers (and across multiple computers using .Mac). It costs $12.

- IC-switch. This free application sits in your menu bar and allows you to change your default browser, emailer, FTP client, and RSS reader on the fly in one location.

- RCDefaultApp. This is a free preference pane that allows you to set the default applications that open for URLs, file types and extensions, and a whole lot more. It’s a must-have little management app.

Drive Genius: Well-regarded tool to save a dying hard drive, fix a corrupted one, or to keep a disk optimized. Once you download this app, you can create a fully-legal bootable disc. I own one copy of DiskWarrior. Looking forward to compare and contrast these two tools.

* RapidWeaver: Already own two copies of this excellent web creation tool. Hoping to gift this license. RW now costs $80, so this is a good deal.

* Default Folder X: A superior open/save tool for the Mac with seamless integration. I've wanted this for quite a long time.

* VirusBarrier X5: My wife is going to use this on her laptop. You get a year of virus updates with it. I use the free ClamX AV, occasionally.

* MacGourmet Deluxe: This one is going to my spouse. There are many positive reviews for this app. Not sure why it's called 'Deluxe,' since there are no other MacGourmet offerings (i.e. non-Deluxe).

* Little Snitch: Great tool to manage/monitor outgoing network activity. I own a multi-user license of this for all my Macs. Hoping I can gift this or give it away on this site.

* iVolume: Never heard of it, but I've found that I generally like German-made Mac software. Might be useful. This tool corrects the volume levels for your iTunes songs so that all play at the same level. Suprisingly, this feature is not built into iTunes.

* KeyCue: A tool to help you find, learn, and remember menu shortcuts in all of your apps. Excellent aid for those who rely on keyboard shortcuts. Yes, I want this.

* MacPilot: Easy access to tons of terminal tweaks and optimizations for your Mac. Looking forward to trying this out. For those who buy the bundle, Koingo Software (developer of MacPilot and other apps) is offering a steeply discounted upgrade ($30) to their $100 'Utility Package,' which includes free lifetime upgrades, and licenses to every application currently on their website. Not a bad deal.

* WhatSize: Allows you to see what files are eating up all of your disk space. Not sure if this will be any better than the free (donationware) tool I currently use (Disk Inventory X).

* iDive : This is an app from Aquafadas, a French company. Apparently it's a video organizer. I'll be curious to try it out. I love PulpMotion by these developers (a very unique app picked up in a previous bundle!). This one only goes to the first 10,000 bundle consumers (was originally the first 5,000, but was increased apparently).

The offer ends on Dec. 19. You can also choose to gift a bundle to someone else. You might have trouble accessing the site. It's getting slammed with traffic right now.

The main question everyone is asking on the forums is about giving away licenses for the apps they already own or don't want. The short answer is that you must either buy the whole bundle, or gift the whole bundle to one person. If you buy the bundle, you get licenses tied to your name. There would be nothing stopping you from giving away that license, I suppose. For the apps I'd like to give to others, I'm going to write to the developers to see if the registered name could be changed. I recall doing this with Parallels when it was offered in a previous bundle, and it worked.

Stay tuned for other apps over the holiday season. MacSanta may be coming soon. We may also soon see a new Macheist and another 'Give good food 2 your Mac' bundle from Europe.

So, I now have the opportunity to telework once per week. I must say that I like it. Imagine that. But what makes it so great is not so much working in very casual clothing (that's a nice way of saying 'pajamas'), but that I can work on my Mac using tools that I know and rely on.

The thing is, I spend much of my workday at home or the office using the same basic tools: DreamWeaver, PhotoShop, and a text editor. So if I use the same basic software in both environments, why am I so much more efficient at home? Here are some of the reasons I came up with:

1. Launchbar

Launchbar is an application launcher, calculator, easy file opener, etc. It does many, many things. I'm still learning hidden tricks and tips to get more out of this excellent, lightweight application. I expect it to be on any machine I use. When it's not, I get cranky.

2. TextExpander

If you type the same thing over and over again, TextExpander is a godsend. Use it to assign shortcuts to any text you want. I use it for everything from inserting a redirect link to adding a signature block to inserting an image. You wouldn't believe how much time this tool saves.

3. PathFinder

Finder is anemic. Windows Explorer makes me want to cry. PathFinder rules. One feature I particularly like is the ability to save tab sets. I have about five tabs that I like to have open when working on this site. I have three folders I like to have open when working on office projects. I can save each workflow in distinct tab sets, open each up with a click, and I'm ready to go. Having just upgraded to the new PathFinder 5, I'm also digging the split-pane view. At any rate, the main thing I appreciate about PathFinder is how utterly, completely customizable it is. I have honed it over time. It's uniquely adapted to me. It's a weapon. I love that.

4. Spaces

I'm a recent Apple Spaces convert. I didn't think much of it for the longest time, but I'm glad I gave it another look. There are two camps when it comes to using Spaces. Some like dividing up apps into different spaces and some like dividing up tasks within different spaces. It's a subtle difference that you won't really get until you try out both ways. Some may wish to stop reading this paragraph now to prevent a headache. If you want to learn more about the options in Spaces, read on.

To be fair, even if I was using a Mac at the office, I probably wouldn't be able to install many (or any) of the third-party applications listed here due to IT policies. Still, it's worth pointing out how much utility and efficiency result from third party apps. And to be fair regarding my PC use, there are a couple of tiny free PC apps that I use in the office which do contribute quite a lot to my productivity. One is called EditPad. It's a lightweight text editor that sits in the system tray. It offers tabbed pages and does a nice job of stripping out formating on text so I can pop it into a web page. The other is called HotKeyz. This lets me remap my keyboard (I use the Dvorak layout, and this lets me reassign keys so I can still use Qwerty key combos). Unlike the Mac, Windows does not have a built-in Dvorak-Qwerty alternate keyboard layout. What a shame.

So, the difference in how Spaces works is defined by checking or un-checking a preference labeled 'When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application.' If checked, you will automatically be transported to a space with existing open window for the given app when you select that app (with command-tab). Unchecked, you are not transported to another space when tabbing to an app. Instead, the app is simply selected within that space. You then have the option to open a new window of that app within your space. Alternatively, you can click on the dock icon of that app to cycle through the open windows of that app within different spaces. Note that if you've set up some of your apps to appear only in certain spaces, this won't work as expected. In this instance, selecting an app will not change spaces; but creating a new instance (or page) of that app will transport you back to the space you defined for that app. The solution, then, is to not pre-define your apps to only work within a particular app. Confusing, yes.

I've settled on the later workflow, opting to make each space task-specific, instead of app-specific. I don't have any apps assigned to particular spaces. That way I can have, say, two different TextMate windows open in two different spaces, which is nice when multi-tasking.

Either way (app- or task-based Spaces) works, though. Try both out. What I would really like is to have control on a per-app basis so I could assign a few apps to work only in one space, and other apps to work on a task-management basis within any space.

At any rate, I've finally got Spaces set up in a useful way. I think it can get better, but it's a lot better than what I have on my Office PC...which is basic tabbing through apps. It annoys me to no end that I can only cycle forward through apps on Windows using command-tab. Stupid.

5. TextSoap

I'm also fairly new to TextSoap, but it's growing more useful by the day as I learn how to harness its power. If you deal with a lot of text coming at you from various sources and in various forms (and you need to reformat it for the web or to meet some other style guideline), then TextSoap might be a tool for you. You can use it for simple tasks like cleaning those annoying > marks in emails, or you can learn some regex and really work magic on your text. Warning: not for faint of heart. I'm at the stage where I can't do much (ok, anything) with regex, but I'm giving it a go. TextSoap is still very powerful, though, when you use the more than 100 text cleaners pre-loaded on the app.

6. Hazel

I like Hazel more and more. It's a nice way to automate filing of documents, music files, app downloads, etc. Whenever I download anything to the desktop (or drop a file to the desktop), Hazel takes care of filing it away in the right place for me (it automates color labeling of folders, too). It also has a feature to remove the plist files and other miscellaneous crap associated with a file when you move it to the trash (meaning you no longer need an additional tool like AppZapper). It also takes care of emptying my trash at predefined intervals. Like TextSoap, it's one of those apps that takes a some commitment to learn and set up to your individual preferences, but it pays big dividends.

7. Color-Labeled folders

Such a simple thing. How I wish I could colorize some of my Windows folders. When you are looking at a list of dozens upon dozens of folders, it sure is nice to have a few of your favorites color-coded. I know there's that 'favorites' thing in Explorer, but I hate it. Can't say why. Just hate it.

8. OmniWeb

OmniWeb is not a free browser, which might turn some people off. It shouldn't. It's an amazing browser. Worth every penny. And it's only $15. I bought it a couple of years ago, and haven't had to pay an upgrade fee yet. I most rely on OmniWeb's ability to save groups of pages for easy retrieval in what OmniWeb calls a 'Workspace.' For example, I have four sites that I generally need to have open when working from home. All I need on OmniWeb is open up the 'work' workspace, and all my chosen pages open up. I have about a dozen such saved workspaces for different workflows. I can also take snapshots of pages at particular places. This is handy when I want a site to open and display at a point other than the top of the page. The ad-blocking is also top-notch. As are the per-page setting definitions ... for instance, I set up my father-in-law with the top five financial sites he likes on OmniWeb. Since his eyesight is poor, I adjusted the text size for each site so it was as big as possible without breaking the site. Every one of his favorite sites could handle more or less text size increases. With OmniWeb, I set the optimal large text size so the page still looked good, and it remembers each setting. Brilliant. OmniWeb also has a shared bookmark folder to access bookmarks easily across user accounts. There's much more. It's an incredible browser. It's fast, too.

9. QuickLook

I expect QuickLook to be on all the machines I use. When it's not, I find myself hitting the space bar repeatedly in frustration.

10. Things

I rely on Things to manage my to do list. Everything I enter in Things is automatically synced to my iPhone Things app. And all my 'next up' to do items automatically sync with iCal and Apple Mail. This app is great, and I look forward to purchasing it when 1.0 is released at Mac World next month.

11. Yojimbo

I haven't seen a good note/snippet manager for Windows. I'm sure there is one, but I haven't seen it. There are tons of choices for the Mac. Yojimbo is my current favorite app to collect little items that don't fit elsewhere. I wish they'd update this app, though. It's been a long time ... also wish they'd come out with the ability to sync and store notes 'in the cloud' for remote access, and offer an iPhone version. It's not perfect, but it blows away what I have on my PC. Which is a vanilla linear text editor.

12. VooDooPad

Like Yojimbo, it's a place to dump notes, but it's a different paradigm. It's an elegant little personal wiki. I use it daily. Check out the free Lite version.

13. Bean

I probably have ten or so text editors of various shapes and sizes. After paying more money than I care to admit (I'm a bit of a text editor junkie) I find myself using the free Bean more often than not. It just works well, and it's blazing fast.

I finally got around to setting up a few services on my Mac related to dynamic DNS hosting. Having done so, I'm asking myself why I didn't do this long ago.

So, what is dynamic DNS? Here's a brief and imperfect overview. Let's start with DNS, or Domain Naming System. This, broadly speaking, is a service that translates hostnames into numbers that a computer can understand, and vice-versa. It's DNS that allows you to type 'www.viewfromthedock.com' instead of a hard-to-remember number like 69.89.31.161 (an IP address). Your computer has an IP address. All the sites you visit have an IP address. Everything that accesses the internet has an IP address.

The thing about IP addresses is that, for a variety of reasons, there are only a finite number of them to go around.

This affects you directly. Because of this scarcity, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) only has a finite number of addresses to pass out to all the computers using that ISP that wish to access the internet.

The result of this shuffling act means that the address of your computer is changing all the time. That makes it hard to get back to your computer if you are remote and need to connect to, say, grab some important documents. Enter the dynamic DNS hosting service.


The folks at OpenDNS took a look at dynamic DNS hosting and asked 'What else could we do with this?' The result is a service that does a number of interesting things. OpenDNS does not provide you with an unchanging, easy-to-remember hostname (actually, it does track your ever-changing IP address, but only for its own purposes). What it does do is serve as your primary DNS server (instead of the DNS server used by your ISP). You don't need to install any software. You simply need to point your computer (or router) to the OpenDNS DNS servers. Read on if you're not sure why you should care.


This is a service owned by OpenDNS which basically does one thing: it transmits your current IP address to whatever services you are using. In my case, it ensures that both DynDNS and OpenDNS get my latest IP address from my ISP.

So what do I get out of this?

- With DynDNS, I can now use my user-created hostname to help me remotely access files on my Mac using SSH (Secure Shell). If I didn't have DynDNS, I would not know my current ISP-assigned IP address. With it, I always do.

- With OpenDNS, I get a big boost in speed and reliability when surfing the web. In my case (using Comcast), I would often type in a site address and it would take a bit of time for the page to load. Sometimes, nothing seemed to be happening at all. With OpenDNS, I've experienced a noticeable difference in speed, and I've experienced no delays in page look-ups.

- OpenDNS also offers several other added features that make it very worthwhile. Essentially, they've taken a basic service (dynamic DNS) and built in a bunch of extra useful stuff built around it. With this service, I can block access to certain types of sites. I get an added layer of built-in phishing protection. I also get sophisticated error-checking (for those times when I type in 'cmo' instead of 'com,' for instance). For those times that OpenDNS can't quite figure out what I'm looking for, the service offers helpful suggestions. I can also create shortcuts (e.g., I created one for this site that enables me to enter 'vfd' in the browser instead of the full web address). Finally, I can view stats related to all of the visited domains and IP addresses accessed through my router.

- DNS-O-Matic, finally, is a simple service that ensures that DynDNS and OpenDNS always have my latest IP address. If you don't use these services, you may choose to sync your IP address with a whole slew of other similar applications as well. I opted to use this service in lieu of installing the DynDNS client software on my Mac.

All three of these services are currently free. It takes a little effort to set it all up, but it's worth it. If you have no need for a consistent hostname for remotely accessing your Mac, then you may not need a service like DynDNS. However, OpenDNS is worth the effort for the speed and reliability boost alone.

One final note: OpenDNS collects information about your surfing habits, so be sure to check out their privacy policy.