I frequently hear from friends, “I’d consider a Mac but it costs more than a PC. Doesn’t it?” My gut response has been, “Not if you compare Apples to Apples!” (no pun intended.) MacWorld recently published a comparison of comparably equipped laptops. See this article for the details. The results (prices as of 6/20/2008):

MacBook vs. Dell XPS M1330 - Mac wins by a few bucks
MacBook Air vs. Lenovo X300 - Mac wins by $1571
MacBook Pro vs. HP’s Compaq 8710w Mobile Workstation - Mac wins by $263

Just what I thought! Can you get a $400 Windows laptop from Best Buy? Sure but don’t compare it to a MacBook — they’re in different leagues. Some other considerations as stated in the article:

• Windows computers are perpetual targets for spyware and viruses. Macs are targeted, too, but not to the same degree.
• The Mac OS and Apple computers both come from the same company. While Macs
  aren’t trouble free, you’re less likely to experience as many unexplainable crashes and incompatibilities as you might on a WindowsPC.
• Apple has earned top scores from PC World readers in reliability and service.
• The Mac OS X Leopard is a clever, nimble operating system and a pleasure to use. Windows Vista is a behemoth. While not the demon it’s often made out to be, it ain’t the Mac OS, either.
• Apple laptops have thoughtful design touches, such as keyboards that illuminate automatically in dim lighting.
• There are many more laptop choices in the Windows world, and at a greater variety of price points.
• There are still plenty of software applications available for Windows only. (You can run Windows on Macs, of course, using Apple’s Boot camp, which is included in Mac OS X Leopard, or a third-party virtualization program such as Parallels Desktop for Mac

By the way, I use Parallels for two Windows apps that I use occasionally. It works great.

I use iTunes (on mac) to download all of my podcasts. Most are downloaded as MP3s but I prefer to listen at high speed so I convert them to bookmarkable M4B AAC files. Doug Adams has a great AppleScript to do the trick. QuickConvert allows me to take one file or a entire playlist and convert it to most any file type, place the files in a new playlist, then delete the old posts. I especially like this process because when used on iTunes downloaded podcasts, it apparently removes the podcast tag in iTunes. This has three important results:

1. The file no longer shows up in the Podcast area of my library. That’s fine with me since I use smart playlists to find the many podcasts.
2. It allows me to rate the podcast from my iPod. It seems that iTunes podcast files can be rated in iTunes but not on the iPod. This is very important to me. I’ll describe why in another post.
3. When the pre-converted file is deleted, the Podcast download area in iTunes looses all record of the download. This is important because iTunes may think that you haven’t downloaded any podcasts recently and will stop trying. The solution? Another one of Doug’s scripts: Update Expired Podcasts.

I use a combination of scripts, smart playlists and ratings to manage the dozens of podcasts I download each week. Keep reading to find out how (and why).

Read the rest of this entry »

Shortly after switching to mac, I bought 1Password to manage all of my passwords.  I had been using Roboform on the PC so I was pleased that 1Password allowed me to export all of the passwords from Roboform then import into 1Password.  Piece of cake.    Speaking of cake, today is Dave Teare’s birthday!  He’s the co-author of 1Password and to celebrate his birthday, he’s offering the program at a substantial discount.  Act fast.  His birthday only lasts one day!  Here’s the information:  http://agilefolks.com/s/15083762e

Lifehacker recently posted a list of great add-ons for iTunes.  I’ve tried a few and there are a couple on the list that I plan to try primarily for controlling playback.  A couple of my favorites are missing from the list:

• Markable for creating audiobooks from MP3 or audio CDs (Windows)
• Audiobook Builder from Splasm (Mac)
• AppleScript and Doug’s Scripts to automate just about anything in iTunes (Mac)

More posts on Audiobook Builder and some of my favorite AppleScripts coming soon.

Powered by ScribeFire.

I installed two wiki’s tonight for the first time. What’s a wiki? According to wikipedia…

A wiki is a type of computer software that allows users to easily create, edit and link web pages. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites, power community websites, and are increasingly being installed by businesses to provide affordable and effective Intranets or for use in Knowledge Management. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as “the simplest online database that could possibly work”.

My first wiki can be found at http://wikibooknotes.org.  I plan for this to become a collection of notes I create about books that I find valuable.  The site is still under development but a few pages are up.  The second wiki is at http://music4mass.com/wiki.   I hope this will eventually become a destination for Catholic music ministers looking for help planning music for liturgy.  The wiki will be edited by users and will include suggested songs that fit the readings each Sunday of the liturgical year.

Now for the technical stuff.  WordPress (my blogging platform) and MediaWiki (the wiki platform) are both excellent open source programs.   GoDaddy –my hosting service– makes it relatively easy to set up WordPress blogs in a matter of a few clicks.  MediaWiki’s are a bit more of challenge.   I was fortunate to find Eric Hartwell’s InfoDabble site and his wiki installation article.   If you want to learn more about wiki’s, contribute to one of mine or to wikipedia.  To learn more about blogging, consider setting up a free blog at wordpress.com.

http://www.ehartwell.com/TechNotes/MediaWikiOnGoDaddy.htm

I’ve been using Notepad++ Portable — an open source text editor — for off-line blog post prep. This open source program is available as a Portable app at http:\\portableapps.com. Recently, I’ve been receiving a “config.xml failed” error when loading the app. This was followed by a “stylers.xml failed” error. Notepad++ still worked but the skin changed and settings seemed to be lost. I found the file in the folder \PortableApps\Notepad++Portable\App\Notepad++ and since it had a file length of zero, I assumed it was corrputed. I renamed this file to config.old and that did the trick for both errors. Next time I loaded Notepad++ a new config.xlm file appeared, this one with an 8/16/2007 date. My guess is that when the app doesn’t find the config.xlm file in the appropriate folder, it copies the original from a different folder. I’m not sure how this happened by I’d bet a nickel I yanked out my USB drive before shutting down the app and that corrupted the file. Thanks to Bill Weber for an article that pointed me in the correct direction.

Last week I stopped in at Verizon since I’m about due for a new phone. Since I’ve been PDAless for a few years, I felt ready to upgrade from my RAZR to a Treo or Q to get PDA functionality. Long story short — I learned I’d need to buy a monthly data plan in order to use one of those phones. Since I only want to sync with my computer, I don’t want or need a data plan. A few months ago a friend mentioned that he used SyncCell with his RAZR. I downloaded and installed the free trial, connected my RAZR via a USB cable and presto, in five minutes my entire Outlook and Calendar are on my phone. Why didn’t I try this earlier? The program can sync via cable or Bluetooth and they offer both on the web-site. I decided to try the Nikon USB cable I use to download photos from my D80.  It even charges the phone! Works like a charm! Well worth the $25.

I was excited to see the newest versions of the Adobe Elements series are now available. I ordered my upgrade to Photoshop Elements 6 and Premiere 4 as soon as I saw them on Amazon. I’ve been using Photoshop Elements since version 1 and Premiere since version 2. I have several thousand photos cataloged in the program and I’ve created around 10 full length DVDs using Premiere. I haven’t received my shipment yet but it appears the two products are more closely integrated. In addition, there appears to be support to create Flash-based interactive web photo albums. I have a project ready and waiting so I’ll post an update after I use the product. Be sure to get the $30 rebate on the bundle. In addition, buy now but keep a copy of the bundle on your wish list or shopping cart for the next 30 days in case Amazon runs a short special. Last year they ran a three day special on the product and since I still had it in my wish list, I received an e-mail stating there was a temporary price decrease. Since I already had purchased, I was issued a credit for the difference!

I heard Leo Laporte talk about twitter on his podcast but didn’t quite get it. Now I understand it but I still don’t “get it”. I have enough of a challenge keeping up on my blogs. Now I can use twitter to microblog from my cell phone? Yikes.

See yesterday’s twitter review on PC mag. Here’s the synopsis from the review:

Bottom Line: Thefirst big microblogging/moblogging site, Twitter boasts the largest
audience among sites of its ilk. But some of the finer points of its
operation, and its help, could stand some improvements in usability.

Pros: The original microblog with the largest audience. Easy to get started.

Cons: Some interface elements unclear, as is the help. No search for posts.

Do you twitter?

It’s back! My favorite podcast aggregator is back online and is in the process of moving to open source. This just made my day. The dopplerradio.net site hadn’t been updated since March 2007 so I was beginning to worry. Doppler is the only aggregator that I’ve found that can do nearly everything I want in a podcasting program. Such as automagically…
Read the rest of this entry »