My latest Inside iPhone post is called How an iPhone Can Help You Be More Productive When Commuting Via Mass Transit. One of the things I talk about in that post is the power of using location-based contexts within the OmniFocus for iPhone application.

I realized while writing the Inside iPhone piece that setting locations for contexts within OmniFocus for iPhone 1.0.1 is not straightforward. So I thought I would expand upon that issue here in this post.

The Fundimentals of Context Location

Each context within OmniFocus for iPhone can have a location associated with it. The location can be:

• the iPhone's current location,
• a street address,
• an address associated with a contact in the Address Book, or
• a business name retrieved from a search conducted using Google.

The location of contexts is set on a hierarchical basis, so I set the location of my home at the "Home" level of the context tree rather than at each sub-context.

Errands Context: Set locations of the contexts in the
Errands list by tapping "Edit" on this screen.

Establishing a Context Location

I set the location of a context by tapping on the "Contexts" choice on the OmniFocus home screen. OmniFocus presents the top level of my context hierarchy. I descend through the context hierarchy by tapping until I reach the list of contexts containing the context whose location I want to set.

I'm talking about my "Errands" contexts in this article. These are stores and service providers that I do business with often. Most of them have definite physical locations that I go to on a regular basis.

In this article, we're talking about my "Target" context. This is where I put my shopping list of products I buy at a Target Store.

If I want to set the location of the "Target" context, I need to stay on this screen and tap the "Edit" button. Once I tap "Edit", I can tap the "Target" element in the list and go to the screen where I set the location of the Target context.

Continue reading "Assigning Locations to OmniFocus iPhone Contexts" »

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the few nagging problems I've experienced with my iPhone is a photo saving problem. This has been described in several different ways by other iPhone users out on the Internet:

• iPhone "disappearing photos" bug experienced by Jeffrey Zeldman back in November 2007.
• iPhone Camera Problems: Blank White Thumbnails mentioned in June on iPhoneGuru.org

This problem started happening to me a couple of weeks ago when I was still running iPhone Firmware 1.0. I had hoped that the 2.0 Firmware Update would solve this problem, but it didn't. At that point I had to start doing serious research, otherwise my camera would have been useless to me.

Apparently there is some recurring issue with saving photos taken with the internal iPhone camera once more than 1023 photos have been saved. In my case, the problem started happening when the LastFileGroupNumber was at 1043. It is not clear to me whether all iPhones have this problem, if all first-generation iPhones have it, or if this is only affecting users of the first-generation iPhone under certain circumstances.

The best solution to this problem that I've found so far was first discussed in Topic : Camera will not save pictures to phone after snapping photo, an Apple support discussion. About a quarter of the way into the thread, a contributor named "JKeenan" said the following:

Continue reading "A Solution for iPhone Photo Saving Problems" »

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Screenshot of Twitterific Application on my iPhone: This
is a screenshot of the new Twitterific Application installed
on my iPhone after I performed the 2.0 Firmware Update.
[ Screenshot: Dave Aiello on Flickr ]

I found a way to access the iPhone 2.0 Firmware in advance of the official release through iTunes. I decided to give the upgrade a try and liveblog it on Twitter. You can see the transcript of this on twitter.com/daiello.

I had complete success with the installation. I was able to install Epocrates Rx, Twitterific, and Evernote. The preceding links are to screenshots of each application on my Flickr account.

The most interesting feature addition I've found in the iPhone 2.0 firmware is in the Calendar. Calendar now shows which iCal calendar each event comes from. Here's a screenshot I posted to my Flickr account that illustrates this feature.

I would provide details on how to perform the 2.0 Firmware update yourself, but Apple has asked other websites to take down the information that they previously provided about where to get the firmware image. I have no interest in repeating information that Apple is actively trying to quash.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Cool Tool: StrollAway on Cool Tools: "... Once we got this hook, rather than just parking our stroller in the kitchen or dining room, we created a set, out-of-the-way place to store it. And since it's off the floor, that gives us more space to fill up with more baby stuff. The hook is strong (we have a Quinny Buzz stroller, which weighs abouts 15 lbs.). It doesn't require drilling or mounting into anything, since it hangs over the top a door....." Great idea.
• SightSpeed Goes Mainstream with Dell Video Chat « on Web Worker Daily: "... The SightSpeed software installed easily on my Mac, and the video conversation with Mr. Csathy was crisp, smooth and effortless as compared to any I’ve tried with Skype. He had a fancy headset, but I was just using the MacBook Pro’s built-in speakers and microphone. For once, video conferencing felt approachable to me beyond Apple iChat...." This article has a good screen cap of the theme that Dell applied to SightSpeed's software. [ Found out about the Dell / SightSpeed deal from friend Andy Abramson ]
• Access And Share Files With Box.net on The Apple Phone Show: "I have tried several online file store and share solutions since getting my iPhone almost a year ago now. Box.net seems to be the one application that has endured time. I like using it to store and share my most important files and collaborate on work. I’m still getting used to moving my workflow entirely online. I am used to have files that I can access stored locally on all of my devices. But, times they are ‘a changing. The reason I think I have continued using this service and have let others fall by the wayside is because the interface is so simple...." I have to try this.
• iPhone as Pedometer on Inside iPhone: "A short while ago, I discovered that Wii Fit could be used to track my progress as I walked on a treadmill. Wii Fit has a game where you jog in place in front of your TV to travel through a virtual landscape. Instead of bouncing up and down on the floor, I put my wiimote in my pocket, hopped on the treadmill and had a much better virtual exercise experience. And of course this got me thinking: if the wii can track movement, why can't the iPhone do the same?" Cool idea. Interesting execution.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've seen a several tweets and articles today stating that Apple is advocating a Javascript-based Model View Controller framework for web development called SproutCore. Reports indicate that Apple based the MobileMe web application announced at WWDC on SproutCore and provided details on the framework in sessions at the Apple World Wide Developer Conference last week in San Francisco.

AppleInsider has a very good article called Apple's open secret: SproutCore is Cocoa for the Web that goes into some details about why Apple is so interested in SproutCore and why Apple may be switching some of the animation and special effects on its website to SproutCore from other frameworks like Prototype and Scriptaculous.

That article lead me to SproutCore - Feature Rich Javascript Framework, which says that SproutCore is a JavaScript implementation of the Cocoa framework commonly used in MacOS X application development.

This article in turn pointed to Cocoa for Windows + Flash Killer = SproutCore from RoughlyDrafted Magazine which explains why Apple would prefer to use HTML, Javascript, and CSS rather than Flash to implement rich internet applications on the web.

It's pretty clear from this article that Apple not only wants to avoid becoming dependent upon Flash or Silverlight so that it can control its own destiny, but that it wants to use a Javascript framework like SproutCore to build web applications that usurp some of the power of the Windows platform by making Windows less and less necessary. Check out some of the comments to this article if you want to really get into why Apple is making the strategic architecture bets that it is on the future of MacOS X.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over on The Apple Phone Show Blog, Liana Lehua suggested that iPhone fans buy a copy of .Mac from Amazon.com now in order to access MobileMe when it goes live in July. It looks like you'll save about $30 if you do this.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got a bit of a kick out of the latest installment of Mossberg's Mailbox, Do Macs Last Longer Than Windows PCs?. In it, a reader asks:

Do Macs last longer than Windows PCs? I am willing to pay the additional cost for a Mac if it will last significantly longer, but if it has approximately the same lifespan as a PC from a reputable manufacturer, I will stay with PCs.

Walt answers by saying that he hasn't noticed a "significant difference" in the length of service that PCs and Macs provide, that Macs are generally considered high product-quality devices, and that PCs vary in quality depending on the manufacturer.

I think Walt Mossberg is either being too polite to his reader, or he is taking the question at face value in the interest of saving space in the print edition of The Wall Street Journal.

I think a more helpful way to answer the question is as follows:

The value of owning a Mac instead of a PC is in the quality of the experience of using a Mac every day, or the enhanced personal productivity that can be yours when using Mac OS X instead of Windows Vista. This includes the value of the iLife '08 software that ships free with all Macs, and represents a substantial value compared with the photo, video, and audio editing features of Windows XP or Vista.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jonathan Greene pointed out iTunes Agent in his Twitter feed. iTunes Agent is an Open Source Windows application that extends iTunes to allow it to work with third-party MP3 players and mobile phones. According to the website:

iTunes is a great music player and organizer. Unfortunately iTunes is made to only synchronize with iPods. Not everyone own an iPod.... How great would it not be if you could synchronize your non-iPod MP3 player, your Playstation Portable and your Walkman phone with your iTunes Library? Enter: iTunes Agent!

iTunes Agent requires the .NET 2.0 Final Framework to operate properly.

I like the idea because I like iTunes as a media management application.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article in its Tuesday edition about a U.S. Supreme Court decision that could have a profound impact on online fantasy sports. The article says that Major League Baseball and the Players Association have been fighting for three years to limit the number of companies offering online fantasy baseball games. They apparently attempted to use a strategy that combined strict licensing terms with high fees.

A year ago, a company called CDM Fantasy Sports Corp won the right to use statistical information without paying a license fee. Major League Baseball appealed to the Supreme Court. The Court just rejected the appeal without comment.

The article goes on to say:

In taking on the fantasy-baseball operators, and losing, MLB has likely cost every pro sports league millions of dollars. All the leagues had been getting fees from fantasy operators.

The first few times I read this, I assumed that the reporter meant that MLB shouldn't have appealed the lower court's decision. Now I suspect that the strategy being questioned question is the attempt to license statistics more strictly and increase fees.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Sixty-Six on Daring Fireball: "The idea that Apple now sells two-thirds of retail computers costing $1000 or more is simply stunning. I (along with many others) have long argued that a simplistic “overall PC market share” number has never been a good metric for gauging the Mac’s success because the “overall PC market” includes millions of commodity-level low-end machines that Apple neither tries nor wants to sell."
• Making Your Mark in a Web 2.0 World on Web Worker Daily: This article describes the building of a Social Media Resume, a personal website that includes links to your LinkedIn or Facebook profile page, as well as photos or video from websites like Flickr and Viddler. I relaunched DaveAiello.com about two weeks ago, but didn't realize that creating this kind of site is an emerging trend.
• Mac OS X Services (the menu you never go to) on Random Tech: "There's a whole hidden side of text modification that is stashed away, yet right at your fingertips. If you go to the Application menu (if you're in Safari, click the menu 'Safari') -> Services, a whole list pops down. You've probably disregarded this in the past (if you've ever seen it) because most of the options are grayed out, or unclickable. All you need to do is highlight some text. Go back to the menu and there are so many to choose from!"

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the utilities programs that veteran Mac users swear by is Quicksilver which at first glance appears to be a keyboard-based application launcher.

It turns out that QuickSilver can be used for a great deal more than application launching, but a lot of the productivity that you can gain from it isn't at all obvious.

One of the best tools I've found to understand Quicksilver are two video podcasts from the MacBreak series. The first and longest one is MacBreak Episode 12: Quicksilver, which is available on iTunes, but is also available on Google Video (not YouTube):

In this episode you get to see how Merlin Mann selects something on his Mac by typing its name using Quicksilver, and then selects a command to perform on it. You can think of the the first action (a search) done in Quicksilver as the subject of a sentence, while the section action (selection of a command) is the verb.

Continue reading "MacBreak Video Shows Finer Points of Quicksilver Utility for the Mac" »

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Apple released MacOS X Version 10.5.3 earlier today. I first learned about the release when I was checking out Summize for the first time and saw references to Mac OS X and Leopard on the home page as "trending topics".

MacWorld has a good summary of the important fixes and new features included in the update. However, I performed the update before the Macworld article came out. I made the decision to take the update after I read through the About the Mac OS X 10.5.3 Update article in the Apple Knowledge Base.

Whenever a software developer like Apple releases a major update, I look at the list of fixes to see if any of them are must-haves for me. The fix that caused me to start the update process immediately related to Spaces:

Resolves an issue in which switching to a different space and returning back to the original space may reorder the application windows with a different active window.

This bug was a significant productivity drain for me. I often switch back and forth between the space where I keep Mail.app and the space where I do my blog writing or the space where I do web development. Every time I returned to a space, the active window changed from the one I had last used. I usually had to invoke Exposé to find the window I needed to use.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Polar Infrared Interface USB commonly
used with PCs running Windows XP doesn't
work on a Mac [ Photo: Dave Aiello on Flickr ]

The Polar Infrared Interface USB that many people got with their Polar S-Series heart rate monitors is a USB 1.1 device. I've been trying to use it without success on my MacBook Pro with Polar Precision Performance Software 4 running under Windows XP on VMware Fusion.

According to a number of articles that I've read, the only way to reliably get the Polar Infrared Interface USB to connect with a Polar heart rate monitor using Mac hardware is to boot into Windows XP directly from Boot Camp. No configuration of Windows XP under VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop 3.0 seems to work properly.

A number of people on the Polar user support forums have reported success when using the Polar IrDA USB 2.0 Adapter with PPP4 under Windows XP with either VMware Fusion or Parallels.

The biggest problem with the Polar IrDA USB 2.0 Adapter is its expense. In my opinion, a lot of Polar accessory products that aren't proprietary are similar to Apple-branded products; They are very nice looking and well-supported by the manufacturer, but not economical. Some purchasers of the Polar IrDA USB 2.0 Adapter agree that it's nice looking, but think documentation is very sparse.

A far less expensive IrDA-USB adapter that some people claim to have gotten working is the Cables Unlimited USB1510.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen and Jimmy looking at the iPhoto
book that we ordered for her mom. The
second copy arrived today. [ Photo: Dave
Aiello on Flickr. ]

Kathleen and I took advantage of an iPhoto Custom Photo Book promotion that Apple ran for Mother's Day. We ordered Kathleen's mother a hard cover photo book. We made sure we ordered before the April 30 cut off date for standard shipping.

Something happened to the order while it was in production and it didn't ship in time for delivery last Friday. When we realized this, Kathleen called Apple Customer Service.

Kathleen told the Apple customer service agent that we ordered before the deadline and that FedEx was reporting that the shipment was not going to arrive in time for us to give it as a gift on Mother's Day.

Here's what the person at Apple Photo Services Support wrote back after receiving a message from the main customer service group:

Dear Kathleen,

Thank you for your recent Apple photo order.

I understand that you submitted your order to us in time to be received by May 11th. You may have noticed that the tracking information for your order indicates the estimated delivery date is after May 11th.

To ensure that your order is received by May 11th, your order is being reprocessed free of charge and will be sent via expedited shipping. When it ships, you will receive a separate email with the tracking number for your duplicate order. Please accept both orders as a goodwill gesture.

I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. I hope you continue to enjoy using Apple Photo Services for your creative projects. If you have any questions or concerns, please reply to this email and we will assist you further.

Thank you for being a loyal Apple customer and have a wonderful day.

Sincerely,

Sofia
Apple Photo Services Support

http://www.apple.com/support/photoservices/ww

The replacement package arrived on Friday, overnighted from Elk Grove, CA. Kathleen's mom got the gift on time and she was thrilled.

The original iPhoto book arrived via FedEx Ground on Monday. Kathleen and I get to keep a beautiful book of photos of Jimmy and us, courtesy of Apple.

The photos books we ordered are truly first rate. The service we got is unbeatable. Kathleen never mentioned that I write a blog about computer technology, or that we know anybody who works for Apple. I think we got the service that Apple would give to any customer who had the same problem.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been using Twitter for several weeks, because there are things that friends of mine might be interested in hearing about that will never make it into an email or an Operation Gadget post.

Twitterific vs Spaz: These two desktop Twitter
clients that run on the Mac are competing for
space on my desktop. Only one will survive
the week. [ Screenshot by Dave Aiello on Flickr ]

It only took a few minutes of serious Twitter use for me to realize that I wanted a desktop client. It's easy to see which client friends are using, just visit http://twitter.com/daiello and look at one of my latest tweets:

The link to the word "Spaz" indicates that I used the Spaz client to post that tweet.

The two clients that I've tried so far are Twitterific and Spaz. Both run on the Mac, but take pretty different design approaches when you look at them closely.

Twitterific has been around longer, and it's a classic Cocoa application. This means that it runs only on MacOS X. It's closed source and ad supported unless you pay the $14.95 fee that the publisher wants you to pay.

I actually like the ads that are inserted periodically in my twit stream. They come from The DECK, the same ad network that is used on 37signals' network of web sites.

Twitterific is nice if you are a Mac user because of how well it integrates with all the other applications that a Mac geek like me is going to have installed. It integrates seemlessly with Growl, a kind of a notification manager that lots of Mac applications tie into.

Twitterific also configures itself as a Heads Up Display (or HUD). It does this by setting itself to float above the windows in front of it and using CSS opacity to allow windows underneath it to be viewed. That's a cool effect, and is particularly useful when used in conjunction with Leopard features like Spaces. When it's in this mode, it removes its icon from the Dock, which is nice because it makes the Dock a bit more concise.

Spaz is the newcomer. It's an open source Adobe AIR application. It looks nice, but doesn't have some of the MacOS X-specific features that Twitterific has. It's free and has no ads.

Continue reading "Twitterific vs Spaz: The Twitter Client Face-off on My Desktop" »

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a music video that's making the rounds of web sites I read:

The movement away from Windows and toward the Mac is still in it's early stages, so lots of people haven't seen all of these Mac applications before. My question is, does it make more sense as a music video or an ad for Leopard?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the best techniques for using an iPhone with a large iTunes library is to use Smart Playlists to automatically select tracks from your library according to logical rules. I discussed this in Use Smart Playlists for Endless Combinations of Christmas Music. I wanted to provide an update because I see a problem with this technique.

I have some Smart Playlists for rock music that I listen to sometimes when I'm running. However, I picked up some music as part of the Lance Armstrong: Run Longer workout (available from ) that's actually part of the "Alternative" genre that I want to include in these playlists.

The problem I ran into is that Alternative and Rock music go together in my mind, but they didn't end up together according to the way I had my rock-related Smart Playlists defined. The rules for my "Rock Favorites" Smart Playlist were:

• Match all of the following rules
• Genre contains Rock
• Rating is greater than ***
• Limit to 25 items selected by most played

If you want to add the Alternative genre, you can't just add a second genres rule in iTunes without changing the selection criteria to "Match any of the following rules", and then you lose the rating criteria.

The only way to choose two or more genres and include rating criteria is to exclude every other genre but the ones you want. This was discussed by Merlin Mann from 43Folders.com in 2006 in an article called "Music Only" for your iTunes playlists.

• Children's Music
• Classical
• Soundtrack
• Vocal
• Country
• Jazz
• Easy Listening
• Holiday
• Folk
• Miscellaneous

You might have to exclude more genres if your iTunes library is more diverse than mine.

I can see why Apple would design iTunes so that there is a simple one level logic to selection criteria for Smart Playlists, but the problem of how to combine music in closely related genres is made more complicated by iTunes' simplicity.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

• How to Eat Healthily at Top Chain Restaurants on Lifehacker: "The food experts at Health magazine have scoured the menus at popular restaurant chains in search of the healthiest foods on the menu, rounding up several healthy menu options at otherwise unhealthy chains."

  They found reasonably healthy choices at Denny's, Ruby Tuesday, and P.F. Chang's, among others.
• AT&T Providing Free Wi-Fi Access to iPhone Users - Mac Rumors on MacRumors: "A couple of readers have reported that AT&T hotspots are now offering free Wi-Fi access to iPhone users. Barnes and Noble, Starbucks and presumably AT&T's 71,000 other Wi-fi hotspot locations are now offering iPhone users a custom portal to access free Wi-Fi. A special iPhone formatted page asks for your mobile phone number. Once entered, you can access the Wi-Fi access for free."

• The "missing" iPhone ringtone on TUAW: "We've all seen the iPhone ads.... None are identical, but most have something in common. Namely, that peculiar ringtone. We call it peculiar because it isn't actually included with the iPhone. Luckily, most of us have it installed on our computers already."

  The article goes on to explain how to convert the Apple Loop that comes with GarageBand (part of iLife '08) into a ringtone for your iPhone.
• In search of a GTD solution on TUAW: Brett Terpstra's take on different ways you can integrate Mac apps and utilities into a Getting Things Done system. ".... This round of solution-searching began with a post by Dennis Best titled Getting things done (simply) in Leopard. It outlined a system where iCal calendars are your contexts (or areas of responsibility), To-dos are created in Mail, Mail Notes become projects, and Smart Mailboxes were used to interesting ends. It even had a tagging system, allowing for great flexibility. This was highly appealing to me given its close integration with my primary source of tasks and information: email...."
• Interactive GTD Software Comparison Table on Priacta.com: "102 Researched GTD Software Titles and Counting. Software listed here has been verified to support Getting Things Done and related systems...." Solutions on the web, Windows, Mac, handheld, Linux, and Python are documented. I'll have to look at why they breakout Python separately.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I bought my MacBook Pro at the end of February, it was one of the first Macs shipped that didn't include the Apple Remote. This meant that I would have to buy one for $30 at the Apple Store or less if I shopped around.

Remote Buddy iPhone Interface: one of the unique features
that sets Remote Buddy apart from other Mac remote
control software.

I decided that I would start using the MacBook Pro and see if I missed the Apple Remote.

Over the past few weeks, I've thought about buying an Apple Remote but not pulled the trigger. I haven't needed to make any Keynote presentations, and I don't use iTunes locally on my Mac enough to make it worthwhile because I use my iPhone so much.

One thing I hadn't counted on was finding a Mac application that made my iPhone into a remote control for my Mac. Remote Buddy provides a framework in which remote control actions for many Mac applications can live. It supports a number of remote control devices including:

• Apple Remote
• iPhone and iPod Touch
• Griffin Airclick
• Nintendo Wii Remote

This makes Remote Buddy quite similar to Salling Clicker, a program that has existed for a long time and has many of the same features.

What makes Remote Buddy different is the mini Ajax-based web application that ships with it. You can install this app on your Mac and use it to present a remote control user interface on a non-jailbroken iPhone. This is a really cool idea if you ask me.

I'm sure that lots of people who use a MacOS X-based computer and an iPhone won't need something like Remote Buddy. However, if you are using your Mac as an automation hub, you may find Remote Buddy very useful.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On our trip to Buffalo this weekend, Kathleen, Jimmy, and I stayed in two Marriott properties that had public WiFi networks. The thing I didn't like about them is that they are wide open networks which means anyone can join and do pretty much anything they want locally.

I have my MacBook Pro setup the way I want to use it when I am on my home office network. This means that I have iPhoto and iTunes sharing enabled, and a public folder available so that my wife can grab files from me or give me files without my intervention. I don't want these services to be advertised an available when I'm on a foreign WiFi network.

I turned off iPhoto and iTunes sharing manually when I went on line at the hotels. This only took a minute or two, but I don't want to have to remember to do it or to think about it. I'm almost positive that I'll forget to turn these services back on in many cases when I get home.

In order to batten down the hatches on my Mac, I need a couple of discrete pieces of software:

• Software to make my Mac "context-aware". The leading choices seem to be Marco Polo and Home Zone. My personal preference is for Marco Polo at the moment.
• Rules to identify when my Mac is at home and when it isn't at home. The easiest way to do this is to detect the MAC address of our Airport Extreme base station.
• Scripts to turn on and off the iTunes, iPhoto, and networking services, based on the context. I probably also want to step up the aggressiveness of the software firewall running on my Mac.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Wall Street Journal Business Technology Blog reports that Apple spent $844 million on research and development in 2007, significantly less than competitors Microsoft, IBM, H-P, Sun, and AMD. This is interesting because everybody and their brother has been touting Apple as a uniquely innovative company.

I think Apple succeeds so prolifically because it is especially focused on innovation in its core competencies. Lots of its competitors invest in research that doesn't make the same impact on their product lines as Apple's research does on Apple's products.

I think people have a tendency to criticize Apple for the wrong reasons. A lot of people complained about Apple delaying the release of OS X Leopard, and waiting until recently to release the iPhone SDK. Could they have shipped those products faster if they hired more engineers?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was one of the people who bought a Mac in the fiscal quarter that ended March 29. The last time I bought a Mac for myself was over 10 years ago. I guess wasn't alone, because The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple's quarterly earnings rose 36 percent, largely on the strength of Mac sales. Revenues grew 43 percent overall to approximately $7.42 billion.

There were some aspects of the Mac sales figures that I found hard to believe. Apple reported that it sold 51 percent more Macs in the quarter than in the same period a year earlier. They sold nearly $3.5 billion dollars worth of Macs in three months. Overall PC market growth was only 12 percent, so Apple is clearly stealing a significant share of the U.S. market from PC makers.

Apple sold 1.7 million iPhones during this period, which is about what analysts that follow the company had expected. The article goes on to say:

Apple executives said a 'significant' portion of its iPhone sales continue to involve consumers who 'unlock' the iPhone to work on unauthorized wireless networks, especially overseas in countries such as China, where the iPhone isn't yet available from Apple.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ars Technica published a terrific article by Peter Bright that illustrates why the Mac platform is growing at the expense of Windows. According to the article:

Windows is dying, Windows applications suck, and Microsoft is too blinkered to fix any of it—that's the argument. The truth is that Windows is hampered by 25-year old design decisions. These decisions mean that it's clunky to use and absolutely horrible to write applications for. The applications that people do write are almost universally terrible. They're ugly, they're inconsistent, they're disorganized; there's no finesse, no care lavished on them. Microsoft—surely the company with the greatest interest in making Windows and Windows applications exude quality—is, in fact, one of the worst perpetrators.

The author's perspective is not unique. What makes this article more interesting is his next conclusion:

The unfortunate thing about this is that there is a company that's not only faced similar problems but also tackled them. Apple in the mid-1990s was faced with an operating system that was going nowhere, and needed to take radical action to avoid going out of business. And so that's what Apple did.

This article goes on to discuss this history of the Mac and Windows platforms from 1997 on, and fairly concisely explains how Microsoft squandered what appeared to be an insurmountable architectural lead over Apple. It also explains how the third-party Mac software community rose from shareware roots, riding the momentum of MacOS X from about 10.3 on.

There's a reason why practically every thought leader on the Internet is a Mac user in 2008: the quality of the user experience. This is not marketing hype. You can see little examples of it everywhere when you look over a Mac user's shoulder. What Apple started with MacOS X and continued with its iLife, iWork, and Professional-series applications, has been continued and driven forward by the third-party developer community and its full scale embrace of the Cocoa application framework.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is April 15, a date that quite a few different tax authorities in the United States have picked as the deadline for filing annual tax returns. I had to file several returns today, including:

• U.S. Federal Income Tax for my wife and me
• Pennsylvania State Income Tax for my wife and me
• Pennsylvania Local Earned Income Tax for my wife and me
• New Jersey Corporate Business Tax for a company that I partially own

Due to slightly higher than expected income in 2007, my wife and I owed a small amount to the Federal, State, and Local tax authorities. I paid these taxes using my credit card through Pay1040.com, a payment provider closely associated with H&R Block and the TaxCut tax preparation program, and Official Payments Corporation, the payment provider most commonly used by tax authorities in the United States.

Pay1040.com successfully processed my Federal Income Tax payment using the Safari browser that is installed on my wife's MacBook. She is still using MacOS X 10.4, but all of the software updates have been applied so she is on Safari 3.1. That's good news, because this is the first time I have used Pay1040.com and I didn't expected a relatively small provider to have a Safari-friendly payment process.

TaxCut's Pennsylvania Tax Preparation Software didn't even offer the option of paying by credit card, so I had to file on paper and use the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue's website to initiate a credit card payment. Their chosen payment partner is Official Payments.

At Official Payments' website, I found that I couldn't make a payment with Safari at all despite the fact that there was no indication that Safari was not a supported browser. I could never get to the page where I could confirm my payment details on either my wife's MacBook running OS X 10.4 or my fully updated MacBook Pro running Leopard.

I had to switch over to Firefox on my Mac in order to pay what I owed the State of Pennsylvania.

I took advantage of web-based electronic filing offered by the local tax administrator serving my town-- a company called Berkheimer Tax Administrator, Inc.. Berkheimer performs this service for lots of towns, school districts, and emergency services districts within Pennsylvania.

Safari didn't work for interacting with their electronic filing site, and I had to use Firefox to complete the forms. When time came to pay, however, I was warned that the interaction between Berkheimer's electronic filing solution and Official Payments would only work in Internet Explorer. So, I had to save my session, fire up VMware Fusion, launch IE 7 in Windows XP, login to Berkheimer's e-filing site, pickup my session where I left off, and make the payment. Forcing someone to use a PC for any step of a tax filing process is simply unacceptable in 2008.

Surprisingly, The New Jersey Division of Taxation had the most Safari-friendly payment system I experienced. They also use Official Payments, but they created their own front end to it. This front end is very simple and apparently had none of the browser-specific JavaScript that is present on Official Payments' own site. I was surprised because other aspects of the New Jersey state government are pretty IE specific.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Ode To A Burrito -- Chipotle Mexican Grill on Fast Company: "Good food wrapped in a socially responsible message has created legions of Chipotle fans -- and a superhot business. Acquired by McDonald's in 1998 when there were only 14 Chipotles, the company went public in 2006 with 500 stores and watched its stock rise from $22 to $110 in 18 months. The now-independent outfit is enjoying an 80% revenue run-up over three years....

  "Chipotle has achieved these impressive stats by spurning fast-food orthodoxy. Workers make each burrito by hand, which leads to long lines of customers waiting far beyond the four-minute industry standard. Turns out, that's not a problem for many customers." There aren't many Chipotles in Pennsylvania, but one just opened in Warrington, in the same complex with one of our two closest Wegman's. Why can't we eat there more often? [ via 37signals SVN ]
• Forwarding voicemails? on 37signals SVN: "Visual Voicemail on the iPhone is a huge step forward for voicemail, but it still feels a bit last generation. It’s still about the static message that sits in your box. You can’t forward it along, you can’t email it to yourself, you can’t even play it to someone else who’s on the phone with you." Great points.
• 15 Features of the Perfect Work Space on LifeDev: "8. No clutter - Clutter is an aesthetic problem as well as a mental problem. Cluttered work spaces give create cluttered thinking. Your mind will never be as clear as it could be with a messy, unorganized environment. This also includes your desktop clutter as well." My only question about the article is: why is "no clutter" feature number 8 and not higher on the list?
• Household: De-Clutter with a Six-Month "Maybe Box" on Lifehacker: "I can vouch for the power of hidden non-necessities. My garage has served as a de facto "Maybe" space for most of this winter, leading my house toward a serious garage sale this spring."
• The Cost of Working In a Digital World on LifeDev: "A very important article has been written by The New York Times showing the hazards of being a web worker. Without boundaries and carefult attention to our Internet usage, we can quickly find our health declining. Prolific blogger Om Malik, who suffered some life-threatening health problems late last year, shares some insights his doctor gave as to why web workers have health problems."
• #1 Song on This Date in History from Josh Hosler: "What was the #1 song on ... the day you were born? the day you graduated from high school? the day you were married? the day your child was born? the approximate date you were conceived?" Awesome site. [ via Pogue's Posts and Alltop Gadgets ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day I was looking forward to watching NHL playoff games, and started thinking about how much fun it would be to watch Hockey Night in Canada on the CBC instead of Versus.

I went over to CBC.ca and watched the HNIC Playoff Preview Show on the CBC Sports Video Player. The player is a Flash-based application that sits in your browser of choice. After a brief video introduction, the Hockey Night in Canada Opening was shown. This is a series of highlights playing over the Hockey Night in Canada Theme Song. The opening sequence las