one digital life

Shareware Spotlight: Remote Buddy

Yesterday I mentioned the website, MacSanta, which offers 20% discounts on Mac software during the month of December. I don’t normally talk about the same service two days in a row, but one of the apps featured today really cought my eye. It’s called, Remote Buddy.

Remote Buddy tremendously enhances the capabilities of your Apple Remote. Here’s a blurb from their site:

“Remote Buddy turns the remote control in your hands into a key to your entire system. No matter, whether you want to control applications and presentations, browse and playback your music and video collection, watch TV with EyeTV, browse the web or your filesystem, make the globe turn in Google™ Earth, enter a text, move the mouse, play games or maybe just change the brightness of your screen - you can do this all with Remote Buddy! And so much more!”

One thing that isn’t mentioned in that blurb, is the fact that Remote Buddy now comes with a component called, Remote Buddy’s AJAX Remote, which allows you to use your iPhone or iPod Touch to control your Mac.

I haven’t really had the time to play with Remote Buddy yet, but it looks totally cool!

Remote Buddy normally runs 19.99 € (about $29 US). Today only you can use the coupon code from MacSanta to get 20% off. If you miss the sale today, you can still get 10% off until December 24th by using the coupon code listed in MacSanta’s Extended Deals section.

Mac Software Specials: Today Only

There are a couple of cool software titles on sale today. The first is Periscope. It’s an application that adds all kinds of cool functionality to your Mac’s built-in iSight (or other webcam). Among other things, you can set your camera to automatically take pictures when it detects motion or sound, or on a timed interval. Then, Periscope can automatically upload the image to your .Mac account, or ftp server. It can even email the photos.

I’ve only just played with Periscope a little, but it looks pretty cool. Periscope normally runs US $39.95, but you can get it today only for US $19.95 through Maczot.

If you’re unfamiliar with Maczot, they run 1-day only sales on individual software titles, year round.

The next app on sale today is MarsEdit. MarsEdit is a desktop blogging application that works with many blogging platforms. It’s my personal blogging app of choice. I use it to maintain all of my Wordpress blogs. In fact, I’m typing this post in it right now.

MarsEdit normally runs US $29.95. You can get 20% off today only through MacSanta.

If you’re unfamiliar with MacSanta, they run 1-day only 20% off sales on groups of software from about the beginning of December through December 24th. The day after an item is featured on their 1-day sale, it moves into their extended deals section where you get 10% off until December 24th. There are already quite a few apps in their extended delas section that I have my eye on.

For Sale: Apple 17″ Studio Display

Now that I’ve settled into my new Macbook Pro, I’ll be selling off some of my older equipment. First to go is this 17 inch Apple Studio Display. I’ll be listing it on Craig’s List or ebay, but I thought I would put it here first.

I bought this display new from Apple about 4 years ago. It’s in great condition. I’ve never had a single problem with it.

I’m asking $100 (usd), which does NOT include shipping. I’ll ship anywhere in the continental US. I estimate shipping will probably be $30-$50. It will be shipped in it’s original box.

The display has a native resolution of 1280×1024, and 2 usb ports on the back. I’m not positive, but I think the usb ports are usb1.

IMPORTANT: This display uses ADC (Apple Display Connector). If your Mac’s video card doesn’t have an ADC port, you’ll need an ADC to DVI converter.

I actually have 2 of these Studio Displays. I’ll be selling the other one sometime soon. If you’re interested in buying one or both, please leave a comment on this post or use the form on my contact page to send me an email.

In addition to these Studio Displays, I’ll soon be selling a Dual 2.0 GHz G5 Powermac (PPC), and a 12″ 1.33GHz iBook (PPC).

Free Passes to Macworld Expo 2008

If you’d like to go to the Macworld Expo in January, it’s not too late to get free (exhibit only) passes. Your Mac Life has you covered with a special code until December 14th.

[ LINK ]

Where’s the new Wallpapers in Leopard?

I have a quick question for anyone who has done a clean install of Leopard… are there any new desktop pictures (wallpapers) listed in the “Apple Images” section of the Desktop System Preference Pane on your Mac?

With exception to a couple of new images in the “Nature” folder, I don’t see any new images. This is odd for Apple, as a big jump in the OS usually gives us several new swirly backgrounds.

When I installed I migrated my data over from another machine, so I’m not sure if the installation just didn’t put the new ones in, or are there no new ones?

I’m lovin’ my new Macbook Pro

I’ve been using my new Macbook Pro (and Leopard) for about a month now, and I’m totally lovin’ it. Although I haven’t had any serious video jobs since getting it, I think it will hold up nicely. I think I made the right choice going with a portable as my primary machine.

As soon as I make a little time I’ll be posting some specifics on Leopard, apps, and Windows on a Mac (it’s new to me just upgrading from PPC).

Leopard Tip: iCal Widget gets new feature

The built-in calendar widget that comes with Mac OSX 10.5, Leopard, sports a new events pane. Simply drag the calendar widget to you desktop, click the large day number to bring out the month view, click the number again to bring out a pane listing the events for that day. Clicking on an event opens it in iCal.

via MacOSXHints

Leopard Internet Connection Problems

As a followup to my last post, here’s one of my Flickr Pages in both Safari 3 (left) and Firefox 2 (right). As you can see, Safari just won’t load the images. Where Firefox had no problem. The error listed in Safari’s Activity Window is, “Can’t find host”.

I’ve discover that this is not just an issue with Safari. In Leopard, I’m having problems with all of Apple’s applications that talk to the internet (Safari, Mail, Dashboard Widgets). Even though my connection to the internet is strong, all Apple apps have intermittent connectivity.

Is anyone else having this problem?

UPDATE (11.05.07): Thanks to a comment by Matt Smith, my connection problem is fixed… for the most part. I let the migration assistant bring over my network settings, but it apparently didn’t bring everything over. I was missing some DNS Server information (in the Network Preference Pane). Once I replaced those numbers things started working properly, almost. I still have some occasional connection problems, but they are much less frequent, and they appear to be more related to my router. Although everything is (almost) working, I think we’ll still be seeing an update from Apple on this issue. It’s odd that only Apple applications seem to need those numbers.