$1 Image Stabilizer For Any Camera
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008I haven’t tried this myself, but it looks pretty easy.
Archive for the ‘Tips & Tricks’ Category
Over $400 in Mac Software for $49
Friday, January 18th, 2008
If you follow many of the Apple sites out there you’ve probably already heard of the MacHeist Software Bundle. If you haven’t, it’s an awesome set of 12 Mac applications that you can get for just $49. To buy the apps individually you would pay $428.65. It really is an amazing deal.
Even if you only want one or two of the applications, the bundle can totally save you some cash. For instance, the app I wanted the most was Snapz Pro. It normally sells for $69. So, even if I don’t use any of the other apps I’ve saved $20.
The promotion is for a limited time. As of the time of this post it’s only going for another 5 days and 10 hours. If my math is correct, that would mean they’ll stop selling it sometime next Wednesday (1.23.08).
For any of these applications that you either already own or just don’t need, the MacHeist people give you the ability to “gift” the applications. At the time of purchase you can register each app to yourself, or to someone else, by entering their name and email address. I already own a few of these, so this was a great option for me.
One other awesome thing about MacHeist is they give 25% of what they make to charity. They’ve already raised over $200,000. They have a list you can choose from when you buy the bundle, or you can have them automatically split it between all the charities. You can see the list on the bottom right of the home page.
I think MacHeist is awesome, and I was going to help promote it no matter what, but as it turns out they’ve introduced a referral program. If you use my link to buy the bundle, they’ll send a couple more apps my way for free. So, if you’re planning on buying the bundle, please use the links in this post. :)
UPDATE (1.22.08): The bundle is now up to 14 Mac apps, bringing the value to just shy of $500. The promotion ends tomorrow so don’t miss out!
Some Upgrades for One Digital Life
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008I wanted to have a complete redesign of the site by 2008, but that obviously didn’t happen. But, I did do a few small upgrades the other day. In addition to upgrading to the latest version of Wordpress, I also added a some functionality through 2 great plugins…
SRG Clean Archives
This is a great plugin for making a more useful archives page. The default archive format for the theme I’m using just had links to the past months and categories. It wasn’t very useful. Now it has each post listed in chronological order. The plugin also has some spiffy Moo Effects built in, but I chose not to use those.
Sideblog
This plugin allows you to add Asides to your blog. I’m calling them Quickies. Asides (or Quickies) are things you want to link to or write about but don’t necessarily warrant a full-blown post. I’m still working out some formatting issues, but you can find the new Quickies in the sidebar. If you subscribe to the feed, the quickies will come in with all the standard posts. One nice thing about this plugin over some other methods for adding asides is it doesn’t limit the number of standard posts that get displayed on the page. All asides also get archived along with all the standard posts.
One to One Training At Apple Retail Stores
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
I’m not sure how long they’ve been doing this, but I just noticed that Apple offers one to one training at their retail stores.
The program costs $99 per year. For that price you can book one personal training session per week for the entire year.
It actually looks like a pretty good program for anyone new to the Mac, or for people who want to go beyond the basics. They will work at your speed, and offer training on everything from getting started to using Apple’s pro-level apps.
QuickBooks is deleting desktop files
Monday, December 17th, 2007If you’re a user of QuickBooks on the Mac, you need to check out these two posts over at TUAW…
Apparently, if you run an updater to QuickBooks, that may or may not have been released by Intuit, all the files and folders on your desktop may be erased.
In addition to the fixes mentioned on TUAW, you could also use an application like Little Snitch to block QuickBooks from connecting to the internet.
Plan your next website with WriteMaps
Friday, December 14th, 2007
Whenever I start a new website, one of the first tasks to be done is to create a flowchart, often referred to as a sitemap. A flowchart (or sitemap) outlines the navigation through the entire site, so I know how many pages I’ll be building and what pages link to what other pages.
I’ve tried various tools over the years for building flowcharts. The one I’ve used the longest is, Inspiration. Although it’s not specifically tailored for web designers, it actually does a very good job, and is relatively inexpensive ($69).
One problem with using a tool like Inspiration, is none of my clients use it. The only way to review and revise my flowchart is to export a PDF, email it to my client, discuss it over the phone, and then make any revisions we come up with. It’s not uncommon for this process to go through several rounds before we get the final version. It can be very time consuming.
I recently came across an excellent alternative to this process. It’s called WriteMaps. WriteMaps is a free online sitemap creation and collaboration tool. It’s only been recently released as a 1.0 product, but it’s looking pretty sweet!
WriteMaps is extremely easy to use to quickly generate your sitemap. Once complete, you can send a link to your client allowing them to view and edit the sitemap, significantly cutting down the time it takes to hammer out the final version. As a bonus, once you finish building the actual site, you can export your WriteMaps sitemap as a Google sitemap (XML) file.
WriteMaps is the brain child of Boston-based graphic designer, Scott Jehl. Frustrated with the cost and/or limitations of other sitemap creation software, Scott decided to make his own. And, he’s nice enough to share it with all of us. Thanks Scott, you rock!
While WriteMaps is free, Scott does accept donations to cover hosting costs, etc… If you find it useful, consider slipping Scott a few bucks via the donations link on the site.
via Ajaxian
Free Passes to Macworld Expo 2008
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
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 ]
Look inside zip archives with QuickLook
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
For me, QuickLook is one of the killer new features in Leopard. QuickLook allows you to select any file (or folder) in the finder, hit the space bar, and get a usable preview of that file without opening it.
I think QuickLook is pretty awesome right out of the box, but today it got a whole lot more useful, thanks to Japanese developer, Taiyo.
Taiyo developed a free QuickLook plugin that allows you to view the contents of a zip archive, instead of just the icon (the default behavior for zip files in QuickLook).
I’ve always been annoyed that in the default installation of OSX, there is no way of seeing what’s in a zip without extracting everything. That’s just stupid! I’ve tried other shareware apps that claim the ability to browse zip archives without opening them, but they either didn’t work, or didn’t work very well. Thank you Taiyo!
One note… I’ve read that for some people the plugin kicked in immediately after installation. I personally needed to logout for it to start working. You could also just force-quite the finder.
Taiyo also developed a QuickLook plugin for folders, which shows the contents of folders, instead of their icon. If you spend most of you time in either list or icon view, this could be very handy too.
via TUAW