If you’re on the Mac, you should be using ClipMenu. ClipMenu is a small statusbar app that remembers your clipboard history.
I’ve mapped ALT + V for invoking my clipboard history menu.
Point of note, if you’re a Chrome user, you’ll probably want to unmap ClipMenus CMD + Shift + B shortcut, otherwise you won’t be able to easily show/hide the Chrome bookmarks bar.
I postponed the Lion upgrade for a long time. Snow Leopard worked just fine, after all. Then last night I plunged and upgraded, and man was it a bumpy ride. Being in the know, now, having seen the giraffe, the pragmatic thing you should do is not upgrade. If you’re reading this, however, chances are you suffer from the same thing that ails me, an irresistable urge for the latest. So since you’re going to upgrade no matter what’s smart, here’s what you need to know. Continue reading
A couple of weeks ago, I backed up all my data to the cloud and then turned off my PC. One day I’ll turn it on again, but it will be to format it, reinstall it and give it to my mom. For you see, I have switched to The Mac, something readers of this blog — tech savvies you might call at least some of them — have been clamoring for for a decade.
So yes. I switched to The Mac, and I’ve found a setup I’m happy with. Yes, I said it, I’m very happy with The Mac. Go on, have your moment. No, please, point at me and laugh because it took me so long to “see the light”. Remind me how long I criticized the OS, the ecosystem and the mere culture of The Mac. Get it out of your system.
But why did I switch? In short: the commandline. In my dayjob, I need to know Linux. Which is pretty much like Unix. Which is pretty much what’s at the core of OSX. Which means, if I’m on this ecosystem, there’s less to learn — and that which I do learn has broader applicability in what I do today. Because webdesigners should code.
Now then. Here’s what I had to do to tweak the system to be satisfying for an ex-Windows user:
ALT + V.CMD + L for “locationbar” in browsers, ALT + Left for “move caret to previous word” and CMD + Left is the equivalent of “Home” (these shortcuts work in the other direction as well, ALT + Right and CMD + Right). Also CMD + H for “hide current window” — which is almost as useful as the “minimize” feature is useless.CMD + ALT + Space and CMD + Space shortcuts for Spotlight, and remap Spotlight to CMD + $ (on a Danish keyboard, $ is the button right below escape). Yeah I’ve been recommended AlfredApp. I’ll get to it, but for now Spotlight is fine. Update: I now use Alfred, with the same suggested shortcut remapping.F3 for Expose, and CMD + F3 for Desktop.Stuff that still bugs me to no end:
CMD + H gives me the window management I need, but I really think it’s embarrassing for a modern operating system that all three core window management buttons are near useless.Yup. Have your say.
It won’t be long until I switch to The Mac now, but appreciating many aspects of the Windows platform still, it’s nice to see one of the best Mac apps — CloudApp — get a Windows port, even if it is an unofficial port.
FluffyApp — like CloudApp — is a tiny icon sitting in your appplication tray. Drag a file onto the icon, and it’s immediately uploaded and the URL to the uploaded file magically appears in your clipboard. Want to share a screenshot? Drop it on the icon and paste the URL. Awesome.
Timed to perfectly disrupt CES, Apple opened their App Store yesterday.
The App store is software for Macs which makes it easy to find, download and buy new apps. It’s generally acknowledged that it’s going to be a huge success, though there’s been some controversy, mostly from developers:
The demo aspect is what’s interesting to me. Supposedly this mimics the Apple iOS App Store, where demos apparently arent’ available either. Which confuses me, because I’m sure I’ve tried free demo versions of full games on a number of occasions. Oh right, they were called “Lite” versions. So what’s the deal here? Are demos actually fully welcome in the App Store, as long as they’re simply named “Lite” or “Express”? Is it simply an issue of silly semantics?
Here’s the Apple law of the land:
2.6 Apps that are “beta”, “demo”, “trial”, or “test” versions will be rejected.
7.4 Apps containing “rental” content or services that expire after a limited time will be rejected.
I don’t particularly object to these rules, though I do like to try a demo version before I shell out the dough. If Apple had gone the Android route, however, this problem could probably have been solved with a refund window. As it stands, however, we have Lite and Express versions, but no demos. So what’s the difference between a Lite version and a demo version? Particularly in the context of games, this is what I was able to come up with:
Barring #1, would #2 and #3 reject you from the App Store if you called your demo “lite”? And how about circumventing these rules by simply linking to a downloadable demo from the App Store product page? I don’t have any answers, only a confused look on my face. Are we looking at an App Store that for all intents and purposes still have demo versions, just a different kind of demo version?
The Desire is HTCs current european flagship Android phone. Its hardware specs are pretty much the same as those of the Google Nexus One phone, except it’s got physical Android buttons and an optical trackpad. In addition to this, the Desire has HTCs “Sense” UI, a skin that lies on top of the Android operating system.
I’m not going to lie, I loathe HTC Sense. These days, Android is riding a rocket to stardom, soon surpassing iPhone as the number one smartphone platform. A rising number of people are going to want an “Android phone”. Unfortunately, they can’t have it, because custom Android experiences like HTC Sense exist1. Sense brings you a black Android interface that features a flipping number clock up front, and a number of “social” widgets, such as “Friendstream”. If only it stopped there, I believe I could deal with it, after all, Android users can replace their entire homescreen interface with alternatives like ADW Launcher, available from the Android Market. The problem with Sense is that it doesn’t stop there, and I will go in to more detail in a different essay, suffice to say, Sense replaces core apps with HTC specific ones, replaces your lock screen with one that unlocks in your pocket … it sinks its teeth so deep in to Android that the overall experience is diluted and diminished.
As for the hardware, while on principle I’m against the amount of buttons present, I do appreciate that they’re physical. To be fair, they’re also quite handy once you get used to them.. I find myself missing the back button on the iPad. When I want to call someone, I find it nice and quick to press the search button, type in the first letter of my contact, and then press call. Even so, I’m still opposed to their existance, as they encourage lazy app design. Another boon of having only one a home button is that hardware vendors don’t get to screw around with the order of the buttons (“Back” and “Home” have switched places, compared to the Milestone).
In more comparisons to the Milestone / DROID, the speaker really isn’t that good. It’s not as loud, nor as clear, and the sound is almost scratchy in comparison. I suppose, on the flipside, that the Desire speaker is normal, whilst the Milestone/DROID speaker is phenomenal. Even so, now that I’ve experienced how good a phone speaker can be (my usecase was listening to podcasts in my kitchen, phone in pocket), the lack of a similarly excellent speaker in the Desire detracts from the rating.
The weight and grip of the device is just right, and you’re unlikely to get scratches on this thing. Overall the hardware is very nice.
So, should you get one? To answer this, you have to ask yourself: are you going to root this phone and install a vanilla version of Android on it? If you can answer yes, well then the HTC Desire may be your dream phone! It’s easily jailbroken using Unrevoked, and easily re-flashed using Rom Manager. You’ll get your phone just like you want it!
Did that last sentence make you throw up in your mouth a little? Well in that case, you don’t want to get the HTC Desire. If you want an Android phone and you don’t want to jump through flaming hoops to get one, I’m so sorry to say that you have only three choices at the moment:
So that’s bad news for us europeans. I can only hope Google changes the terms of use when Android 3 comes; hardware vendors really need hand-cuffs.
In a summary of this odd device, you get two ratings:
This is a series of screenshots chronicling the install of iTunes on Windows. Behold:
At this point, I’d like to remind viewers that in step 4, I unchecked the “Use iTunes as the default player for audio files” and “Automatically update iTunes and other Apple software” options, so you’d think you wouldn’t get all sorts of services and update apps installed. Not so:
