Tag: mac

Mac becomes more like dog

I used to use Salling Clicker with my Treo and my Sony Ericsson for remote control over Bluetooth. It was really cool that my Mac would recognize when my phone was nearby, and would start syncing or do other stuff that I thought handy. The iPhone doesn't do very much with Bluetooth, but this developer has figured out something pretty useful. Not bad for $8. 

http://themha.com/airlock/

Airlock allows your Mac to lock itself, plain and simple. Using your iPhone or iPod Touch, Bluetooth, and a smidgen of pixie dust, Airlock determines whether you're near your computer. When you leave the room – poof! – your Mac locks itself. “And when I come back?” You guessed it: your Mac unlocks. You can also customize Airlock to perform specific actions as you come and go – have your computer talk to you, log-in or out of iChat, walk the dog, and such.
 
(By the way, this is yet another tip I got from the picks by the guys on the MacBreak Weekly podcast (iTunes link). They're always mentioning useful stuff, and they maintain a nicely rounded perspective on the Mac, while still being obvious fans.) 

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Free transcription app for iPhone

Hey everybody this is pretty amazing. I am talking right now into Dragon Dictation software for the iPhone, made by the developers of the awesome Dragon NaturallySpeaking. it’s free right now and probably for a very limited time. If it continues to work I intend to use it for e-mail text messaging everything. Check it out!

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The difference between USB and FireWire

Here’s why we prefer that any backup drive purchased for a Mac have at least FireWire 400, if not 800 also:

FireWire has its own processor, where USB relies on the CPU of your computer to figure out how data should be transferred. So, when you’re moving files to and from a USB drive, it can affect the performance of your computer, while FireWire shoulders the burden itself. Since every Mac except the MacBook has FireWire, it’s worth the few extra bucks to get that on your external hard drive. 

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@joggernut BPM-based playlist creator for iTunes

Check out the second-to-last pick in this week's MacBreak Weekly

http://www.mbwpicks.com/. 

I know you've assessed a bunch of these tools (feel free to post a list!). If you've used Tangerine, what do you think?

P.S. The RedLaser app for iPhone is sweet!

Picks from MBW 164: Pinch Pull and Tug

October 28th, 2009 · No Comments

fusion3Hardware & software:

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Flippin’ the switch on the PR machine

http://www.sanantoniostartups.com/2009/10/29/how-j2maccom-helps-individuals-small-businesses-and-enterprises-leverage-the-power-of-the-mac-platform-and-shift-to-google-apps/

Thanks to Alan Weinkrantz for producing this profile of J2. Filmed at SAY Sí, we wanted to focus on the benefits of OS X Server, and the fun stuff we’re doing with Google Apps.

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Remote control apps for iPhone/touch

I was planning on installing Touchpad on a client's iPhone this morning. They have a Mac mini media center, and with these apps they can start the music from anywhere in the house.  Glad I saw this rundown. 

I'm still waiting for a cheap solution to control a stereo over wifi. My A/V friend Tom is keeping an eye out, too. It's ridiculous that people have to pay $500 for a "universal" remote — the Logitech Harmony — that doesn't totally suck.     

"iPhone and iPod touch remote controls
Posted on Wednesday Oct 28, 2009 3:15 AM
by Christopher Breen , Macworld.com

Getting up from your couch to “change the channel” on your Mac-based media center is so 1970s. If you’re going to the trouble to mutate a Mac into something that delivers music and video via your AV gear—or even enjoy a movie on a 27-inch iMac across the room—you’ll also want to replicate the experience of watching real TV as much as possible. That means having a remote control that lets you manage the works without a lot of fuss and bother."

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Please welcome our new contributor

I'm really pleased that my dad, Bob Marcus, has accepted my invitation to post to the J2 Blog.

I wouldn't be the geek that I am without my dad. One day, when I was a teenager, he showed me some of the code for the medical-records databases he had written in the 70s. He kept up the project — mission, really — clear through to his retirement: to design an electronic medical records system for OBGYNs that would be the most comprehensive and useful for doctors and staff. He worked in different platforms, and with different vendors, and over time he got to see his industry finally embrace a technology he had long known was inevitable, and had been evangelizing for years. 

Upon retiring in 2004, and being freed from developing on the Windows platform, Dad decided to go Mac. I was all kinds of honored. PowerBook G4 in hand, he quickly got excited by web design, and the then-nascent medium of podcasting. Before long, he redirected his programming expertise to another new idea: music-paced running. He developed a website at jogtunes.com, with a SQL/PHP database of playlists composed by beats-per-minute, selling the tunes in iTunes and Amazon and Rhapsody; then a podcast (iTunes link), based on the same idea, but using independent, "podsafe" music. Now he DJs the workouts of thousands of folks a week, all around the globe. Come on, that's freakin' cool!

Dad had Datapoint terminals in his office. He took me and my brothers to a computer convention, where we witnessed an Apple II playing color images in sequence, almost like a movie! Dad got me a Sinclair ZX81, on which I honed my own [sad] programming skills, but more importantly developed geek cred. and the moment in 1984 when he said "Let's go check out one of those new Macs for a test drive!" — he kicked off my career.

Henceforth, I think I'll use his podcasting handle, Dr. Bob. Bob has been putting iTunes, GarageBand, and Mac web development through much harder paces than I am ever going to, and I know that his posts, besides being spontaneous digital nakhes generators, will be priceless additions to this collection of tech tidbits in our little corner of the interwebs.

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Problems editing info in iTunes

If you find that you can’t edit the “Get Info” fields of an MP3 file in iTunes try this:
Right click (Ctrl-Click) on the file in iTunes and then click on Create MP3 Version. This creates a copy that is editable in “Get Info.” You can consider trashing the original file or keep it just to be on the safe side.

To find the original file, right click it in iTunes, and then click on “Show in Finder.” Then do what you want with it.

This all worked for me on two files I downloaded for my podcast from Mevio’s Music Alley.

Bob
The JogTunes Indie Podcast
JogTunes.com

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