Putting aside my moment of Little Tim, Theresa got me a present I’d have never thought to get myself. Hell, it was a gift I would have never guessed, as I’ve never exhibited that much outward desire for it. Now unless you’re not paying attention or you’re simple remedial, I am talking about the
Amazon Kindle.

Now I would have never thought to buy myself a Kindle, because I am a huge proponent of physical books. Books can do so much that the Kindle cannot. Such lists exist out there, but I won’t start ranting about it in this post. I love books. I love their smell, their feel, the sense of accomplishment you get from finishing them, all of it. I love books, and have since I was a wee lad. So when I saw the eReaders start to come out, I just sighed gently and continued going to book stores, knowing that eventually these wondrous bound tomes would eventually go the way of all great things.

As such, I’ve never had the desire to own a Kindle. I have a reader on my iPhone and iPad, and figured that was good enough for when the physical book could not be owned. I can’t buy a lot of books here, so this is for the time being, quite the requirement for me.

So when my Kindle did arrive (January 7th, thank you very much. Next day delivery my ginger-haired buttocks), I was pleased to have it, but more because I could finally open my Christmas present. I wasn’t really salivating at the thought of owning the Kindle itself. However, since my girlfriend did spend a decent chunk of money to purchase the Kindle for me, I decided that I should at least give it the old ‘college try.’

Here’s what I have to say about it.

First Impressions

I own the Kindle 3, graphite with wifi and 3G. We decided to go big or go home. If nothing else, the fact that I have some sort of access to the Internet anywhere I can get 3G signal is, I admit, a selling point.

The first thing I noticed was how light it was. It weighs next to nothing. I’d argue that it’s lighter than my phone, and I carry that around all the time. I also noticed that it has roughly the same dimensions and feel to it as the PADDs from Star Trek. This is of course a point in its favour.

The next thing I noticed was the display. They go on about how you can read it, even in direct sunlight. This is almost true. You can read it in direct sunlight, just so long as you don’t have the sun bouncing off it just right so that it refracts into your eyes, readily blinding you. It’s not colour (obviously), which I’ll get to in a moment.

It’s got an a-z keyboard, with most of the extra keys (symbols, numbers, etc) tucked away in a sub menu. It’s a device for reading, which means that a keyboard doesn’t need to be overly thorough. It would have been nice though. I miss the touch screen of the iPhone/iPad but I understand that the Kindle isn’t an iPad, and a touch screen wouldn’t do that much for the user experience (or the weight).

There are a slew of usability options for those with bad-eyesight, or other difficulties reading such as font-sizing, changeable fonts (though only to condensed or sans-serif) and more. There’s almost an irony in the fact that they work so hard to help those with reading difficulties, but utterly fails everyone else on a number of points (this is covered in the issues section). There’s also some neat experimental stuff that I’ll get to at the end of this review.

The Kindle can also store upwards of 3000 books at any given time. That’s a lot of goddamned books for any one person to carry around. Does the term ‘choice paralysis’ mean anything? It also boasts a month-long battery life, assuming you keep the wifi off. I can’t really complain about that. Heck even with the wifi constantly on, it lasts a lot longer than I expected it to.

That all being said, there are some issue with the Kindle. Some more glaringly obvious than others.

Oh, and before we move on, it should be noted here that you can leave notes per page/book; you can add bookmarks for easy jumping; you can post quotes to mail,twitter and Facebook; and some other features that I will honestly never use. I am merely mentioning them for the sake of completeness.

Issues

Paging buttons

First up, the paging buttons. On the left and right of the Kindle are 4 buttons (2 per side). One goes forward, and the other backwards. Pretty routine, yes? One button on each side is larger than it’s sibling. Now at first glance you would think that the big button on the right would page forward, and the big button on the left would page backwards. You would of course be wrong. Both big buttons page forward, leaving the page back function to the little sibling buttons.

Now I do understand why they do this: no hand-held bias.  Hold it with either hand, and the controls are the same. That’s fine and dandy, but when you hold it with two hands like, oh I don’t know, a book, your brain gets confused. This irritates me. Basically if you read with one hand, you’re fine, but with two, you actually need to think about things if you want to go backwards.

The display

Great though the display is, there are some issues with it due to the materials chosen to construct it. You see the screen uses an e-ink technology that allows the Kindle to shock an image into the e-ink and walk away. There is no charge required to hold the image there, and this is part of the reason the battery life on the Kindle is so good; it doesn’t use much to just sit there, showing text.

My issue with the display is two-fold: first, e-ink only comes in one colour: black. you can do shading on the Kindle, but that’s it. No other colours can you have. Second, every time you have to turn a page, the screen goes all black before showing the new text. Now I get that this can be a visual queue for people, but unless you’re into your book, this ‘black flash’ can get distracting. It’s the most noticeable when you are skimming a book; it’s damned irritating, and there’s nothing to be done about it. Apparently this flash is worse on the older models. My version turns pages 20% faster! Yikes.

Speed (or a lack thereof)

The Kindle isn’t nearly as snappy as I expected it to be. It reminds me a lot of the hand-held games from times of yore. You know, the shitty little beeping things where you dodged hammers or raced a car. I’m spoiled with my flashy iDevices, so I’m used to my tech responding quickly. The Kindle seems limited in its speed due to (I think) its screen. It can only go as fast as the screen can refresh, which isn’t all that fast. It’s not terribly slow, but it’s slow enough to get annoying when you’re just trying to move around the device quickly.

The Keyboard

It’s awkward, it’s stiff, and having to access an on-screen menu for additional characters (like say, the comma or the question mark) is insane. I don’t really want to mention the horrifying 5-way cursor … thing that you have to endure.

No Goddamned Backlight

For serious? You want me to spend how much on a case to have a light? Fuck you. You could build one in and give me the option of turning it on or something. I’d have paid for that, no problem. Easily my biggest hang-up with the Kindle.

No fucking backlight, I mean seriously now. Cocks.

General usability issues

If I gave the kindle to my mother, and told her to do anything on it, the following would happen:

• Pick it up
• Look at it
• Click some buttons
• Frown
• Look at me
• Look back at the Kindle
• Click some more buttons
• Smash it against a rock and throw her feces at it like an enraged orangoutang.

The reason for this is that my mother isn’t tech-savvy. As such, things need to be made as simple and as obvious as possible without taking away from the experience. The Kindle isn’t any of this. Contextual menus don’t retain common options that you’d expect; the 5-point navigation abomination is a method of slow torture; visual queues aren’t that noticeable; and buttons that don’t do what you expect. Hell, the first thing you see when you turn it on is the manual. If you don’t read through the first 15 pages of this thing, you’re going to be super duper lost.

I read the manual, and I never read manuals.

Also, unless you make yourself some collections, once you start adding more than say, 10 books onto the Kindle, you’re going to have to start paging a lot to get to the books at the end. On that note, collection creation and management could be improved immensely. Took me a while to figure out how to add books to an existing collection.

Despite it all…

Despite everything listed above, the Kindle does it’s job shockingly well. Yes, in spite of  itself, the Kindle does allow you read a book, and quickly. I’m devouring books on this device like a fat man in a skittle factory. I’m not sure if that’s just because I’m getting right back into reading, or if the device actually allows me to read faster. I don’t know, but I’ve been using it for less than a week and I’ve finished 4 books.

for the record, yes I have a job, and no I don’t just sit there and read all day. I actually do work. I do so! Shut up, you don’t even know me. You’re not my father! You don’t own me!

Buying books through the Kindle, while a bit janky, is surprisingly easy and the 3G option allows you to get books pretty much anywhere. This will spell disaster for my bank account. The Kindle store is simple enough to navigate, and the prices are alright. Not as cheap as I really think they should be (for godsake it’s a stripped-down PDF, not a bound book.) but still cheaper than buying the paperback.

The Browser (and the other experimental stuff)

I have to tip my hat to the Kindle team with the experimental portion of the Kindle. While I have not tried everything (such as mp3 payback or audio books) the browser and the text-to-speech tools are impressive.

Now with the browser (a webkit-derived browser no less!) you have to remember that it’s black and white, and it’s on a Kindle. Basically, don’t expect to be blown away. You have to zoom large pages, scrolling around is weird, and it can crash. That said, I did manage to use my Kindle to chat to someone using the meebo mobile site, which was doable, if not entirely enjoyable. I should state that if you plan to visit Facebook, for the love of god, visit the mobile version. The main version is heavy, and it broke my Kindle. I had to do a hard-reset just to fix it. Normal off/on wouldn’t work.

In case anyone is wondering, a hard reset can be performed by sliding the power switch over and holding it there for at least 20 seconds.

The voice-over tool actually impressed me. While not as smooth as Apples text-to-speech AI voice actor thing, the Kindle does a decent job not sounding like Steven Hawking on a bad day. I don’t know if I could have an entire book read to me in that voice, but it is far better than I expected.

Overall

I’ve learned to like the Kindle. I don’t think I’ll ever truly love the device, but I’ll probably miss it when it goes away. It does its primary job very well, and web browser doesn’t totally suck. There are som obvious issues with the usability that hopefully will be removed in later iterations of the Kindle.

6.5/10

For those of us – myself included – that cannot simply afford to drop good coin on a 9-dimensional quantum quad core extreme dx processor, 5 gigatonne atomic video card, and RAM the equivalent size and girth of China, we have to make do with what little things we can.

In this case I’ve come across a selection of little tweaks you can do to speed up Photoshop. Maybe not by a massive amount, but when you’re used to 10 seconds of lag, taking a couple seconds off that can make a huge difference. To your sanity, and to the survival of you and those near by.

And so I’ve opted to take them from that forum and post the tips here, complete with screenshots. I apologize in advance as these screens are done on my mac. The concepts should still be the same though.

Preferences

Performance Tab

Navigate to Preferences > Performance:

1. Up the amount of RAM Photoshop is allows to use. Basically, the more the better, but remember that your computer needs some to do other things. I suggest somewhere between 70-80% if you can spare it.
   

   This is all relative. If you have 8 gigs of RAM 6.4 is a crap-tonne, but you still have 1.6 for the rest of your computer, which is decent assuming you’re not doing anything else crazy. On the flip side, if you only have 2 gigs, you donate 1.6 to Photoshop and leave 400 for the rest of the computer… this will probably make your computer divorce you, and you will lose the kids.

2. If you have a good video card, enable 3D acceleration if it’s available. I assume that letting your card do the work will help take the strain off of your CPU. If anyone with knowledge greater than mine on the subject can comment on this, please do. I’m guessing a bit based on common sense reasoning.
   
3. Keep your History States low. (This is how many times you can hit undo) The lower the better, but be practical. If you usually hit “undo” 20 times, then set it to 20. Mine is set to 40 because I’m a chronic “nudger” and it helps.
4. Lower your Cache levels. I don’t know what this does per say, but keeping it low seems to help performance. If someone can speak to this one as well, that’d be swell.
   
5. If you have a spare hard drive sitting around, consider hooking it into your rig and allowing photoshop to turn it into a scratch disk. That apparently helps a butt-load, though I’ve never had the opportunity to do so. Rigging one into my laptop would be a little difficult; Apple hates my soldering work so very much.
   

Type Tab

Navigate to preferences > Type:

1. You can turn off Font Preview, which can help if you have a whole mess of fonts. This may or may not become a total pain in the ass to those that nitpick fonts, but honestly Photoshop doesn’t seem to do the greatest job handling the renders. If you have a proper font management program, I’d suggest using that anyways to pick out your fonts.
   

Panel… Stuff

Go to your Layers/ Channels/ Paths panels.

Turn off the thumbnail previews, that will apparently help out a lot. I’d suggest doing this if your files start getting larger/ more complex to help out. Just remember that you will have to have descriptive layer names or you’ll start getting lost. I can’t really live without my thumbnails, but that’s because I am hopelessly visual in nature, and the ikle pictures help.

No Ickle is not a typo.

1. To do this, navigate to the panel(s), and under the palette menu, go to ‘Palette Options…’
   
2. Turn off your thumbnails. The Layers, Channels, and Paths panels all have this option.
   

Having said all this, if your hardware is truly in need of updating, these fixes will only help you so far.

Got one of your own?

If you’ve got a comment to make about my tips here, or have your own you want to add, please feel free to leave them in the comments. I’ll add them to the post!

Perfect.

So without further delay, here is my giant list of (mostly) free mac apps.

Communication

Adium

Adium is basically the chat client on the Mac. Since Microsoft’s version of Mac MSN looks and acts like the original Microsoft messenger did, people have tried to find different chat clients that can pick up the slack. I’m sure there are others, but Adium is my clear choice for this.

Out of the box, Adium supports 20 services including (but not limited to): MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, and Google Talk. Hell it even has support (albeit a little shaky) for Facebook and Twitter. Beyond this there is a large collection of plug-ins that extend the functionality of this already robust program.

It’s also got a slew of options to customize the look and feel of the program, Growl support, and a whole boatload of customization options.

There are only two major limitations to Adium, and I’m not entirely sure one is their fault. The first is that Adium supports the viewing of custom smileys, but to date I have no figured out how to add my own. The second is that there is no sharing box. This was a big blow to me, as I was using my sharing folder a lot with the windows version of MSN.

Beak

Raise your hand if you use Twitter. Yeah, you and a gazillion other people. With the recent super-adoption of Twitter, applications to sift through the mass of 140 character messages are becoming more plentiful, more powerful, and way prettier. I know a lot of people will advocate for TweetDeck, and I wouldn’t disagree; TweetDeck is a fantastic program if you’re really into Twitter and/or have large screen real estate.

For those of us who have small screens, TweetDeck is just too big to be practical. It literally takes up 90% of the screen, and that’s not something I want when I’m doing quick alt-tabs. Beak fills in this role quite nicely.

Thankfully there is a huge list of Mac-Twitter applications in the Twitter wiki, but the big ones are generally TweetDeck, Twhirl, Twidget, and Tweetie. Beak isn’t as big as some of the others and it’s still in Beta, but since it’s most recent release it’s been amazingly stable and does everything I need. Tweetie is pretty solid, and similar to Beak (with some differences), but I don’t really want to pay 20 dollars American just to use Twitter (yes I’m aware there is a free, ad-supported version. That’s not much better.)

You get everything you’d expect from a solid twitter app – posting tweets/DMs, ReTweet, Favoriting, mentions, search, and link statuses – but with none of the cost. Now you can’t have multi-user support, something I personally don’t need to worry about, nor do you get TweetDeck’s Multi-column viewing. Everything that is featured is offered in a tabular view, meaning that you can easily switch between views. It also has a neat feature to display a users twitter information inline.

Everyday

Firefox

Let’s be honest here. I don’t need to advocate for a browser that advocates for itself. I’ll say that I’m not a fan of Safari, as I’ve always found the interface to be a little wonky. I know there are other options out there: Camino, Chrome,  Flock, Opera, SeaMonkey, Shiira, and I’m sure there are many, many more. I’ve been with Firefox for a while, and it’s done me well. I’m not a zealot, but even I must admit that Firefox does it’s job, and it does it well.

Hell I’ve been using Firefox since it was called Phoenix. That’s how old school I am. Kick it.

Thunderbird + Lightning

I’m aware the Mac comes with Mail and iCal, but neither of them are all that impressive. They’re light-weight, and do their jobs with minimal imagination. I tried mail out for all of 5 minutes before I was sick of it and downloading Thunderbird. Ditto for iCal.

Thunderbird is Mozilla’s local mail system. It has all the bells and whistles that you would expect from a mailing system, but it’s free. Sadly it’s not as polished as say, Microsoft Outlook – lets just pretend they’re not going to use Word to render emails for a minute – but it does it’s job and does it well. It has rule support, multiple account management, and a crap-tonne of other features making it a very appealing option to those who don’t want to log into a website to check their mail.

But what is an email client without a calendar system? Light-weight, yes, but not nearly as useful.

That is where Lightning comes in to play. Now on it’s own, Lightning is very much like iCal, if iCal tried a little harder. Lightning can hook into services like Google Calendar (so can iCal, I know) and allow you to actually create events, tasks, and everything else with amazing ease (something iCal does not do).

Now they’ve gone and developed a plug-in that gives you all of the abilities of lightning, integrated into Thunderbird. This effectively removes the need for an additional program running. One less thing running is always a boon to me.

Jomic

Back when Watchmen was coming out, I had no idea of the story specifics. This resulted in my having to read the entire story in one sitting. Now I didn’t mean for this to happen, but as it worked out Watchmen was a fantastic graphic novel, and Jomic was a fantastic comic reader.

Jomic is a sourceforge project, and though their website was obviously developed by a programmer, their program has a solid finish to it. Now I’ve tried a couple comic viewers for the Mac but I can assure you that Jomic was both the smoothest functioning and simplest to use.

It features nifty abilities such as being able to go straight into the next comic in the series (I assume this works off the concept that every comic is within the same folder), two page spreads, zooming, and keyboard navigation. If you want to read comics on your computer (those not in the ‘web’ format), Jomic is totally the way to go.

NeoOffice

There is absolutely no shortage of Mac text processors out there. Given that the list is as long as I am tall, it’s hard to pick out a sure-winner. NeoOffice is not by any means a sure winner, but it does it’s job.

Now I cannot explain all of the many things that NeoOffice apparently does, as I’ve only ever used the Text and Spreadsheet portions of it. What I can say is that from what I’ve used, everything worked as expected (minor visual hiccups aside).

I can’t gush over NeoOffice, because to be honest I haven’t had to use it that much. I’ve recently found myself gravitating more towards Google Docs, which is filling the need for a text editor pretty well.

Smultron

Everyone that develops on the Mac needs some sort of editor. Many swear by Coda, which I admit is a good program. The issue with Coda is that it isn’t free, and that doesn’t swing it with me. I ended up coming across Smultron and I haven’t looked since.

Smultron offers me everything I need from a code editor: Snippets, extensible colour coding, multi-file editing, project support, and automation commands. Now I’ll admit that it doesn’t have built-in FTP support, something Coda brags about, but it does work well with Cyberduck in allowing you to edit files you open and save them right to the server. This works just fine for me, though I totally understand the appeal.

Maintenance

ClamXav

I’ll admit that I’ve never really had to use ClamXav. That doesn’t make it a bad product, in fact it’s very simple to use. See the issue is that I have yet to run into a virus that would affect me. Having said that, it’s always good to be prepared, and that’s where ClamXav comes in.

Though its interface is far from sexy (nothing like having a giant frame with your disclaimer in it on the main panel) it does have a feature set that makes me happy. You can target specific folders for instant scanning, set up scheduled scans, and have a watch dog-style setup so that anytime a file is added to specified folders, they’re scanned instantly. Very handy.

OmniDiskSweeper

This is a very straight-forward program that has one goal: Tell you where all your Harddrive space has gone. I tend to run this every once in a while when I notice my hard drive space tanking out, and I cannot figure out where all of the space is being used.

Now OmniDiskSweeper isn’t a big program, nor is it all that impressive, graphically. It does, however do it’s job perfectly. It scans through your computer and lists off the main folders and the total size that they take up. From there you can drill down into the folders and find out what, specifically, is eating up all of your hard drive space.

OnyX

I love OnyX. It is pretty much your one stop shop for every day MacBook maintenance, tweaking, and general upkeep. Hell it even allows you to access functionality that would require you to operate a couple of programs.

It verifies your startup disk and file structure, it can run general system maintenance scripts, it can configure hidden parameters for things like Finder, Doc, Dashboard, Exposé, Safari, the Login window, and more. It can delete caches, it can clean out logs and files. It also cuts Julianne fries (no it doesn’t).

Basically, if there’s something you want to adjust to your MacBook’s settings, run maintenance scripts (I didn’t even know the MacBook had maintenance scripts), and generally do some spring cleaning, OnyX is your best choice.

XSlimmer*

This is the only program I’ve paid for in this entire list – hence the “mostly” in the title. To that end, Xslimmer is so worth it’s money that not buying it is just silly.

Xslimmer basically saves your computer from having to store binaries of code that aren’t required. Universal installers are compiled to run on either the new chipset or the old one. This requires you to have twice the amount of code stored in your app in order for it to work across the board. This is a fantastic idea for developers, but for those of us who only install and use the product, it takes up twice as much room as it needs to.

This is where Xslimmer comes in.

Xslimmer is quite literally a program slimming utility. You can either select programs for it to attempt to slim, or run the Genie, and have it list all of the products that you have installed to see what can be slimmed. It has a built in blacklist you can update to help it know what programs don’t operate properly when slimmed. You are also given the option to install programs “pre-slimmed” meaning that you drop the app into XSlimmer, and it will slim it down before installing it to your system.

It has backup and restore functionality as well, so if you slim a program and everything borks, you can restore the previous version of the code without any terrible aftermath. XSlimmer also allows you to report any programs that should be blacklisted, allowing you to contribute to the community!

I am pretty sure I saved roughly 6 gigs of memory from running XSlimmer the first time, but I can’t remember. I do recall that it was some obtusely large number though, and that makes Corey happy… and talk in the third-person.

Utilities

Burn

I recently had to make a couple copies of CDs for the place I am working at over the summer. Now as far as I can tell, the MacBook only comes with the “Burn Folder” which is all well and good if you’re doing a data cd. But what If I have to make a copy of an instructional video for a class, and I can’t keep the original?

Burn comes to the rescue!

Burn is a painfully simple burning program that allows users to backup, burn, or make copies of CDs and DVDs. What I really liked is that when you back them up, it allows you to make a backup as a mountable hard drive. This means that you can actually emulate the CD/DVD from your desktop should the need arise.

Amazingly simple, yet surprisingly powerful. Now I don’t know how it would handle copy-written material, but that’s not something I generally use my Mac for anyways.

smcFanControl

smcFanControl is one of those programs that you kind of wonder why it had to be made in the first place. I mean really, I shouldn’t have to download a program in order to tell my computers fan(s) “ohgodtoohotburninglapcoolthisthingdownmoreitburns” but sadly, that does seem to be the case.

smcFanControl is a tiny app that sits in your menu bar, and allows you to change the current RPM of your fans on a whim. You can create your own settings for quick swapping (I have Default, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, MAX) and even has MacBook Pro support so that you can control your fans separately. It’s free, it’s tiny, and it’s saved my computer from melting while running intense Photoshop sessions. A total must-have.

Cyberduck

I used to use OneButton FTP, which I still think is a fantastic program. But when I moved servers, I had to change FTP clients because OneButton does not support SFTP or some other advanced connection options. So I went hunting around and eventually got my hands on Cyberduck.

Cyberduck does everything you expect it to do, and that’s pretty much it. It’s simple to use, easy to navigate, and can even detect local servers to connect to (a la Bonjour devices). It supports opening documents directly from FTP and saving back to, which is always nice. I’m not sure how common that is in FTP programs, but there it is.

It does everything the big, costly FTP apps do, but it’s free.

Oh, and there’s a widget that you can get with it to quick-upload things from your dashboard. So that’s handy.

FontExplorer X

Made by Linotype, FontExplorer X is a great way to quickly access, activate, deactivate, and test your fonts out. You can tell it where to install fonts (like the normal spot, or wherever you want them to go), you can organize them according to labels, and even have sets and smart sets.

Basically FontExplorer X has all of the features that Finder has for normal files, but for your fonts. Conveniently, FontExplorer X has the ability to buy fonts and download them direct from LinoType (much like iTunes).

All in all, it’s actually a very smooth process, and for those in the graphic design business, or for those new to it, FontExplorer X is a God-send.

UPDATE: Apparently this one is still downloadable, but no longer supported. I still recommend getting it while you can. You can always pay for the pro version, but once again: money.

DropBox

I really don’t know how much more I can really talk about DropBox. I have boasted it’s pure sex functional experience before.

I don’t think I need to get on my soapbox again, but let me say this: It’s a backup system that is simple to use, easy to install, and works. What more do I have to say that I haven’t said before?

Get it.

Senuti

I’ve only had to use this once, and that was only because I had to migrate all of my music that I had on my iPod. Now I know you can pull off the music from your iPod by making it act like a drive – blah blah blah – but when you do that, the file names are still encoded by the madness that the iPod runs off of. So what do you do if you need to get your music off of your iPod? iTunes won’t do it, so you have to go somewhere else.

Senuti is one of those solutions.

It’s fairly straight-forward, and does what it says it does. Plug in your iPod, select what you want to transfer, and you click the Transfer button. You’re asked where you want to save said files, and then it goes. Simple, to the point, no annoying setup times.

UPDATE: Apparently it’s not exactly free anymore, which is a damned shame. Still, if you only need to use it once (like I did) the trial will do you just fine.

Transmission

Not much to say about Transmission: it’s probably the easiest and best torrent program you can use for the Mac. Granted I don’t really download things often, especially on my Mac, but when I do have to Transmission makes it as simple as possible.

It’s got a clean interface (the most recent upgrade has improved it even more-so). If you’re in the habit of downloading legitimate, non-illegal files using torrents, Transmission is the way to go.

See what I did there?

VirtualBox

I heart VirtualBox. I don’t even need to run it all that often, but I still love it. As I use a Mac, it is generally thought that I cannot run any Windows applications because Microsoft and Mac don’t play well together. Well with the new Mac software, you can do a dual-boot into Windows. This is all well and good, but most people don’t want to have to reboot their computer in order to run Windows.

This has lead to programs such as Parallels, Coherence, and Fusion. The issue with all of these solutions is that they cost money. I’ll admit that they all work well and are probably worth every penny. I, however, prefer not spending money when possible. This of course has lead me to VirtualBox.

VirtualBox works by creating a sandbox environment for your new operating system. It’s sort of like picture in picture, with your Windows (or Ubuntu, or whatever) build running in a window. What really makes VirtualBox shine is that a) you can full-screen the environment making you “feel” like your in windows, b) you can make network drives to folders in your Mac (allowing you to share files between builds), and c) you can customize the beejeezus out of your box. How much RAM you want, what ports are enabled, localization, everything.

If you’re looking for a way to run your install of Windows on a Mac, and don’t have any more money because you spent it all on your install of Windows, then make sure to check out VirtualBox.

Conclusion

So there you have it, a collection of programs I use on my Mac, and I’ve only paid for one of them. I think that’s a pretty good track record if I do say so myself. I hope that my quest to not spend money for programs will assist you, the reader, in doing much the same.

If you have anything to add to my list, feel free to comment them in this post.

Regardless, since using Dropbox I can only say that it does everything perfectly. If ever you could have a backup system for the lazy, the inexperienced, or the uninterested this would be it. I know that casts an odd light on Dropbox, but trust me when I say that it is probably the single most impressive piece of software/service that I have ever installed. I’ve commented on using Dropbox before, but now I’m going to get into it with more detail.

So what is Dropbox?

Though their website explains it well enough, the jist is this: Anything in your Dropbox is automatically synced with any computers attached to that account, as well as the Dropbox web server. That’s a lot of things that are awesome all in one sentence, so I’ll try and explain in greater detail.

First, most back-up devices require you, the user, to do something; click a button, tell the system to sync, commit your files, etc.. Sometimes you have chron jobs set up to do these things for you. The joy about Dropbox is that it’s all automatic. Even better is that it’s silent about it. If you add a file, it just tries to sync to the server. If your computer isn’t connected to the Internet, it just sits there patiently. No error messages, no dialogues, no chicken-with-head-chopped-off reactions from the program. This is fantastic.

When you are connected, and you add or remove files, it silently updates your computer and the server, and when it’s finished, it will tell you what has changed. It silently ques files to upload or download and just goes to town. No confirm or allows required.

Second, you can sync as many computers as you want to the same account. This means that personally, my laptop and my desktop have all of the same files within their Dropboxes. This allows me to share files between them even when I’m not on the network. This also means that if anything explodes, I’ve got at least one backup. The kicker is that my files are also stored on the Dropbox server, so if both of my computers die, I’ve still got the ability to recover anything that was in my Dropbox.

This as an added bonus. I have a niece, and she’s recently started in ballet. My mother is gaga over the little’un, but as she is currently in Alberta and we in Ontario, viewing is a limited practice. MSNs Sharing Folder decided to stop syncing. This is something that happens between specific users, and I have no idea why. In any case, I opted to get around it by creating a Dropbox account for my brother and my mother and linked their computers together. They can now share files hassle-free. Brilliant

Third, they’ve got a solid online management system. You can view a history of files you have changed, as well as that copy of the file. This is an impressive step on their part. Basically if you over-write or delete something, you can actually go and recover the file. You can set permissions on files to allow public linking, download entire folders as zip files, and even view what computers are attached to your account.

Fourth, it’s free. Well alright, you get two gigs of server space free, and if that’s not enough, you can upgrade to 50 gigs for 100 dollars a year (or 9.99 a month, if that’s what you’re looking for). This simply blows my mind, and I know that when I really get into designing and freelancing, this could very well be the best 100 dollars I could spend on my business.

Fifth, it acts like a normal folder. Add files to the folder, delete some, create sub-folders, whatever you want. Dropbox will replicate the structure and files on the server and any of the computers sync’ed to the account. No fancy interface to learn, no special keyboard commands to learn; it lets the operating system do all of the UI work for structure management.

Lastly, it’s unreasonably easy to install. You can either get Dropbox running in basically two ways:

First way

1. Go to www.getdropbox.com.
2. Make an account.
3. Download and run Dropbox.
4. When asked if you have an account, say yes.
5. Fill out account info.
6. Finish.

Second way

1. Go to www.getdropbox.com.
2. Download and run Dropbox.
3. When asked if you have an account, say no.
4. Fill out account creation form.
5. Finish.

That’s it. That’s everything you need to do to have Dropbox up and running. It honestly puts WordPress’ famous “Five-minute install” to shame. If you have a fast connection and quick fingers, you can have Dropbox running in about 2 minutes. That is an impressive engineering feat.

So what if you want to add another computer to your account?

1. On new computer, go to Go to www.getdropbox.com.
2. Download and run Dropbox.
3. When asked if you have an account, say yes.
4. Fill out account info.
5. Finish.

Now I think there could be a confirmation requirement on the web interface, but I honestly cannot remember. I don’t think so, but I’ve been wrong before.

Additional perks

So I’ve talked about Dropbox and what it can do from a main feature stand-point, but what about those who are more technologically inclined? What is there in Dropbox that really makes it a solid program technically?

Well first off, you can specify where you want your Dropbox. By default it picks a location (Users/coreydutson/Dropbox on the ol’ Mac) but if you want to store it somewhere else, you are more than welcome to.

Using one set of credentials, you can attach multiple computers. This means that you only need to remember one user name and password for all of the computers attached. Though I admit that I haven’t found a way to attach to multiple Dropboxes (probably avoided purposely to negate free account abuse), and this could be considered a limitation, you must remember that it was made to be simple. This means that some consessions had to be made.

You can set Dropbox to use Growl, if you’re on a Mac and that’s what you’re into. You can also set maximum upload and download rates to help stop Dropbox from slowing your connection down. You can even have proxy information for those that need it.

So what?

Well for me, this is my only means of backup at the moment. This may horrify some people, but remember that should my hard drive fail, I can always replace it and re-install. There isn’t very much on this computer that I couldn’t get again. Everything stored in my Dropbox are files that I cannot replicate; namely all of my school work, resume information, and some freelance work I’ve done.

I can rest easy knowing that should my computers die at any time, I can still access all of my schoolwork upto this point. This is something that any student can appreciate. Those who work with a lot of important documents (layout PSDs come to mind) can probably share a horror story about losing a HDD or over-writing a file and being utterly S.O.L.. I’ve been there myself, and I now operate under the “once bitten, twice shy” method of job/school security.

In Summary

If you need a way to back up files safely, easily, and hastle-free Dropbox is for you. I cannot recommend it enough. I’m going to mention it to my Professors at school, and who knows, it may become standard practice for students. It’s totally worth the 2 minutes to get up and runnin.

Get Dropbox.

The irony in that statement will become apparent as you continue to read. It blows my mind how much effort and extra money all of this cost me.

Also it should be mentioned that the span of all of the following events took place over a week and a bit, because I was only at my home for about two days over the entire time-line.

Alright so where to begin? I’ve always sort of wanted an XBox 360, which would come to a shock to a younger version of me. I was always a huge fan of the PlayStation. Sadly since the PS3 has nothing on it that interests me, my loyalties have changed. That and I don’t think Blu-ray is doing very well, so I don’t need a player for them at the moment.

The issue with wanting one and owning one were two-fold. First there was the issue of my T.V. being almost comically small. I’ve had it since I was 13, and bought it with my very own paper route money. It’s colour, mono sound, has no AV jack ports, and I lost the remote so long ago that it’s nothing but a myth. The second issue is that in order to get a decent XBox, I’d be looking to drop anywhere from 350-500 dollars.

As I have a shortage of funds, these two points were a little more daunting than I would like to admit. I told myself that when I could afford a nice T.V. and an XBox, it would be one of those “for me” purchases and left it at that. Then my parents decided to buy a fancy new T.V., and I was given the older one from the family room. Now it’s nothing amazing, but it has two AV jack ports, stereo sound, and a remote (mind you, the 3 doesn’t work well on it). So I now had a T.V. that would service my needs. The XBox costing too much still put me off the purchase though.

So then Boxing Day comes around, and lo and behold I can get an XBox 360 with four games – Kung-fu Panda, LEGO Indiana  Jones, Halo 3, and Stranglehold -, and a 60 gig hard drive for 260 dollars. that’s roughly 130 dollars cheaper then usual, not even factoring the cost of the free games which average around 45 dollars each. Put it together and I could save 310~ dollars. This is not something I could pass up.

This is where things start to slowly go down-hill.

Day 1 (Friday)

So the flier says that Future Shop opens at 6 a.m. I make the decision to line up at 3 a.m. because they only had 20 or so of these deals. This may sound insane, but trust me when I say that there were people who were lined up there as of 12:30 that morning. The kicker is that due to some insane bylaw in Brantford, Future Shop could only open at 9 a.m.. For those unwilling to do the math, that’s an extra three hours of standing in the cold, hating myself. Thankfully I had a chair and my sleeping bag, so I was alright for the most part. Waiting around for 6 hours was… less fun.

In the end I got my XBox 360, brought it home, and only then did I realize that it is the only NextGen console that does not have built in wireless. Why? I have no actual idea, though “cash gouging” comes to mind. “No worries,” I thought, “I’ll just pick one up while we’re out! How expensive can they be?”

Day 4 (Monday)

100 dollars, as it turns out. Which is, of course, insane. “There must be a way around this!” I proclaimed. I went to the all-knowing Google and started looking around.

There is apparently a way to rig up your XBox 360 into your computer using Internet Connection Sharing. After following 3 of these tutorials, failing, and nearly killing my computer and network to boot, I decided to try a different approach.Well not totally true, I fished out my old laptop, and tried doing the same through that, but it was even less successful; something I didn’t even think was possible.

This whole thing took roughly four hours of my life away.

Day 7 (Thursday)

“I should be able to use a router as an access point, hook into the wireless network that already exists, and then connect the XBox to the router via Ethernet!” This is possible, as it turns out, only if you have the correct routers. D-Link, which was up until this experience my router of choice, does not actually allow this quite the way I want.

What I want:

• Router A is connected to the modem, and broadcasts the wireless network.
• Router B acts as a repeater; that is to say that it connects to the Wireless network from Router A wireless-ly (this is an important distinction) and acts as an additional hub, and/or repeats the signal from Router A.
• Things can then connect to Router B and they will attach themselves to the network, which makes my XBox go live.
• Alternately, allow my XBox to use Router B as an antennae, allowing it to connect to the Wireless signal broadcast by Router A.

What my D-Links can actually do:

• Router A is connected to the modem, and broadcasts the wireless network.
• Router B can connect to Router A with an Ethernet cable, and then act as a broadcast anchor.
• Things can then connect to Router B, and it directs the traffic back to Router A.

Since I cannot run a cable through my house, this effectively screwed me. Of course I only found this out after buying the router, trying, failing, and then finding the manual online (doesn’t come with one!). This took another couple hours of my life away. The router is of course non-refundable. The upswing to this is that when I move out, I have a router. Fantastic. For now though, it sits in my closet, mocking me.

“I know I’ve seen this done though! My friend has this exact setup!” I screamed, bordering upon hysterics at this point. It turns out that the only router that can do this the way I want is a Linksys router, which of course is what he has. This will teach me to leap before I look.

Day 10 (Sunday)

11:45 A.M.

At this point I snap. “Fine! Fuck all of this, I’ll just spend the 100 dollars and get the stupid adapter for the stupid XBox so I can finally get online!”

Totally defeated, I got into my car and drove down to the closest EB Games to pick up an outrageously over-priced Wireless Adapter. I decided against going to the Brantford Future Shop, which is about the same distance as EB Games (in the opposite direction, basically), because they specialize in video games and so the funding should go their way.

12:10 P.M.

EB Games is closed. Not a “back in 5 minutes” closed. This was a “Shutters are down” sort of closed. a Closed closed. No hours of operation in sight.

“Fuck you EB Games, I’ll just go to Wal-Mart” I proclaim as I dive back into my car.

12:18 P.M.

Wal-Mart carries every other XBox accessory, including Viva Pinata face plates, but no Wireless Adapter. It’s literally the only thing they don’t carry. There isn’t even a peg for it. Asking the mouthbreather working the electronics section says “if it’s not there, we don’t have it… I guess.” I hate Wal-Mart.

“Alright, fine. I’ll go to Microplay! They are a trustworthy store that can fulfill my request” I say, my knuckles going white from gripping my cars steering wheel too tightly.

12:29 P.M.

I enter the Microplay and wait until my general anger and distaste for the universe decidedly stops their conversation, and they graciously ask me if there’s something I am looking for. I scan the wall and do not see any wireless adapters. I figure they probably have some in the back, and so I ask.

Both employees look at the wall, then above their heads at the additional storage area and mutter to one another like some sort of synchronized pantomime of ignorance. My forced smile fades as I already know the response: “We’re sold out, I guess” says the less clean of the two. I’m already starting to move towards the door by the time they say this. I thank them and exit, my rage slowly starting to get the better of me.

“Fine. I will go to the Future Shop. The Future Shop I could have gone to in the first place.” This was then followed by a collection of curses, the details of which escape me. Suffice it to say, it was both colourful and creative.

12:45 P.M.

I arrive at Future Shop, park, and stride in. The greeter shies away from me, probably tasting the rage that pre and proceeds me. I walk into the XBox 360 section, and find three wireless adapters left. With 10 dollars off, no less. Lucky me, I guess. I spent about that much money in gas, so it basically evened out.

As I go to pay for the adapter, the check-out girl wishes me a good day with a smile, and I restrain myself from putting a hole in the wall. Thankfully my rage is slowly, slowly ebbing away.

1:05 P.M.

I plug in the Wireless Adapter, turn the XBox on, test the connection, and I’m up and running. The connection is horrid due to my dressers apparent lead physiology. This forces me to re-arrange my entire shelf to allow the XBox to reside on the top with the T.V.

1:20 P.M.

Connect to XBox live, download the OS update, and spend a good 10 minutes online trying to come up with a Gamertag that actually isn’t taken. This is harder than it seems. XBox Live asks me if I want to be a Gold member. To have this privilege (which expires every year) will cost me an additional 60 dollars a year. “Fine, fuck it, whatever,” I mutter as I attempt to explode someones head at the XBox headquarters via transferred telekinesis. I sign my life away and eventually the system is up.

1:40 P.M.

I decide to download Castle Crashers, a game that I love dearly, only to find that I must add Microsoft Points in order to purchase it. 30 dollars for 2000 points (that’s roughly 1.5 cents per point. Not a good exchange rate) later, I drop 1200 to own the game.

In the end…

So lets see: almost two weeks to get the Xbox live, and it cost me 240 dollars to get to that point. How? well 90 for the wireless adapter, 50 for the useless router, 60 for the online membership, 30 more for the points, and 10 for gas.

Good thing I got 130 off the Xbox eh? I would have been totally screwed there!

In the end, I’m glad it is up and running, but the shitstorm that I went through to get to this point almost made me murder someone.

Oh and in case anyone wants to friend me on XBox Live, my gamertag is “Jack Dutson”

Don’t ask, it’s a sort of inside joke with Theresa. She appreciated it.

They won’t let me leave

well that’s not entirely true…

They are making it impressively inconvenient for me leave

Brilliant strategy of you’ve got someone by the credit card, but it’s a horrible move. Try to follow my logic on this one, and feel free to comment on whether I’m an invalid or not.

When I signed up, I wasn’t pressured

They showed me around, answered all my questions, and then told me I could come back anytime if I was interested in signing up. I ended up signing up that day, as I liked what I saw and liked the staff. It far surpassed any of the other gyms I had looked at, and I was happy to join with them.

I signed some papers, wrote off my soul, etc. etc.. Everything was par for the course.

I used the facilities, and I liked them

Things were clean and maintained. The patrons were nice, followed the rules, and generally got along. I never had a complaint, though I did overhear one of a lady being upset that another lady was wearing a belly top of sorts (this was against the dress code.)

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they had a respectable dress code. No scantily clad women or men. This was a place for working out, not gawking.

I got lazy, and stopped going

Yup, all me. I got lazy, fell out of practice, and eventually stopped going. I was still paying for the gym though, despite my never going. That’s no ones fault but my own. I was under a contract with them and I had to wait a while before I could quit.

I finally got around to quitting, or so I thought

I walked into the gym that faithful day, and told them that I wanted to cancel my membership. “No problem,” said the helpful desk girl, “Just mail this paper with your email on it to the head office. They will then send you an email confirmation and you can cancel.”

Wait, what? Mail? You mean that thing with the paper and the stamps and the envelopes? That thing you do with Santa? Seriously?

Seriously.

Well, that’s ridiculous. I’m sure I can just go online or something to do this. They had a way to sign up for an account, so there should be a way to cancel it in the same area right?

Wrong.

This is where things went down hill for me. I created an account (which required a phone call as some of my internal data was missing, causing the validation to fail), and looked around for a ‘Stop Payment’ or ‘Cancel Account’ or something. There was no link to be clicked, no button to be pressed, no email to be sent. The only way to cancel your account was to mail in a paper, which you could print from the website, to their home office on California.

What’s wrong with this picture?

They did such a good job of nabbing me, of keeping me happy and content, of making sure my opinion of them was that of ‘sunshine from the butt’ proportions. Why would they drop me on my ass when I want to leave? Now all the good things they did for me are forgotten, and all I can say is what a bitch it is to cancel my membership.

Lesson: don’t burn bridges

They have, whether intentionally or not, burned a bridge with me. Not only do I want to cancel my account with them (I’m working on it, I promise) but now I want to tell everyone about how much of an ordeal it is to cancel said account. I’m not going to say how wonderful their places are, or how considerate their staff may be; I’m going to remember the freshest experience first: dropped on my ass.

If you’re going to try and screw people out of money, fine. I can’t stop you, because that’s just how a lot of businesses operate and I’m not one to comment on that. I’ll leave the business commentary to those who know what they’re talking about. What I’m trying to get across is a simple usability exercise: If you make everything from start to finish as simple and easy as possible, that’s what I will tell people.

Had the gym made it simple to cancel my account, they may have lost out on my 40 dollars a month. They would have also gained a person who would spout out their greatness to anyone willing to listen. I liked that gym, but I will no longer recommend them for this reason.

To summarize: Be nice from start to finish. Even when people are leaving you, wave them goodbye, don’t slam the door on their ass on the way out. Those people have mouths.

Bonus Lesson: Have a point of contact

If you visit their website, you’ll find that the only way to contact them is via a non-800 phone number, within set hours. No email, no contact form. What’s the point of a website with online user registration, when you can’t even email the company?

All that aside, I think I’m going to enjoy my two years at Mohawk. They’ve already done a far better job making me like them than Conestoga ever did. We’ll see how I feel y the end of the two years, but if they keep this up I’ll be a happy camper.

To segue into something totally unrelated I’m rocking the Avenue Q soundtrack pretty hard right now. If people have a chance to see this in theaters, please for the love of all that is sacred and pure, do so. It’s so god-damned fantastic that words fail to articulate how amazing the show is. Full of rough humor, puppets, and topics that land impressively close to home, it’s worth every penny. Listen to it.

SUBJECT CHANGE.

I’ve been doing some small changes around the website, if anyone has noticed. One change I’ve made is that my suggested reading is now being powered by Goodreads. I’ve made a shelf for my favorites on Goodreads and by parsing the RSS feed (thank you WordPress) I’ve got my newest 10 constantly updating from the list. Saves me repeating effort, and ups my 2.0 web ePenis a notch.

I’ve also made the colour switcher a bit more obvious. The for squares in the top left corner of the layout actually do more than just look damned pretty. They actually change the colour scheme of the website. Apparently I’m the only person that actually knew this. I was sort of happy to have it be an easter egg for the site, but after some consideration I’ve opted to make it more obvious so someone other than me can enjoy it as well.

Feel free to click them at random. They are cookie-enabled so if you’re rocking cookies in your browser(s) my site will remember the preference and keep your color preference. It’s somewhat pointless, but there it is.

I’ve also got my resumé page up and running if anyone wants to take a look at that. Much like my current layout, it is a completely grid-designed, and I went for maximum contrast so there’s very little in terms of colours.

To end off this utterly random post, I’ll mention that today I bought a Wacom Bamboo. It’s pretty and black and I’m a fan of having a mouse and a pen to choose from. Having said that, I feel like such a stereotype by buying it and being in a Graphic Design program. It’s just so typical; all i need now is some black-rimmed glasses and a wicked designer beard.

It took me way too long to write this. I’m getting rather distracted tonight. Honestly, this took me hours. There’s no excuse for that. Well not a valid one.

Corey signing out.

“Take her home!
She’s wasted!
YAY!”

The Bad Idea Bears – Avenue Q

Pros

• Fairly large library to choose from.
• Making playlists is easy.
• Music player is on every page, either featuring music, or displaying yours.
• Adding Songs to a play list is all inline, and doesn’t require any sort of popup or extended form. Search, Add, Select profile, OK. That’s all
• Built in profile, preferences, user base, messaging, other web 2.0 stuffs.
• Available in a snot-load of languages (with a few spelling hiccups)
• Player is somewhat robust, sporting repeat, shuffle, pause and preview options.
• Ability to upload your own MP3s, which are stored privately for you only. Part of this scares me, as cool as an idea that it is.

Cons

• Some of the worst UI decisions I’ve ever seen, some very unintuitive locations.
• Some rather funny spelling mistakes
• Everything is in flash.
• Some of the most annoying ads that actually break the page and stop it from loading until you close it. Go to hell milk ads.
• Community aspect sorta sucks, as there’s no real way to get people interacting. All users must be found via search, which makes it hard to get participation up.
• Weird lack of rather common songs.
• I’ve manged to totally bugger up their player by clicking to fast.

last.fm

Pros

• Clean, simple interface
• Downloadable program to stream music from program instead of browser. Program also relays what you play in programs such as iTunes, and saves your tastes.
• Wide and diverse musical library
• Great user interaction. Friend listening lists etc. Good community aspect.
• swappable theme (stupid, pointless, and sweet)
• Excluding the music player, everything is HTML (not Flash)
• The player will slowly introduce new music/bands/artists that are similar to your choices, allowing you to be exposed to more artists.

Cons

• Distinct lack of common songs
• The program doesn’t allow for the picking if individual songs, nor does the browser player
• Adding songs to your library feels like a chore, and has a few too many clicks.
• Creating playlists is way more buried than I would have expected.
• Their new layout feels a little TOO minimal to me, and I feel a little lost when trying to get around. The dropdown list beside your name is not what I would expect for navigation.
• Player doesn’t have a pause. What the hell.

Which would I choose?

It actually depends.

If I’m in the mood for a type of music, then last.fm wins hands down. If I want specific songs, then Deezer is actualy more of a playlist-oriented system. Last.fm has a much stronger community function-base, which is great if you’re looking to connect with other people over music. Deezer, though it features community fetaures, it’s not nearly as stong as last.fm. It’s playlist pick and choose style is fantastic if you want to simply listen to your favorites (if they’re there). Deezer allows you to store your MP3 onlines, making it’s playlist features that much stronger.

Moods, friends, factoids: last.fm

Songs, playlists, storage: Deezer

Not at all.

For those who bother keeping up with my site, you will have noticed that I’ve recently been accepted to school for graphic design. Now I never actually saw any requirement for purchasing a laptop, and I prayed that I had dodged that financial bullet. Turns out that I did no such thing, as I was alerted via letter that I would have to purchase a MacBook for the course.

I was … unimpressed to say the least. Not only did I not know I had to purchase one (which would have affected my saving plans just a touch… roughly 1400 dollars), but I was being told that I had to get a device that I have little knowledge of or about. This does not make me a happy camper.

The start of it all

I bit the bullet and bought the standard MacBook (which I notice they’ve “cheapened” since my purchase. Had I waited I would have saved roughly 60 bucks. Woo.) I didn’t get any bells and whistles, as I figured I’d get them as I needed them. I placed my order, felt my wallet give a death shudder, and felt rather dirty. Please note that this was on a Saturday. It’s important to the story. It told me that my new MacBook would be shipping within the next 8 days (free shipping! YAY!) and I could expect it 8 days after that. Fair enough, I thought.

So Monday morning rolls around and I get an email saying that my Mac has been shipped. “Wow!” I thought, “that was fast.” Alright I’ll get it next week, which will give me loads of time to get used to the bastard. Tuesday after work, my mother hands me a letter saying that Purolator had come and missed me. “That can’t be my MacBook. It’s only been a couple days!” Wednesday morning I woke up early, swung by Purolator, and picked up my mystery package.

It was my MacBook. My order went from 16 days down to 3 days (4 if you include me getting it the next day). I have to admit that turn-around time like that is nothing short of herculean. My mind was blown, and I figured that Apple was working extra hard to try and convert me.

So what do I think of my new computer-turned-art?

It’s pretty.

From the second I opened it, to my current use of it (this blogpost has been entirely done via the new Book, as a bit of training for me) the whole thing has just been so damned pretty. no, not pretty; sexy. Sexy like that 23 year old teacher with the low cut tops. Sexy like the rich guys car down the street that he bought to make up for his useless penis. Sexy like those dreams that you don’t tell anyone about while you’re washing your sheets at 3 in the morning. That sort of sexy.

Everything works pretty much the way you expect it to.

It took me five minutes to get it all setup and started, which is something that the PC user in me geeked out over. The wireless setup was simple, and within moments I was up and running. Programs run smoothly, and I’ve yet to experience any crashes or oddities. All the weirdness is reserved for the input devices.

New buttons ahoy! Fuck you normal other buttons!

Where the hell is my Home key? How about my End key? Paging? nope, not there. Oh wait it’s all multi-key combos now? Excuse me while I blow my brains out. Why the hell would you remove common keys like that? Stupid users (like me) are used to them on their keyboards! I’m still getting used to using the function, alt, control, and option keys to do different things.

Now to rag on the mouse.

Whether it’s mighty or not, the mouse for the mac makes me want to kick puppies while flipping off an old lady all while stealing money from a blind beggars money can. The fact that I have to use the mouse in conjunction with the keyboard angers me so very, very much.

I’m a lazy person, I shouldn’t have to plug in a third party mouse that has a left, right, and middle clickwheel just to get what has become standard functionality. Even with the improved “two-finger” options built into the touch pad, I still find myself having to jump between the two inputs. This is not what I call simple, nor sexy. This failing sits in the “granny-panty” section of the sex market.

Built in programs are … cute but useless

iCal: sucks. TextEdit: Weak. Mail: Sucks, Front Row: totally useless. Preview: Waste of time. The list goes on. Don’t get me wrong, I like that there are basic versions of commonly used things… but there is such a thing as too basic. I ended up having to get more robust programs to handle everything. Not a bad thing, but somewhat annoying.

The battery lasts for-fucking-ever

Seriously now. When a battery can clear the 4 hour mark while playing music? That’s just impressive.

Overall I think I like it, though I’ll reserve my comments for until after I’ve had to do some serious work with it. I’m sure I’ll swear at it as much as I swear at PCs.

• Read Everything
• Grains of Salt are Heavy. And Salty.
• Hear Typeface, and Read Audiocasts
• Keeping an Open Mind is the Key to [insert something prophetic here]
• My personal Stash

Read Everything

This has been my life for the last several months. I’ve read more design articles then I can honestly count at this point, and I’ve only just begun. I’ve started subscribing to Podcasts so that while I’m at work I can listen to them. Yes, I can listen to Podcasts and work because I’m just that good (not actually that good). My Google Reader is growing, my participation in social networks is slowly expanding, I’m starting to look beyond what’s cool to try and understand the why behind it. This is progress, and this is what I want to share today.

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Grains of Salt are Heavy. And Salty.

In part one I talked about reading everything with an open mind and with an understanding that the authors of the articles you’ll read probably know more than you. After five months I still feel that way, and I’m glad for it. It proves that I know nothing in comparison to those living and breathing the field. Does that mean I’m stupid? No, at least I don’t think so. What it means is that there are people out there better than me, simple as that. It’s only a bad thing if you turn your nose up at them and decide not to learn from them.

A trend I have noticed amongst the Web, which is one I’ve noticed starting to bleed into real life, is the idea of collaboration; sharing information, tips, helpful tidbits, resources, etc. Instead of clinging to intellectual property and waving a searing iron of distrust at others, people are actually sharing their ideas. Though many business people will cringe at the idea, that’s the way things are headed and there’s nothing to be done about it. What does that mean for those deciding to learn? You are now being presented with a plethora of free information that is actually useful. To ignore this information (willingly or unwittingly) is an outright sin.

The problem with this flood of information is the fact that anyone and everyone (myself included) is writing it! All information is suspect at this point. Unless what you’re reading is coming from a known expert, you can never be sure if the article you are reading is legit. This is where the grain(s) of salt comes in. I implore you to read as much as you can about as many facets of design as possible, because information is power. I also implore you to take everything with a grain of salt. If you find something suspect or interesting: look it up, and find more on the subject. You can clear things up pretty quickly with one or two Google searches.

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Hear Typeface, and Read Audiocasts

Expand your media. I started off reading RSS feeds from random locations. Since then I have actively tried to find affiliates to those blogs to read new aspects on different subjects. I’ve started listening to Podcasts to expand my learning even further. Hell I’ve even watched a video or three about design topics. What I’m saying is that the Internet is full of different mediums, and I’d suggest checking out more then the three design sites you may be subscribed to.

When you do find yourself overwhelmed with your intake of information (everyone suffers from information overload) start to prioritize your inputs. If you know 5 sites, and a podcast always bring you the most consistent, well-formed ideas and articles, make the effort to read and hear and see those first. Don’t forget about the others, but when you only have so many hours in a day, It’s beneficial to yourself to keep your eyes on the prize.

So what happens to those neglected feeds? Read them when you have the time. Don’t let them interfere with your day to day life (some of us have jobs that consume their free time) and you can’t let yourself get side-tracked with a 40 minute podcast that ends up being rambling.

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Keeping an Open Mind is the Key to [insert something prophetic here]

I couldn’t think of a cool way to end the header, but the first part is golden. Keep an open mind about what you read. You will, in your travels, come across people who you disagree with. Maybe you have sound reason behind it, maybe you just don’t like the look of their display picture. Try and stay objective about it all.

If you disagree with something, figure out what it is you disagree with, and read up on it. It could be that the article is right on the money and it’s your perception that’s incorrect. The article could also be a total crock, in which case you were right to double-check things. If you feel strongly enough about the topic, I invite you to open discussion with the article writer(s) (if possible) and debate on the subject. Remember not to make personal attacks during these debates, because that just runs a good conversation/opportunity to learn right into the ground.

What I’m getting at here is that you shouldn’t shoot ideas down for pretty much any reason. Even the really, really silly-sounding ones should at least be discussed. Remember that people don’t always talk completely out of their ass. Sometimes, but not always. Discussions and debates allow for an expansion on the topic(s) at hand and everyone – or at the very least you – can walk away with even more knowledge then you would have had by simply reading the original post.

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My personal Stash

And I’m ending this article off with a list of every website I subscribe to, participate in, or otherwise know about. I assume that many of these will be common knowledge, but I hope that someone out there will be able to use at least one of these. Without further ado, the list:

Note: For the record these are not in order of preference.

• A List Apart
• Andy Rutledge: Design View
• Boagworld Web Design Podcast
• Design By Grid
• Digital Photography School
• Firetuts
• Hell Yeah Dude
• i love typography
• ideasonideas
• jQuery Blog
• markboulton.co.uk – Journal
• NETTUTS
• PSDTUTS
• Smashing Magazine
• Subtraction
• The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web
• The GoMediaZine
• TNTpixel
• Tutorial Dog
• Web Design Blog
• Young Go Getter

As for sites that I’m a part of, I’d like to state that though I am a member of some of these, I am not using them to their full potential. I’m working on it.

• Mixx
• Digg
• Design Float
• Chawlk
• 9rules
• design:related
• Behance Network

I would actually love anyone and everyone willing to contribute to comment on this post with their favorite Feeds, Blogs, Social sites, and/or other resources that you use to gain insight into the world of design.

This is the seventh and final part in an ongoing series of articles that depicts my process to becoming a graphic designer. I hope that anyone who followed along with this series can come away with something from it. I thank you for taking the time to read the ramblings of someone who happens to love design, despite having the official documentation to back it up.

Have fun, and keep learning.

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• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Part Five
• Part Six
• Part Seven (Currently Reading)