Four days with my Macbook Air

I picked up my new Macbook Air on Friday afternoon.  Now, Tuesday morning, it is almost ready for my trip to Portland tomorrow morning.  I will be gone until Monday.  It will be a great chance to see how it goes.  The technology is life changing.  The new track pad is incredible.  No more reaching for the scroll bar to scroll a page; just drag on the touch pad with two fingers.  A two finger tap is a right click.  It is incredibly fast and intuitive, just like a Mac should be. 

Here are the programs that I have installed so far.

• Mozilla Firefox
• FileZilla (client)
• Chicken of the VNC (client)
• Skype
• Grandperspective
• vlc
• Evernote
• Office 2008
• Ruby on Rails per instructions at http://developer.apple.com/tools/developonrailsleopard.html
• Stuffit Expander
• Thunderbird
• iWorks
• Growl

I guess I will be adding VMware so I can run Microsoft Money and any other Windows app that I might still need.

I am also trying to set things up so that I can get back to my regular PC from the network.  That will give me access to the data and apps on it.

What a joy this has been to work on.  It may make me a fully Mac person sooner than I thought.

Enso Launcher - Useful+

Back on May 8th I wrote about Enso Launcher.  In that post I said that I needed to think about it some more before installing.  Well, I decided to go for it.  I now use it as the primary way that I open application.  I press Caps Lock and type "Open" and enough of the program name to identify it.  I have it set so I then press Enter.  It is designed to use the Caps Lock key like a shift key, and process the request when you release the Caps Lock key, but I can type faster if I don't have to hold down a key while typing.  With this process I can quickly launch any program from the keyboard.  There are other ways that Enso products can be used, but this is what I am doing with it now.  And I like it a lot.

http://humanized.com/enso/

WorkRave - Break manager

I was listening to Marcus Buckingham's book "The One Thing You Need to Know" while driving back from a meeting on Friday.  It reminded me that the human mind needs breaks in order to allow us to recover from our efforts.  I tend to sit down at the computer at work and, sometimes, only get up every three hours to go to the restroom.  That is not good for me or the quality of my work.

There is a free program, WorkRave, that times how long you have been working at your computer and inserts a micro break or a rest break.  You control how often they appear.  You control how long they last.  You control whether you can have a "snooze bar" and delay the break.  During the breaks, WorkRave displays some exercises that you can do to loosen up your muscles.  Buckingham suggests getting up and going for a walk.  Either way, it is a good idea to take breaks regularly.

I have placed WorkRave back into my Startup folder so it will run automatically on my machine again.  I don't remember why I removed it.  I don't think it was because it crashed the system or anything.  I would guess it was because I got sick of it telling me to take breaks.  I promise to be nicer to it now.

http://www.workrave.org/

Lookeen - Finding a receipt in a haystack

I have used the Lookeen add-on for Outlook for less than a week, but it has already paid for itself.  Lookeen indexes my Outlook mailboxes.  I have around 250,000 items in Outlook, including the offline archives that I create from each year's messages, going back to 1998.  I try to be organized, but sometimes I just cannot find the message I am looking for.

Yesterday I had to document my purchasing card statement.  This is a monthly task that I dread.  Most things that I purchase are done over the Internet, so the receipts are somewhere in my e-mail.  I create a special folder for the receipts, but sometimes I put them in other places or I don't get around to moving them at all, so I can't always find them.

This month I used Lookeen.  I worked down the list of purchases and searched for the company name for each purchase.  It took about 5-8 seconds to come up with the list of matching messages.  Since I had the date of the purchase on the statement, it was trivial to locate the receipt and print it out.  Each search took the same amount of time, because Lookeen looked in ALL of my mail files.  So I knew it wouldn't miss the message I was looking for.  The entire task took less than 30 minutes, and this was a month where I had purchased a lot of items.

I like being able to locate old e-mail messages quickly. I am often get computer questions from the faculty here at the University of Miami.  If I have gotten the same or a similar questions in the past, I want to be able to quickly find that answer and use it as the start of the new response.  Or I am dealing with a vendor and I want to find all the e-mail messages that we have exchanged.  Quickly accessing old messages makes me more productive.  Lookeen looks like a great solution to me. 

It took a day and a night to index the 250,000 items the first time.  Now it only takes about 7 to 8 minutes to update the index every four hours.  Other than the disk activity, I don't notice that it is happening.  If It slowed the computer down, I could lower the priority of Lookeen so that it took longer to index but had less effect on my CPU.  This is a well designed product that is worth the $40 price, at least for me.  So next month when I document my purchasing card statement, I will use Lookeen to find the Lookeen receipt.  How nice.

http://www.lookeen.net/

Remember the Milk - A "to do" list keeper

I have been using www.tadalist.com for my To Do lists.  Over the weekend I started using www.RememberTheMilk.com and I really like it. 

• I can assign priorities and due dates independently. 
• I can have as many lists as I want so I can separate work, personal, LMSPodcast, and others as needed. 
• I can add tags that indicate where the work will take place, such as www, computer, phone, and home. 

It looks like a very easy system for applying the "Getting Things Done" (GTD) system of time/project management.  And it even has a special interface for access from my iPhone, that is quick to load and lets me access my lists from anywhere.

Bye, bye, TaDaList.  Hello, RememberTheMilk.

http://www.rememberthemilk.com

Podcast processing for LMSPodcast.com

I have a little podcast where I interview people who use the Blackboard course management system, or some other learning management system (LMS). This is the process that I use to create and produce the final mp3 file. (This is an example of me creating instructions so I will be able to repeat this process in the future, not necessarily for other people to use. But if it helps you, go for it.)

1. I conduct the interview on Skype. I have "Skype Out" so I can call people on regular telephone lines. There is a yearly fee that I pay to have Skype Out capabilities. It wasn't much. Skype is on my Mac Mini. Skype will also run on a PC, but I like having a computer dedicated to making the recordings, so I don't run into any network issues with other programs.

2. I record the interview with Call Recorder. It cost something, I don't remember what, but not very much. It makes a great recording of both sides of the Skype conversation.

3. I separate the two sides of the conversation by running the MOV file, produced by Call Recorder, through the "Split Movie Tracks" application. This is one of the "Movie Tools" provided with Call Recorder.

4. I convert the MOV files to MP3 files by running them through the "Convert to MP3" application. This is another of the "Movie Tools" provided with Call Recorder.

At this point I have two files, one for each side of the conversation.

5. I load the files into Adobe Audition and then drag them each to a separate track. I will work with each file separately, adjusting the compression and dynamics, before combining them into one track.

6. I "Delete Ripple" the beginning and the end of the recording to cut out the extra material before the start and end of the actual interview.

7. I set fx for both channels to perform Dynamics Processing, using my "LMSPodcast" settings. This compresses the audio, raising the quiet parts and lowering the loud parts.

8. I "mixdown" the two channels in order to create a single mono file of the interview.

9. I import the music for the intro and end of the podcast and put it into track 4, positioning it and moving track 3 as needed. In some cases I need to adjust the master volume on track 3 or 4 to get things right.

10. Next I mixdown tracks 3 and 4 into a new track.

11. I export the new track as a WAV file and as an MP3 file.

12. I then use Mp3tag to add the Artist, Year, image, etc. to the file.

That does it. Ready to go.

Enso Launcher & Enso Map Anywhere

With Enso Map Anywhere you can select an address, hold down the Caps Lock key, type "map", and a Google Map of the location will be inserted into your document.  This is one of a number of add-ons to Enso Launcher, which provides the Caps Lock trickery.  There are some amazing capabilities in this system.

I am particularly intrigued with the Enso TeX Anywhere add-on.  It provides the "render tex" and "unrender tex" commands. If you are working in Microsoft Word, you can type in an equation or expression in TeX, and then have it rendered correctly and inserted into Word.  If you need to make changes, you can restore the TeX markup, edit it, and then render it again.  The only requirement is that you need to be on the web to use TeX Anywhere, unlike most of the other add-ons.  This seems like an interesting way of adding power to your computer. 

Even though it is all free, I have not installed it yet.  I need to think about it a bit more before I decide whether to try to integrate this into my computing habits.

http://humanized.com/enso/

Directory Opus by GPSoftware - Another Explorer program

I know I recently installed PowerDesk7.  But Directory Opus looks like a strong contender for a Windows Explorer replacement.  I am checking out the 14 day trial.  Windows Explorer lets you look through the folders on your hard drive.  Directory Opus (as well as PowerDesk7) give you preview capabilities for pictures, allow you to play sound files, perform as an ftp client, look for duplicate files, and synchronize two folders.  The interface seems nicer than PowerDesk7, but I don't seem to be able to configure the ftp client to open my directory on www.miami.edu.  Well, FileZilla is my ftp client of choice, so I can live with that I guess.

http://www.gpsoft.com.au/

SharpKeys - Keyboard mapping made easy

I often hit the Caps Lock key by accident, when I am going for the Shift key. I can't see the problem until the second letter appears in caps.  Since I am touch typing, I usually don't see it until LOTS of letters have been typed in caps.  I remove them, turn off the Caps Lock, and type it again, correctly.

I also sometimes hit the Insert key when I am editing and mean to press Delete or Backspace.  Then I start typing and my typing REPLACES what was there, instead of being inserted.  Quite disconcerting and it takes me a while to figure out what is going on. If only I could turn off those keys.

SharpKeys is a free utility that lets you do that.  You can type any key and then assign it to do any of a large number of things.  I have changed the Caps Lock key to a normal Shift key, turned off any effect from the Insert key, made the End key put my computer to sleep, changed the Page Up and Page Down keys to raise and lower the volume on my computer, and changed the Home key to mute the volume.  You can tell I don't have one of the fancy keyboards with special media keys, right?

This certainly makes your keyboard your own. The only way to change things back is to run the program again and remove the assignments, so I wouldn't do this with a computer that I was sharing with other people.  But to increase your own productivity and reduce keyboard errors, it looks great.

http://www.randyrants.com/sharpkeys/

Lookeen - An Outlook E-mail Search Tool

I keep all my e-mail.  It is my record of the past and I use it often either to remember what happened or to share something with someone new.  If someone asks me a question that I have already answered, I need to get to the previous answer quickly.  With tens of thousands of e-mails going all the way back to 1998, searching can take some time.  Just figuring out which archive or folder to search can be difficult.

For awhile I used X1, a desktop search engine that also indexed my Outlook e-mail messages.  Then it seemed like it was slowing down my computer, after it was purchased by Yahoo.  I tried Google Desktop and was not impressed.  Windows Vista and XP have Windows Search for desktop/e-mail that indexes whatever you tell it.  It can look at titles and content, as well as dates, sizes, and more.  I am using that currently, but I am amazed at how long it takes to look through the index.  X1 was almost instantaneous, with items appears as your typed.  Windows search makes me wait 10 seconds or so while it is searching before showing me the things it has found.  If I ask to see them sorted in another order, say be name, it seems to start all over.  So I continue to search for a better search engine.

Today the PC World Daily Downloads mailing list mentioned Lookeen.  It is free to try for 14 days and then costs $40 if you keep it.  It is just for Outlook, so I am hoping it will be VERY fast.  I am installing it now and will write a report in the next two weeks to announce that I have either removed it or paid for it.  I hope it will be good enough to pay for.

http://www.lookeen.com

Updates

I used Azureus to download the Windows Vista Recovery Disk.  I have burned it to a DVD and will test it tonight, when I reboot my computer.  In order to be in compliance with UM's security policies, I then removed Azureus using Revo Uninstaller.  I am really getting to like the way Revo Uninstaller cleans up junk left in the registry after the uninstall program runs.

I used FileHippo.com's Update Checker to begin updating the 10 programs it shows as having newer versions.  This is a very nice way to keep programs current, even if it doesn't recognize and monitor most of the programs I have on my computer.

Removed Trillian, after trying to update it.  I forgot that the "free" version has requirements.  I used to use trillian to chat on AIM with my family in Pennsylvania and friends in Mississippi.  Now I use Pidgin.  Pidgrin is free and meets my needs.  So I removed Trillian from my system.

Pidgin needed to be updated.  I see that Aspell is part of Pidgin.  I didn't know that.  I had almost uninstalled Aspell a week ago because I could not figure out what it was for.  Now I know.  It provides the spell checking within the Pidgin instant messaging program.

Next update was Notepad++, the program that acts like Notepad, but allows multiple tabs, and color codes HTML and other common programming code.

I needed to update JkDefrag.  I just used this over the weekend to defragment my hard drive.  Nice program.  Glad to get the upgrade.  I set it up to work as my screensaver, defragmenting my disk whenever the system has been idle for 5 minutes.

FileZilla is my ftp program.  I use it to transfer files to other system, such as my web space on www.miami.edu.  I didn't know there was a new version.

CCleaner is a program that I only used once, when I was desparate for space on my computer.  It did a nice job of removing extra files and such.  Updating it now.

It looks like the version of Adobe AIR that I am supposed to update to is older than the version I have installed.  But, what the heck, I don't use it that much anyway.  If I am really downgrading it ought to warn me of the upgrade at some point. Ah, the installer showed me the version currently installed and the the version being installed.  It is really an upgrade.

Final update is Java Runtime 1.6.0.6.  For some reason Java upgrades scare me.  Too many things seem to break when Java is upgraded.  But I am going to risk it and install the new version.

This took me at least 2 hours.  I wonder how often I should be doing this?  How much time do I lose because I use a computer?  How does it compare to the time saved?

Azureus - INSTALLED

I need to download an iso image of a Windows Vista Recovery Disk.  The DVD iso image is avaialble via BitTorrent.  UM has a policy against running BitTorrent on the administrative side.  I got permission to download this one file via BitTorrent.  Then I needed a BitTorrent client.  I decided to install Azureus.  This is a Java client so it runs on most platforms.  From the download page I get a .torrent file.  Azureus uses that to locate people who have the file and are willing to let me download it from them.  Then Azureus starts downloading pieces of the file from many different locations.  It distributes the bandwidth demands and allows me to get the file fairly quickly, as long as it is all available on the Internet somewhere.

http://azureus.sourceforge.net/

Update Checker from filehippo.com - INSTALLED

Every so often I should check all my programs to see if they have been updated.  But with all the programs that I have installed on my system, that is a major effort.  I tried using VersionTracker Pro, but it keeps crashing on me.  This happens when I try to register my license.  So I did some additional research and found that filehippo.com has a program called Update Checker that does the same thing.  Version Tracker has a much larger database, I believe, compared to Update Checker.  But Update Checker works on my computer and Version Tracker doesn't.  So, for FREE, I will at least be able to keep some of my programs current.

http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker/

Registry Workshop - 30 day trial INSTALLED

I am having a problem with VersionTracker Pro.  It crashes every time I try to enter my registration information.  Tech Support suggested I do a complete uninstall, which included some registry editing.  I know there are better tools than regedit, so I did a quick search to see what was out there and worked in Vista.  Registry Workshop looks like a good candidate.  It has a 30 day trial, so I installed it and used it for this quick registry edit.  It did the job, but there really wasn't much of a job.  I will wait and see whether I need to use it again and then decide if it is worth the $30 fee.

http://www.torchsoft.com/en/rw_information.html