tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17132519311761285252024-03-14T05:16:57.632-07:00Mac 20 QuestionsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-74071577807088510332015-01-12T03:58:00.001-08:002015-01-12T03:58:51.650-08:00Trying out BoxCryptor on my Computers<h2>Encrypting your files for Cloud storage</h2>
<p>Whether this would be useful to you really depends upon whether you trust the cloud storage service you are using. With the way things are with requirements for security and the hacking that goes on, I think we can probably expect to have fairly decent security with things like Dropbox. Then again, if you are paranoid you might look at the possibility of encrypting your files before you upload to the cloud services. I have GPG encryption available to me on my Mac and also on my iOS devices. I have recently seen that there is another possibility for encrypting your files before you put them on to dropbox or wherever and it is called Boxcryptor. It has a free version which allows you to connect to one of your client services and that might be all that you need. If you need to work cross-platform there are applications for just about all of the computer platforms you are likely to use. I have downloaded the application for Mac and also <a href="http://nostylus.com/peace-of-mind-with-the-ipad-ipad-security-issues/">for iOS</a> and my next job will be to test to see how this works. The question is, will I be able to encrypt a file on my Mac and upload it to Dropbox and still be able to see this file where I open it up on iOS. The first thing to do after you have downloaded the application and installed it, is to set up an account.</p>
<img style="display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-y5MRXmMObRM/VLO2Fgn90XI/AAAAAAAAf6M/lLJ1VNfhQHA/Boxcryptor.png?imgmax=800" alt="Boxcryptor" title="Boxcryptor.png" border="0" width="600" height="339" margin: 10px 10px 10px 10px;/><h2>Safe, secure and don’t lose your password</h2>
<p>When you sign up for an account you are warned that you should make sure to remember your password. For this you should use one of the password managers such as 1Password.</p>
<p>As part of my research into this application I have been installing on my Mac and also onto my iPhone and trying to encrypt a couple of <a href="http://nostylus.com/dropbox-for-ipad-ubiquity-and-usefulness-for-storing-and-moving-files-to-ipad/">files in Dropbox</a>. I first of all signed up to the service on the web and tried to use the same password when signing into the application which I’d downloaded. This didn’t work and I had to go back to the drawing board. It seems that you have to use a different password on each device and it seemed to be quite a lot of messing around. After trying to set up the application on my iPhone I have to admit to getting rather fed up with it. It has got to the point that I will certainly be deleting the application on all of my devices. There is always a trade-off between security and convenience and it may well be the case that this application works very well and does what you need to do. It is just that it has become too much of a pain in the bottom for me to want to use it. I think I would rather use the GPG encryption process if I need to encrypt anything specifically to put into Dropbox or anywhere else. It seemed to be that I ended up with too many passwords all over the place and it became a password merry-go-round.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-33522128992187750152015-01-03T01:46:00.001-08:002015-01-03T01:46:25.476-08:00Getting It on with Day One
<p>There must be many people that start a diary for the beginning of a new year. Using your iPad or iPhone and your Mac you can keep a diary using the application Day One. It makes it very easy to start a diary and also very easy to continue the diary through the rest of the year after everybody else has given up. Writing a journal is a little bit like getting the membership to the sports centre on January 1st to get all the weight off that you put on over Christmas time. You have all of that enthusiasm and desire to become slimmer and fitter and to also write about it at the same time in your journal. With the both of these activities it is quite likely that after a week or two for some people or a month or two for others, you go back to your usual state of affairs and forget about them.</p>
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<h3><a href="http://mac20q.com/dayone">Listen to the Podcast</a></h3>
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<p>The good thing about <a href="http://dayoneapp.com">Day One App</a> is that you can set it on your computer, whether it be your desktop Mac or your iOS device to remind you at certain times during the day. I have mine set so that it will remind me twice per day and I think that is plenty. For the most part I will actually write in my Day One journal anyway. Sometimes I do get carried away with the other work I am engaged in and I forget and that’s where the reminders takeover. When I look at the calendar which is part of the application for last year, 2014, I can see that I kept writing in the journal for about 95% of the time.</p>
<p>The Day One application will also give you writing prompts just in case you are not sure what to write about. I never ever look at these because I don’t need them. I like to keep track of my writing work so that gives me one thing to write about. I do put some stuff in there which is more personal. So if you are a person suffering from teenager angst, whatever age you might be, you can set the application to only open after you have put in a password. It will keep your secrets!</p>
<h2>Spreading the word from Day One</h2>
<p>In the iOS version of the application it is possible to post from the Journal to the Internet. There is a Day One website where these things get published. You can also at the same time, send the post off to Facebook and to Twitter. So if you have some less embarrassing things in your journal that are worthy of being shared to the rest of the world you can do so from your iPhone or from your iPad. I expect that at some point in time the Mac version of the application will get the same facilities.</p>
<h2>Other items in the Mac20Q podcast</h2>
<p>I also talk about the illustrations application called <a href="http://mac20q.com/2014/11/affinity-designer-the-best-mac-illustrators-application/">Affinity Designer</a>. It is a really good application that is a contender for professional use to create graphics and take you out of the clutches of the Adobe products. The application is a version 1 product still, but is looking pretty good indeed and I have to say that I do like using it. Affinity Designer will be the app to open up when you want to do some vector design work.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-72762206367157205322014-12-13T12:33:00.001-08:002014-12-13T12:33:53.478-08:00Using your voice to interact with your computer - Just like in Star Trek<p>Ever since I have been watching science fiction movies and TV series the characters have always been talking to their computers. This was the case in Star Trek, Blakes Seven and 2001 A Space Odyssey and many others. In some of the science-fiction movies the computer would be talking back and sometimes knew much better than the characters in the movie about what should be done next. So you can understand that for some of us interacting with our computer with our voices is like living in the future. In this weeks <a href="http://mac20q.com/2014/12/mac-20-questions-podcast-117-starting-the-day-in-bed-with-siri/">Mac 20 Questions Podcast</a> I give you an insight of what it is like to start the day by talking to Siri.</p>
<h2>Siri is extremely helpful but hasn’t worked out how to make the tea</h2>
<img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-_wsuNYDolxY/VIyCzYFXgoI/AAAAAAAAbME/8zsmJ2opGo8/IMG_0634.PNG?imgmax=800" alt="IMG 0634" title="IMG_0634.PNG" border="0" width="300" height="534" style="float:left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 10px;" /><p>In the podcast you can hear that I am still quite groggy in the morning, almost to the point of being grumpy. The room is dark and I don’t want to open my eyes and let the light in. Yes, the brain has already started functioning in some small way. Actually, my brain only does functioning in small ways! So first of all I get my friend Siri to tell me what time it is as it is quite possible that I have been languishing in my pit too long. I should be up and out of my bed and taking part in the day. Siri even tells me “Good Morning” and is just too pleasant for words. She should really be saying “Get out of bed you lazy bastard, don’t you know what time it is?”</p>
<p>Quite often in the morning when you are just at this point of waking up you have ideas going through your head. Maybe you want to remind yourself of something that should be done during the day. You know that if you don’t do something with that idea and commit it to your system, you are going to completely forget about it. So this would be a good time to say “Hey Siri - Set a reminder for 11 o’clock today to do (whatever it is that you need to do)”. <a href="http://mac20q.com/2014/10/dragon-dictate-and-yosemite/">Siri dictation is pretty cool</a>. You can also ask Siri to tell you what appointments and events are happening during the day you’ve already set into your calendar. Having this little chat in the morning with your friendly computer is a great way to start the day.</p>
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<h2>Checking up on the socials - What are all those people up to on the Twitters?</h2>
<p>To be able to get through this far in the process of waking up in the morning in a good and geeky way your eyes will have to have been opened. So you might do the socials before you open up the emails so that you can be more awake when you have to start sending messages out to the wide world. Who knows what garbled rubbish you might start spouting if you haven’t given yourself some time to wake up properly. At least when you are checking out what’s going on with the Facebook and with the Google+ you are going to doing a little bit more consuming than creating. Still no need to do any typing, as you can use <a href="http://mac20questions.blogspot.com.es/2014/10/dragondictate-update-and-how-will.html">Siri to do the dictation</a> and you might only have to correct one word or two. It is still a good idea to give it a check before you send it!</p>
<h2>And so the day goes on</h2>
<p>Once you start doing other things such as having your breakfast and walking the dog you can move on to things like listening to podcasts. I use the <a href="http://nostylus.com/a-wealth-of-applications-on-ios-part-two/">application Overcast</a> which is fairly simple in the way that it functions, but it looks good and does all I need it to do. You can change the speed of playback so that you can listen to your podcasts quicker. You can also speed it up by telling Overcast to cut out any of the empty spaces. So each time there is a little bit of silence the podcast will jump past that. With some podcasts this is a particular good idea due to the way that the podcaster talks and also perhaps due to a lack of editing of the audio before it was published.</p>
<h3>How do you start your day? Do you talk to your computer to get it to do your bidding?</h3>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-7909754420539065122014-12-08T04:04:00.001-08:002014-12-08T04:04:21.182-08:00Latest Mac20Q Podcasts Talking to Podcasters<h2>The Latest Mac 20 Q Podcasts</h2>
<img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Uf3pbXDTLzo/VIWQ_gC281I/AAAAAAAAa-k/YPGpxlsbZ_k/dextercast.png?imgmax=800" alt="Dextercast" title="dextercast.png" border="0" width="245" height="236" style="float:left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 10px;" />
<p>In <a href="http://mac20q.com/2014/11/mac20q-podcast-115-featuring-bob-de-grande/">episode 115 of Mac20Q Podcast</a> I was talking to Bob de Grande who is a podcast responsible for the <a href="http://www.thedextercast.com/">Dexter Cast</a> and also for the Clone Dance Party. Both of these podcasts are based on television series where a group of people come together to chat about what is happening in the latest episode. It brings a community feeling to watching and experiencing a television series. I imagine that it works better with the cult TV series such as Dexter and Orphan Black and it would be great with something like Breaking Bad. I have seen other broadcasters do something similar with the TV series Lost. In this podcast with Bob we talked about the process of podcasting in terms of the hardware that he uses and also the software.</p>
<p>Bob is a guitar player for fun and enjoys to collect his guitar to his Apple devices. I have the software to do this with my guitar, but I haven’t got around to setting it up yet. There are plenty of other applications that you can use to enhance your guitar playing. You might get your hands on applications which will help you to tune your guitar as well as applications like Garage Band where you can create music.</p>
<h2>Episode 116 talking to Kurt Sasso</h2>
<img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Q_qu59js90I/VIWRmlNUF5I/AAAAAAAAa-s/4SMlYvYJDfw/Two_Geeks_Talking_-_specializing_in_Comics__TV_Film__Music_and_Video_Game_Interviews.png?imgmax=800" alt="Two Geeks Talking specializing in Comics TV Film Music and Video Game Interviews" title="Two_Geeks_Talking_-_specializing_in_Comics__TV_Film__Music_and_Video_Game_Interviews.png" border="0" width="374" height="146" style="float:right; margin: 10px 10px 10px 10px;" /><p>Kurt has used Macs but is not a full-time Mac user and I interviewed him originally on the Answer 20 Questions podcast. I asked him if he would like to be on the Mac 20 questions podcast and he said yes and that is fair enough saying as they would like to be a Mac user. Kurt is also a podcast with a podcast called <a href="http://tgtmedia.com/">Two Geeks Talking</a>. He has a big interesting in the comics world and talks to comment producers and artists. We had an interesting chat about how comics stories are getting into the movies. Kurt would like to continue on from his present studies with his ultimate goal to be a producer. This led us into talking about TV series and movies and the role of a producer in making films.</p>
<p>During the podcast I do talk somewhat about various Mac and iOS applications and how I use them for making video and for my writing. So the <a href="http://mac20q.com/2014/12/the-mac-20-questions-podcast-116-talking-to-kurt-sasso/">Mac20Q Kurt Sasso interview</a> is quite interesting and it just goes to show that if you are creative you don’t have to use a Mac, even though we all know that it does help.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-40858438157927009372014-11-25T07:25:00.000-08:002014-11-25T15:02:55.085-08:00Mac20Q Podcast Episode 114 - Talking to Mike Reed<h2>
Mac20Q Podcast Episode - Talking to Mike Reed</h2>
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We talked last time in series one of the Mac20Q Podcast and this time we get talking about shooting video and making movies using Apple products. Mike is just as keen on using the best kit for creating and editing content and loving his iPhone 6 and his Mac computer.<br />
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<a href="http://mac20q.com/2014/11/mac20q-podcast-114-blast-from-the-past-mike-reed/">Listen to the Podcast at Mac20Q</a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #575757; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;">These chats I have with other Mac users who are clearly enjoying using the Mac and iOS devices are really great fun to do. In this interview Mike and I talk a lot about the video and movie business. When I </span><a href="http://mac20q.com/2009/08/mac20q-podcast-50-mike-peter-reed/" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #62a6e4; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">talked to Mike last time</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #575757; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;"> he was involved in the making of some movies and now he is working towards making his own video business. He is looking at both ends of the age spectrum with helping parents to create a good quality record of how their child is progressing and at the other end with talking to old folks about their life experiences and life story.</span></blockquote>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-58381722397602960872014-11-08T02:24:00.001-08:002014-11-08T02:24:23.661-08:00Encrypted Emails with Certs from StartSSL<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BbYNNnMxtUM" width="480"></iframe><br /><br />
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This is for the people that struggle with the PGP public and private key pairs. There are a few steps that you have to go through to set it up but once it is done and easy to use. All you have to do is to exchange emails that you have digitally signed with your recipient and you have everything ready to be secureAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-42774735221987690232014-10-13T08:06:00.001-07:002014-10-13T08:06:47.730-07:00DragonDictate update and how will Handoff work<p>Got an update to the DragonDictate application on my Mac and I am hoping that it will allow it to work on Yosemite which will be released soon. I always like to have the latest operating system on my Mac and I am quite happy usually to jump in there as soon as it becomes available. DragonDictate is one of my go to applications that I use just about every day. If it is not available on the new operating system then I will not upgrade. On the last operating system upgrade from Apple I had some time where DragonDictate was not working properly with Mavericks. It was very annoying and I’m not going to go through that again. I would hope that Nuance who are the developers of DragonDictate have got their fingers out and have been working on making sure it works well with the new operating system. Yosemite might be available later on this week, according to the rumour mongers.</p>
<img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Admkdy6xLYM/VDvn3quUmvI/AAAAAAAAWN4/os8gAjOc_8E/DragonDictate.png?imgmax=800" alt="DragonDictate" title="DragonDictate.png" border="0" width="364" height="430" style="float:left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 10px;" /><h2>Waiting for Yosemite OS X for Mac</h2>
<p>I did try out the first beta version of the new operating system and I wasn’t able to use my favourite applications so I removed it from computer. I have been looking on the Nuance forum of the help system and I have not yet found any details from other users about whether it works or not. So it looks like I will have to give myself a backdoor and be able to roll back to Mavericks again if I find that DragonDictate stops working. I am just hoping that’s the today’s update to DragonDictate is something that is Yosemite inspired.</p>
<h2>Handoff and Continuity</h2>
<p>I have just been trying to get hand off and continuity working with my iPhone 6 and my iPad. It didn’t work and I think perhaps the reason why, is that the iPad is a third-generation device and I need to have a fourth gen iPad. Oh well, I will be able to rectify this problem in a week or so. Let’s see how things go on Thursday when the new announcement is coming from Apple about new iPads, allegedly. the handoff feature only works with a view application so far, namely Mail, Safari, the office suite of applications, Maps, Messages and Reminders. It is a feature that is available to third party developers and it would be good to see in something like Byword.</p>
<p>If you do have the right hardware to be able to make this work then when you open up your other device lock screen you will see an icon for the application you are handing off from. You swipe up on that icon in the same way as you would swipe up to get into the camera application from the lock screen. You then enter your entry code and away you go. It will be interesting to see how this will work when you are going from an iOS device to the Mac and vice versa.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-67683396146480412382014-09-29T08:12:00.001-07:002014-09-30T02:46:24.292-07:00Android to iOS and Apple Only<h2>Have to learn about Touch ID on iOS</h2>
<img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-B4ObCbncZGo/VCl2wbOTd3I/AAAAAAAAV0w/1TqVzZ6Gs2E/Touch%2525C2%2525A0ID_CHiaroscuro.png?imgmax=800" alt="Touch ID CHiaroscuro" title="Touch ID_CHiaroscuro.png" border="0" width="361" height="468" style="float:left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 10px;" /><p>Now that I'm moving to the iPhone 6 I am going to have to find out how to use the Touch ID with my finger prints. Last year when the iPhone 5S came out everybody was raving about how good is and there were plenty of tutorials on how to use it for the best. With all of the new things that have been introduced with IOS 8 there is not so much new information available. So people like myself who are moving up from a phone that doesn't have Touch ID will have to go back to the information from last year to get properly informed.</p>
<h2>Bye Bye Galaxy S3</h2>
<p>The phone that I have been using for the last 16 months is the Samsung Galaxy S3. When I first got it I was very pleased with the phone and delighted that it could do much more than I could with the iPhone 4. I particularly liked that I was able to use the Swype keyboard and I also used the SwiftKey keyboard for a short while. I also liked the way that I could arrange icons on the home screens of the device. I had dictation available to me on the phone which was great as the iPhone 4 was pre-Siri. Being a big user of DragonDictate on my Mac I also wanted to have the same sort of facilities on my mobile devices. With the introduction of IOS 8 Apple have caught up with some of the things that took me over to the dark side.</p>
<h2>Why can't I upgrade to the latest OS?</h2>
<p>One of the biggest problems of the Android phones are the difficulties of upgrading to the latest operating system software. There was nothing coming down the tubes from the phone carriers and it really isn't great to have to resort to rooting and things like CyanogenMod. It is a lot of messing around and a complete pain in the arts. Is it any wonder I am <a href="http://nostylus.blogspot.com.es/2014/09/going-back-to-apple-only-after-year.html">going back to Apple Only</a> and no more Android. There are a lot of good applications for the Android phones, but it seems to me that to a certain extent it is a second class experience compared to what is available on iOS. I am a big user of the application DayOne for journalling and that is only available on the Mac and iOS. The application that I like to use for inputting text is called Drafts and there is nothing like it on Android. I can put text into Drafts and I can then send it to various places at a later stage. This makes the application very versatile and the best notetaking application out there. I could start something that would be a couple of sentences and just right for sending off to Twitter, add some more to it and then it becomes a post for Facebook. The application Drafts is also great for longer pieces of work where I can write in markdown. I can export out of the application and put it into Blogsy the blogging application for iOS and that is just a brilliant workflow.</p>
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<h2>Apple iOS apps are better</h2>
<p>Another application that I want to make more use of and is only available on Apple products is OmniFocus. With the books that I am writing I need to be completely organised and I can set each of these books up as a project. There are a huge number of ways to organise things from the project angle and also from the time angle within OmniFocus. I can have it so that the application only shows me the next thing that is due. I don't get overwhelmed by all of the jobs that are lining up in the queue waiting for me. I also use another application for lists called Clear. Clear is great for making quick and dirty lists when I don't want to jump into OmniFocus. <a href="http://nostylus.com/nostylus-news-ipad-and-iphone-updates/">Blogging from the iPad</a> is far better than blogging from Android.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-85833087449972577752014-07-30T06:51:00.001-07:002014-07-30T09:08:27.629-07:00The sunsetting of Aperture on the Mac<h2 id="whatnomoreapertureonthemac">
What! No more Aperture on the Mac?</h2>
Of course, as soon as I nearly have this book ready to go out with the videos that I have made showing you how to use Aperture to organise your photos and to do various things such as enhancing by adding effects, then Apple comes out with the news that they are going to stop working on Aperture. This is called sunsetting of an application and it seems to happen more often than you would realise. So now they are going to bring out another application instead which will take over from both aperture and also from iPhoto. Even though Apple is a huge company with massive resources, it still makes sense for them to just have one application which will do the job for everybody than it is to have two apps at different ends of the market. The big problem with this announcement is that the photographic pros that use Aperture believe that they should get special attention and better capabilities of an application for dealing with photos. The pros have already jumped to the conclusion that Apple is going to ditch them in favour of a wider market of ordinary to enthusiast users that only need a bare minimum of facilities to deal with Their photos. There have been quite a number of articles written by the photographers claiming that Apple have stabbed them in the back with this move, and due to that they will just will head off to the main competition for Aperture which is Lightroom. Myself, on the other hand, I am working on the notion that the application Photos will be more than good enough for the enthusiasts and for the professionals. There are one or two reasons why you might want to be optimistic about this being the ultimate outcome for the applications you need to deal with photographs on your Mac.<br />
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<h2 id="whatdoesthefutureholdforphotosonappleproducts">
What does the future hold for photos on Apple products</h2>
Well in the first instance we can say “Who knows!” Because until the application photos actually arrives on our desktop we have no idea what it’s going to offer us. There is the possibility based upon what has happened with previous similar upgrades of software and I’m thinking about Final Cut Pro here, that not all of the features that we would like, will be present on day one. The software will be written from the ground up and will be easy to use with some decent features and a promise of a lot more to come. Final Cut Pro X was like this and has just got better and better. Final Cut is easy for everybody to use, professional and beginners alike and yet still having excellent capabilities for dealing with the requirements of professional video editors. I could well imagine that it will be similar when Photos takes over from iPhoto and from Aperture. I expect that there will be some things that we do in Aperture now that will just be easier to do in Photos. If it is easier then it is also better, right?<br />
<h2 id="willallthephotoshavetogotoicloud">
Will all the photos have to go to iCloud?</h2>
It is going to be a good thing that we have one application that will span across IOS and also the Mac and is also linked to the cloud. The thing about linking to the cloud is that some people are making assumptions that if you put a photo into the application Photos then you will have to store that photo in the cloud also. What this would mean for people with large photo libraries is a large number of megabytes of data having to be uploaded and also then downloaded when you want to use any of these photos. Not all of us have download speeds or even upload speeds that are good enough to make this viable. I would like to think that it will be possible to choose which of our photos will get uploaded to the cloud so that if you do have big libraries of photos, you don’t have to put all of them up there. There is also the consideration of cost of the online storage. There will be a certain amount of online storage available for free with iCloud. It seems that the cost of getting extra iCloud storage is going to be fairly reasonable. Even so, it is still going to make a lot of sense to be able to choose which of your photos you will have stored online especially when you are running a very large photo library. The amount that we will get for free will be 5 GB which for many people will be plenty. Then some people will want to go with the 20 GB option and that is only $.99 a month or if you want to will look at it in terms of an annual payment it is $11.88. Even going for the next option which will boosted up to 200 GB it is only going to cost $3.99 per month and that is a huge amount of storage space.<br />
<h2 id="whatcanweexpectfromphotosappfromapple">
What can we expect from Photos app from Apple</h2>
One of the main things that you will want to do with your photos is to be able to organise them in such a way as you can find them again easily. With the new photos app from Apple there will be some default collections of photos based upon when they were taken. So there will be a view which will start off by looking at photos separated by the year there were taken. It seems we will get some smart suggestions for creating albums based on locations, times and scenes that are similar. As you would expect from good photo editors these days, the edits that we can make with the photos will be nondestructive. Any changes that are made to a photo, also get sent off to the cloud and so the changes can be seen when you look for that photo on other Apple devices connected to that account.<br />
<img alt="Converting to Black and white in APerture" border="0" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Z_shtjLHkgw/U9j0WlBpaJI/AAAAAAAATVs/Nijst8Ad2YE/Converting%252520to%252520Black%252520and%252520white%252520in%252520APerture.jpg?imgmax=800" height="303" style="float: left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 10px;" title="Converting to Black and white in APerture.jpg" width="500" />
<br />
Searching for photos should be easier and it looks like there will be smart suggestions given to us, but for really good searching some of it will be dependent upon us using the tagging features and the naming of photos. The location of photos is another good way to search, but for that you will have to have done some geolocation of your photos in camera or using an application like HoudahGeo to do it after the fact.<br />
In the demonstration of the Photos application at the keynote event at WWDC, they showed smart adjustments being available, which is all very good so long as you can also do your own manual fine adjustments. Not only that, but it will also have to be easy to get in there and make these changes and not be hampered by the easy-to-use smart adjustments that are there for the casual Apple photographer using the Photos app.<br />
<h2 id="ifeeloptimistictowardsthenewphotosappfromapple">
I feel optimistic towards the new Photos app from Apple</h2>
It is true that there have been a number of enthusiasts and professional photographers that have been running around like Chicken Little, thinking that the sky is falling upon them. There is a chance that they could be right, but I would like to think that Apple will give us all of the best things that we like to use in the Aperture and add the ease-of-use that they are famous for giving us to use on Mac OS X and in iOS. They have already said that on iOS it is going to be possible to use features available in other applications such as waterlogged as if we were still within the Photos application and I would expect this to also be the case when using the photos app on the Mac.<br />
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So while it is a bit of a pain that Apple have decided to sunset the Aperture application, it will still be available for people to use for another year if not two years. I do think it is strange that Apple have not decided to make the Aperture application free from now on. It is still available to buy from the App Store and I don’t think that is really the right thing to do. Most people making the decision to buy Aperture at the moment will most probably know about the impending demise of Aperture and will not get caught. Of course, there will be new tutorials by Wizardgold on the YouTube channel and also new tutorials that are specifically just connected to this book. So that will be something to look out for when I update this book and make it available to anybody that has bought it already.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-17392633288044709392014-03-26T03:00:00.001-07:002014-05-23T14:50:10.666-07:00Chromecast versus the Apple TV<h2>
I got the Chromecast to compare with the Apple TV</h2>
For a while now I have been having some problems with my Apple TV. To be honest, I think the problems are more to do with the network and the way it is working within the house rather than the actual Apple TV itself. Quite often what I have to do is I have to go into the general settings and then into network and reset the automatic settings for ethernet on the Apple TV. This is usually because the video I wanted to watch has declined to play and after doing this little reset trick it usually works again. The Google Chromecast has just become available here in Spain at the same time as in other countries including the UK and I had been wanting to give it a try anyway. So I thought why not have a look. It worked out at €35 to buy it and at the same time I also bought a wireless, induction charger for my Nexus 7. Not really too happy with the charger at the moment, but then that is another story.<br />
<br />
<h2>
No instructions in the box for the Chromecast</h2>
Really, when you consider it there shouldn't need to be any instructions for the Chromecast from Google, as all you need to do is to go online and to find the information that you require. I fully approve of this because I don't see any reason why we should cut down any more trees just to put unnecessary pieces of paper in with our purchases. It didn't take me too long to initially get the thing working although there was a seemingly lengthy download that was required to update the device before I could even do anything at all with it.<br />
The first thing that I wanted to do was to try and play some videos that I have on my <a href="http://nostylus.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/using-android-devices-with-google.html">Nexus 7 through the Chromecast </a>onto the TV. It seemed to me that it would be something that the Chromecast should be able to do and I only found out later that I would be able to do that through an App called LocalCast. So today is the second day of having the Google Chromecast and when I got back home from work I decided to switch on the TV and see what I could organise. I had done a little bit more research and found that there are a number of applications that are made to work with Chromecast. These applications are for use on your desktop computer within your Chrome browser and also applications that work on your Android devices. I still haven't got around to trying them all out yet. The one that I have been having some success with so far is the Plex application and I have been running that on my desktop computer, an iMac. I have been able to watch some videos / movies from folders of my hard drive without any difficulty at all. I got a nice smooth play of the movie with no buffering problems and I was quite happy to have got it working.<br />
<h2>
Using the Plex media server</h2>
I still haven't fully got into understanding all of the things that Plex is able to do, but the main thing is that you download and install the Plex media server software. When you have this done you can set up your library of videos. It is not completely intuitive the way that it works. On the Nexus 7 there is also an application called Plex Remote and that is another one that I have not been able to make work as yet. It seems that the best thing for me to do is to work out these things one by one and gradually build up my knowledge of how all of this functions as a system.<br />
<h2>
Using the Chromecast to display photos and play music</h2>
I found an application for the Android platform called <strong>AllCast</strong> and with this I was able to go into my photos gallery, this time on my Samsung Galaxy S3 and to send these images to my TV. I was looking to see if I can find a way that I could select a number of these and have them do a slideshow going from picture to picture. I did get to see the pictures one by one but still I'm looking to find an application that allows me to do that slideshow thing with all of the photos within a folder. Using this same <strong>AllCast</strong> I was able to send music from the Galaxy S3 play on the television.<br />
<h2>
The verdict so far on Chromecast</h2>
I still have a lot of things that I need to work out and so this will be just the first article in a series of articles as I find out more on how it all works. I have managed to get videos, music and photographs showing up on my TV, so I can confirm that it does actually work. I haven't found the whole process completely intuitive and I am sure that there should be more applications developed that allow the use of Chromecast. I see that there is work being done at the moment as evidenced by a beta app giving functionality of complete mirroring of your desktop. That is something that you get with the Apple TV, that I found to be easy and worth having. I feel sure that Google will be looking to give us a similar set of facilities that we can use Chromecast for demonstrations and presentations.<br />
<h2>
Try one out - Why not?</h2>
Keep your eye out on this website for some more posts on how to get the best from Chromecast as I work out for myself what is possible and where there are some difficulties. For the price I think that the device is marvellous and I would recommend trying one out.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-43617594689742875752014-01-22T02:41:00.001-08:002014-05-23T14:50:47.844-07:00Customising the MacOne of the things that I really like about the Mac is that there are so many little applications that you can buy or get for free which customise basic uses and procedures using the computer. It isn't that the standard set up of the Mac is anyway bad, it is just that all of us use a computer in different ways and therefore is ripe for personal customisation. I only have to look at the menu bar on my iMac to see that there are a lot of little extras I have added to my personal set up for Mac computing. Today I have been setting up a couple of extra applications to add more functionality and give me some extra ease of use.<br />
<h2>
Doing things with DropZone</h2>
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I have added the application <strong>DropZone</strong> which I got in the latest Mac Heist bundle. This makes it very easy for me to take a file and do a number of things with it. I have set it up with Flickr and I can drag a picture file to the right side of my screen and the dropzones that I have configured will pop out. Dropping the file onto the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wizardgold">Flickr</a> dropzone will send that file off to the web. There are a number of other things that you can set up to do, such as moving or copying files to a specific folder. I will be also looking into other connections that I can make with this application. I see that it is very easy to use this for launching often used applications, if I move the mouse cursor to the right-hand side of the screen I get the option to pop out the circles.<br />
<h2>
Dealing with the Trickster</h2>
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<a href="http://mac20q.com/2012/06/best-productivity-apps-trickster-review/">Trickster</a> is an application which I had on my Mac before and I found it to be quite useful and today I set it up so that it starts automatically when I open up my Mac. I have only just reinstalled it since upgrading to Mavericks. I had found it useful before, but had forgotten about it and only remembered when I heard another blogger talking about it in a podcast recently. What this application does is to keep an eye on certain folders that you can specify and the files which appear in those folders. You can set the view so that it shows the list of files by date and this is very handy for a file that you were working on today or yesterday and you want to get back to it quickly without having to open up the Finder window. If there are a lot of files that you have been opening then you can filter down the files by using a search term.<br />
<h2>
Getting the Canary out of the cage</h2>
There is a developmental version of Google Chrome called Canary. I only just found out about it and decided to add it to my Mac because it gives me a menu bar icon giving me access to <strong>Google Now</strong>. What Google Now does is to look at what you are doing with your life and pops up info to your Android devices and now also the Mac. It gives you information sometimes before you know you even need it. I like to use Google Now to know when the next game is being played by Barcelona Football Club and it will also give me the scores after the games have been played. It gives me the local weather as well as information about birthdays of the people I am connected to on Google+. At the moment what it does is fairly simple, but it is something that is gradually getting better and offering more information. A good thing about this Canary version of Google Chrome is the fact that I can have it installed alongside the normal version of the application. I find that it suits me to have Google+ in the Canary version and to run my general web browsing in the other one.<br />
<h2>
More file finding with Houdahspot</h2>
There are times when you are trying to find a file and you can't remember the name of the file, but you can remember some of the words that you used within it. Houdahspot is an excellent application which gives you all sorts of super search facilities including a fuzzy search. You can combine various searches creatively to really specify exactly what it is you are looking for. There is also a menubar icon for this application called <strong>Blitz Search</strong> and this is a good way to get the Houdahspot application started and then further refine what it is you're looking for in the main window of the application.<br />
All you have to do with Houdahspot is to fill in the details of what it is you are looking for in the what, where, exclude and limit sections of the application. Once you get used to howe this application works and you know how to make it look for things when <em>ANY of the following is true</em> or <em>ALL of the following is true</em> you will find that it is an extremely powerful searching tool for the Mac. <a href="http://mac20q.com/2013/11/getting-to-grips-with-spotlight-on-mavericks/">Spotlight on steroids</a>.<br />
<h2>
Launch Bar or Alfred</h2>
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As I have been using it for some time, <a href="http://mac20q.com/2013/03/delving-into-alfred-version-2/">Alfred</a> is my preferred application for using as a Mac Application launcher. This is also because it can do a lot of different things as well as launching applications. I sometimes use Alfred to do a quick calculation and I also have a few other extras programmed in also, but I only use those rarely. I was tempted this week to give <strong>LaunchBar</strong> a try, as it was also included in the Mac Heist bundle. I haven't added it yet, but there are many people that swear by it and I might be tempted to give it a try when I have a little bit of free time to spare.<br />
<h2>
Textexpander and DragonDictate</h2>
In the previous version of Mac OS X I was having to switch off Textexpander whenever I started to use DragonDictate, especially when I was using <a href="http://mac20q.com/2012/10/dragon-dictate-for-mac-review/">DragonDictate</a> in other applications. There seemed to be some sort of bug which made it so that those two applications didn't work well together. Now that the dust has settled with Mavericks I find that I can forget about having to switch off Textexpander while I am using DragonDictate.<br />
It really is very useful having an application that will fill in things like email addresses and complete web addresses with a couple of key taps. For example, I can put in the whole of my email address by typing in <em>,,w</em>. This is very handy as I find I often have to enter an email address into a web form and by using Textexpander I know that I will always enter it correctly without any typos.<br />
Of course, all of this article has been written using DragonDictate while I have my feet up on the desk and I am leaning back in my chair in a very relaxed mode.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-58741782770728891152014-01-05T07:54:00.001-08:002014-05-23T14:51:39.509-07:00Importing AVCHD video from a Sony NEX-6 for Final Cut Pro XMy previous camera the Canon 600D gave me the video files as individual files that could be grabbed from the correct folder off the camera and had dragged straight in to be used and edited in Final Cut Pro X. With the Sony NEX-6 there is a folder which looks like a file that is called AVCHD and as you shoot more video the clips get added to that single file. It seems like it would be a more difficult thing to do, to get video from the camera into Final Cut Pro X, but it is not really much more difficult than before. In this video I show you three different ways of getting the video clips from the AVCHD file into your video editing software.<br />
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<h2>
Import AVCHD video into Final Cut Pro X</h2>
The simplest way to do this process is to use the keyboard shortcut <em>Command I</em> to bring up the import window. You can then choose the AVCHD file which you might do directly from the camera or you might have copied the file from the camera to your hard drive first. I have found that it isn't any slower to do this on the camera and when you are ready to delete the file it is better to do it from the camera menu system anyway.<br />
I found that the database of the movies in the camera can get a bit messed up if you delete from the computer rather than the camera. I also know that sometimes with a SD card I can be a could idea to format it using the camera software from time to time also. The size of the file is reasonable using this method and for most people it will be the way to go for now. <br />
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You will see within the import window all of the video clips that you have on your camera and you can choose to bring in just one of them, some of them or all of them. In the video I selected just one of the video clips and it doesn't take long for the video to be ingested into the Final Cut Pro video editing system.<br />
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<h2>
Using specialised software to import AVCHD into Final Cut Pro X</h2>
I found on the Mac App Store some free software that is actually called free AVCHD to MOV. The application is very easy to use and it also has a number of presets to make it even easier. Drag-and-drop the AVCHD file into the application window and it will then show you the video clips with the details, so that you can choose which ones you want. In the video I bring in the same file that I imported in directly so that we can compare the differences between the import methods.<br />
The conversion that I chose to use with this software is a preset specifically for Final Cut Pro X or other high end video editing applications. This is the Apple ProRes codec 422 and there is much more information contained within the resulting file. Because there is more information contained within, the size of file is therefore rather large, in fact you might say it is completely massive, enormous or huge. In this case the file which started out as about 140 MB grew to very nearly 2 GB in size. For many of us there is no advantage to using a file of this size and in fact it slows us down because of having to do the conversion in the first place. It could even be that you need to have a larger amount of memory on your computer to be able to work with these files efficiently. Certainly, for me using these type of converted files is rather like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.<br />
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<h2>
Using QuickTime to convert from AVCHD to h.264</h2>
There is talk that the QuickTime format is on the way out and to be superseded by other video formats, but I think it will take some time before that happens completely. You can use the application QuickTime To convert your video from AVCHD to individual video clips that you can use and edit in Final Cut Pro X. You only have to go to the file menu and click on open and choose the AVCHD file. Up pops a window which will give you the option to choose whichever of the files you want to convert or open.<br />
So you have the video clip open in QuickTime and you can do one of two things. First of all you could use the File And Save menu option to save the file out in the correct format or what you can do is to use the share option on the menus. There you have a number of preset choices and the one that I used to convert the video clips was the 1080p which converts it to the h.264 codec. It is a simple process to get the files into the Final Cut Pro X application either using the import window or just by doing a drag and drop.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-28804117840875115372013-12-26T05:08:00.001-08:002013-12-26T06:43:04.535-08:00Best way to add movies to iTunes<h2>A better way to add movies to iTunes</h2>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/es/app/ivi-lite/id529927587?l=en&mt=12"><img style="float: left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 10px;" title="add movies to iTunes" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-liLtl7HqQZk/Urw8uu2UD2I/AAAAAAAAI94/1KcxNdn2C_Q/Pasted_Image_26_12_2013_15_25-2.jpg?imgmax=800" alt="Add movies to iTunes" width="250" height="250" border="0" /></a>If you have a TV show that you have recorded and you want to watch at a later stage using iTunes, one of the problems is that when you add it to iTunes it goes into Home Movies. When it is in Home Movies, what you have to do then is to go into the meta data through <strong>Get Info</strong>, go to the video tab to put in the details for the television show such as number for the series and the number for the episode. Then you need to go to the options tab and in the options tab you inform iTunes that it is a television show where it says <strong>Media Kind</strong>. Sometimes you also have to put a check box room where it says remember playback position and also for skip when shuffling. Only then do you have your TV show in the correct place ready to you to watch. Having to do this I find is tedious and annoying and I am delighted to say that I found a better way of doing this using an application called <strong>iVI Lite</strong>.</p>
<h2>Using iVI Lite to get movies into iTunes</h2>
<p>With this application all you have to do is to drag the files that you want to put into iTunes into the main window. The application goes off to the internets and gathers information about the file that you have put in there. Unless there is any Meta data within the file it helps to give the application <strong><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/es/app/ivi-lite/id529927587?l=en&mt=12">iVI Lite</a></strong> some information to help it get what it needs. Where I would use this program is to get a TV programme I have downloaded through the BBC iPlayer that I want to watch on the television rather than on my computer. It could be possible to send my computer screen to the Apple TV and I would do that if I was in a hurry, but I find that it messes things about too much, with my computer and I would rather put it into iTunes.</p>
<p><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="iVI__Lite_Edition__and_File_Details___Circlecount_How_to-SD_for_Apple_Devices_m4v_and_Movies.png" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-legmVGa0upA/UrwqUC-UXzI/AAAAAAAAI88/plDaxUPpsI4/iVI__Lite_Edition__and_File_Details___Circlecount_How_to-SD_for_Apple_Devices_m4v_and_Movies.png?imgmax=800" alt="IVI Lite Edition and File Details Circlecount How to SD for Apple Devices m4v and Movies" width="500" height="352" border="0" /></p>
<p><em>iVI Lite</em> seems to be quite clever in that it will not only find the details for the series and for the episode numbers, but it will also add a title if it finds it and often other information. I don't know where it gets its information from but I have had great success with this so far. If you have more than one file in the application you can click on the button to <strong>Convert All</strong> or use the button <strong>Convert</strong> if there is only one movie to work with. Another little window opens up and after a very short wait it will convert the file and then send it directly into iTunes in the proper place. No more fiddling about with the meta-data in iTunes to let it know that it is a TV show and not a movie. From within iVI Lite there are buttons available let you say what type of video it is. So obviously if it is a movie it goes off and looks in the proper places to get the information which by the way also includes artwork.</p>
<h2>iVI Lite - Job done all sorted</h2>
<p>This is the light version of the application and so far I haven't found any need for getting the paid for version. I think that the application iVI Lite is full featured except for the number of types of files that you can convert to. The free version of this application works great and I can highly recommend it as it works quickly and accurately. It is much better than you doing it manually and then having to go and find out where iTunes has put your movie.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-17670745809696684202013-12-03T15:45:00.001-08:002013-12-03T15:45:51.113-08:00How to get your photos into Aperture<h2>Importing photos into Aperture</h2>
<p>The easiest thing is to put your SD card into the slot and Aperture pops up with your photos all checked and all you need to do is hit the Import button and all the files are sucked into Aperture. There again you could use some of the import settings and save yourself some time and effort later. In the video I show you how you can set a number of things into motion, including backing up the photos as they are imported, change the files names, add keywords, put in copyright info and even alter the versions of the files with effects presets.</p>
<img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-zVcjEzmdcCY/Up5sphCQ6kI/AAAAAAAAG6U/vO7X-qLgchE/Aperture.png?imgmax=800" alt="Aperture" title="Aperture.png" border="0" width="156" height="600" style="float:left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 10px;" />
<h2>Look to the right of the screen</h2>
<p>You will see all of the option in a drop down at the top of the right side bar, it is called <strong>Import Settings</strong>. You can the Aperture app where you want to put the files by choosing a new project and naming it or choosing a project already present. Tick the box if you don't want duplicates to be imported and if you want to see the photos split into projects automatically. The photos get split by date.</p>
<p>I like to name files based on the syntax of Year-Month-day_hour-min-sec and this means I will always have unique names for the files. If I had two cameras taking picture at exactly the same time (which is not going to happen often) the application will add a number to the end of the filename to make it unique.</p>
<h2>Metadata in photos</h2>
<p>The camera will put some info in the file that is your photo. If you look you will see that the camera make and model is recorded and other details such as the lens and the settings in use for that image. When you import the photographs, why not add you name, telephone number, contact email, and your web site url. Then is someone steals your photo you will have details that prove the photo is yours and the thief can't say I didn't know how to contact you to be able to offer to pay for the use of the image.</p>
<p>In the previous video we looked at adding keywords to photos and I think it is better to add keywords using the HUD for that in Aperture. You can be sure of the spellings and that you will not have a confusion of having similar words that would make things harder for searching later.</p>
<h2>Back ups of photos automatically</h2>
<p>As the photos are put in Aperture the import settings can take care of making a back up of those photos. Set up this default setting once and you will have a level of back up in place that will keep your files safe. It is worth doing so that the photos also get sent to another disk too, or to an online storage facility.</p>
<h2>Not just your photos in Aperture</h2>
<p>You can add movies and also audiofiles into Aperture and this makes the app even more useful, especiallly if you are guy that works with various types of media. Good to have all your stuff looked after in one place, especially as you can use Aperture to help you find files based on the keywords, file type, length of file and with loads of terms in the metadata. Aperture is such a useful application for photographers of all types and level of professionalism.</p>
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<p>In days of old when knights were bold and personal computers had just been invented
it was very difficult to find your files into which your thoughts had just been vented
so you ended up making the files live in folder after nested sub folder
but now there is a new way of doing it and you throw them all in one big bucket
with tags, meta data, intelligent search you can get at all your stuff without just being lucky.</p>
<h2>Big bucket or folders inside folders?</h2>
<p>So there you go, that's the way it was and it took a while to get away from the bad old DOS days when you had to tidy away your computer files just the same as if they were inside paper folders in grey metal cabinets. The more senior members of our world still want to work that way and still have this belief that things are more organised and much better when everything is tidied away inside of those nested folders. Some go for organising by year, month and day with more separation inside of that based on type of file. Some go by project and then do the types of file inside that. I think that doing that these days is just plain silly and hides files more than it makes them accessible. I am a convert to the single big bucket and the use of fantastic search tools and smart searches to get my digital stuff.To a certain extent we are still in a transition period moving on towards just throwing it into one big amorphous glop inside a single folder on the computer and letting search do all of the work for us, but things are moving on.</p>
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<p>There are some computer systems and applications setup to put their documents into specific places and keep them away from all of the other dirty files and folders from other applications. Now that we have intelligent searching on computers where the tools that you can use know documents by kind or type, know the data that is contained within the file, has extra metadata to use in some types of document, as well is even possible to use fuzzy logic when searching, then why give ourselves the hassle of having to put certain types of files in certain places.</p>
<p>You could drive yourself crazy looking for stuff if you have organised yourself by date and you can't remember what month or year it was when you created that spreadsheet, text file or whatever sort of document. You also could end up with subfolders within folders that have the same name. Such as a folder called spreadsheets each time you work with a New Year when you have opted for a folder organisation that has a folder for every year and divided again into months and so on. Mind you, you can use intelligent search of such an organisation, but it is a waste of time sorting it like that in the first place.</p>
<p>What about if you organise by project and then you want to find all Keynote presentations and each one is in a different place on the hard drive. Fortunately you can have a mix and put files where they make sense for you and then use a tool like Spotlight in Finder or HoudahSpot which does the same, but a whole lot better. Or you could use Evernote and manually bring files of different types into Notebooks or has links to your stuff all in one place. Then with Mavericks we have Mavericks tags, which are not the same as keywords or open meta tags as used in files saved before Mavericks.</p>
<h2>It's all a little bit mixed up</h2>
<p>So the way that it kind of works at the moment is that there are folders created by applications and by the system such as one for music, another for pictures, a movies folder and another for documents. If you don't create many files and you know the type of file at your looking for then it can be fairly easy just to go by name of the movie or audio file and just looking inside a particular folder. This doesn't work so well if you have hundreds or even thousands of files or a particular type and you only have a vague recollection of what the file was called. So you need to get into using the better search tools with Boolean operators and smart searches that can look in whatever places you tell the computer to look.</p>
<p>It is a good idea to have all of your document files that you create yourself separated from the computer system files. So that when you are doing a backup or you are moving files from a one computer to another it is easy to know that you have all of the important data taken care or. You can tell the backup application or the application you're using for copying just to look in that one place, the big file bucket with everything in it. For example, with my photographs I know that all of my photographs are in the application Aperture. The files are stored within one single file/folder and I make sure that the files are not scattered around the hard drive and referenced into the application. If I need to do a backup everything is in one place and it is all really very easy.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-87053435992980701252013-10-23T04:38:00.001-07:002013-10-23T04:38:04.609-07:00Upgrading to Mavericks for free<h2>Mavericks for free - Yippee!</h2>
<p>Of course all of the Apple fans are so very happy with the updates that Apple announced yesterday at the October Apple event, but one of them stands out from the rest. The fact that Apple have made this major update to the operating system, <a href="http://mac20q.com/2013/06/its-all-a-bit-so-what-osx-mavericks/">OS X Mavericks</a> free, surprised just about everybody. It would be nice to think that Apple have done this to give something back to the Kool-Aid drinking, Apple loving Mac community. There is a possibility that this is the case, but we do have to remember that Apple is a multibillion dollar company, that quite possibly has business and marketing motives for giving us <a href="http://mac20questions.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/you-don-need-mavericks-to-be-able-to.html">Mavericks for free</a>. This may seem cynical, but we should remember that this is the way the world really works. Whatever the reasons are for giving away the Mavericks for free, there is no reason why we shouldn't do our happy dance anyway.</p>
<img style="display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-NTnncIA8Iog/UmezdXZLLVI/AAAAAAAAFN8/3h8n8QugeUU/Mavericks_for_free.png?imgmax=800" alt="Mavericks for free" title="Mavericks_for_free.png" border="0" width="536" height="194" /><h2>Mavericks a big download</h2>
<p>With the updates weighing in at over 5 GB it is taking a very long time for the update to download over my slow Internet. I started the download at about 11 PM last night, so that is about 14 hours ago and I still have more than 1 GB left to download. No problem, as during that time I will be able to do all of the necessary backups and setup work to be ready to do the <a href="http://www.apple.com/uk/osx/how-to-upgrade/">Mavericks upgrade</a>.</p>
<h2>A completely clean install of Mavericks</h2>
<p>Not long ago I added an SSD to my iMac and I did an unclean install onto that drive. I decided that seeing as Mavericks was coming quite soon it would be a good opportunity to set it up right at that time. No point in me doing the job twice and besides I wanted to do a quick job while I had the new SSD drive in my hot sticky fingers. The plan now is to create an SD card installation drive and to wipe clean both the SSD drive and the data drive on the iMac. This way I will have a completely virgin installation of the operating system on the SSD and I will be sure that I don't have any old and unwanted bits and pieces on the old hard drive. I know that this needs to be done because the booting into the SSD drive over Thunderbolt should be extremely fast and at the moment it isn't.</p>
<h3>SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner</h3>
<img style="display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-qSjstA9VIXo/Ume0KuESdBI/AAAAAAAAFOE/j_VsgBHHQi8/SuperDuper_.png?imgmax=800" alt="SuperDuper" title="SuperDuper_.png" border="0" width="535" height="328" /><p>The first part of the job is the most important and that is to do bootable backups of all of my system and data drives. I will be using Superduper or possibly Carbon Copy Cloner to do this. Then I will go through the applications folder and get a list of all of the applications that I have installed. I plan to go through this list of applications one by one, first of all marking the applications which I can just grab from the Mac App Store. Then I will mark applications that are just to be forgotten about and not to be reinstalled. Then I will go through the rest of the applications which will be applications needing up-to-date software licenses and serial numbers. I will make sure that I have all of my software serial numbers in one place and I will also see that I can download any software installers that I need. I was pleased to see that <a href="http://mac20questions.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/openpgp-gpg-get-started.html">GPGMail Plugin</a> has been updated for Mavericks.</p>
<p>It is going to take a couple of days probably to get everything just the way I like it. But it is a job that is going to be worth doing correctly so that it will last a long time before I need to do a rework of the operating system on my iMac. When I have the iMac job finished off, the next thing to tackle will be my wife's computer, a MacBook Pro. I am thinking that I will buy an SSD drive to install in her computer so that with the new drive and new operating system it should fairly fly along for her. I'm sure she will be delighted and she can repay me in kind.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-72588821218083199702013-08-16T02:20:00.001-07:002013-08-16T02:40:19.844-07:00There's Writing, Blogging And Note Taking<h2>Part One - Mac text entry</h2>
<p>One of the things that we all do with our computers and our mobile devices, portable computers, is that we are creating text documents of one sort or another. There are a lot of different types of writing that we do and therefore we are going to sometimes need to use different tools for different jobs. Over the years with using the Mac and iOS I have been using applications such as SimpleNote, Notational Velocity or NVAlt, Evernote, Mou, <a href="http://nostylus.com/how-to-use-the-drafts-app-on-ios/">Drafts</a>, <a href="http://nostylus.com/linking-scrivener-mac-to-scrivener-for-ipad/">Scrivener</a> and even Pages. I have absolutely no need whatsoever for Microsoft Word which I regard as a legacy type application. I often get the feeling that people use Word because they know no better, although I suppose if you do need to make a document that is for a presentation and it requires more layouts along with pictures and tables it might be a possibility. Obviously though, being a Mac user I would be more likely to use Pages as it does all that I would need to and looks good while doing it too!</p>
<h2>Doing it with Markdown</h2>
<p>Whatever sort of writing I do it always starts off as Markdown for me, I just think that sort of way now. I like to know that I will be up to open up the text based files of markdown with any application now or in the future. Keep it simple is a good philosophy to use for many things in life and that includes writing. Can you imagine trying to open a WordPerfect file with the application that you have on your computer now?</p>
<h3>Blogging</h3>
<p>So the sort of writing I do mostly is blogging and for the most part I am writing longer articles using <a href="http://mac20q.com/2012/10/dragon-dictate-for-mac-review/">dictation in Dragon dictate</a>. I have the workflow for this completely sorted out that I don't really have to think about it too much. I dictate directly into the DragonDictate window because that is the best place for the dictation, then I use a Keyboard Maestro key combination which will select all of the text and open it up in Mou. When I have the text in Mou I do the reading out aloud text editing of the markdown text. I like the dual pane which allows me to see the finished version of the text alongside the markdown. I also add the links to other articles at this point using some Mac OS X services automation.</p>
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<h2>MarsEdit best blogging tool</h2>
<p>The next stage of the game for me is to do a special copy which gives me the HTML of that text so that I can put it into the Mac blogging software that I prefer to use called MarsEdit. Some people would ask why don't just dictate directly into MarsEdit, but I have found that the dictation doesn't work quite so well that way. It worked well for me to have the process separated out into separate stages. It is in MarsEdit that I add the images and video embedding.</p>
<h2><a href="http://nostylusrequired.blogspot.com.es/2013/08/there-writing-blogging-and-note-taking.html">Part Two</a></h2>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-11219293109808861862013-07-21T02:37:00.001-07:002013-07-21T02:37:21.590-07:00DragonDictate to Control your Computer<h2>Controlling your computer using DragonDictate</h2>
<p>Most of the time when I'm using DragonDictate it is to turn speech into text in OS X. I find this to be most successful when I'm using the actual DragonDictate text input window. Due to this my workflow has evolved into me dictating into this window and using a Keyboard Maestro shortcut which selects all of the text, copies it and then pastes it into my text editor that I use for a read through and editing process. I use Mou Text editor for this. To a certain extent I also use DragonDictate when I want to dictate into other applications like Day One the journalling application, into the various social networking pages on the Chrome browser. If I have my Twitter client open on the desktop I will also dictate into that and I find that DragonDictate works well with the Messages application. It is really quite simple to dictate the message and at the end of it simply say "Send message" and the message is sent. What I should really do though, is to spend some time learning other commands that I can use in applications such as Apple Mail, Safari and maybe some of the global commands. I already use the global command to switch from one application to another, most often when I am dictating into DragonDictate and I want to see the HTML results in the Marked application. All I have to do is to say "Open Marked" and the application is there in front of me ready to go.</p>
<img style="display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-VcWs4pdmLCw/Ueuqv_oZhII/AAAAAAAACzs/FQp7ry38ZgI/DragonDictate_available_commands.png?imgmax=800" alt="DragonDictate available commands" title="DragonDictate_available_commands.png" border="0" width="600" height="363" />
<h2>Learning more by using the available commands window</h2>
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<p>When the <strong>available commands</strong> window is open it shows you the various types of available commands that you can use. As I am looking at it now, I can see three words in the list, Dictation, Global, DragonDictate and each of these have disclosure triangles. Click on the dictation disclosure triangle and you get another list of command types such as Capitalisation Commands, proofreading, special symbols and text editing and movement. So if I want to learn more commands that I can use specifically with regards to text editing and movement, I can quickly see the available commands within the DragonDictate window. There are a huge number of commands that are available. I would suggest that the best way to learn how to use these and to get them so that you know them, is to choose a couple of commands and concentrate on them for as long as it takes to get them into your head. It could be that you will need a number of sessions using these commands before you have them in your working vocabulary for DragonDictate in memory.</p>
<h2>Controlling Safari with DragonDictate</h2>
<p>I have been testing the available commands that are in DragonDictate for Safari and to be honest it is quite overwhelming. I have started to learn some of these, two commands at a time. I just choose a commands that I think will be useful and use them over and over again until I remember them. You can use the commands to do things like scrolling to the bottom of the page and back again to the top. You can open new windows of Safari and you can also open a new tab. There is a command that will let you do a web search which puts the cursor into the text area for creating a search and all you have to do is to dictate in what you want to search for. I find it quite useful to open the find on page command, enter a word I'm looking for and this can save an awful lot of clicks and typing.</p>
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<h2>A better system of tagging in Mavericks</h2>
<p>I have seen recently that it is going to be possible to tag files by doing a drag-and-drop. I don't have the full details on that yet but it does look like it could be something that would be very useful for quick and easy tagging of files. I can already do a drag and drop files to Tag It, but obviously it is going to be much better to be able to do all of that in the Finder. With the other enhancements to the finder that is coming with Mavericks maybe I will be drawn away from using the application Pathfinder. Often I find that I don't get the full use out of Pathfinder as I haven't spend the time yet to delve into all of the extra functionality that there is available within it.</p>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713251931176128525.post-79517545836885465642013-07-19T15:59:00.001-07:002013-07-19T15:59:14.156-07:00OpenPGP/ GPG get started<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/iziHyMKc1BI" width="480"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">This is the best way to encrypt your emails. Using GPG Tools and the Public / Private key pair does take a bit to get your head around the way it works but it is not rocket science really. It is a cross platform solution and you can easily get sending encrypted emails that can't be read by governments around the world. Think PRISM and how un protected your emails are now. It is like you sending a postcard - Anyone can read whatever you have written as it travels across the internet.</div><br />
Now there is the plug in you can get for Apple Mail as well as one for Thunderbird if you prefer which makes it really easy to use. This is the first in a series of videos about how to use GPG Tools so that you can be an expert without having to try too hard.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07486611139287784898noreply@blogger.com0