Reviews Archives

  1. FastMail Review: Hassle-free E-mail Hosting

    Apologies for the long delay in getting this review up (especially since a few folks have been asking for it). I’ve been using FastMail1 as my mail service for a little over 4 months now and I really regret not making the move sooner. I decided to go with FastMail in part because they have…

  2. MacBook Update

    Haub asks: Hey Alex….I also have a MacBook and am wondering if you’ve had any of the random shutdown issues as described here. My 14 day return window is over tomorrow and you being a power user could shed some light on how your machine is holding up. I’ll be pretty ticked if I get…

  3. i use this

    I went through the i use this site and clicked on the apps I use most often. Pretty slick! My list there is a bit more recent than the list I already had here – though I doubt that will remain the case for long. 🙂

  4. MacBook Q & A

    Answering your MacBook questions… Andrew writes: How do you find the keyboard with extended use ? The spacing looks excessive but my casual use at the store seems to find it fine. It feels just like a normal keyboard to me. The key travel and spacing is standard, it’s just the look that is different.…

  5. MacBook Heat and Battery Life

    Several folks have asked for my thoughts on the heat issues and battery life of the MacBook. Here they are… Heat Yes, this puppy gets hot. The left side gets hot enough that I wouldn’t want it on my lap directly (I use several lap desks), and the heat is most intense when I’m running…

  6. Boot Camp AND Parallels

    Since I got the MacBook, I’ve been using it quite a bit. The consulting work I’m doing requires spending some time in the Windows-only world of Visio, and I’m running it on the MacBook using Parallels. For a beta virtual machine, Parallels is pretty good. I’ve had some fun getting my Windows license key accepted:…

  7. ShaggyMac MacBook Screen Protector

    Ever since the titanium PowerBook G4’s, I’ve placed a cloth over my laptop keyboard when closing it to keep the keyboard oils from transferring to the screen and making that horrible key pattern on the screen. Jason got me started with this, as he’d been doing so with the original PowerBook G4 I bought from…

  8. Mailroom

    We’re currently testing Mailroom for the Use Tasks service. The main benefit for us in using a system like this is that it gives us easy visibility into what the other person has done regarding a customer request, etc. – no more doubled replies to the user or wondering if the other fellow responded on…

  9. Growl is Good

    I finally installed Growl recently. Two main thoughts: Why didn’t someone kick me in the butt and tell me to do this sooner? Someone really needs to improve the initial “ok, now what?” user experience.

  10. BlackBerry Second Impressions

    Another 48 hours with the BlackBerry. There is a lot to like, and some not as much. The biggest issues for me are still the lack of IMAP functionality and the ability to reply from a different address. More notes: Battery life is decent – I got about 2 days out of it and my…

  11. BlackBerry First Impressions

    I took the plunge – I’m currently playing with a BlackBerry 8700g on T-Mobile. The keyboard is good. Why can’t I be logged into more than one IM network at a time? Odd. The interface for this thing is not as friendly as the Palm OS. I’m still having trouble believing this… but it appears…

  12. Sprint EV-DO with the Samsung A900

    On the recommendation of a colleague, I upgraded my T608 bluetooth mobile connection to a Samsung A900 (on Sprint’s EV-DO network – they call it “Power Vision”). I finally got the phone provisionsed and wow – was he right! This connection is bloody fast! The process was not without its hiccups: I was first told…

  13. shadowClipboard

    I’ve toyed with multi-clipboard apps in the past, but I think I’ve finally found one I’m going to stick with in shadowClipboard. I really like the implementation, and so far prefer the simple interface to the advanced interface. I’m a productivity tool junkie, but a very particular one. I probably ditch 90% of the software…

  14. Virtual Desktops

    In the comments of my post listing my install process, Bill recommended Desktop Manager for virtual desktops on OS X. This got me thinking about using virtual desktops on my PowerBook again. I’ve tried this a few times, but never stuck with it. Here are some of the virtual desktop apps I’ve tried over the…

  15. Carbon Copy Cloner

    I used Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) in a multi-step process to replace one of the disks in my RAID array, and it worked like an absolute champ! I used CCC twice in the process, once to clone the existing RAID drive to an external drive, then the second time to clone the external drive back…