Apple’s culture is one of making choices before products get to consumers. You get X or Y, not a choice between X and Y. That’s what makes the existence of iChat (text and video chat) at the same time as iMessages (text chat) and FaceTime (video chat) so… odd. When Apple launched iChat, it was…
Technology Archives
-
-
One of the things I love about Google Voice is the way I can receive and send text messages from my phone, iPad and laptop. To borrow from “the best camera is the one that’s with you”, the best device for messaging is the one you’re currently using. It’s blindingly obvious that this sort of…
-
I’ve been using ShaggyMac screen protectors on my laptops for about 5 years now, and I’m a fan. The “keyboard marks” you see on your laptop screen are not scratches, they are the oils from your hands transferred to the keys, then transferred to the screen. The ShaggyMac prevents this, keeping your screen in nice,…
-
After migrating from MobileMe to iCloud, I ran into a nasty situation where iSync/MobileMe sync thought I had data conflicts but I couldn’t resolve them. The way the Conflict Resolver dialog appears and acts is a nightmare. When it appears, it hangs for a good 30 seconds, spiking the CPU and not allowing itself to…
-
One of the things I’ve liked about Verizon with my Droid and iPhone is the ability to flip on the HotSpot feature via the My Verizon app. I click on Plan Features and turn it on/off. Easy. Last month I made some account changes and added some family members to my plan. I discovered that…
-
For some reason Google Reader / Reeder can be pretty difficult to subscribe to feeds with. You click the “Add a Subscription” button, enter in the feed URL, and it kicks back a “feed not found” error. Hello, I didn’t want to search, I gave you the URL of the stupid feed. It seems that…
-
I’m not conceptually opposed to OAuth, or for a site using another site’s identity system for their authentication. The problem is these sites ask for too much access. I am happy to log in and let them leverage my current networks to try to connect me with folks in the new service, but I want…
-
Steve laments the lack of easy “Incognito” windows in Firefox. I tried Safari as my primary browser for a few weeks when I upgraded to Lion and I really missed this as well. Once it becomes part of your workflow, it’s really hard to go back. I actually want it to go a step further.…
-
After returning from a week in London where I had no cell coverage but was constantly charging my iPhone 4 (just to be safe), I noticed that my daily iPhone usage was dropping my battery down to the 50-60% mark instead of the 65-75% mark where is had typically been. Last weekend I let the…
-
If you used to choose the Sleep option with TAB key after hitting the POWER button on your Mac, Lion may have your muscle memory befuddled. Never fear, there is a better way: just hit the “s” key after the POWER button, and that Sleep button will get selected without the TAB key two-step. Additional…
-
I had a heck of a time getting a straight answer on a pretty simple question: Can you attach a non-Thunderbolt display1 to a Thunderbolt-enabled Mac if the display is daisy-chained through another Thunderbolt device (like the Promise Pegasus drives)? The answer is yes. You plug the Pegasus drive into your Mac via Thunderbolt, then…
-
Over the last few years I’ve ended up with 4 different machines that I use on a regular basis. I have workstations at the office and at home, a large laptop as a portable workhorse, and a small laptop for travel. Each of these has a development environment on it so I can get work…
-
Public service announcement: the nightly builds for Chromium seem to have a new home, the new location is here. That is all. UPDATE: I’m now using Shawn’s script.
-
The best part about this exchange is I’m honestly not 100% sure which of Dave’s tweets John is replying to (with the Zima response).
-
I’ve been wanting to do more with the favorites feature on Twitter for a long time. I’m not a big fan of retweets, and have always preferred to favorite things I like rather than rebroadcast them indiscriminately. Stellar.io has taken on the job of exposing this great content and making it follow-able, and it is…