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Office 2011 For Mac

Mirosoft Office

Hey, I Can Talk To My Computer Now

So, this is interesting first post for me. I am writing this, well not really writing this, in fact I'm actually dictating this. For quite some time I have been eyeing the Mac when speech dictate software. This month I finally broke down and bought the software. It is not often that I spend $200 on a piece of software. This software however, peaked my interest enough for eagle on order it. So far, saying this paragraph hasn't been the most seamless thing in the world, but it is the first one that I am trying. This is one of those things that I have to a try for a while to see if it really is worth using.

It is funny, this is one of those features are what computer that my dad has been asking for for 10 years. He can't understand why after so long, and so much technical progress, you can't just simply speak to a computer. I know if I show him this he will want to give it a try, but won't like the side effects of using such a system.

Well, for a first go round it is taking longer to speak than it would have taken me to write this post, but it was interesting.

Mac

Tech Support Day Tomorrow

I am in the process of setting my parents up with a new iMac. For years I have been trying to get them to switch to a Mac. They are on their 3rd computer in like 4 years and having problems. That number is a bit misleading. They had a 3 year old machine that finally went and we got them an HP desktop. The on board video went or was slowly dying on that and there was no expansion slot so about a year or so ago I ordered them a new Dell desktop. Unfortunately over the past few months they have been having huge issues with it. It is all software based, and I could probably wipe it and restore it and all will be good but the thing has Vista, and it would take a large amount of time for me to do that.

I was surprised that my dad asked about if it was time for a Mac. Way back when the Power PC Mini was out I gave them one to try. Unfortunately it was slow and it spoiled his views on the Mac. I think his work friends convinced him it is easy and fast. That on top of all the issues he was having made it the right time to get them to switch.

The new 21" iMac arrived at my apartment on Wednesday. I am installing some basic programs now, and my dad will come pick it up tomorrow. I will go over to his place and move his files over and setup the machine for him. Hopefully that will be uneventful.

Dell, iMac, Mac, Mac, Windows Vista

Evernote

For the past 6 months or so I have been using Evernote. I kind of stumbled upon it while looking for a personal wiki solution. I know evernote is not a wiki. I was looking for a Wiki and ended up with Evernote. OK, I started this story at the end. So let me start from the beginning.

In the past I have written about VoodoPad. I loved, it. Still do but it is a Mac only application, and with needing to use a work Windows machine over the past almost 2 years I had to stray away from VoodoPad since well I want my "stuff" in other places than at home on my computer. At first I tried google docs, and quickly moved to Zoho. Fear of not having control of my data and an easy export option got me to build my own Media Wiki install and just password protect the site. At first I was happy with Media Wiki, but the effort of making the entries look good was significantly more than what I spent with VoodoPad. I know I shouldn't complain because a year before I was using VoodoPad I was using plain old text notes with no search on my Treo. I got spoiled, I admit it. Media Wiki was a great idea, but it was over kill for what I wanted. I thought I wanted a wiki to collect my thoughts and document information I need to recall often, or just store for future searching. Ever since I started a Wiki at Partsearch for documentation (yes after Gus' nagging for months to try it) I was hooked on the format.

When using Media Wiki became too much for me to bother with I went on a search for a replacement. I wanted something that was cross platform, and could also be used in a browser. I also wanted ease of use, and the ability to get my data out of their system if i needed to. I read some reviews of evernote and I gave it a try. At first the differences from what I thought I wanted (a wiki) and Evernote were a huge stumbling block for me. That was until I learned that I can still have great search functionality out of Evernote even though it wasn't a wiki. It was what I wanted for putting notes and stuff into something.

The more I started using the program the more I relied on it. Then the iPhone version came out and I thought ti was great, but then was not so happy about its lack of offline support. Recently they fixed that and now I can store all my notes locally on my Windows computer, Mac or phone. At that point I was like OK, these people have earned me paying for the premium service.

Now I use Evernote for everything including to just jott down notes in a meeting. No more scratch pads, or even a text/notepad window opened. Without Evernote and Remember The Milk (another app I have written about a few times) I don't think I would be as productive at work or at home. I am eager to see what the Evernote people will come up with for the iPad.

Remember the Milk, Evernote, VoodoPad

Speaking of RTM

I last week I wrote about my current fixation with Remember The Milk (RTM). I just found a reason to like it (and other web apps) even more. I read a brief reference to a SSB (Site Specific Browser). I vaguely recall hearing about the concept before so I decided to read a bit more about it. Turned out I had used one before (Zimbra Desktop Client). The concept is pretty basic, but an interesting twist to using websites over native applications. I read up on Mozilla's Prism, and then I found the Mac only Fluid. I have since installed both apps. I know that all these apps do is let me run a dedicated instance of a browser for a specific site. I like that it makes a site act like a dedicated program. With RTM there are even scripts to enhance the site to make it more like a real installed program.

For me I typically have at least 3 tabs open in my browser at all times. These are the sites / apps that I always use. I have my Zimbra mailbox, RTM, and Google Voice. I am experiencing a known bug with the Zimbra Desktop program so I have been using the site. Besides that issue, now with a SSB I can take two of those tabs away and make them act like stand alone programs. Thankfully I am not the first person to want to do this with RTM or Google Voice. I have installed some Greese Monkey scripts to make Google Voice look and feel like a real program on my Mac. The doc icon even throws up the number of unread SMS or Voice Mails I have. RTM's tasks lists now look like a separate program. Both are very cool. I even have nice looking doc icons for both.

On my Mac I have decided to use Fluid. It appears to have a few more features over Prism. I am configuring Prism on my Windows 7 laptop so I can use it there also. So far I am impressed with the results, and I am thinking about what other sites I would want to give the SSB make over? Both apps Fluid and Prism are taking me one step closer to truly accessing my "stuff" from anywhere in a nicely presented way.

fluid, google voice, greese monkey, prism, Remember the Milk, RTM, SSB, zimbra

Windows 7 Release Candidate

Last night I downloaded the Release Candidate for Windows 7. I had some false starts trying to install it on my Netbook last night. I finally was able to get the install files on a bootable USB flash drive I had. Once that was done it was really easy getting the OS on my Netbook. Since work was hectic today I only just got around finishing most of the install. I have the basic apps on it that I use.

I have to say I am so far impressed with what I see. I don't know the true benchmarks but Windows 7 seems much faster than Windows XP Home was on the Atom processor. Granted I haven't really run any apps. I have just been installing them, but the system does seem more responsive than with XP. The graphics on 7 are nice also. I like pretty, yet functional OS'. Right now I have the HP Mini 1000 plugged into a 23" display and it is working fine. I will continue to play with it over the next few days, but my first impressions are positive. The only main downside I see is that at idle with 1 program running (IM) the system is using around 46% of my 2gigs of RAM. Not as bad as Vista, but not by much.

Xmarks

For years I tried (and generally succeeded) to use the same computer at home and at work. At my current job I have a company laptop that is different than my home computer. This presented a problem with managing my browser bookmarks that I hadn't had in years. I also need to use Internet Explorer for work stuff but I like to use Firefox whenever I can. Switching between the two setups was a bit frustrating. I recently downloaded Xmarks. It solved the issue of syncing bookmarks between browsers and computers. I liked how easy it was to setup and use I already have it on all my computers. I am liking web sites / applications that let me take my data with me on whatever computer I want and everything is synced up!

iLife 2009

I have been using iPhoto as my photo editing and archiving software of choice for several years now, and although it isn't perfect it is the best that I have found. Earlier this week I got iLife 09 specifically for iPhoto 09. The two main features that got my curiosity peaked is the faces and GPS features. With my iPhone I am capturing the GPS coordinates of all my camera photos so the GPS feature in iPhoto seems cool. I am still a bit gun shy to post GPS coordinates on all my photos to Flickr, but for me to have them and publish to my friends is cool.

The really interesting feature in iPhoto 09 is Faces. That is what is hopefully worth the cost of the software. I have been tagging and labeling my entire photo album for a while. It is always a work in progress. With the Faces function I can label all my photos in one shot. As I write this post I am letting iPhoto scan my library to look for faces. Hopefully it will be easy to label after that.

The one downside I have with iPhoto is that all the photo detail (EXIF) data is not stored in the photo. That means if I export a photo it won't have any tagged details that I put in iPhoto. Since I am a fan of data portability I don't like that. Since I have started using iPhoto I keep a copy of all photos I put into iPhoto in a separate folder in case I have problems with my iPhoto files. I am glad I did this since I already have damaged my iPhone DB once and had to restore a several months old version. Without my regular backup I would have been out of luck.

So far the new version of the app looks decent, but I am not so sure if it is worth the cost? Only time will determine that.

Internet Explorer

I find it really funny that everyone is saying Internet Explorer has lost market share. I just read that Cnet reported that IE's market share has dropped to 67.55%. I am sort of happy about that. I don't use Internet Explorer that much. I like Firefox, Safari, and Chrome wasn't so bad when I tried it out. I like options, so when one browser is overwhelmingly dominant it isn't good. What I still don't understand is that if IE's market share is under 70% why are sites and applications still only made to work with it? Many Cisco devices, and internet portals I have tried just don't work the same with other browsers. I mention Cisco devices since they are an example I am personally exposed to, but there are tons of examples of sites and appliances writing for IE only. Everyone needs to wake up and see that 1/3 of the word doesn't use that browser!

For me Firefox 3.x is the default browser on both Windows and Mac for me!

A Release in Progress

I am eagerly waiting for one of the guys on my team to finish a software release on one of the applications my team supports. They have been working on it almost all day. I don't have anything really to do with the release again until tomorrow morning but I know I won't sleep right until I hear that everything went OK. I am hoping I get that nice all OK email in the next 90 minutes! Fingers crossed.

Software