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Michael's Best of Tech 2010 list
It's time for that honored tradition that's inescapable at the end of every year: the annual best/worst lists. But I'm generally a positive kind of guy, so I'm just going to share my "best of" part of the list. Below you'll find my selections for the best of tech that I used in 2010. Some of the items on the list may have originated before 2010, but this is the year I really put the tech to use. So, without further ado, here is the Best of Tech 2010 as I see it. Best Mac App: 2010 wasn't kind to the Mac app platform. The wild success of iOS and mobile apps in general seems to have taken a toll on innovative desktop apps. Hopefully the Mac App Store will reverse the trend. Until then, if you are looking for a cool new Mac app, try OmmWriter Dāna. It's a word processor designed from the ground up to lend itself to the user's creative flow. You can read my review of it here. Try it out (there are both free and paid versions), and you'll find out just how much a little thing like a horizontal cursor can increase your creativity. You can download OmmWriter here.
DropDAV: An easy way to link iWork for iPad and Dropbox
iWork for iPad is an incredibly powerful tool for folks who want to use their iPads as a MacBook Air surrogate. However, if they want to round-trip their documents through the popular Dropbox service, there hasn't been a way to save or open files from within Pages, Keynote, or Numbers for iPad. Until now, that is... DropDAV is a new service from smiles + laughs that provides a WebDAV front end to Dropbox. What that means is that any iPad or iPhone application that can open or save files through WebDAV can now link straight to Dropbox. Since iWork for iPad has always had WebDAV capabilities built-in, DropDAV provides the long-needed door between iWork and Dropbox. To sign up for DropDAV, you just need to have a Dropbox account. DropDAV provides a 14-day free trial; after that time, the cost of DropDAV is 30% of your Dropbox account price. If you have a 2 GB free account with Dropbox, your DropDAV service will be free. Hit the link below to see how it all works.
Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite for iPad gets PowerPoint editing for Christmas
The Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite for iPad has gained some new features that make it even more useful to business people on the go. Quickoffice, Inc. announced today that its mobile office suite for the iPad now has an editor for Microsoft PowerPoint files in addition to the Excel and Word editors that were available earlier. You can manipulate font type, color, size and style, and you can add, delete or reorder slides in a PowerPoint deck. Graphical editing tools allow object layering changes, insertion and editing of text boxes, and insertion and rotation of common shapes, images and text boxes. Another feature of the PowerPoint editor is that it allows the insertion of images from inside the app or from the iPad's Photo Library. When presenting from Quickoffice, the app supports video output using the Apple Dock Connector to VGA Adapter and provides a built-in "laser pointer" for pointing out highlights on the slides. There's also a filmstrip preview of slides to assist in making presentations on external monitors. While Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite for iPad now allows round-tripping of animations and transitions between the desktop app and iPad, there is still no way to edit or show custom transitions or animations on the iPad. The Quickoffice developers have noted that this is in consideration for a future update. It's also worth mentioning that the PowerPoint editing feature only supports PPT (Office 2003 format) files; PPTX (Office 2007/2010/2011 native format) presentations can be viewed and shown, but not edited yet. The app now supports additional cloud storage services, including Box.net, Dropbox, Google Docs, Huddle, MobileMe and SugarSync. If you already own the suite, this is a free update for you. To kick off the new update, Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite for iPad is on sale on the App Store for US$14.99, 40% off of the usual $24.99 price. Thanks for Mike Rose for the gallery screenshots! %Gallery-111932%
Unclutter your Dropbox (or any folder) with Cloak
The good thing about iOS text editors and other programs which can sync with Dropbox is that you don't have to use iTunes to back up the documents that you edit on your iPad or iPhone/iPod touch. The bad thing is that almost all of them save their files in a specific named folder in your Dropbox. This can lead to a lot of folders that you probably never use on your Mac, but end up looking at anytime you open your Dropbox. OS X gives you a way to hide those folders, but it usually involves the use of a command line utility called SetFile, which isn't included with Mac OS X unless you also install the developer tools. That's where Cloak (free, 611 KB .zip download) comes in. Cloak will let you hide or show any file, either by renaming the file to start with a period, or by setting the "Invisible" Finder Attribute. Renaming the file will cause problems with the aforementioned Dropbox syncing, so you want to use the Invisible Finder Attribute. Read on for the nitty gritty...
Dropbox celebrates version 1.0, throws selective sync into the mix
If you're like us, you've probably come to rely on Dropbox quite a bit in your day-to-day activities. Hell, our crowd-sourced fan sequel to The Social Network about that "Tom from MySpace" guy would never have got off the ground without it! Well, if you're as enthusiastic about cloud storage solutions as we are, you'll be more than excited to know that Dropbox 1.0 has just been announced. Among the new features that we're most looking forward to putting to the test are Selective Sync (choose which folders get downloaded to which computers) and Extended Attribute Sync (improved support for Mac apps like Quicken and Quark whose resource forks bedevil most sync applications and corrupt data in the process). But that ain't all! Hit the source link to get started.
Dropbox 1.0 available with performance enhancements, Selective Sync
Dropbox, the multi-platform file syncing application that frankly puts Apple's own iDisk to shame, has been updated to version 1.0. The application has been in public beta for over two years, and an iOS version of Dropbox came out about a year after the public beta began. Dropbox reaching 1.0 is more than a numerical milestone for its developers. They've also made hundreds of bug fixes, reduced resource usage (memory usage in particular has been reduced by 50 percent), and made tweaks to the interface to make it more user-friendly. The most intriguing new feature is Selective Sync, which allows users to choose which of their Dropbox folders to sync to their devices, which the developers say will come in handy on netbooks or other devices with limited storage space. You can get Dropbox 1.0 here. If you're not already running Dropbox, now's the perfect time to give it a shot -- the program is so good that many people have wondered why Apple hasn't bought it yet and incorporated it into Mac OS X.
Five Dropbox tips for Mac Unix nerds
Dropbox is already a very powerful utility for Mac OS X, but if you're knowledgable in Unix, you can make it even better. Here are five ways that you can use Unix to get more out of Dropbox. 1. I wanted to update my copy of the HTML processing tool Tidy today. I was happy to find instructions for building Tidy under Snow Leopard, but it also reminded me of another way that I've been using Dropbox for some time now. If you compile and install Unix utilities on your own instead of using MacPorts, Fink or Rudix, you will most often be asked where you want to install these utilities to. Normally the answer is /usr/local/, and you would use ./configure –prefix=/usr/local. I became frustrated with installing programs to /usr/local/ because I use two or three different Macs, and I would inevitably find that I was trying to use a program on a computer where it wasn't installed. I'd have to find it, download it, configure it, compile it and install it before I could actually do whatever it was that I wanted to do.
Mac 101: The two Applications folders
Mac users quickly come to know the /Applications/ directory, where you will find all of the default applications that come with OS X (Safari, Mail, iChat, Preview, iCal and so on), as well as the Utilities folder (/Applications/Utilities/), where more advanced users get to know Activity Monitor, Terminal, Network Utility, Airport Utility, Spaces and more. If you have run an installer -- such as for iLife, iWork, Microsoft Office and so on‚ more than likely that installer has added programs to the /Applications/ folder. The /Applications/ folder is also usually linked to when you mount a disk image (those files that end with .dmg), encouraging you to drag applications to the /Applications/ directory. The Applications folder is also in the sidebar of the Finder. But some other users use a second Applications directory in their Home folder: ~/Applications/. Why keep two separate sets of Applications?
iPad apps to the rescue
"Whenever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Whenever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there... I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an'-I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build-why, I'll be there." -- John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath The iPad is an overlooked hero. When you need it, the iPad will be there. It will be there to access data or connect back home. It will be there to let others reach out to you, or to let you reach out to others. With the right software, and the right ingenuity, the iPad can metaphorically leap tall buildings and save the day. These are everyday rescues, not life-or-death scenarios. This post isn't about how the iPhone saved one guy's life after the Haiti Earthquakes. Here's how iPad applications can fix your workday with simple, helpful solutions that will free you from the laptop and live "la vida tablet." We've got five real world scenarios, including the iPad apps that will be there for you.
Trunk Notes: a Markdown-based wiki, to go
I know, I went and used "wiki" and "Markdown" in the headline and scared off all of the non-nerds. Nerds, welcome. If you're a non-nerd who kept reading, well, keep reading. Markdown is an easy way to create HTML, and wikis are a powerful means of connecting and organizing your notes. Your mobile note-taking deserves a peek at this. Trunk Notes is a note-taking app with a built-in wiki (similar to VoodooPad). It works for both iPad and iPhone and provides great tools for editing (and rendering) Markdown. It also syncs with Dropbox and sends emails in Markdown or rich text (HTML). The wiki feature allows you to create automatic links between pages using WikiWord syntax. It's an extremely fast way to create linked notes with rich formatting. If you don't know Markdown, take my word for it: it's easy. There is some great documentation included in the app, and you'll catch on quickly. Read on for a dive into Trunk Notes.
Use Dropbox to backup a few folders every day
There's a nice little tutorial on Justin Schwalbe's blog for using a simple script to backup a few folders to a Dropbox backup folder every day. Why would you do this? Well, let's say you aren't always able to connect to a hard drive for Time Machine, but you have a couple of document folders you want to make sure are backed up off site every day. If you are traveling but have internet access, this script plus Dropbox will save your bacon -- or your files, at least. Note that you should be comfortable with bash scripting to successfully implement this backup solution. You can, of course, also keep folders in Dropbox itself, but Justin's scripted method allows incremental backups that keep versions from a few days back, so (sort of like Time Machine), if you find yourself needing a file from two days ago versus five minutes ago, you'll have that in a dedicated folder based on the date. If you're not comfortable with Terminal or scripting, consider carrying a USB drive with you and relying upon Time Machine, Apple's built-in backup solution. Update: As noted by Justin in the comments, this creates encrypted disk images. Also, Dropbox does have versioning that goes back 30 days, available on the Dropbox site. photo by Flickr user jm3
How-To: Create PDFs from your iOS device
AirPrint may not be officially implemented in Mac OS X yet, but the feature remains present in the latest iOS 4.2 GM available to developers. For those who do have iOS 4.2 GM installed on their iDevices and are hoping to enable AirPrint, we've got a handy guide for you. Or you can also can use the AirPrint Hacktivator to get the job done. That all covers printing to paper from iOS, but I've decided to take it a step further for those who want to "print" but remain paperless: Print to a PDF. And not only print to a PDF, but then immediately have that PDF accessible to the same device. Here are some rather simple steps to get your PDF on.
iTunes November announcement: The likely and long-shot possibilities
Is it all about iTunes? Big stuff is going down tomorrow, as you know if you've happened upon Apple's front page today. Our TUAW back-channels are all aflutter as we are brainstorming as a group to figure out Apple's big tease. We've been searching the web, scanning HTML source, scanning the iTunes application bundle and more all to try to second-guess what might be happening. No, we don't have any firm answers, but here are some of the things that we think might be included in tomorrow's developments. We'll run down our thoughts and discoveries to date, which we will be updating and amending as new facts come to light. So take these thoughts for what they are -- guesses and observations. We're not certain about any of it, and we're happy to be corrected or pointed towards more or better facts. Feel free to jump in in the comments -- we're dying to hear what you think as well.
TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: 10 must-have apps for a new Mac
Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We've sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier. Once the gift-giving holidays arrive, the lucky among us will find new Macs among our haul. Part of the fun of owning a Mac is acquiring some goodies to go with it. In this post, we'll focus on software. Specifically, the 10 apps you'll absolutely want on your new machine. WIthout further delay, here's our list (all prices are USD). 1. Quicksilver (free) [The Quicksilver page appears to be down, here's an alternate. - Ed] This is absolutely, positively the first piece of software I install on every new Mac. In fact, I dislike using a Mac without it. Quicksilver is a utility which, at first, appears to be a launcher. That is the most popular way to use it. Assign a hotkey combination to elicit its minimal window (there are several designs to choose from), type the first few letters of your target app, hit return and presto! Your app launches. This also works with URLs, contact names and phone numbers...on and on. Plus, the more you use it, the smarter it becomes. Now I can just hit "Command-Space-T" to open TUAW, even if a browser isn't running. It's a huge time-saver. Of course, that's barely the beginning of what Quicksilver can do. A huge number of other apps offer Quicksilver support. For instance, you can upload files via FTP with Transmit, launch AppleScripts, move files, compose email messages and more, all with a few keystrokes that will get so finely sewn into your muscle memory that conscious thought will be removed from the process. Not a bad start; our first gift suggestion is supremely useful and free! Now, on to number two.
Sync your iTunes library with Dropbox
There are a lot of nice things about the iTunes (and Apple in general) ecosystem. As long as the way you want to work is the same as the way Apple built it, things are generally hunky-dory, easy to use, and reliable. Stray away from Apple orthodoxy, though, and things can get ugly really fast. A prime example of this is trying to keep one iPod/iPad/iPhone in sync with an iTunes library through multiple computers. Between Apple and the recording industry's piracy paranoia, they have contrived to make it very difficult to plug a device into multiple computers without having everything on the handheld device wiped out. However, thanks to the amazing cloud storage solution known as Dropbox, there is an answer. The beauty of Dropbox is that once you create an account, you can install a local application that automatically syncs selected folders to the cloud. Linking multiple computers to the same account will keep copies of all of the desired files and folders in sync on all of those machines automatically and seamlessly. Syncing the media files is pretty straightforward, but iTunes keeps track of portable devices and sync status through its library database, an XML file that is easily corrupted. Plugging the iPod into a computer with a different library file will prompt iTunes to wipe all of the data from the device. Getting around this requires keeping the library file in sync through Dropbox as well, but this is not quite as simple as it sounds. Because iTunes expects the library to be in a very specific location, you have to delve into the OS X terminal to create a symbolic link that fools iTunes into thinking the library is still where it was originally created. This technique apparently works reliably for the most part, as long as you don't open the library from multiple computers simultaneously, which will break everything. Head over to the source link to get the detailed instructions.
Dropbox update is iOS 4.2 friendly, good to photos, and fixes bugs
Among the 16 iPhone updates that greeted me this morning was version 1.3.1 of the free Dropbox app, which adds improved photo support and a number of bug fixes. A quick jog through the release notes shows that iOS 4.2 compatibility was a major contributor to the update, particularly since it is expected that the new OS will arrive shortly. Photos are now handled differently than they have been in earlier versions. There is persistent photo caching, which means that standard image file formats (not PDFs) are cached on the device for quick viewing of photos even after leaving the app and returning. Previously, PNG and GIF images were JPEG compressed when they were viewed on the device -- the update turns off the compression for better image quality. On devices with Retina displays, thumbnails of images are now much higher quality. One of the features listed is "improved scroll bar behavior and appearance in document viewer," although I really couldn't see any difference over earlier releases. The bug fixes include proper handling of .PPSX, .XLSM, and similar less-popular Office file types, stability improvements, and media player performances fixes, among others.
Note & Share for iOS: Markdown, Dropbox, Evernote, and more
With the tide of plain text editors showing up in the app store, I'm getting a little soggy, and I know you might be, too. However, I have another one for your consideration: Note & Share (for both iPhone and iPad) adds some unique features to the standard mix, primarily from the "Share" half of the name. First, like the recently-covered iPad app Edito, Note & Share supports Markdown and can render it for some of its output options, which include syncing the rendered HTML output to Evernote or sending it by email. The Evernote sync is of interest to me as an Evernote fan, but so is the Dropbox sync that it provides. Dropbox -- which is quickly taking the lead as the preferred method for both syncing and sharing -- works superbly for text files because, among other reasons, they end up fully-indexed in Spotlight on your Mac. Note & Share can also send to Twitter or Plurk and save to its own database. Of interest to Japanese users is its support for ATOK, a fast Japanese input method, to which it can send files and then retrieve them after editing. It also has a bookmarklet for Mobile Safari that will send a shortened URL to your document for linking. The app lacks the super-handy, extra Markdown toolbar of Edito, but its developers tell me that they're exploring the possibilities there. Beyond that, the Markdown support is great. The sharing options only show buttons if you have them enabled, so your interface only contains what you need, not a bunch of grayed-out options. At US$1.99, it looks like a great option for handling your iPad (and iPhone) text editing, especially if your notes need to go to more than one place. Give it a shot if you haven't already nailed down your editor of choice.
A quick roundup of iOS text editors with Dropbox support
This morning we received word from Jesse Grosjean at Hog Bay Software that his new app, PlainText (free, in-app purchase to remove ads), is now available on the App Store. It's one of several iOS text editors that feature support for Dropbox, so we thought a quick roundup of these apps was in order. If you're thinking about joining me for NaNoWriMo 2010 starting on November 1st, it's a good idea to think about what device(s) you'll be writing on and getting your writing software ready to roll as soon as you can. Text editors make excellent writing tools, since they're bare bones and don't get in the way of putting words onto "paper." First, let's take a look at PlainText (see screenshot above). Hog Bay Software is the same company that publishes the wonderful WriteRoom application for Mac and iPhone, which we've covered many times here on TUAW. Once PlainText is installed on your iPad (it also works on iPhone and iPod touch), you can tap the settings button to change Dropbox settings, turn on TextExpander support, or lock the screen orientation. Since I wanted to test several of these text editors with Dropbox but did not want to have a ton of new folders created in my Dropbox, I loved the fact that I could link to an existing folder. As soon as your Dropbox credentials have been verified, more settings become available. Most of those are related to when synchronization takes place. According to a note from Grosjean, there can be an issue when files are not saved on a computer using UTF-8 encoding. If a file is opened with PlainText and appears blank, the computer didn't save the file with the proper encoding. What's interesting is that I had this issue with another text editor app, and the developer of that app didn't seem to know what the problem was.
Dropbox updates iOS apps, announces App Directory
The Dropbox app for iPhone and iPad has been updated recently. There's a UI redesign in there now that takes full advantage of the Retina Display, so your shared files will look better than ever. The iPad version has gained a landscape view, and the app will now finish uploads and downloads in the background. Dropbox also allows file caching now, so once you've viewed a file, you won't have to go back and in and re-download it again. I presume that means only while the app is running -- if you have to actually close the app for any reason, you might have to connect up to see the file again. [Update: No, cached files remain accessible even without network access. –Ed.] But you can find out for yourself because the Dropbox app is free (as long as you sign up for a free account with their excellent service). The company has also released something called the App Directory, which is an online database of iPhone and iPad apps that will work in conjunction with Dropbox and its file sharing capability. You can browse, review, and rate Dropbox compatible apps (and actually, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile apps are included as well, if you happen to have one of those phones), and even follow links straight from the listings to download and use whatever apps you need. If you save a lot of things on your Dropbox account, you might want to take a look through there. There's standard stuff like GoodReader and Documents to Go, but odds are that, even if you've found another use for sharing on Dropbox, there's probably an app to help you do it. Note: Please don't put Dropbox referral links in the comments. They will be deleted, and repeat offenders will be banned.
Palm webOS 2.0 preview video hits the wilds
First things first -- before you jump on past the break and mash play, mute your speakers. Mute. As in, off. Alrighty, now that you're prepared, you've got two minutes and 14 seconds of teasing just a click away, as some sure-to-be-yelled-at developer has leaked a sneak peak into the wide, mysterious world of webOS 2.0. Not that we haven't seen a cornucopia of screenshots already, but at least this emulation vid gives you a better idea of how things will actually flow once it gets released to end users. Oh, and as for those DropBox and MobileMe integration rumors? Looks like that's just QuickOffice being QuickOffice. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
