Archives For Software

Office on the iPhone

admin —  July 6, 2009 — Leave a comment

dataviz

I love my iPhone, it’s a great tool.  Often times it feels like more than a phone, but a small computer.  One thing that has held it back from really being a netbook competitor for me is the lack of document support.  Sure you can view certain documents if they have been emailed to you, but just created or accessing document hasn’t been easy.  Enter Documents to Go.  This great piece of software not only allows you to view and edit word documents sent to you, but you can also create word documents.  Support for editing Excel docs is coming soon.  Now you can work on all those youth talks on the go.

It comes it two versions one that syncs with Microsoft Exchange and one that doesn’t.  If you don’t have an exchange server at the office, or don’t want direct access to your email attachments through exchange go for the cheaper non-exchange version.  If you have an exchange server I think it’s worth the extra to get the Exchange integration.

Exchange version: Documents To Go® with Exchange Attachments (Microsoft Word editing, Exchange attachments & Desktop sync)

Non-Exchange Version: Documents To Go® (Microsoft Word editing & Desktop sync)

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Prezi: Amazing Flying Presentations

admin —  June 5, 2009 — Leave a comment

I am amazed. I have just spent the past several minutes toying around with what could be one of the most interesting tools I have ever found. It’s called Prezi. Saying that Prezi is about making presentations is like saying that Porche is about making combustion engines. It takes the idea of delivering screen-based presentations to an alternate, non-boring dimension where the creation of the presentation can actually be part of the creative process.

Basically, you take your content (everything from CAD drawings to video) rotate, scale, and place it, and then draw a path from one to another that automatically rotates and zooms the camera to fill the screen with whatever is being shown. Their site probably describes it best when they say, “Create a map of your ideas, images, videos, then show overview, zoom to details, amaze, convince, take the day. And it is very simple to use. ”

Simple is a gross understatement. They have developed an intuitive interface that allowed me to create this simple demo of an announcement presentation without ever reading or looking at a second of tutorial.  Although it is a web app, your presentations are available to download so that you can still show them when you are in the middle of nowhere at a camp who still has dial-up internet access.

The best part?  It’s FREE!  There are premium versions that you can pay for that remove the Prezi logo, give you more storage and an offline editor, but free is good enough for me.

While I think this may be distractingly cool for talk notes, I plan on using it to attract attention to our announcements and maybe a song or two if we get ambitious.

In Design, Featured, Media, Software, Web , , ,
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MacUpdate Spring Bundle

admin —  May 28, 2009 — Leave a comment

Mac friends, I know what you are thinking, not another software bundle, I was thinking the same thing, until I saw what’s in this one.

One of my favorite all time techy tools kits has been the amazing Tech Tools Pro. I’ve used it a number of times to diagnose problems on my computers and on friends machines. I’ve been meaning to upgrade my copy, and now I can get it, plus more. In addition to Tech Tools, the bundle includes: Parallels, Notebook (another piece of software I use everyday), RipIt, and NetBarrier just to name a few. At only $49.99 it’s well worth the cost.


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Save Money with Snap Tell

admin —  May 23, 2009 — Leave a comment

Earlier, I wrote a review of the Amazon app for the iPhone.  That app has been made obsolete with Snap Tell.  This app starts with the same concept of using a picture of a product to show you places to purchase online, and then takes it to the next level.  With the Amazon app, it takes a couple of minutes to return the search results, but Snap Tell does it in about five seconds.  On top of that, it gives you prices from a ton of sites allowing you to click on the price to go to the site and purchase the item.  And that’s not all, if you allow it access to the GPS, it will give you the prices at stores close by.

The app is free which makes it a must download for anyone interested in purchasing anything.

In Featured, Mac, Software , ,
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Get Rid of Your Cable Bill

admin —  May 10, 2009 — Leave a comment

With every announcement of a major media company making their content available for free (with ads, of course) online, I have inched closer and closer to freeing myself of the tyranny of my local cable company. The major hangup for me has been that all those companies have been on their own sites which would mean that even if I hooked one of my computers up to a TV, I would end up having to go to each site to “channel surf.” Then Hulu came around making that problem a little less by aggregating a lot of that content into one site. But it was still incomplete until now.

I had been hearing about Boxee for the mac for a while and decided to try it out. Wow. Here’s a little equation that I think explains it perfectly: Hulu + Glory = Boxee. Can you access Hulu content? Yes. But you can also access a plethora of other online content from podcasts to MTV that all comes preloaded. And don’t worry, if you find some specific site or YouTube stream that you like, you can plug it in manually!

What this means for me is that I am going to save at least $50 a month by cancelling cable TV and using a computer hooked to my TV to get all the network content online.  I mean, that’s enough to feed a family of five for one month and still have enough for two more latte’s!

Unfortunately, Boxee is Mac and Linux only, but rest easy. It is based on the XBMC software that has PC as well.

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MobileMe or Not for Me

admin —  May 7, 2009 — Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I let me MobileMe account expire.  I was a decision that I’ve been contemplating for awhile.  I had mentioned it over Twitter and someone asked what I decided, so I thought I would share my reasoning why I decided I no longer needed to spend $99 a year on the service.

1. Mail, Contacts, Calendar Sync – There are a couple of reasons why this wasn’t important to me any more.  One I must use a Microsoft Exchange server at work so this performs the same function with all my work Email, Contacts, and Calendar.  And for all my personal info I use the Google Suite – Gmail and Gcal.  The Google products perform the same function, and the cost is FREE.

2. Online Gallery – The online galleries that .Mac and now MobileMe have look great, and there was a time they were the best thing out there, but now with Flickr and Picasa once again a free service offers a comparable solution.  iPhoto will even upload to Flickr now.  And I bet for most people photo sharing on Facebook is good enough.

3. Back-to-My-Mac – Now I must confess, I was never able to get this to work right, and I know very few people that use it consistently without problems, but it’s still a feature that could be a great service.  And once again, I found a FREE service that is able to perform the same function.  I use LogMeIn and it works great, and it also can allow you to go back to a PC if you wanted also.  I’ve had much better luck with LogMeIn, than I ever had with BackToMyMac.  They do have a pay service, but the FREE level has been great for my needs.

4. iDisk – This was another service that in it’s day was unique, and the easiest way to share and store files online.  The replacement for this for me has been DropBox.  It works great and is super easy.  You can have both private and public files.  Great for storing things you need access to (even from your iPhone) or things you need to send the links out to share.  DropBox‘s free level only offers 2 GB of storage which is a fraction of MobileMe’s 20 GB, but if you needed more you could pay for it.

5. iWeb – This one there I don’t have a great free solution for, but if you really want to host a website, even one you created in iWeb, there are a lot hosting companies that are much better and still cheaper than the $99 you spend a year for MobileMe.  But if a website is what you are after a free Blogger or WordPress account would give you that blog or site for FREE.

One thing that was nice about MobileMe, was all these services were integrated into one interface.  My current FREE solution is a series of links, but it gives me a series of tools that are all really good at the one thing they do instead of an integrated service that doesn’t always work as advertised.  Plus the money that I saved I was able to put toward an Online backup service which is more valuable to me than an integrated package.

So am I crazy?  Did I make a big mistake giving up on MoblieMe?  What are your thoughts?

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Hard Drive Spring Cleaning

admin —  April 24, 2009 — Leave a comment

Maybe you have a once a yer cleaning ritual, or maybe you are just running out of space on the hard drive that you were sure was way bigger than you needed when you initially bought the machine. Whatever the case, you probably find yourself wondering where to start. Where did all your gigabytes go anyway? That’s where JDiskReport comes in. The software is easy and intuitive. After you install it, it will do a scan of whatever directory tree you specify and then come up with an easy to understand pie chart showing where your precious space has gone. You can click through the tree structure on the left or on the pie chart to the right to drill down into the cluttered depths of your hard drive.

The only thing I wish it could do is delete the files/directories from within the program, but that is not a hard drawback to get over in such a handy piece of freeware.

The best news? Not only is it free, but since it is based on java, it is available on Windows, Mac (though with a decidedly Windows look and feel), or even over the web.  Just check out their site for all the details!

In Featured, HouseKeeping, Mac, pc, Software , ,
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New Gmail Mobile

admin —  April 8, 2009 — Leave a comment

Gmail introduced its new Gmail for Mobile web app for Andriod, iPhone, and iPod touch. They have tweaked the interface to allow for easier searching and basic archive, delete, etc. functions, but the most interesting update is that the app allows for offline reading of recently read messages using Gears for Andriod and SQLite for iPhone (according to Engadget). It was an allover great experience for me when I tried it out, and as earned a home screen icon on my iPhone. Check out their video (and TUAW’s review)for a demo and more information:

In Featured, News, Software, Web , , , ,
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What Presentation Software Do You Use?

admin —  April 7, 2009 — Leave a comment

I’ve had a lot of conversations lately about presentation software, and I would love to know what you use in your ministry.  I know we had a similar poll a few months back, but it’s seems like a lot of people have been switching and thought it would be interesting to ask again:

I would like to do a series on the most popular ones.

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Review: Times RSS Reader

admin —  April 5, 2009 — Leave a comment

After thinking about the latest Macheist, seeing all the tweets touring the great deals, and the new, amazing apps unlocked by selling enough to donate over $400,000 to charity, I caved. Boy am I glad I did! I found an amazing RSS reader app. To call Times an RSS reader is like calling “Pride (In the Name of Love)” by U2 a song or calling Michelangelo’s Pieta a sculpture..

I love all the news sites and blogs that are available on the internet, but consuming that information has been tedious at best. The problem is that most RSS readers present the content in something more akin to an e-mail reader. That would be great if I wanted or needed to attend to all of the pieces of all the RSS feeds I was interested in, but I don’t. For me RSS is much closer to a Newspaper. There are generally a couple of articles on each site that I care to read, a couple that I’d like to scan and well over half that I do not care about at all. I need something to help me browse the feeds I’m interested in, and Times does that with flying colors.

Times takes the RSS feeds you program as well as several that come preloaded (Digg, NYTimes, Engadget, etc.) and presents them in an intuitive, attractive newspaper layout.  Depending on where the feed is located, they either show previews or titles, and if you want a couple more from a specific feed, there is a “show more” button at the bottom of the section that will fetch several more articles from the feed.

When you click on a feed, the browsing interface slides down and the article loads in the reader, but don’t worry, if you want to read it on the original site, just click the title. Another handy feature is a “shelf” where you can place articles that you want to save or read later.

If you haven’t figured it out, I love this app!  It has solved a problem and alowed me to sift through all the boring infomation available online and find all the stuff I’m interested in.  It’s well worth checking out.  Visit Acrylic software for all the details.

In Featured, Mac, Software
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