Category: Product Reviews

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Product Reviews

Product Review: Balsamiq Mockups

Have you ever wanted to quickly mockup software, website, iPhone app, etc? Most people do it on paper, or try something in Visio, or Word, or even Excel!!! But they just lack that feeling of what they want you to build. I was looking around on the web and stumbled upon Balsamiq Mockups

I download the Adobe Air app pretty quickly and got started, I wanted to see how quickly I could mock up a website I am working on, because there are some new pages and I want just a template, and then be able to quickly mock up what a new page would look like and let the other team members see it without having to code anything. Check this out (this is an example of my site, not the final version):

image

I did this in less than 5 minutes. I spent more time and refined it to what I wanted, and now I have a template which I can use for new pages, and also a mockup of a report page.

Check out http://mockupstogo.net/?c=1 to get more items, and see examples. You can mock up pretty much any existing site on the web or app, this software is awesome! I wish I would have had this for the last 8 years doing software development.

There was one thing I couldn’t figure out, which was a bar graph but having the bars as columns, but I am guessing I just don’t know how to rotate it, or I need to download some more mock objects.

If you are looking for some software to easily mock up new projects to clients, or to other users on your team, or whoever, check out this tool, you will find that it is easy to use and allows you to quickly mock up and communicate what you are looking for in an end result to your devs as well as other team members (there are some awesome collaboration tools they have baked in – even if someone doesn’t have balsamiq installed, they can import an XML file into a web version to view what it looks like, tweak it, and email it back to you)

Try it out, and happy mocking! 🙂

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Geeky/Programming Product Reviews

Pen Tablet Blog Post

Today, I picked up a Bamboo Fun Pen tablet by Wacom.

image

As you can see, I wrote this post using nothing but the tablet, pretty sweet!

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Geeky/Programming Life Product Reviews

Apple Time Capsule Rocks – Microsoft needs to make one.

Since I make a living and love working on Windows, SQL, Windows Server, Office, Exchange, etc, it is kind of weird I am a Mac guy. Never thought it would happen. iPhone, Mac, Macbook Pro, Apple TV, Time Capsule, accessories…

Anyways, since Ella was born, I have TONS of pics and videos of her, on my laptop. And it auto backs up to my Apple Time Capsule. Well, iMovie auto imports videos from iPhoto, and then removes them? I am not sure, but long story short, I was missing some videos from when we got home from the hospital.

So what do I do? Freak out? No.. just fire up the Time Machine on my Mac, go back to February, and there is my iPhoto Library, I restore it, and get the videos back.

Now, I just need to offload it offsite someone, there is MacMini Colo – Transport – http://www.macminicolo.net/transport/ which looks promising, just a little too much $$, but maybe my next step.

But really, Windows needs this. We have a few Windows machines here at home, and I just feel like, umm, stuff is volatile. Thank god for flickr..that is all I have to say. I know there is Windows Home Server, but that is another BOX and updates, and whatever. I just want a device, a dumb device. I know I can get NAS and whatever, but I just want simple. Where is the Microsoft Time Capsule?

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Product Reviews

Book Review: The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen

Recently, Amazon released their Kindle application for the iPhone. Since I don’t have a Kindle (but I want one!) I figured this would be the next best thing. They have this technology in the app called WhisperSync which sync’s up the page you are reading, so if you do have a Kindle, you can switch between that and the iPhone app and pick right up where you left off.

I have had the Kindle app for a few weeks now, but have just read samples on it (you can send samples of books from the Amazon site to your iPhone). Now, whenever I hear of some book that might sound interesting, I will note it in the iPhone, and then later go to Amazon and check it out. One of these books I heard about recently was “The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture” by Andrew Keen


I heard Mr. Keen on an NPR program talking about his book, and it piqued my interest. First off, let me say that reading the book on the Kindle iPhone app rocks. I read this book in like 3 days just reading it here and there when I had some free time, just pulled up the iPhone and started reading, very slick.

Now, about the book. He goes into detail about how Wikipedia, Illegal movie and music downloads, blogs, YouTube, Google, User Generated Content, remixes, mashups, etc, and everything Web 2.0 (and even Web 1.0 – in my opinion sometimes he just blur’s the distinction) is killing our minds, and media, and jobs, and culture, and everything else.

I got the feeling while reading this, imagining an author back around the time cars started to get popular, but horses were still on the roads, where the author is complaining about autos and transportation using them, arguing we need to save horses as the method for transport.

If newspapers, local tv news, magazine, artists, etc don’t want to keep up with changing technology, then in my eyes they almost deserve to fail. He refers to Beethoven and Mozart and how they would never use the methods today to distribute their works, etc. It seems that there is this same arguement over and over. I can just see/hear it: “Sheet Music is killing the ability to play by ear!”.. “Radio is killing Sheet Music!”.. “Vinyl Albums are Killing Radio”.. “8 Tracks are killing Vinyl” (ok, I am joking on that one).. “Cassettes and CD’s will kill Vinyl”… “Mp3’s are going to kill CD’s!”..

Wait up. The part I didn’t add on all those quotes was this . ” and the artists suffer”, yet the artists always continue to survive. Its the fat cats, the middlemen who end up losing out. The publishers and then go betweens that need to change their models and they just don’t adapt to change fast enough, or do they want to change. It seems that they just want it how it is right now, and everything will be fine, and I guess I disagree.

Wikipedia, YouTube, all the mashups – they release creativity. What you as a user of these services need to realize is that you need to take everything at face value. You shouldn’t take Wikipedia as gospel, it is up to you to know that. Most people don’t do that though, and thats the problem. Instead of blaming the services and the content, how about we look at ourselves?

Ok, I could keep ranting on every part of this book in the same manner, but I will stop. It is a good read, gives another perspective of the “Web 2.0 Revolution” (as I roll my eyes – it isn’t a revolution at all, its an evolution – things will always change).

In the end ,it just seems as the old media and the old ways of doing things are trying to cling on to anything they can to try to make it stay the way it was, but that just isn’t going to happen. With everything, you CHOOSE to be a part of it or not. You don’t need to use Google, or the internet or anything, and you will be just fine, but if you do choose, then you play by the rules (or non-rules) of the net, plain and simple.

So, if you do have an iPhone, I would gladly recommend checking out the Kindle app from Amazon and start reading some more books (And if you have a Kindle as well, even better!)

The Cult of the Amateur: How blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today’s user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values


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Product Reviews

iLife 09 – iPhoto and Flickr Integration

I installed iLife 09 a few weeks ago and I have been organizing my photos using faces, places, Facebook, MobileMe and Flickr.

One thing I noticed though, is the Flickr integration is OK, but really doesn’t fit my workflow. Why?

Well first, it wants to create a Flickr Set out of everything, if I upload 1 photo or tons, an event or album. This really doesn’t work for me. I want to create a set when I want to create a set, not from a random photo here and there.

The other bigger killer for Flickr integration is that you are stuck once you have your Flickr set tied to iPhoto. You can’t remove a “Flickr Album” from iPhoto if you want. Once you do, it removes the set and photos from Flickr. WTF?

I might have to stick with the FFXExporter plugin I have installed, much more control and many more options.

The MobileMe integration and Facebook integration is much better from what I see, so far. Hopefully Apple with update the Flickr integration some time and make it easier to use, and fit the workflow that I use (and probably most other people) when I upload photos to Flickr


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Geeky/Programming Product Reviews

How 20$ Saved Me 100$ + A Month – HDTV Antenna

I really hate TV. I don’t even watch it. It is something that you should be able to pay for what you use, not pay for everything and use a little bit of it, so here is what I did.

I went to Best Buy and picked up and HDTV Antenna.

It rocks. I just plug it in to the coax, do a search and it finds the local channels. ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, WB, PBS, and Weather Plus. Picks up the regular versions and HD versions. Since that is all that Emily wants, to see weather alerts and crap, it’s good enough for me.

I have PlayOn setup on my Vista box so I can get Hulu, YouTube and Netflix streaming to my PS3. I can rent movies, buy movies and TV shows on the PS3, Xbox 360, and AppleTV, and I can get podcasts and YoutTube on the AppleTV. What else do I need? And if I really want something, I can get it using rapidshare or whatever, or stream it on my laptop.

So, yeah, “Hello, Charter? Cancel my cable, I don’t need you anymore, kthxbye”

It’s liberating, and adds more $$ to my bottom line every month.

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Geeky/Programming Product Reviews

Browser Wars 08

Now that Google has released its browser, Chrome, that leaves us 4-5 big players in the browser wars.

1) Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (download)
2) Mozilla’s Firefox (download)
3) Apple’s Safari (download)
4) Opera’s Opera (Weird – their company name is the same as the browser name) (download)
5) Google’s Chrome (download)

Pretty much everyone has used IE, unless you are a main frame unix guy or something, you at least have probably used it to get Windows Updates. I think I started using it around IE3, then IE4, IE5, IE5.5, IE6, now IE7, and actually I am using IE8 Beta2 at work. IE works, but it has been plagued by security vulnerabilities, and stagnated from lack of innovation from the IE4 days till now, where they are finally picking up steam again. Although, you are kind of stuck to Windows if you want to use IE, one of the major factors I don’t use it as my main browser. IE has somewhere between 70% and 80% of the market share, so your site better work in IE. I do say death to IE6 though. MSFT should push IE7 as a mandatory update.

Firefox is multi-platform, a good thing. It also seems to have major releases more often, better auto update support, and of course, extensions, which really extend the browser to something way better than ever imagined. Firefox has security issues sometimes, but they are usually quick to fix, and they are also pushing the competition with every new release.

Safari, oh Safari. I did try to use this as my main browser when I picked up my MacBook Pro, but after about 2 weeks I had to switch to Firefox. It just lacks some key features that make me want to switch back to Firefox, little quirks. It does render fast and nice, and yeah, the iPhone version is much better than PocketIE – its not even a comparison. Safari works now on Windows and Mac, which is also a good thing, cross platform is always nice.

Opera – well, it has 1% or less of the market share, but it just won’t die. I only use it when I need to test a site that has to work on everything, other than that, not much. Seems that stuff renders different in Opera. They have made some strides in features, like mouse gesturing, and other things that other browsers have “stolen” if you will, but I just don’t see Opera being a big contender in the space. It is cross platform which is nice, but it just doesn’t have the steam the other browsers do.

And then the new player, Chrome. Some are saying it already has 1, 2 maybe eve 3% of the market share. I installed it and used it for about a week as my main browser. It uses WebKit, the same rendering engine as Safari, so sites that work in Safari for the most part work in Chrome. (Firefox uses Gecko by the way). Chrome is the fastest out of the bunch, at least from my experience. The new concept of tabs on top is different. The process model is different, where each tab is a process (IE8 Beta2 has this as well), and there are other “new” features in Chrome – most of which are in IE8, FF 3.1, or available as extensions on FF 3.1. It isn’t cross platform yet, but they say it will be in time, fair enough.

So from the list above, you have Firefox and Opera (which is not used by many) being cross platform. Which means, if you want to use Windows flavors 2000, XP, Vista, or Mac 10.4, or 10.5, or many flavors of Linux, Firefox is pretty much the way to go, to get the consistent experience from OS to OS.

Most companies and corporations are STUCK on Internet Explorer 6. This just makes me cringe. At least get to IE7, it has been out for two years, IE8 is coming out next month!!

I see chrome gaining market share, but Google is walking a fine line on privacy it seems, they have already backpeddled a few of their policies since they released Chrome.

Safari is good for Apple users, or someone who wants the “Apple Experience”. I suppose IE gives you the “Microsoft Experience” the best. Chrome will give you the “Google Experience” the best. Firefox just gives you the “Best Experience” 🙂

I would recommend every once in a while switching to a new browser for a week or two, just to keep up with the changes. I guess you should switch not just browsers, but everything if you can (OS, Media Players, etc, etc) – Try It!

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Geeky/Programming Product Reviews

MobileMe's Mail – Glaring Omission

So we have MobileMe setup. I still use GAFYD for my main email, but I had Emily use MobileMe with my old iPhone. Today a glaring omission was pointed out. No rich text, formatting, coloring, smileys, font changing, italics, bold, underline, etc to be found.

mobile_me_compose

There are options to send, draft, spelling, and add contact. Also in the Mail preferences, there is a “Composing” tab, but no settings for formatting at all. For some people, this is the show stopper feature they want. You would expect any first rate email client to have these things. Of course, some people don’t want these settings, but if they are there, then you can turn them off, but if they aren’t there, you can do anything, and you go back to Hotmail so you can send smileys and 24 pt wingding font in red 🙂

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Product Reviews

Can't Play A Video? Try VLC

One application that I always install when I set up a new machine, is VLC – http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

What is nice, is that it will play just about anything. Video, Audio, whatever. It will play AVI’s, DVDs, Mp3s, FLV’s, and any other 3 letter acronym you can think of.

You can set it to be default for all these types, or just use it when you need it. It is open source, and free. Other apps are built on VLC as well (Miro for one)

What is nice, is that it is cross platform, so I can use it on Windows, Mac, and Linux!

When in doubt, install VLC 🙂

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Product Reviews

Trying a new IM client: Digsby

I decided to try out a new IM client tonight, Digsby

I have been using pidgin for a long time and really like it. Looks like digsby is just like pidgin with some more features, so that is cool. I used code "lifehacker" to download/install

Check it out if you are sick of your current (read: trillan) IM client

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