by Maximilian Lemos on September 8, 2011
With Chris off working in Europe, the rest of the FoleyPod Team is getting its first taste of what extreme work-shifting is like. Despite Chris’ recent disappearance, Kazdyn and I are managing just fine, we remain incredibly productive and despite our go-to man being gone, we have adjusted accordingly.
In fact this trip is turning out to be a great trial run for the more permanent departure Chris has planned for May 2012.
But staying more in the present, here is a great tip from Lifehacker and one that we have certainly implemented into our own schedules now that the FoleyPod team is working across different time zones:
How to Avoid Time Zone Confusion When You Create Google Calendar Events
Whether you’ve got colleagues in a different time zone or you’re planning meetings for a trip, it’s easy to mix up your schedule when time zones are involved. Save yourself time and confusion when creating new time-zone-sensitive events in Google Calendar by including the event time zone in your event description. Here’s how it works. [click to continue…]
by Maximilian Lemos on August 31, 2011
In most cases I would disagree with the old adage “bigger is better,” but when it comes to screen real-estate I can’t get enough. I remember a day when I was happy with my 15 inch desktop display, tootling around in windows 95, blissfully ignorant, doing whatever it is that a 12 year-old does on an ancient machine. However, just has my computer needs started to revolve less and less around gaming and more about getting work done efficiently, I realized one 15 inch display was not enough.
Just like that I had entered into that never-ending journey to find bigger and better displays. Mac|Life understands that people just like me, obsessed with getting bigger and better displays need guidance, so here is their guide to finding the right one:
It doesn’t seem so long ago that buying a new Mac often required buying a new display to go with it — and there were plenty to choose from. Flash forward to the present and Apple is selling more notebooks and iMacs, which has all but negated the need for a separate monitor with many users. But for the few, the proud who still need one, here’s a quick look at your options. [click to continue…]
by Chris Foley on August 24, 2011
Popular RSS/Feed library service Lazyfeed has been “down for maintenance” for some time now, and I hope this outage doesn’t spell the end of this service, for I quite liked it.
Their website HERE has had the following message for more than a week:
Lazyfeed is going through a maintenance. Sorry for the inconvenience.
In fact, it’s been down for so long that Google has cached the “down for maintenance” page, and has updated the site’s meta description with the maintenance message!
I first noticed this on August 19th, and I tried to call them out on Twitter:
True to form, Lazyfeed did not respond to my tweet, in fact their Twitter page has not been updated since October of 2010. [click to continue…]
by Maximilian Lemos on August 20, 2011
OS X Lion was likely released download only as a means of promoting the the Mac App Store. I am all for the Mac App Store, it’s yet another step towards having an awesome cloud experience, but when it comes to a full-blown OS, I like to have a physical means of backing up my Shiz.
Thankfully, Apple has released the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, a tool that will allow Lion users to make a recovery partition on an external drive or USB key. This announcement comes after Apple released their own external drive loaded with Lion available for purchase, for about $70. If you don’t feel like having a reliable physical medium at that kind of cost, you can simply make one for yourself!
From the people of Apple, directly:
To create an external Lion Recovery, download the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant application. Insert an external drive, launch the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, select the drive where you would like to install, and follow the on screen instructions.
When the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant completes, the new partition will not be visible in the Finder or Disk Utility. To access Lion Recovery, reboot the computer while holding the Option key. Select Recovery HD from the Startup Manager. [click to continue…]
by Maximilian Lemos on July 28, 2011
With Lion on the loose for just over a week now, I wanted to give my initial thoughts, as well as speculate to some degree as to what Lion will look like in the weeks ahead.
The Dashboard
I would like to be the first (or at least the first person in my circles) to say that Apple has given the widget dashboard its own space in an attempt to further unify iOS and OS X. I am willing to bet that Apple has reserved the widget dashboard to be a place to run iOS apps and games like Angry Birds. It’s only a matter of time before the new OS X App Store starts releasing iOS versions that run in the background on your widget dashboard ready to be used. Until then the widget space seems like a clunky addition to the very streamlined Mission Control.
Insane Scrolling
I really tried to like it, but Lion’s new scrolling has got me all confused and uncomfortable. I can understand why Apple wants to get people to switch over, given their push to unify iOS and OS X. However, when it comes to scrolling, it is most intuitive to keep it the way it always has been. The last week has been rather difficult for me to switch between multiple computers that have different methods of scrolling. My windows machine has traditional scrolling while my newly updated iMac has the new inverted scrolling, this doesn’t make my life any easier. I will pass.
To disable inverted scrolling:
System Preferences> Mouse> Uncheck Scroll direction: natural
Other than that I am very pleased with Lion. There are some great touches and fine-tunings that really make it feel like a much quicker and leaner OS. I am excited and ready to see some of these bigger changes, what about you? What are your thoughts on Lion, and where do you think it will head in the future?
by Maximilian Lemos on July 14, 2011
You gotta love the smooth operators over at Life Hacker, they always seem to have a trick or workaround to help the rest of us enjoy digital treasures, sooner.
Calling Spotify a treasure is an understatement. For those that are unfamiliar with Spotify, this service allows users to access an almost bottomless pool of music, while also offering you a place to manage the local music files you already have. Think of it as the iTunes Store except all those scrawny song previews are actually full length songs at your fingertips. With a US launch less than 24 hours old people are scrambling for invites, the problem with that however, is they are going fast or not being passed out at all. Purchasing a premium account gives you instant access, but if you just want to try it, or have no interest in paying for yet another subscription, we won’t judge you. So without further adue here are the instructions Life Hacker so lovingly put together to get instant access to Spotify in the US, with no waiting around for an invite, that may never actually come. [click to continue…]
