TextExpander
Having been inundated with work for the last several weeks, I found myself typing the same emails over and over again as follow ups to the most common questions I get asked. “How does this <product or service> work?” “Can you send me links to your documentation?”
TextExpander has greatly simplified the task of getting common emails responses out to customers for me without having to rely on cut-and-paste or a template email that I have to find in a folder somewhere. And I’m not just talking about using a keyboard shortcut to generate my signature. Sure, TextExpander can do that too but it’s real power shows off when you can craft a full page email with formatted text or even generate AppleScript (which I haven’t tried yet). I have only touched the surface of what this program can do for me - I’ve only written about how I use it with email but TextExpander can work in all applications.
I can’t do it enough justice here in a short post so you really need to check out the videos. TextExpander is available from Smile On My Mac and there is a downloadable trial.
I’d be interested in hearing about how others are creatively using TextExpander as well.
Let’s Test Seesmic’s New Embed Features
Threading is now available right inside the Seesmic embedded video below.
Click on reply in the upper right hand corner and see how it works.
An Audio/Visual VoiceCloud Example
Here is the text exactly as it was transcribed and sent to my email:
“Hi I’m leaving a message for myself so you can see the accuracy f the voicecloud service. I wasn’t convinced about this service until someone left me a very lengthy email today and the transcript came in almost perfectly. I was extremely impressed so I thought what I’d do is try and call myself from my own phone, leave a message and put this up on others so that you can see for yourself listening and reading the transcript as it came in through my email and I’ll explain more about the service when I post it, thanks for listening. .. Voice-to-Text by VoiceCloud“
VoiceCloud says it is “the premier provider of true, next-generation, real-time voice-to-text transcription services.” You can judge for yourself. http://www.voicecloud.com/
I am enjoying the service, even though I have a form of visual voicemail built into the iPhone. I like the notices sent to my email and being able to quickly read what the voicemail was about. It has come in handy when I’m not in a position to pick up the phone. Or just don’t want to! 
Mobile post sent by ResPres using Utterz. Replies. mp3
Have A Listen To Lifehacker on Jott Feeds
I listen to my Utterz Circle in the car. It’s one of my forms of driving entertainment and also a way to maximize my time. I love it.
Jott just added a new feature to their service today that gives me one more way to maximize my driving time. It’s called Jott Feeds. “Jott Feeds offers you a new and easy way to get updates from your favorite websites by listening to them on your mobile phone.” I listened to Life Hacker today using Jott Feeds and it was an excellent way to get to content I might have otherwise missed. I thought I’d record it for those who aren’t on Jott yet.
Mobile post sent by ResPres using Utterz. Replies. mp3
A Quick Look At PicLens
Thanks to Teresa Boardman for turning me on to this browser plugin.
PicLens “transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for viewing photos and videos across the web. With one click, PicLens makes online media come to life via an immersive presentation that goes beyond the confines of the traditional browser.”
I’ll never look at Flickr the same way again!
Crashplan
I have two questions for you: 1. Do you back up your data? 2. Why not?
Most of us have the best intentions when it comes to backing up our data. Yes, we are told that it’s not a matter of if a drive fails, it’s a matter of when. And when you start hearing that whining noise on a hard drive or your system just does not want to boot, you’re going to wish you had your data backed up already.
So why aren’t we as diligent in backing up our data as we should be? It’s either inconvenient (time consuming) or too expensive and like saving money, it needs to be automatic or we won’t do it.
There’s a lot of great backup software available but there’s one package that caught my attention at Macworld a couple of years ago. Crashplan.
Crashplan gave me three things that made backups simpler:
- Automation
- No monthly fees
- Off-site backup
That last point is pretty important. You can have all the backups you want but if you don’t keep a copy of your data at some other physical location, then you run the risk of losing it all in a(n) <you-fill-in-your-potential-disaster-here>. Crashplan lets you automatically backup your encrypted data to a friend’s computer or another computer that you own (ideally, one that is offsite).
Crashplan runs in Windows, Mac, or Linux.
LinkBun.ch Does One Thing Very Well
It puts a whole bunch of links into one link.
Here’s an example: http://linkbun.ch/cf3 If you’ve ever tried to get more than one link into a text message or over on Twitter, you’ll understand why this will be a useful little tool. And because it does one thing, it’s painfully simple.
Go to LinkBun.ch. Type the links you want to link to into the field provided, one link per line.
Click on “Bunch” and get your link.
Enjoy.
Vidnik Works (Sort Of) Right Out Of The Box
Usability is everything to me. If something is hard to use, it simply doesn’t get used.
Today I saw a short post about Vidnik over at DownloadSquad and before I even finished the second sentence had already clicked over to the Vidnik download page to give it a try. So, I thought I’d record my very first moments with Vidnik to see if it was as easy as it appeared in the graphic on the DownloadSquad post.
I usually test without reading beyond a basic description. This is partially because I expect things to be easy on the Mac and partially because I want to see how intuitive the product is to use. In this case, as advertised, Vidnik was very easy to use.
Here’s my test of Vidnik, right out of the box:
Takin Vidnick For A Test Drive from respres on Vimeo.
As you can see, it’s easy to use… but I can’t get it to sync the sound properly.
Here’s the link to the finished Vidnik test on YouTube. Initially I thought the sound may have been off because I was capturing a screencast at the same time. But I did a second test and a third test and the same thing happened. Other Vidnik testers appear to have the same issue with Vidnik.
The videos that Vidnik automatically saved to the hard drive were perfectly in sync. So, I uploaded Test 3 again, only this time I did it directly to YouTube the old fashioned way. No luck, I encountered the Same problem. Finally, to make sure it wasn’t something happening on my end, I recorded a final video in iMovie and uploaded that. It uploaded just fine.
Unfortunately, while I like the simplicity and intuitiveness of the Vidnik application, the end result left much to be desired.
DropCopy
How do you copy files from one local computer to another? Do you use email and then wait for it at the other machine? Do you set up shared directories? It should be pretty easy but sometimes even the seemingly simple task of sending a file to another local machine takes some setup before it can be a simple task. You may need to share a folder on the destination machine, open ports on your firewall, then connect from the remote machine before you can copy that one file over.
This is why DropCopy from 10-base-T Interactive is such a cool program. Not only does it simplify the setup of copying files between computers (at this point I should say Macs because it is a Mac only program) but it has about the simplest interface I have seen in a long time - it’s a translucent circle placed in on your desktop that is basically a portal to your destination machine.
Setup simply involves installing the program on each Mac (drag the program to your Applications folder or anywhere for that matter). For the most part, you won’t need to configure anything since it uses Apple’s Bonjour protocol to identify itself to other DropCopy clients. At the same time, if you want to get fancy, you can transfer files between remote machines if you set up the right forwarding rules on your router and local firewall. Hint: open port 5052 and know your public IP address.
To copy a file to the remote Mac, just drag it onto your portal and hover over the destination name you want, then let it go. Your file appears on the destination Mac in the designated folder or Desktop. Programs like this just make me smile because it really should be this simple.
This program is for Mac OS only and is free for personal use (up to three machines on a network).
TechnoSanity Has A New Writer
After a long courtship, I’m pleased to announce that one of my most trusted friends, Mike Whitman, aka rcmike, is about to start writing for TechnoSanity.
I had never intended for this to be a multi-author blog. I wanted it to have one voice. But Mike and I have so much in common, I think it will feel like one voice. How much do we have in common?
- We live on the same street.
- We live in the same house model.
- We both have a lot of kids. Me - 6. Mike - 5.
- We both openly profess our love for Macs.
- We both like sane technology.
Mike is a Solutions Advisor with Akamai Technologies, so he’s got some serious geek cred. But that’s not why I invited him. I asked him to add his voice here because he uses technology wisely and has an intuitive sense about what works and doesn’t work in the real world.
I can’t count how many times I’ve been able to attribute some new “find” to an email that I received from Mike. He has consistently found great new tools that work to make my life easier. It happened again today. He emailed me a link to a great little tool that I’d never heard of and it prompted me to call and beg him to write… again. He finally gave in.
So, write away my friend. But please don’t stop sending me emails!