Archive for the 'Tips' Category
All Art Media, Inc. today announced the launch of VegEZ for iPhone and iPod Touch. Created by Delicious TV, VegEZ features 50 of Delicious TVʼs newest and most popular recipes along with 32 companion videos that offer step-by-step instruction, meal variations, and practical tips along with ingredient lists for shopping, bookmarked favorites, and email links to share recipes with friends.
Regular viewers say one of the best things about the show/podcast is that the visuals give them a feel for Toniʼs easy, flexible style of cooking and makes it easy to enjoy the benefits of vegan food without the trouble of completely changing the foods they already eat. One viewer wrote, “Iʼm not a vegetarian, but if I keep making your delicious recipes, I might end up one – at least a few nights a week.” Easy to make, delicious to eat – what could be better?
For todayʼs home cook with a full time schedule, VegEZ provides easy, fun, family- friendly meals that are healthier, greener, and always delicious. Watch quick prep meals and have the recipes at your fingertips.
Delicious TV is currently developing an additional two new vegan web series for 2010. Stay tuned!
A Faster Mac In 10 Minutes
The OWC series of free online upgrade installation videos for MacBook and MacBook Pro models are rated from an “Easy” to “Straightforward” level and can be performed at home as quickly as an estimated 10-minute installation time. The complete series of installation videos for MacBook and MacBook Pros, as well as videos for Mac tower, desktop, and iPod battery installs is available at: http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/
“One of OWC’s founding principles is to maximize the usefulness of existing resources. Whether a customer has a legacy Mac or the latest machine, these videos are an invaluable resource for getting greater performance from their Mac and/or extending its useful life,” said Larry O’Connor, CEO, OWC. “With the typical service center charging upwards of $80 for an easy memory install, MacBook and MacBook Pro owners can save both time and money by utilizing this free resource.”
Memory Upgrades From $29.79, 7200RPM Hard Drives From $64.99
OWC Memory Upgrade Kits priced starting at $29.79 are available up to 8GB for MacBook and MacBook Pro models and are backed with a Money Back Guarantee and OWC’s Lifetime Advance Replacement Warranty. Additional money savings are also available through OWC’s Rebate program, which provides $5.00 Cash Back per 1GB Apple Factory Standard memory module.
Upgrading the internal hard drive can also make MacBook and MacBook Pro machines faster. Prices start at $64.99 for a 250GB 7200RPM drive, with the most popular upgrades including a 320GB 7200RPM drive priced at $84.99 and a 500GB 7200RPM drive priced at $149.99. In addition, MacBook and MacBook Pro owners that purchase a new hard drive from OWC also enjoy the benefit of keeping their existing drive, which can be used as a temporary backup drive, converted into an external storage solution, or sent to OWC for a cash back trade-in.
For a complete list of upgrades for MacBook and MacBook Pro models, visit:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade
OWC – The Trusted Name in Mac Memory
OWC memory upgrades are available from 16MB up to 32GB for nearly every current and past Apple notebook and desktop computer manufactured during the past twenty years, including Mac Pro Xeon, iMac, PowerMac, Xserve, iBook, and PowerBook computers. By maintaining an active state-of-the-art test lab, OWC can ensure its memory upgrades offer the highest product quality and reliability and backs them with a Lifetime Advance Replacement Warranty and Money Back Guarantee.
OWC’s independent memory benchmarks testing on a wide variety of Mac computers consistently demonstrates having more memory provides higher real-world performance. OWC memory performance gains are even more apparent when using memory intensive applications, such as audio/video, photo, 3D modeling, gaming and other applications, where OWC memory upgrades offer the best performance for the investment.
The full OWC Memory line, as well as a compatibility guide which directs customers to the correct upgrades for each specific Apple model, can be found online at: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/
Proporta is made up of a friendly bunch who enjoy making new friends. As well as having their very own lovely website, Proporta also host a page with the popular networking site Facebook.
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past few years you’ll know that Facebook is a great way of interacting with people. It’s also a fantastic tool for Proporta to inform their ‘fans’ of promotions, latest products and industry news, and for their customers to write on the Proporta wall with any comments they fancy sharing with Proporta and their fellow Facebookers.
Because Proporta value a good friendship, they’re offering a 12% discount on all of their very new (very nice) cases for the latest members of the iPod family (2G iPod touch, 2G iPod classic and 4G iPod nano). However, this offer is exclusive to friends of the Proporta Facebook page and only available until the 31st October 2008. To find out how to receive your discount, become a friend and all will be revealed.
I abandoned Microsoft Entourage nearly a year ago after becoming frustrated with the crashes, long open times, high memory use, cluttered look, and non-integration to OS X. That left me with iCal for my calendaring needs and since it had already all my events playing middle-man for synchronizing my iPhone, it seemed natural to stick with it. In the course of the year, I have come to love iCal…and dislike it in other ways. One of my dislikes is the requirement for me to leave my current application and go to it to add an event or a to do item. After using QuickSilver and LaunchBar before it for so many years, I’ve become quite use to not leaving my current session. And while you can add events and to do items using QS, it’s too difficult and clumsy. I want easy. I use a Mac for a reason.
Enter FlexCal. FlexGames has created a powerful and easy to use tool that works with iCal for all of us productivity conscious Mac users. I immediately downloaded this and when I found some lacking features, the author was quick to implement my suggestions. Now at 1.06, I couldn’t be any happier with it! With the ability to add an event or a to do item with a simple key combination, you’ll never be forced to leave what you were doing again. Supporting nearly every attribute for the event and to do, you just don’t have to open iCal anymore, folks! Key combo, type, select, return. That’s it, you’re done!
If you’re looking to drive iCal to heights you once thought you never could, then you need to download FlexCal. It’s well worth any donation you can give FlexGames!
PumpOne introduces iPump Total Body™, the first in a series of workout applications for iPhone and iPod touch available through Apple’s iTunes App Store. This ultimate on-the-go video, image and audio personal trainer contains three components, WORKOUT, LOG and INSPIRE, that not only coaches users through complete workouts, but also allows them to keep track of sessions and instantly send progress logs to friends, family or medical professionals.
“Everybody would love the luxury of their own live personal trainer, but not everyone can afford it,” says Craig Schlossberg, President of PumpOne. “iPump is the next best thing. The clear exercise videos, crisp fitness images and quick intuitive interface show a user exactly what exercises to perform, in what order and with the proper intensity. Plus, you can enjoy your music while training with the application.”
iPump Total Body is made up of three levels; Foundation, Intermediate and Comprehensive, each with three gym workouts, totaling nine. The exercises in each workout target all major muscle groups and include workout-specific intensity charts showing reps, sets and rest intervals. This easy to use program removes the mystery from performing effective workouts while helping users gain strength, lose weight and increase endurance.
With the world’s largest exercise image and video library, PumpOne’s content was created specifically for mobile devices that do not get in the way of a training session. The iPump series will contain fitness programs from all areas of training; Strength, Cardio, Flexibility, Sports, Yoga, Pilates and Physical Therapy. Available soon are iPump Abs & Core, Golf, Pulse, Pilates and Office Stretch. These interactive state-of-the-art fitness programs are exclusively distributed through the desktop iTunes application or directly from the App Store on a user’s iPhone or iPod touch.
iPump Total Body is now available for the introductory price of $2.99 from the iTunes App store or by going to http://www.PumpOne.com/ipump/totalbody.
After playing around with this for a while, I was impressed with the output. I inputted all my features, slid my importance, and to my delight, it recommended I should get a Nikon D300. Thankfully, I bought it in March. 
Give Mology a shot when looking for your next camera. I think you’ll be surprised how much better, and less annoying, it is than the kid a Best Buy.
A.D.A.M., Inc., the leading provider of high-quality health information and benefits technology solutions, today announced the A.D.A.M. Symptom Navigator web application for the iPhone. An industry first, this interactive tool helps consumers match medical symptoms with relevant assessments and appropriate treatments. Symptom Navigator empowers consumers to make the best use of the healthcare system and understand when self-care or a doctor visit is appropriate. To access the Symptom Navigator on the iPhone, visit http://iphone.adam.com. The tool offers possible causes of the symptom and medical condition, how to self treat, when it is an emergency, when you should call a doctor, and how to prevent it in the future.
“Consumers expect information at their fingertips, at all times, and being able to deliver healthcare information to mobile devices is of real value to users,” said Greg Juhn, senior vice president of product development at A.D.A.M., Inc. “Whether you are travelling on vacation with your kids or on a business trip and feeling ill, an extensive library of symptom guidance will now just be a tap away on your iPhone.”
A.D.A.M. engineered this web application version of its Symptom Navigator for optimal display on the iPhone, taking full advantage of its revolutionary Multi-Touch interface. Using the Symptom Navigator, consumers are presented with an image of the human body and they click on the affected area of the body to receive a menu of related symptoms. After selecting a symptom, the user is walked through the possible causes, home care, when to consult your doctor, and what to expect from your doctor. This data is provided by A.D.A.M. from their medically reviewed, evidence-based and URAC accredited Health Encyclopedia. A.D.A.M. owns one of the largest consumer health libraries in the world.
“Healthcare information on-the-go is important to today’s increasingly mobile society. A.D.A.M.’s Symptom Navigator for the iPhone brings high-quality medical information to consumers anytime, anywhere,” said Dr. Alan Greene, FAAP, chief medical officer of A.D.A.M., one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Forces in Healthcare IT” (Advanced for Health Information Executives), author and popular health commentator for national television. “A.D.A.M.’s new Symptom Navigator for the iPhone represents the wave of the future for mobile healthcare technology applications, which will help transform the consumer-directed healthcare experience over the next several years. Everyone should have Symptom Navigator as a home button on their iPhone.”
The Symptom Navigator for the iPhone was adapted from A.D.A.M.’s popular standard edition of its Symptom Navigator, which is available on such prestigious medical Web sites as Duke University Health System, Loma Linda University Medical Center, Methodist Medical Center, the University of Wisconsin Health and thousands of Benergy employee portals. The iPhone version can be branded by A.D.A.M.’s clients and used to drive loyalty, retention, and traffic.
For more information about Symptom Navigator for the iPhone, please visit http://www.adam.com/iphonesn.
The second icon in the menu bar is a blacked-out bird with a green LED on it. That, folks, is the multi-instant messenger client Adium. It allows you to connect to various IM servers such as Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, ICQ, Jabber (including Google Talk), Bonjour (for local LAN chatting), MySpace, and even junk, err, stuff from Lotus and Novell. It’s the Trillian of Mac, basically. Like Trillian, Adium lets you skin your look-n-feel in many, many, ways. I opted to go with the Aqualicious theme which gives me that iChat from Leopard feel. With a slew of other Xtras, such as Emoticons, Sound Sets, Status Icons, Service Icons, Menu Bar Icons, Plugins, and a ton of other stuff, you could lose a lot of time just customizing Adium let alone chatting with your friends. My only wish for Adium is for video conferencing (which as been in the works for over two years.) I’d like Skype chatting, too.
Speaking of Skype, you’ll notice that right next to the Adium icon. The green check mark with the little clock. Known more for its video and audio presentation than for text chatting, Skype brings Mac users into a new world of Voice over IP (VoIP). Allowing anyone with a Mac running Mac OS X or a PC running Windows XP or higher to talk for free, Skype is an incredible application that should be on anyones Menu Bar. If you’re wondering why I use Skype rather than iChat, that would be because of just the better video presentation and audio than iChat could hope to offer over AOL lines. iChat has a great interface, but AOL is its weakest link and thus, Skype is my way of going. You’ll also find Skype to be pretty much the default method for communication in the business world. While Skype does have some rough edges, over all, it is a great way to communicate to millions of people world wide for free.
Next in line on the communication bin is Dialectic. Formally John Phone Tools, Dialectic lets your Mac dial phone numbers for you. The little gear with a phone jack in the center on the Menu Bar lets you enter a phone number by hand or from the clipboard for dialing. You can search your Address Book for numbers as well. A slew of features are easily accessible from the Dialectic icon allowing you to decrease your phone call dialing times. No more “typos” on the keypad and no more tired fingers for your power users. The greatest thing about Dialectic is that it works with major VoIP carriers such as Vonage and Broadvoice. Simply select the number to dial and your phone rings with the connected call. Other dialing methods include sending to a Bluetooth device and even emitting the DMTF tones in your speakers to send to the phones mic. All very cool and very useful.
Last of the communication items is that little bird (between the white check mark and the music note). Birds tweet and so do I. Thus, using Twitterrific is a very helpful tool. Twitterrific keeps you up to date of those you’re following or lets you open the flood gates and shows every new tweet coming in. You can easily respond to tweets and click on embedded links from it’s nicely laid out pop-up (or HUD-like) window. At the bottom of that window, you can also quickly add your 140 characters of thought as well. Fully compatible with Growl, Twitterrific is one sweet tweet!
.Mac Sync keeps pretty much everything in sync between my MacBook Pro and Mac Pro. Sometimes one will wipe out the others address book or something silly but that’s why I back up nightly with SuperDuper, too. For most of my purposes, .Mac Sync works but I’d love to see more remote disk space and a little better robust services for weeding out systems and preventing them from stepping on each other.
AppleScripts menu item gives me easy access to my scripts which is nice. I guess I could disable the menu item and just use Quicksilver, but when you have a 30 inch screen, who cares.
Speaking of that 30 inch screen, I really don’t know why I have Spaces on my Menu Bar. I really don’t use it. I guess I figure if it’s there, I’ll end up using it. I never really got into virtual desktops not even back in my X-Windows days on top of SunOS. I’ve tried using it even on my MacBook Pro, but old habits die hard. Maybe someday I’ll use it.
System volume is self explained. It raises and lowers your volume. I keep it up on my Menu Bar so if my music doesn’t play and iTunes is all the way up, I can quickly look at the Menu Bar and see, “Aah, it’s muted!” Sure, I can figure that out by just pressing my volume key on my keyboard, but hey, I’m visual. I’m a guy.
Last, but not least, I use Spotlight. I never really used it until Leopard. With all its added features and neat tricks like performing mathematics (try putting this in: pi/-4), I use it all day long. It finds files fast and has even shown me some things on my hard drive I forgot about! Hopefully Apple will put advanced features in a future release, but for now, I’m happy with it.
So, there’s the gloss over stuff. I’ll be talking about my other menu items in the coming week, so stay tuned!
) To get a closer look of what’s on the bar, click the above image and see it in its 100% pixel glory on our Flikr account.
So, I guess the easiest way to start is to simply go left to right. Thus we start with Remote Buddy. We previously touched on this application in a post before, so you should already be familiar with this groovy application. Basically, Remote Buddy allows you to use a slew of devices, including your iPhone, to remote control your Mac. Remote Buddy allows you to run through a presentation in either PowerPoint, Keynote, NeoOffice, Adobe Reader, or even Preview all from your remote in your hand. Since this is your buddy, it goes even further and allows you to control iTunes, DVD Player, VLC, and more than 100 other applications. Yes, that is not a typo, it is 100. As we stated in our last post on Remote Buddy, you can now watch movies, listen to music, and such all on your iPhone right from your Mac! You can even take a look to see if anyone is sitting at your chair via tapping into your iSight. Slick stuff indeed.
The Menu Item basically gives you quick access for pairing devices and configuration of Remote Buddy. It’s also a nice reminder that it is running and you are in control of your Mac…from afar.