MacAppADay - Mira

Today's free app at MacAppADay was Mira from Twisted Melon. It adds more functionality to the Apple Remote. I was hoping for this one to show up because with my new MacBook Pro, I might actually use the remote. It might be a good way to impress the Windows users.

It says on the site that tomorrow's free app will be another one from Devon Technologies. I have 4 new applications from them in the past 2 weeks, so there's a fair chance I already have what they are giving away.

LA Times for kids

The LA Times has a nice page for kids each day in the print newspaper. This week's feature has been about the LA Times and how the newspaper is produced. Interesting to me because my dad worked at a newspaper when I was young and I remember making some visits to the building where they printed the paper -- The Perth Amboy Evening News. I did a school report on typesetting and had some pieces of metal type to show.

One thing they don't mention on the LA Times kids page is the pay wall which hides most of the stories they publish:

Each separate Web page is tied to the main site for latimes.com, called the "home" page. It's like a table of contents for the whole website. All these pages are tied together and arranged so you can find every story in the paper. Then they are sent to a central computer, called a "server."

So maybe you can find every story in the paper the day it's published, but if you look for something next week you may not find it.

CW Nevius blog

People sometimes say that sportswriters are some of the best journalists. Jim Murray of the LA Times was one sportswriter like that, and CW Nevius, although not a sportswriter any longer, does a really excellent job on non-sports topics. I really liked his commentary on overbearing parents at children's sporting events a few months back, and today he has a great piece on the James Kim story. While he addresses the complaints that some people have about the story, he gets to the heart of why it was so compelling and sad for most people.

CommonSenseMedia

One problem in many families where children use the Internet extensively and parents don't is that the parents aren't engaged enough in monitoring what their kids are doing. I have always been surprised at the number of kids under 10 who are allowed to play video games with Teen or even Mature ratings and watch R rated movies at home. I've interviewed many children who have told me this and have also heard more examples through my sons. To me, it's just a time bomb for parents to not be involved in what media their children consume. SFGate has a story today about CommonSenseMedia.org is a website where people are trying to address this problem by rating movies, games, music, books and websites. Their recommendations for what age is appropriate are a little more realistic than the movie industry's -- for example, they say that the movie Blood Diamond, rated R, is okay for anyone older than 15. It's a good resource for parents and children.

MacAppADay may need registration...

I've been hitting the MacAppADay site every morning and downloading whatever they are offering each day. Today I finally noticed that in some cases you also need to download a registration key, or request one. I'm usually barely awake and I can hardly read the screen, so I think I missed that on a couple of the early ones. Today's app was DevonAgent, version 1.7. I bought version 2.0 last week. If you get 1.7 they give you $20 off if you upgrade, a savings of $30.

Speed of MacBook Pro

The MacBook Pro I have is way faster than my iMac. Both have Intel chips, although not the same ones, but I have a feeling that the 2GB of RAM in the MacBook Pro is making a big difference. My iMac has slowed to a crawl at times and it can be pretty frustrating to work with when that happens. Time for more memory!

Christmas Lights

It seems like a slow year for Christmas lights in my neighborhood. We have one street nearby where in past years every single home has been way overdone with lights and decorations and inflatable characters. It causes a traffic jam some nights. This year, only one house out of about ten has any lights at all, but it's early. I always fear climbing up to put the lights on my garage and falling off the ladder onto my car. That would be bad. I hope to get the lights up this week though.

SFGate profiles Mike Arrington

There is a long article in today's SFGate about TechCrunch blogger Mike Arrington. His quick rise to powerful blogger and Web 2.0 influencer is pretty incredible. They even call him Mr. Web 2.0. TechCrunch is a great source of information, but not knowing the relationships which exist between TechCrunch and the companies they review is a little bit of a concern.

Old-school journalists question Arrington's ethics and potential for conflicts of interest. He even engaged in a high-profile dustup with the New York Times at an Online News Association conference in October in which he accused the Times of ethical lapses but later backed down. Blogger and author Nick Carr charged that while Arrington discloses his investments when he writes about companies, he doesn't always disclose those investments when he writes -- sometimes negatively -- about their competitors. Tech gossip blog Valleywag has a field day with each alleged transgression.

Arrington struck back on his blog, writing that his friendships and his activity as an entrepreneur and investor help him get access to inside information.

"No one should think TechCrunch is objective or conflict-free," he wrote. "We aren't. We never have been. We never will be."

Get your mail delivered at a mailstop

Sometimes it's useful to have a place to have mail delivered other than at your home address or place of business. I used a mailbox when I was selling stuff on eBay because I was paranoid about having some weirdo hunt me down and rob me. It's safer and easier to pick up the mail at a maildrop, especially if you get packages. It can be challenging to find a maildrop, but Maildropguide.com has done the work of locating mailboxes for you. Just enter your city or zip code and you'll quickly have a list of places where you can get a mailbox. If you aren't sure how a maildrop works, check out the guide. Maildropguide also offers listing service -- $40 for a lifetime listing -- if you run a business which provides mail boxes.

New laptop arrives

After more than a month of waiting and a few more days of preparation, my MacBook Pro arrived at work today. I have the 15" model and it seems huge after using a 12" Powerbook for 2+ years. I have pretty much the standard set of software, plus the unavoidable MS Office, 2 GB of RAM, and Windows XP set up with Bootcamp. I tried the Parallels beta to use XP from Bootcamp but didn't get that to work. I'll have to do some troubleshooting there. My primary use of XP will be with Camtasia, but I am considering scrapping that plan and doing the screen recording with Snapz Pro on the Mac side. Not perfect, but it should do the job for me and maybe I can wait and see if Camtasia comes out for the Mac at MacWorld.

Record your voice memos with BrainCast

Something that happens to me all the time when I'm listening to the radio in the car is that I need to make a note of something like a URL or the name of a musician, and I can't do it. I'm driving with both hands on the wheel and trying to grab a pen and write things down can be dangerous. A great solution for this would be the new BrainCast Beta -- BrainCast is a free service which allows you to record voice memos from any phone. No charge. Just call their 800 number, say what's on your mind and they will call your phone and leave a message reminding you to pick up your voice memo. They'll even send you an RSS feed listing your memos. It works with any US cell phone carrier and you can sign up and get started in no time. And of course, you can use it for more serious things than saving the URL from some company mentioned on the radio.

Navigation system still needs work

We tried out the Magellan navigation system for a 3 mile trip. It took a while to get our address into the system since it didn't recognize our street name, which has two words. Once we didn't use the first word, it worked, but by then we were already where we were going. On the way back, it seemed to follow our route fine and call out directions, but it was a little bit slow as we got closer to home. In fact, once we were in the driveway, it said "in about a quarter of a mile, turn right into destination". So maybe it could be a little more accurate.

Navigation system

We received a portable navigation system as a gift today. It looks pretty good and we will give it a try. I'm not sure how much use it would get day to day but my wife often gets lost, so it would probably be useful for her. I think there's only one way for me to get to work and back and 98% of that is on the freeway, but I guess if I need to get off the road somewhere and look for a 7-11, this would help.

Adding to Technorati

Just an empty post to set up my blog on Technorati. There's nothing here. Just for the Technorati Profile.

Tint your own windows and save some money!

If you live anyplace where there is sun, you may have noticed that windows let in UV rays which can do bad things like fade your curtains and furniture or make your car really hot inside. You could plant shade trees around your house or build your house into the side of a hill or maybe live in a cave, but otherwise you need to protect yourself against the bad effects of too much sunlight. SnapTint.com sells window tint kits for your car and home. They are pre-cut to the measurements of your windows, and it's simple enough that you can do the installation yourself. There are a choice of colors, all of which offer glare reduction, UC protection and heat protection. Where I live, it can get up to around 110 degrees in the summer and that can make it too hot to even grip your car's steering wheel if it's been outside too long. Check out SnapTint.com if you need some window tinting and you'd like to save some money by doing it yourself. I could tint the back windows of my Honda Civic for only $55, which would be a nice savings over paying someone to do it. It's $75 for a Honda CRV - back windows.

Gators are in

So my hope for dual national championships at UF in football and basketball at the same time is still a possibility... The Gators are going to have to play a great game to beat Ohio State, but I think it can happen. Florida had the most difficult schedule in the nation this year and ended up 12-1. They've played a number of tough teams and although they haven't always won by big numbers, they have won. Urban Meyer is a great coach and with a month to prepare, he will be ready for Ohio State. I think the Gator defense has been their strength all season and they're going to need it against OSU.

Check out Cave Creek in Scottsdale

Scottsdale Arizona is hot! Yes, it's really hot in the summer, but it's a hot area as far as real estate goes. The Cave Creek Resort and Casitas is located in Scottsdale and offers a unique investment opportunity. You can buy a Cave Creek Condo and rent it out as a hotel when you aren't there. You'll have a beautiful place to vacation whenever you like and the rest of the year you can earn income and pay your mortgage by using it as a rental. Cave Creek Real Estate is a great opportunity in a great location. Check it out!

Temecula library opens Dec. 15th

The new Temecula library is very high tech, according to the NC Times. It's got close to 100 computers and will be the largest library in the county, at 34,000 square feet, which is impressive. Because it's so large, there are going to be lots of new books -- 80,000 books total. Apparently those books are arriving each day and are being cataloged and put on the shelves. They better hurry -- opening day is in 11 days! I'm looking forward to it and hope to get over there on the second or third day it's open.

Software project management with VPMI from VCS

Software projects can be very complex. Just ask Microsoft about Vista! Multiple people working with the same code with multiple features, plus testing and documentation add up to a very complicated task. VCS Project Management Software can help you manage your software project, whether it's small or very large. Check out the features of their software to see if it will do the job for you. They've got a long list of happy customers you can check out, and a range of solutions to fit your project and company. You can even compare the features available in the enterprise and professional versions of the software. Check out the VCSOnline blog where you can learn about what's new, like the latest updates.

Flash software not doing the job

I have the latest version of Flash 8 Professional, but it's not native for the Intel Mac, and has run into some problems with recent updates to Quicktime. I thought Flash had become well integrated with Quicktime, but yesterday I found out otherwise. I spent some time creating an animation in Flash and then when I went to export it, I learned that it isn't working so well with Quicktime at all. I couldn't export to anything other than the .swf format, and when I did that, I couldn't open the file in any application other than the one I created it in. So there was no way to play back the exported movie due to some kind of incompatibility with Quicktime. I ended up playing the Flash video in Flash Professional 8 and capturing in with a screen capture program in order to convert it to Quicktime. That worked, but was not optimal. I need to investigate the problem more before I go ahead with my purchase of the Adobe Suite at work. It may be best to wait until the Spring when all of these applications are updated to work properly with the Intel Macs.