… that you can’t live without? Let’s leave out the hyperbole. But the links are good.
(I miss old Skitch but i don’t want to use Evernote. My killer app for notes is called Chiperoni… in combination with Twitter and Flickr.)
… that you can’t live without? Let’s leave out the hyperbole. But the links are good.
(I miss old Skitch but i don’t want to use Evernote. My killer app for notes is called Chiperoni… in combination with Twitter and Flickr.)
For future reference:
To view a folder of jpegs, select a photo within Finder and hit the space bar. Use the arrow keys to navigate up and down thru the folder.
Or select the files you would like to view, and right-click Open. Preview displays the photos. Use the arrow keys to navigate from one file to the next.
Type Alt + 3 to get the hash symbol #.
It’s been one year and one month since I moved to Mac. And in line with the underlying concept of this post, I’d like to recommend a Mac OS tool which I find very useful:
If you have a look at my Flickr stream, I tend to post a number of screenshots to collect ideas and illustrate blog posts. Skitch is great for this.
I found that Skitch is more intuitive than Apple’s Grab. By default Grab creates TIFFs, which I find more cumbersome to handle and an overkill for quick notes.
I like the Skitch annotation features (text, arrows, circles, squares). This helps to interact with external contractors much faster. And I can easily send the screenshot via Apple Mail.
I post to my Flickr account directamente without a detour to Flickr Uploader. And Skitch keeps a history of recent photos and screenshots, which I can easily drag to a desktop app like Powerpoint.
A productivity tool to consider!
for my own future reference:
Here’s a list of CSS editors that might be useful. Some of them have been around for years:
I use Textwrangler to code HTML and CSS. I recently stumbled across an HTML editor called Smultron, which I quite like as well.
For some weird reason I can’t see some files and folders on my FTP server using Cyberduck.
I know the files exist…
It seems there’s a date-related bug
Happy leap day!
After upgrading to Leopard, I could no longer launch Gimp or GimpShop.
There’s a quick fix for Gimp, for help see this screencast.
But GimpShop is a different matter
it seems.
Upgraded my MacBook to Leopard overnight. Looks like everything went well.
This looks useful:
Upload to Flickr with Quicksilver
The QS plugin page is here.
I still need to try out the new Flickr Uploadr that was released a couple of weeks ago.
I’m playing around with WordPress themes today 😉
Currently displaying is a Mac theme to celebrate this year’s move to a MacBook.
It snowed a little bit today… about half a millimeter.
Today’s attempt to use the USB modem GlobeTrotter Connect with my MacBook failed. I had the right PIN and the right software. But couldn’t connect.
The preferences revealed a dialog box with input fields for an APN, a username and a password. I checked the help. There was no explanation what APN stands for… and whether it’s required or not.
And I was offline so i couldn’t search either.
Aaargh.
APN stands for Access Point Name.
The user manual can be downloaded here.
But I don’t know if that’s the missing puzzle piece I need to connect. Or if it’s optional.
I just installed GIMPshop on my (no longer new) MacBook. And the interface looks a lot simpler.
And I received a Skitch invite. I don’t like the pink heart icon much. Kitsch.
But I somehow managed to get past that and watch the introductory video (!). The features look very useful. It offers a direct upload to Flickr. Looks like a good tool for quick screenshots. OS X’s Grab only offers TIFF, which isn’t recognized by the Flickr Uploadr for some reason or other. And which means opening GIMP or GraphicConverter or Preview. 20 clicks more.
BTW, I’m sitting in a train to northern Germany and there are quite a number of free seats for a Friday evening… (and a power plug right next to me: hope it works). I guess, the strike warnings caused a lot of people to reschedule.
(Insert pause to take a snapshot of setting sun near Karlsruhe, will be uploaded when I find adequate WiFi access)
Quite a few regional trains have been cancelled. The official reason given via the pa is “wegen Notfall” (Translation: cos of an emergency).
Why not say strike? Emergency sounds like accident or natural catastrophe (can’t spell, too much German on my brain).
Wondering out loud:
Would the new PR approach be more direct and advise the German railway company to use the word “strike” or would it find a roundabout way to describe the situation?
(I forgot to take “The New PR” book with me.)
(I like the size of my 13″ MacBook. Just right for travelling.)
Anyway, “the new PR” book has got me thinking a lot more about buyer personas.
Who am I writing my marketing collateral, company blog posts, and technology announcements for? What kind of things are they interested in? How does a buyer persona search for a new service provider? Keeping your target audience in mind while writing is nothing new. Buyer personas, though, are on a more detailled level, describing a character and a typical work/leisure setting.
And it also reminded me of Bogo’s talk at the STC Transalpine conf in Zurich last April. He stressed the importance of agreeing on personas to develop adequate tech. documentation and user interfaces.
I signed up for Redbubble.com a couple of days ago. It offers a service to upload, sell and print artwork via the web all-in-one. Payment is transferred by Paypal or cheque. There’s a minimum price for the printing and production costs. And you as the seller of the artwork can decide on the markup (i.e. your gain/income/profit). I stumbled across this service via Ozczecho’s Flickr profile. My first impression of Redbubble.com is very positive and IMHO this could develop into a viable Flickr and Etsy alternative.
Still on my list of fun to dos:
Buy a DSLR
Set up an Ubuntu laptop
Learn more Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts (zoom in and out with command + option and ^ or ‘)
Install WordPress 2.3
Try out Pixelmator
Write a book (LOL)
Go on vacation
Disclaimer: at times Chiperoni.ch is my personal online thinktank and my half-geek playground.
Scrolling Ad Infinitum:
I discovered a new Flickr tool called Flickriver…
It loads all images into one long html page, i.e. you simply scroll down to view all pictures for a tag or group:
Canon ImageBrowser to FlickrUploadr:
BTW, I’ve found a shortcut how to add photos from Canon ImageBrowser to Flickr Uploadr. In the ImageBrowser, open Preferences and add Flickr Uploadr to the list of external editing applications. Once you’ve added it, you can send images to Flickr Uploadr while in preview mode using Edit > Edit with Registered Application > Flickr Uploadr.
Alternative to Satellite:
I stumbled across lumis Gallery. The concept is similar to Satellite, i.e. you can host photos on Flickr and reload them on your own server within your own layout. It seems to have more features…. It requires PHP 5 and a Flickr account.
Today’s personal faves:
For local WordPress fun, I might install this package:
MAMP
Although Apache is already available.
The pre-installed Apache can be accessed like this:
Today I installed Tomcat on my MacBook. In order to run a website with Java servlets locally.
Here are my non-developer notes, for my own future reference.
To check if Java is installed, open Terminal and type:
javac -version
In a previous session, I had already installed the Apple developer tools, which includes JDK 1.5.
Note: you’ll need to list the location where Java can be found:
export JAVA_HOME=/usr
Download and unpack the Tomcat zip files to a directory.
Open conf/tomcat-users.xml
and change the user and password settings.
Go to your Tomcat directory and type ./bin/startup.sh
Open a browser and type http://localhost:8080
to see a Tomcat welcome screen.
In the final step, I modified conf/server.xml
. Luckily I had my Windows setup to refer back to, or I would have been really lost at this stage…
The newness of my MacBook is decreasing rapidly. I’ve installed GIMP (works nice and zippy), GraphicConverter (useful for quick resizing of images), TextWrangler (an editor), MS Office 2004 (although I’m considering to install NeoOffice and use MS Office via Parallels only).
I had a look at the websites of Scribus and Inkscape, but I think I’ll wait before installing them.
I’ve installed the Subversion command line client and a little plugin (aargh, can’t remember the name) that allows you to upload and commit files from the finder. I didn’t like SvnX much.
I like the size of my MacBook. Much easier to lug around. Quicksilver is very useful.
(update) The SVN plugin is called SCPlugin.
Here are some quick notes on installing a CVS client on my MacBook (for my own future reference):
à ¨ voila. A console window shows the files being checked out to your hard disk. Work Area shows you an overview of the new or modified files.
First impression: It’s more like WinCVS and less like TortoiseCVS.
Disclaimer: I’m a low and humble content developer and use CVS and Subversion for versioning at my day job. If I get something very wrong or if you have useful tips, please leave a comment. I’m moving from Windows to Mac and documenting my experience.
Regarding version control:
I used an older version of Visual Sourcesafe a couple of years ago and IMHO, CVS and Subversion are easier to use once you’ve got past the install hurdle. Subversion’s next on my install list.
SSH is pre-installed on the Mac: Open Terminal and type ssh followed by your username@hostname.
As you can see I’m having a lot of fun.
My new MacBook arrived last Monday. And I’ve started installing software and exploring. Slowly. A new laptop is like getting a new exercise book at school. An empty book equals an empty hard disk. And a new operating system is a new learning experience.
Software installed so far:
And here’s the list that I’ll still need to add:
I found some useful articles at Tao of Mac, which I’d like to share:
BTW, I’m planning to set up an Ubuntu laptop soon… on a separate machine.