The Author – Bart Busschots
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May
29
My First Thoughts on the iPad
Filed Under Computers & Tech on May 29, 2010 | 10 Comments
I’ve been saying for a long time that the iPad looks cool, but that I wouldn’t be buying this first incarnation of apple’s tablet. I had two reasons for that, firstly, for me, it felt like a solution in search of a problem, and secondly, I’m very grumpy about Apple not allowing the iPad to share the iPhone’s data connection via tethering. Before people jump on me, I want to clarify that I’m not saying that the iPad is a solution in search of a problem in any sort of universal sense, but just in terms of my life at the time. Well, I stuck to my word and didn’t buy an iPad, but I do now own one thanks to the generosity of Allison & Steve Sheridan of the NosillaCast. I’ve had it for a few days now, so I thought it might be worth sharing my first impressions.
Apr
4
Experimenting with Itsy (a native OS X Twitter Client)
Filed Under Computers & Tech on April 4, 2010 | 1 Comment
I’ve lost count of the amount of Twitter clients I’ve tried, and none are perfect. There may well be a client out there that does everything I need exactly how I want it to, but I’ve yet to find it. In recent times I’ve settled on Syrinx because it ticks most of the boxes, but it’s not perfect. I haven’t been actively search for a new client, but I’ve still been keeping my ears open. Hence, when Tim Verpoorten talked about Itsy on a recent episode of the Mac Review Cast I decided to give it a go.
Feb
21
My Aperture 3 Disaster
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Photography on February 21, 2010 | 7 Comments
When Apple announced Aperture 3 I was excited. The more I read about it on their site, and the more video demos I watched, the more I fell in love. The feature-list has everything I really wanted, and more besides. For me the really big deal was a power local adjustments feature, as well as Faces and Places. They also fixed some of my quibbles with Aperture 2. On paper this app was perfect for me. In reality however, it turns out not to be ready for the main-stream yet. The design is spot-on, but the implementation feels like a poor beta. As I write this I’ve down-graded back to Aperture 2.
Feb
13
My Quest for a New Personal Finance App – Part 1
Filed Under Computers & Tech on February 13, 2010 | 9 Comments
I have a feeling this is going to be a topic that occupies me for a while. I really want to make the right choice on this one, because firstly, all the options cost money, and secondly, you don’t want to keep swapping finance apps, you lose your historical data that way. So, in this first post I’m going to explain why I’m in the market for a new app, and what apps have come up in my initial trawl of options, and which ones I like enough to look at in great detail.
Jan
27
The iPad – First Thoughts
Filed Under Computers & Tech on January 27, 2010 | 24 Comments
These are my very first thoughts having just finished “watching” (or rather reading live blogs of) the event. At this stage I have more questions than answers in some regards, but, I have to say, I’m impressed. This was a tablet demo, what Balmer did a few short weeks ago at CES was a pathetic side-show – a feeble pre-emptive “me too” that’s clearly not even nearly enough to compete on quality.
It was great to see Steve set the scene and give us the philosophy behind the device. He basically talked us through Apple’s thinking on the space now inhabited by netbooks, i.e. the gap between laptops and smartphones. It was like he was telling us a story, and it made sense. You can’t deny that Apple have put a lot of thought into this thing. I’m pretty sure Jobs has been using one of these things for a while, and I think he’s really worked out what a tablet needs to be in order to really be useful.
Jan
23
My First Impressions of Photoshop Elements 8
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Photography on January 23, 2010 | 3 Comments
This is not a detailed or in-deapth review, as the title suggests, these are just my first impressions. A detailed review will come later, if not on this blog, then on one of the Podcasts I contribute to. In the interests of full disclosure, I also want to mention that I didn’t buy my copy of PSE 8, it was a gift from Victor of the Typical Shutterbug and Typical Mac User Podcasts as a thank-you for the contributions I make to his shows. But, to be clear, it was not a gift from Adobe or anyone in any way related to Adobe. I should also say that, historically, I’ve never had a very high opinion of Adobe or their software. I’ve generally looked at their stuff as bloated, insecure, over-priced rubbish. Perhaps a little over-the-top, but certainly not without valid reasons. However, Photoshop is THE definitive photo editing software, so I’m determined to give PSE 8 a fair try.
Jan
16
Why I Love Automater & Services in OS X 10.6 SnowLeopard
Filed Under Software Development, Computers & Tech on January 16, 2010 | 5 Comments
Since I first started using OS X at version 10.3 I’ve always felt that the services menu had great potential but badly needed some fit and polish to make it actually live up to that promise. It has been so bad that it is basically forgotten, and almost no one remebers that it even exists. In every application in OS X there is a menu item under the apps’s main menu (the one in bold with the same name as the app) called Services, that’s what I’m talking about. When it comes to the services menu both Tiger and Leopard were major disappointments because they didn’t bring any real improvement to the neglected services menu. SnowLeopard on the other hand is a totally different story. Similarly, when Automator first came out I thought it had great promise, but that it was a very 1.0 kind of offering, again, in need of some fit and polish to allow it live up to its obvious potential. SnowLeopard provides a lot of that fit and polish, and really brings Automator forward significantly. And what’s better, Apple have combined the fit and finish in these two apparently unrelated products together, to provide some exceptionally powerful functionality.
Sep
11
It Was Only an Apple Event
Filed Under Computers & Tech on September 11, 2009 | 4 Comments
I know it’s been a while since Wednesday’s event, but I wanted some time to reflect before committing my thoughts to bits. I’m certain that I was disappointed, what I’m not so sure of is why. Was it because my expectations were unrealistically high? Or was it because it truly was a below average performance from Apple? After two days of careful consideration I’m more inclined to believe it’s the latter than the former. Maybe it wasn’t below average, but it definitely wasn’t anything above average.
There was not a single earth-shattering revelation, and worse still, we didn’t even get what the most conservative pundits were expecting in many regards. The biggest let-down was the iPod Touch. Apple spent ages praising it, but did nothing of any note with it. It was almost like they were trying desperately to prove to us that we were silly to expect a new version. That, or they had something big planned that fell through, and they did their best to make lemonade from a lemon. Either way, we didn’t get the one thing I was most certain about, a real update to the iPod Touch. I was proven right about the retention of the classic though, which was nice (see my full predictions here).
Aug
23
My Detailed Review of ScreenSteps
Filed Under Computers & Tech on August 23, 2009 | 13 Comments
If you follow me on Twitter you’ll have seen me vent my frustrations with ScreenSteps earlier this week. I held off on writing this review for a few days to get a bit more experience with the app, and to give myself some time to decide how best to phrase my issues so they don’t come across as being overly negatively. The short version is that I’m very conflicted about this app. Without a shadow of a doubt their idea is sound, as is their basic architecture. However, I found a few aspects of the interface exceptionally frustrating. Some parts of the app suffer from poor usability in my opinion, and another lacks what I consider to be very basic features. Ultimately, what’s missing is some fit and polish. However, it can’t be denied that the app works, which is obviously very important. I hope you can see why I’m so conflicted about this app. I want to love it, but I can’t – at least not this version.
Aug
3
NetNewsWire – From Hero to Zero in one ‘update’
Filed Under Computers & Tech on August 3, 2009 | 6 Comments
I have been a huge fan of NetNewsWire for many years and have recommended it every chance I got on podcasts, blogs, and in person. Before NNW was free I was a happy paying customer, and, to be honest, I worried a little when it went free. Without charging for it, would the developers keep adding to it? Keep driving it forward? The answer to that was a resounding ‘no’, it stagnated. However, it was still every bit as good as before it became free, so the stagnation didn’t really bother me. It did what I needed it to do, and it did it well, so I was happy.
What did I need it to do? Firstly, it let me organise my feeds into folders nested as deeply as I wanted, and it allowed me to read a folder as if it was a single feed generated as a combination of all the feeds in that folder or sub-folder. I had literally hundreds of feeds, and had them perfectly organised in folders often three or even four levels deep. It also allowed me to sync read and unread statuses between my many copies of NNW on the three Macs I use and on my iPhone. Finally, it allowed me to keep “clippings” which were also synchronised between all my clients.
This all lead to a fantastic workflow. I would read my news feeds on what ever computer I was at, and, when ever I came across a potential story to include in the IMP Live podcast, I’d just drag and drop it to my clippings folder. On Fridays when it was time to assemble the show notes for IMP Live, I’d just go through my clippings folder on my Mac at home and remove stories from the clippings folder as I added them to the IMP Shownotes. Then, the next week, I’d start the process over again. It was the perfect news reading and gathering experience for me.
Then came last week’s ‘update’ to NNW. I use the term very very loosely, because all this ‘update’ did was strip out features, and hence destroy my news reading experience, and my IMP Live work flow. To paraphrase Churchill, NNW have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!