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I’ve been trying out Microsoft’s Live Mesh application. So far, it’s treated me pretty nice. It has taken a long time to upload all the files I’ve put in it, but that’s to be expected of any syncing program. It’s a little more flexible than Syncplicity (my one major gripe about Syncpilicity is that you have to share sync the parent folder if you want to share sync any subfolders – e.g., you have to share sync the entire Desktop and what’s on it, if you want to share any folder on the desktop). I haven’t reached my 5Gb limit yet, but I hear that once you do, it syncs peer-to-peer, instead of just cutting you off. What would you need a limit for? Mesh gives you a “Live Desktop,” enabling you to log in from any computer and get those files you’ve synced up. The feature I look forward to the most is the mobile client. Hopefully, it’ll work as the desktop clients do, but we’ll see. I’m not sure how it’s going to sync 5Gb worth of files onto my Cingular 8125 that has about 40Mb of space. Can you say, SD card, anyone?
*Note: Syncplicity is offering up a public beta with no limit. They plan on offering a free (but limited) and paid versions soon. Mesh is also offing a public beta, if you are in the US.
I’ve also been playing around with Office 2007. The most surprisingly useful apps are Groove and OneNote. Groove gives you the tools to collaborate without having to worry about servers or network configurations. Groove allows you to invite whoever you want via email and you can share calendars, files, whiteboards, and more, with the ability to chat and have discussion threads. OneNote is a program that Microsoft needs to be giving away. It is a sweet note taking tool. I know that sounds lame, but it integrates into Outlook (and, I’m sure, other Office programs – though I haven’t used it with the others). It takes clips from emails, pictures, audio, and video files and groups into Notebooks. MS says it’s good for meetings and jotting down ideas. I think it’s good for syncing with my Windows Mobile Smartphone. OneNote will install a OneNote Mobile client, which has far more capabilities than the built-in Notes program. I’m always picking up little pieces of information – either at my desk or away. Instead of carrying around sticky notes – or even a PocketMod (which I love) – I can just type my note into OneNote Mobile and it’ll sync with my desktop when I hook the phone up to the computer. Brilliant!!!
For those of you that can’t afford Office 2007 or can’t get your hands on it *ahem* another way, try Evernote as a replacement for OneNote. Evernote is free, and I’ve heard they’ve made great improvements.
I’ve been listening to Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s The Disappeared. It’s a futuristic Sci-Fi tale about humans and aliens co-existing, but not fully understand the cultures and having to run from them. It’s actually pretty good, considering Audible is giving it away for free. I did just find Brandford Marsalis Quartet’s Contemporary Jazz. I’ve ripped it into iTunes, but havne’t started it yet. It is copyrighted 2000, but good music is timeless. We’ll see if this album is timeless or not. The shortest song is 6:01. Not that I’m complaining. According to Wikipedia, it won a Grammy.
Hopefully, Show 10 of Random Inspirations will be up soon. C’mon Dave, where are the show notes? Speaking of Dave, go check out Traveler Blues – a wonderful dive into the world of good music – even if you don’t like good music.
Armstrong out.
EDIT: Check the comments – one of Syncplicity’s founders hit me up to correct me. Changes have been made to the blog. I’m putting Syncplicity through some more paces. Mesh has semi-let me down lately. More coming later.
The new browser is out, and with about 7 million downloads and 3 or so hours left to set a new world record, Fx3 has managed to eat more memory than Fx2 ever did. With Fx2, I capped out at ~70mb, even with multiple tabs left open overnight. Fx3, in mere minutes gets up to 100mb and surpassed the 200mb mark. I did notice that a huge jump happens when watching video. YouTube may just bring Fx3 to its knees. I have no idea what the guys over at Mozilla did to make it where video takes up so much more memory, but they did it wrong.
The pros are that it gives back the memory fairly quickly. After getting away from YouTube and CommandN, and logging into WP, I’m back down to 53mb, which is acceptable to me.
There is a big push for IPTV going on with companies like CommandN, TWiT, Revision3 and others, but Mozilla may be trying to put a stop to it singlehandedly. Hopefully they’ll get this resolved. Fx3 still works when using 100k+, but no other programs do.
UPDATE: Just installed Fx3 on my laptop and it’s exactly the same. Jumped to around 90mb when watching a video off a Yahoo! site and 6 tabs and then back down to mid-60mbs when I went down to only one tab. The problem here is that Fx3 may not be able to run well on older machines that have less than a 1Gb of RAM unless they fix this. What happened to using less memory?!?!
Is is just me or has iTunes really really sucked lately?
Literally every time I closed it, I got the “iTunes has stopped working, send error report” message. EVERY TIME!!! I always try to keep up to date with software. So 7.6 was no winner. Other than the annoying closing thing, sometimes, it wouldn’t close at all. I have it set to minimize to tray, and if it was down there, rarely did it want to come back. Hello, Task Manager. Plus, I open up iTunes and some of my songs are missing. Songs I KNOW I should have and songs that are on my iPod. Now I’ve got to get my iPod and restore the songs back in the Library – the place that’s supposed to keep all of my songs for me! It got so bad, that I installed WinAmp! That didn’t last long, but iTunes pissed me off enough to start looking for alternatives.
Why am I writing this? Because I just got notified that there is now iTunes 7.6.1 out. If this doesn’t fix my problems, WinAmp may be coming back.
I love software that makes my life easier. It just makes you feel good. One thing I don’t like is scrolling through all those layers of the XP Start Menu for my commonly used programs. Another thing I don’t like is a desktop full of shortcuts (it’s just clutter). That’s one reason I looooove Launchy. It’s probably the one of the most useful apps I’ve used. Launchy allows me to hit Alt-Space and a cool, skinnable window pops up and lets me type in the command I want. By default it includes all your programs and links in your web browser’s favorites. You can customize it to do special folders, documents, even your mp3s. It’s like having a shortcut to anything in one hidden place. Plus, Launchy was just upgraded to version 2, adding a nice new interface and new features. Search Google directly from Launchy, do simple calculations, check the weather, index all your files (like pictures, docs and music) and run custom .bat and .lnk files. Totally customizable.
Unfortunately, I think Vista has it in for Launchy (in an indirect way). Vista’s start menu allows you to search through your programs directly from it, rather than going through all the levels of folders in XP. While the Vista menu doesn’t allow you to customize much, it is a quick launch for all your apps and some links. And why press Alt-Space when you can hit the Windows key? Plus I found some software for XP that emulates Vista’s Start menu: ViStart [via Lifehacker]. It adds the cool transparency of Vista without taking up too many resources. It’s fairly customizable – you have access to all the images used in the menu and the XML file that controls the menu links.
These programs weren’t really meant to compete with each other, but spill into each others functionality. So far,my assessment is that if you just need a simple program launcher, either one will work great. Both give you a different look with some transparency options/eye-candy. If you want a more complete and flexible solution, go with Launchy.
Okay – I think I’ve finally figured out what this thing is going to be; and they are two completely different things.
One, I think I’m going to use this as an outlet for my tech writings. Very few people that I’m in contact with regularly can/will/are able to hold conversations with me about technology topics (hardware, software, gadgets, etc). Either they know more about it than I do or I know more about it than they do. I’ve found that I get all glazed over when someone is talking about something I know very little about, and I’m sure that others get glazed when I start talking to them and they have no idea. Sine I’m not really in the “industry,” I kind of keep up on things that interest me, rather than a certain field. But in doing so, I don’t get too deep into any one field. So this is going to be a place where I can rant all of my tech-speak out into the world (much like my friend Dave does with intellectual stuff like documentaries and jazz).
Two, I’m teaching a class at a private school that our church owns about Christian manhood (I’m not sure how I got into it, I guess no one else had time). So, I’m also going to use this space to gather my thoughts for that class. This is a brand new class that the school is doing, so there is no curriculum. No guidelines. So it was suggested that I read Wild at Heart and use it as a basis for the class. I’m not far into it, but I believe that it’s going to help me, not only in the class, but in my life and my marriage.
A fork in the road and I take both paths.
