Saw this on appstorm the other day, and looking forward to trying this out when it’s released. I consume most of my web reading/slurping directly from Google Reader. It’s a part of my daily routine.

I’ve never used anything but the web page for it, and wondering if an application makes sense and is needed. Willing to give it a try. Maybe I can get a review copy and review it here on Keefer Madness.

Sneak Peek of Caffeinated: A Fresh Google Reader App That You’ll Love

Just heard this parody of the Apple iPhone 4S/Siri commercial when I was listening to the latest episode of This Week in Tech on the drive into work. Too funny.

Guess I’m not the only one who signed up for iTunes Match, and fully doesn’t get everything it does, though replacing all my many ripped CDs (most at 128kbps) with 256 kbps is worth it alone.

For me, it’s a pretty good deal. Your mileage may vary.

A Clear Explanation of iTunes Match

This is a total bummer, but not in the least surprising. Siri and the camera are the two real differentiators of it over older versions of the iPhone.

Let’s keep in mind too that Siri is still in beta, and still being ramped up. I’m more interested to see how it evolves and if and when it’s integrated into other products.

Apple Confirms No Current Plans to Bring Siri to Older Devices

Wow, just a day after Tim Cook did his first solo product announcement, we find out Steve Jobs has passed away. He obviously was struggling over the past couple years, and definitely as of late.

I don’t think it comes as a shock to anyone at the announcement tonight that he has passed away. Yet at the same time, it is shocking. Steve Jobs was and is Apple.

Apple wouldn’t be on the map today without his return, and say what you will about him personally, but he was an obviously marketing dynamo and very driven to all things Apple.

Rest in peace, Mr. Jobs. Thanks for all the great products over the years.

Remembering Steve – Apple.com

Everyone’s had a little time with Lion, that is if you’ve upgraded already. Personally, I’m not a fan—especially of the oft mentioned “natural” scrolling, which doesn’t work for me as a desktop convention. In fact, all the changes that are trying to make OS X feel more like iOS kind of irk me.

That being said, I think I’ll get used to Lion, and $30 for an upgrade for all my Macs isn’t a bad price. So far though, I haven’t found any killer features I feel like I’m missing out on between Snow Leopard at work, and my Lion machines at home.

The article below gives five nice tweaks for Lion, though honestly, I’ve only implemented the showing of my Library. I don’t mind missing the scrollbars, nor things like autocorrect. Check back with me in a month. I may have changed my mind, but so far while nothing really wows me, nothing completely repulses me either.

Hackinations: 5 Really Good Lion Tweaks

Crap. I thought I posted this on Friday. Oh well. It’s published now.

I was in the preferences checking to see if my library was shared at work, and came across the setting above, which has been on my wishlist for iTunes forever. I’m not sure exactly when this appeared. If it’s what I think it is, it’s a syncing of play counts across your home sharing devices.

Now I wonder if it works across networks—meaning between home and work.

Big day for Apple fanboys— new hardware released in the form of new Thunderbolt-equipped, faster MacBook Airs (along with the discontinuation of the entry-level portable—white polycarbonate MacBook) and Mac Minis.

This came in conjunction with the long-rumored next version of Mac OS X – Lion, available exclusively right now via the Mac App store. Downloaded it already and will finish installing this evening.

If you’re like me, you haven’t really dove into what all the “250 new features” of Lion are. I’m sure playing around with it over the next few days will get me up to speed, but in the meantime, Mac World did a great in-depth writeup on what Lion is offered. For $30, it seemed like a no-brainer to update all our in-house Macs to the newest operating system.

Apple Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion)

Windows 7 has really [finally] caught up to Mac OS X to the point that Windows 7 has some nice features and polish that OS X users might like and appreciate:

How to Get the Best Windows 7 Features in OS X

At work, I often get up from my computer and forget to pause iTunes. Annoying and a problem I wanted to solve. Initially, I thought I would basically write an AppleScript that would see if Adium (my instant messaging program of choice) was set to away. If it was, check to see if iTunes was playing, and pause. In my research for that though I stumbled upon an even cooler way to solve my issue utilizing bluetooth, a little software and some AppleScript.

I came across a program called Proximity. After pairing my iPhone 4 (which is pretty much always on my person) via Bluetooth, I installed Proximity which basically runs one AppleScript when the iPhone is in range, and another when it’s out. The out-of-range script activates my screen saver, sets my Adium status to away and pauses iTunes. The in-range deactivates my screen saver and sets Adium to available (didn’t want to automatically start iTunes playing again). I just installed and set it up. We’ll see how well it works. Several people have request the app not use bluetooth range, but rather distance from the computer. That would be nice. We’ll see if distance is an issue, or if battery draw is an issue with the iPhone.

I’m always psyched to find new ways to automate repetitive tasks. This one definitely falls under that category.

Thanks to this article that educated me on this solution: Proximity Detection on the Mac