Ryan & Amanda Keefer's Personal Site: Cycling, Family, Tech, Music, Software & Game Reviews, etc.
// April 25th, 2013 // No Comments » // Apple, Gaming, OS X
Don’t really care about the second part of the headline, but I grew up playing the XCom series on the old PCs. They were always really deep and lots of fun. It’s cool to see the newest iteration of it come over to the Macintosh.
// March 21st, 2013 // No Comments » // Apple, Computers
Spring began officially yesterday, though you couldn’t tell here in central North Carolina where the temperatures are still in the low 40′s.
Regardless, it’s time for us all to do a Spring cleaning in the form of a little maintenance and maybe an upgrade or two to your Mac.
Below is a succinct list of ways to cleanup your Mac:
// February 7th, 2013 // No Comments » // Apple, Tech
While all of these aren’t gems or winners, it is very cool seeing the way people are using the plethora of sensors in modern Mac hardware.
// August 9th, 2012 // No Comments » // Apple, Computers, OS X
I’ve always been legit with the Mac’s I’ve owned — all four of them: a PowerMac G5, Macbook, and a pair of iMacs, but I’ve always been tempted to build a Hackintosh.
Before I came to the Mac-side, I was a big PC guy, and built my fair share of PCs for myself and friends. It used to be significantly cheaper to build your own from your own components — and get a higher quality machine.
That’s not as true any more as PC builders are selling computers with razor-sharp margins. But, in the world of the Macintosh, machines still are a bit overpriced. Plus, in the case of the high-end desktop Mac Pro, they haven’t done any substantial updates in years.
Maybe, one day, I’ll use a guide like the one below (which I stumbled across on Lifehaker) to build a super high-end machine. But for the time being, my iMac will suffice just fine.
// December 10th, 2011 // No Comments » // Apple, Internet / Web, OS X, Software
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
// June 11th, 2011 // No Comments » // Apple, Computers, Software
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:
// June 9th, 2011 // No Comments » // Apple, Software, Tech
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.
// March 8th, 2011 // No Comments » // Apple, Software
I’ve been an iTunes user since its inception, running it starting on one of those old iMac G4′s with the half-dome base, and the movable screen — still my favorite iMac design. Anyway, iTunes has evolved and continued to add new features in all of its ten major software revisions — some good, some bad and some “meh.”
Throughout all of them, AppleScripts have helped enhance iTunes’ functionality. This article does a great job explaining the whole process and recommends a few good scripts that are useful to have. I already use a couple they recommended: “Update Expired Podcasts” and “Change iTunes Hidden Preferences.” I definitely need to get “Super Remove Dead Tracks” as well.
// November 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // Apple, Computers
Seeing as today’s the last night I’ll be working at the Apple Store, it’s only fitting that I have a couple of Apple-related posts. I use iTunes daily. Love it. But iTunes isn’t perfect. I’ve come to love a lot of addons made for Apple’s media player and organizer. At first when I saw this list of 10 AppleScripts for iTunes 10, it didn’t look like anything I could use, but the second half of the list is great and usable stuff.
// May 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Apple, Personal Crap, Software
My current job has me setup with the entry level MacBook. At work, the portable’s display becomes the secondary monitor, next to a widescreen flat panel LCD. Like the geek that I am, I love to customize and tweak every possible setting on my computers, setting them up to exactly how I like them. I love the portability, but every time it’s unplugged from the dual display, I end up with an annoyance. “Undocked,” all the stuff that was on the other display gets jammed onto the real estate of the portable’s built in display. Granted, I get it that this has to happen, or you’d have windows not accessible when it wasn’t hooked up in a dual display configuration. I’ve Googled, but thus far have been unable to find the a solution (or am not searching with the right terms).
Adobe, several versions ago, setup Photoshop so that you could have multiple workspace settings saved — including which palettes were up open, and where they were positioned. I want a setting for this in OS X. I’ve got to think that even if this sort of workspace setting isn’t natively available within the OS X environment, that there’s got to be a piece of software out there to do this. Anyone have a solution or solutions?
Copyright © 2013 Keefer Madness. All rights reserved.
