Keefer Madness

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

// 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

Hackinations: 5 Really Good Lion Tweaks

// August 4th, 2011 // No Comments » // Apple, OS X, Software

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

MacWorld's Rundown of Apple Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion)

// July 20th, 2011 // No Comments » // Apple, Computers, Software

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)

How to Get the Best Windows 7 Features in OS X

// 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:

How to Get the Best Windows 7 Features in OS X

Proximity Detection on OS X

// 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.

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Video: WWDC Keynote / Apple Special Event, June 6, 2011

// June 7th, 2011 // No Comments » // Apple, iPad, iPhone

In case you missed a lot of the news from Apple WWDC Keynote yesterday (like I did), check out the video of the event.

Video: WWDC Keynote / Apple Special Event, June 6, 2011

If you don’t have the time, or feel the need to watch the entire video, the rundown of most everything yesterday is in the links below. I’m most excited about the iOS5 release coming this fall.

What Mac owners need to know after today’s WWDC announcements
Apple Previews iOS 5 with Notification Center, OTA Updates, Wi-Fi iTunes Syncing and More

A Piece of Software Well Worth the Price of Free

// February 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // Computers, Software, Software Reviews

Use Firefox? Use it on more than one computer? Have I got a great little piece of software for you. Man, that sounds like an infomercial, but it wasn’t meant to. I’m just excited to share a piece of software that fufills a fruitful task in my everyday computer life.

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Festive Screen Saver for OS X

// December 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // Apple, Computers, Holidays, Van Halen

Here’s a nicely done quart-based screen saver for OS X that has nice little snowflakes tumbling down your monitor or monitors. You can adjust the speed and snowflake count. Additionally, you can customize the background color and add your own image, though I like the default red-striped look as it looks like a bit of wrapping paper on your computer desktop.

Hmm, another red, white and black stripe theme, might make for more of a Van Halen Christmas.

Regardless, download Snowfall for you Mac’s idle holiday time.

Cleaning Up My Mac

// November 15th, 2008 // No Comments » // Apple, Computers

A clean car feels better. Less clutter and dirt lead to a nicer looking and feeling vehicle. The same is true for your computer. The other night, I spent the time doing an archive and install on my PowerMac G5. I did some clutter removal on it, getting rid of apps I hadn’t opened in months – some even in years. I also went through and did a cursory deletion of old documents, images, videos etc. that like the aged applications, hadn’t been touched in long periods of time.

I also ran some utilities to maximize my aging machine’s agility:
Monolingual – removing extraneous language files from a slew of applications, my library directory and a few other places. In my machine’s case, it freed up 2.5GB of storage space.

Cocktail – Used it to force the daily, weekly and monthly cron jobs to run, rebuild launch services database, as well as some miscellaneous file management.

IceClean – Utilized to do a whole set of OS X Maintenance tasks.

TechTool Pro – used to optimize all my hard drive volumes and files for faster access.

Granted the above utilities all overlap some, but other than taking up some extra time, the combination in all, along with the remove of unused applications and files has made for a leaner and faster machine.

TiVo Software Roundup (Mac Only)

// February 20th, 2008 // No Comments » // Apple, TiVo Bytes

This is a great list for us TiVo users who are also Mac users. I need to go through this list in depth to see if I can get more out of my Mac/TiVo relationship. At quick glance, the first on the list, TiVo Desktop, is pretty limited. It lets you stream music (MP3s only I believe. I don’t think AAC) and show photos from your Mac. This is the official piece of software from TiVo. The Windows version is a lot better, allowing you to transfer shows, etc.

I’ve also used the “TiVo NowPlaying” widget. It’s alright, but the initial install is fairly limited. There’s more you can do with it, but I haven’t been able to get it to work.

“SeasonPassGetter” sounds like it could be great for getting content onto my iPhone. I’ll give that a go soon.

TiVo Software Roundup (Mac Only)