Macgasm

Are you a drama queen? Which type of doughnut are you? Would you be a good God?

These are just a few of the personality quizzes you’ll find in Wisen Up [$0.99, App Store], an entertainment app that also includes “myths or facts”, “bizarre ancient cures” , “hilarious medical quotes” among their other “infotainment” categories.

You can access all the 12 categories with a circular ring-like menu. In the quizzes option you’ll find a list with all the 25 quizzes (hopefully more will be added soon), in all the other categories you open them and just click or swipe through the pages (many of them have a cute cartoon too). There didn’t seem to be any type of search so that I could find, for example, the meaning of a particular phobia, which I missed. There is, however, an option to add something to a favorites list, so that you can easily find it later, which proved to be very useful.

There’s also a share option (e-mail or Facebook) for the facts, quizzes and test results. I have mixed feelings about this option/feature: it’s a cool idea and it will definitely please a lot of users but honestly it makes me cringe just a little bit:  I don’t really want any more quiz results invading my Facebook. I just checked: at this moment on my main Facebook page 14 out of 30 of my friends’ status updates are quiz results. I just hope people use this feature wisely (pun not intended), or else I’ll just delete them from my friends. Just kidding. Or am I? Stay tuned.

Wisen Up’s nice clean interface and specially the cute cartoon-like illustrations add a very particular visual interest to the app. That plus the great sound effects make it a delight to use and play with.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go find out if the Devil can buy my soul… </evil laugh>

I’ve always had a hard time figuring out just what to do with previous Bento versions. It’s not that it’s a poorly design application or anything, I just had a hard time figuring out how to implement it into my workflow better. With the increase in versions comes a number of tools that have eliminated my problems, and increased the likelihood that it will stick in my workflow. After spending some time on a conference call with some of the Bento team a couple of days ago, I witnessed the real power of the application.

For those of you not in the know, Bento is a personal database. But, before you get all overwhelmed by the implications of the word “database”, you should know that it’s extremely user friendly. You don’t have to set up any database at all, no table creations, not key fields, nothing–the application takes care of all of that.

You have the ability to drag and drop key fields from a predefined list on the left, into the “database”, and from there you can immediately start to populate it. It’s as “drag and drop” as it gets, and that’s where the power lies.

There’s been a lot of little changes to the application, but I’ll highlight the ones that really made the most amount of sense for me.

iPhoto integration

Bento integrates extremely well with your Apple applications. Right out of the box they give you the ability to access iCal’s todo’s, and appointments, Your Address Book, and iPhoto. That’s a pretty powerful hook if you ask me. They’ve made it extremely easy to add additional info to some of the items available in those applications, that wouldn’t be possible in their native applications. What if you wanted to add details to a photo, say for instance a price of a design composite you put together. It kind of makes sense doesn’t it? If you’re showing off a portfolio of some kind you’ll need access to that kind of data. You can’t do that in iPhoto, but with Bento you can add as much information as you need to a photo. This alone has made the application the price of admission for me. It’s going to let me keep track of a lot of info on clients, projects, and other daily tasks that have been real chores lately.

Simple Lists

If you’ve spent any time in databases at all you know just how annoying putting together a list of some kind can be. Originally, in Bento, they had you add a new field for each line. It was pretty counter intuitive. They’ve made it a lot simpler this time around. There’s actually list support. It’s a time saver. You no longer have to keep creating fields for your point form notes.

Table View, Grid View, and Thumbnails

They’ve also spent a lot of time giving you access to your information in a variety of ways that previously did not exist. You can actually view the table information, which would be super beneficial if you’re trying to quickly track a trend, or even make some bulk changes. The thumbnail and grid view’s also let you quickly see information that you might not get by looking at items record by record. Do you want to find the cheapest website design you’ve done? Get a quick list of all the prices attached to a project. Simple.

Share your Bento information over a network

This is the one thing that really put me over the top with this version of Bento. Again, if you’ve spent any time at all with FileMaker in the past, you’re well aware that you had the ability to share a database over a LAN, if you’ve been lucky enough to mess around with FileMaker Server, you’ll know that you can share the databases across the internet. Bento now let you share your databases over the LAN, just as simply as you’d expect. It’s very much like sharing your iTunes library on a network. That makes this whole software package a real possibility for small businesses. The limits seem endless.

That being said, a part of me wishes that they’d take the sharing to the next level. With everything going “cloud” these days, it seems like the ability to access this stuff from anywhere on the web is a logical next step. It would certainly make my life a little easier.
In speaking with the Bento team, they did point out that a VPN network would sufficiently address these problems, so if you really need access from across the world the options exist. But, it hardly seems like the Bento way.

All in all I think Bento 3 really took the application to the next level. I’d highly recommend checking out their trial version and making the call on your own, but I’ll tell you this much, it’s going to be a major part of my workflow in the near future.

Image Credit: idorionna

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Here at Macgasm, we swear by Dropbox. It could possibly be one of my most used utilities for the site. It is how I get my screencast to the bossman to get up to everywhere we need it. Normally, Dropbox is a desktop utility, but finally today, we get the Dropbox iPhone app. The app was actually submitted to the app store quite awhile ago. For those that are unfamiliar with Dropbox, here is a quick rundown.

Dropbox is your cloud file storage that stays synced on all your computers. They have a free version which provides you with 2GB of storage. Pro 50 plan gives you 50GB of storage for $9.99 a year month and Pro 100 gives you 100GB for $19.99 a year month. Dropbox works with Mac, Windows, and Linux, and your files are also accessible through their website. You can store any kind of file you want and even put files in a public folder to share the link to the page with anyone you choose. Here at Macgasm from my account I have a macgasm folder that I share access with so when I upload a file, Josh gets an email and can do all the dirty work. It works great for that. But even better, you can eliminate carrying around those flash drives. Just use Dropbox and you are taken care of.

On the iPhone app you can view files, share files via email, mark favorites and upload video and pictures! When you mark a file as a favorite, it downloads its contents to your iPhone so you always have access to it. Great for when you might have slow service or no service. As for uploading video and photos, the biggest use I see for this is when you are at the Apple store getting ready to see a genius about your iPhone. Let’s face it, we don’t know if we are getting it back and if you just took pictures or video beforehand, you may lose it all. So that will work as a great backup option on the go! And did I mention the iPhone app is free? So go download dropbox<itunes link> for the iPhone now, you can sign up for an account within the app.

If you’re a guitar player, or even a beginner, there’s a sweet application on the iPhone that helps you get up to speed with new chords and scales. It’s like one of those crappy Ernie Ball how to books, but like a million times better, and actually useful. What good is a damn chord progression on paper, if you have absolutely no idea what the chords should sound like in the first place?

The Guitar Tool Kit solves most of those problems, as well as gives you access to a tuner, chord book, scale information, and all for different types of guitars (12 string, 6 strings, Bass, and 5 string bass). It’s become quite the handy little tool. Have any idea what a B Persian scale should look like with an E flat tuning? I sure as hell didn’t, but after a couple of quick clicks, I had it at my finger tips.

Photo credit: Daniel Y. Go

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If you’re like me, or even remotely evangelical about the glories of the iPhone, there’s probably an excellent chance that you’ve converted a large number of your friends and families to an iPhone. If you spend most of your time text messaging your iPhone wielding friends, then you have to check out Ping!. As a quick aside, you can also use Ping on your Touch. That means you can now text message your friends that don’t have an iPhone, but instead spend all their time playing games on the iPod. It has push notifications, and the ability to add Ping accounts to your address book.

Now, that being said, there’s some small quirks that seem to be persistent, but are expected considering it’s a relatively early version. It seems like some of the messages weren’t going through to their destinations. Not sure if it’s the crappy Rogers network or not, but it did happen on a couple of occasions. I also got stuck in keyboard mode, after clicking send, more than I’d like.

But hey, if you don’t want to spend some cash on an SMS package, and you find yourself only sending text messages to people who have iPhones, then this is a great option, not to mention another thorn in AT&T’s backside. And as you know, anything that lets me stick it to the man is fine by me!

Photo credit:seanaes and jonasocarlsson

It is reaching the end of summer in Alaska, I am so sorry to say. It is now time to finish all of the summer tasks that we have undertaken this year. But would you paint the house without pressure washing it first? Would you put up your summer harvest without cleaning up your kitchen first? If you agree that preparation is key in successful summer project, then why would you take on a major upgrade to your computer without some preparation?

This guide is for both the ultra-paranoid and for those who just want to make sure their computer will work as they need it to after the upgrade. These tips are not specific to Snow Leopard, but to any major upgrade to the Macintosh operating system.

Do your homework

It has been a couple weeks, so most of the developers have ensured their software runs on Snow Leopard. It doesn’t hurt to check, though. Either go to the website for your software or check out the Wiki. This community page will give you an idea about what software gets broken by Snow Leopard. If you can live without an incompatible piece of software, and choose to upgrade anyway, uninstall the offending application before proceeding.

Take out the trash

Update time is a great time to sit down with your system and clean it up. This task may be as daunting as cleaning out the garage before winter, but as everyone knows it has to be done. This is a great time to go through and organize your data. Check that the software that you use commonly has been updated to the latest version. Often applications will do an automatic check when launched.

For optimum function, the hard disk should have at least 10% empty disk space. This is especially true when installing a major upgrade. If your file system is bulging with duplicate data in old files, a scan may be in order. With OmniDiskSweeper, you can quickly find out what files are hogging all that space. The free software will sort out your largest files so that you can take a look at them and decide if you need to keep them around any longer. After you’re done make sure you empty the Trash.

Repair your system

Leopard and previous versions of Mac OS X. have a number of tasks that need to be run on a regular basis in order to keep the system efficient. If the computer is not running 24/7, sometimes these operations do not occur. Using the utility OnyX, you can make sure the file system is repaired and organized. The specific functions in the very least that should be performed are permissions repair, the daily, weekly, and monthly scripts, and Spotlight Index rebuild. You can also use a utility like DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro in order to rebuild directories.

Backup

I’m going to assume that you are using Time Machine for the simple reason that Leopard makes it so incredibly simple that it would be a sin not to take advantage of the technology. Take the time to check and make sure you have a current Time Machine backup. If anything goes wrong, not to say that it will, the system can be restored with a good Time Machine backup. However, for the ultra-paranoid and people who cannot have any downtime, a clone or snapshot of the system should be made. This requires an extra hard drive at least as large as the hard drive in your computer. SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner are both utilities you can use for free to create your very own system clone. The advantage of a clone is that it can be booted. If something goes horribly wrong, for example, a power outage in the middle of the install, a clone will allow you to be up and running in less than five minutes.

Schedule some quality time with your Mac

This is a major upgrade, and that means that the install will be doing some pretty serious work. The process of installing Snow Leopard takes over an hour. Allow that much time for the upgrade to run. Ideally, everything will be fine and you will be back to playing your favorite game as soon as it is finished. If you somehow end up with a cat fight on your hands, you will need some extra time to sort all that out. If you do the update in the evening, and you find something is not working the way you’d like it to, you will have all night to restore your system. If rollback to Leopard is necessary, you can simply restore from Time Machine overnight. It is not recommended to perform this upgrade the day before a trip to Maui, an hour before that big presentation, or right before that scheduled quest on World of Warcraft.

System testing

Check to make sure all of your software functions properly. It is very possible that some of the applications may have a specific Snow Leopard update. There has also been a major upgrade to iTunes in the past few days, so that will be need to be upgraded as well. You have been rewarded for your planning. Your system should be functioning even more efficiently with the new enhancements that Snow Leopard has brought to your system.

Now that your Mac has been serviced and upgraded, you can get back to putting up that moose and making jelly. Oh, and while you’re doing that fall cleanup, remember Miss Mac don’t do Windows!

Image Credit: Tambako the Jaguar