Macgasm

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In this episode, we talk about the concept of “Why should I use your product?” as applied to web browsers.

[03.1 MB] [00:09:20] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner] [Subscribe]

I don’t know about you, But I have several gmail accounts. It can be a pain in the rear to sign in and out of my accounts just to check my mail. Mailplane makes it easy though. Mailplane is a desktop application that allows you to setup all your gmail accounts and have full access at any time, without having to log in and out of all your accounts. Mailplane in it’s basic form is a web browser made for just one thing–Gmail. It has a simple design and the application looks just like any other mail client. Because mailplane is basically a browser for your gmail, you have full access to all your settings and other features. Some features are a little buggy if you are running Snow Leopard, but this app is a go in my book. Fast user switching is really the selling point for me. The biggest downside to the app is really the price. At $24.95 USD it is not cheap for what it is currently, but the features is really what sells it. But, don’t go rushing to buy it right now, give it a test run for 30 days and if you like it, then buy it.

Oh and here is a tip. Go for the family pack and gift it out or share and you can pick up the app for $15!

[Update]

I just received and email from Ruben with Mailplane and he had this to add.

1) Mailplane is fully Snow Leopard compatible – the missing label creating isn’t related to it.

2) Label creation from ?-L: This is a Mailplane 2.1 feature, which is still in beta.

3) Family license: It’s for up to 5 users living in the same household.

4) Using the “Multiple Inbox” lab feature w/ Mailplane may cause some problems with keyboard shortcuts.

Now, I am still having issues adding new labels. but I am going to tinker around and see if it is something that I did to cause that issue. For the Family license, I still think it is a great deal and if you have several members in your household with macs that use gmail, it is a great option.

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Say again! Mac OS X’s built-in text-to-speech engine is pretty great, but there are some things it just doesn’t pronounce correctly. For example: Macgasm. It basically pronounces it as “Macgam.” I have no idea why it drops the “S,” but it can be quickly remedied. Go into your /Applications/Utilities folder, and open the “VoiceOver Utility.” Now go to the Speech tab. Press the + button, and then enter the “before” text into the first field. In the next field, enter a phonetic approximation of your desired pronunciation. Close the window, and you’re good to go.

Photo Credit: Sea of Legs

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In this episode, we talk about our presence on Twitter.

[01.1 MB] [00:03:10] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner] [Subscribe]

If you want to keep track of your time based on your ical todo list and possibly invoice the elements then Minco is exactly what you need. It takes Billings and simplifies it A LOT. It’s not nearly as robust as Billings by any stretch of the imagination, but most people might not need something that powerful.

Minco puts a timer application in your menu bar, then lets you click to start it. Pretty simple. It integrates seamlessly with iCal in that it gets your due dates, your priority information and then displays them to you so you can better prioritize your work. If you toss Things (Things lets you sync your todo with iCal) into this mix you could quite possibly have a pretty powerful GTD system.

It will save out the information into a csv file so that you can import it into a a variety of applications that have csv support. If I could find a way to marry this sucker to Billings I’d be a happy happy man. Being able to turn my todos into actionable items that I can bill for–seamlessly–I’d make my life a lot easier.

If you think this might be for you, you can check out the Minco site and download a trial. On that note, I’m going to spend some time trying to figure out how to get this information into Billings. If I come up with anything I’ll post an update.

Thanks goes out to @atris for sending this in.

The very first Apple related book that I picked up when I made the switch was O’Reilly’s Mac OS X Panther: In A Nutshell. It did a fantastic job at walking me through the operating system and figuring out all the jazzy new stuff that I had to figure out quickly, before my un-productivity caught up with me.

Having never owned a Mac, I was new to everything. No one I knew owned one, and I was certainly flying solo until I found some help in IRC. What I really needed back then was a book that talked about the switch to the Mac, a book that lays everything out before you even make your purchase. A month after buying my first iBook, I regretted not getting a PowerBook, and that certainly would have been avoided with some simple instructions.

The second book in our book recommendation series does exactly that, it’s called Switching to a Mac: For Dummies, and oh my, would it have been a great resource in my early days.

This book is not for the geek, and it’s certainly not for anyone who has spent some time with a Mac, but instead, it’s aimed at a demographic that sorely needs the help and has no idea where to start. It walks you through purchasing the proper mac for your needs, setting it up, connecting it to the internet, using some of the basic features in the iLife package, and it even talks about switching your entire business office to OS X. It essentially takes the entire operating system, simplifies it, and then gives you a quick step by step on how to set it up.

It fills in all the blanks for someone making the switch, and it does it in a concise manner with a minimal amount of fanboisms, something I’m sure would be appreciated by new users.

If you or someone you know has recently made the switch to a Mac and need a little bit of help then this book is a great resource. You should probably start here, and if you need some additional help feel free to drop us an email or comment and we’ll do our best to make sure you get back on track.

Aaah! Keeping your inbox manageable isn’t always easy, but Mail.app offers some pretty great tools to help. Press CMD+,, and then go to the Rules tab. Now, click Add Rule.

You can now configure a myriad of settings to highlight and shift around your messages. One particular rule that I recommend is highlighting messages in Red if they contain your full name. Those messages are more likely to have relevant information.

Photo Credit: juan23for

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In this episode, we talk about iTunes U.

[01.9 MB] [00:05:40] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner] [Subscribe]