Macgasm

I’ve had the same keyboard for a long while now. Not long after Apple released their aluminum keyboards, I went out and bought one. I must say, this is the best keyboard I have ever had. Let me clarify this by breaking it down into a few categories: Ease of Use, Ease of Cleaning, and Functionality.

Ease of Use

I love this keyboard because the distance I have to press down to register a keystroke is very, very short. I don’t have any actual data to prove that I type faster on this keyboard, but I feel much more efficient. My previous white plastic Apple keyboard felt much more mushy. Sometimes the keystrokes didn’t register if I didn’t press hard enough. With this keyboard, I know that I make fewer mistakes.

Ease of Cleaning

The best part of this keyboard is that it doesn’t really have enough space around the keys for things to get stuck. The dirt only really gets on the surface. A quick wipe with a damp rag will clean this keyboard in a snap. This fact alone is worth the premium for this keyboard. I don’t think it is possible to beat this keyboard in the clean-up department.

Functionality

One of my freshest memories from when I used Windows is that my keyboard’s special functions NEVER worked properly. I had volume knobs and do-hickies galore, but they barely worked; if at all. No matter how much I would fiddle with the drivers, my keyboard would never work perfectly. On the Mac with software and hardware harmony, that problem doesn’t exist. I plug in my keyboard and all of the special features work without any fiddling. I very much appreciate that. To be fair, I’m sure things have gotten better on the Windows side as well.

So, what do you require out of your keyboard? Have you found the keyboard for your lockboard? Sound off in the comments or hit me up on Twitter.

Photo Credit: Laineys Repertoire

Audiophiles rejoice.

Apple was up against the wall, facing a class action lawsuit that argued that the entire iPod line lacked proper measures to ensure that a persons hearing isn’t damaged.

Am I alone in thinking that sometimes my iPod doesn’t get loud enough?

Anyway, U.S, District Judge James Ware originally tossed the case out citing a major lack of evidence, and on Wednesday the whole case was put to shame as the Appeals court didn’t rescind the original ruling.

It’s probably a step in the right direction. It’s difficult to argue that people don’t realize that these devices can be damaging to your hearing. It’s understood. While giving users the ability to cap volumes is an excellent idea, forcing them to live in a decibel cap is backward thinking. Users are responsible for their own health, and it’s difficult to separate this particular case’s specifics from other dangerous products we use on a daily basis. Lets let people govern their own lives, and lets stop litigating. Sound like a plan?

Sometimes we take for granted how easy it is to use our Macs. Even deleting an application is as easy as just dragging it to the trash bin. But sometimes when we delete applications, we leave behind some bits of the app. That is why you should try out AppCleaner. AppCleaner is a free, easy to use application uninstaller. All you do is open AppCleaner, drag an application you want to delete to it, and it searches for the files associated with that application, helping you completely remove it from your system. Check out the screencast and see this great app in action.

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In this episode, we talk about iTunes Extras.

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That’s right! Yours truly spent some time with a Windows-based laptop this week. My galpal doesn’t want a Mac (YET!), so I helped her order a 15.6″ Dell Studio laptop with pretty decent specs. When she got it, there was some configuring that needed to be done, so I volunteered my services.

I hadn’t played with Windows 7 yet. I haven’t used Windows extensively since Windows XP (AN EIGHT YEAR OLD OS!), but I have tinkered with Vista. I found the UI to be much cleaner in Windows 7 than it has been previously. “Better” is a strong word, but it is certainly less cluttered. I’ll sum up my experience like this: I didn’t run into any major issues. That is an improvement as far as I see it.

Sadly, Dell ships their computers with a TON of crap that doesn’t do much. I stripped all of that nonsense out of the computer, and then did some finesse work. I locked it down pretty tightly, and then set everything to automatically update without any user interaction. This was actually much easier than I had anticipated. There has been a lot of movement towards automation in the last few years.

Here is a list of things I added to make her experience better:

• Installed browser plug-ins (Flash, Silverlight, QuickTime)
• Installed media players (iTunes for music, VLC for videos)
• Installed a photo management app (Picasa)
• Installed an anti-virus (AVG’s free application)
• Installed an anti-spyware app (Ad-Aware)

Much to my pleasant surprise, she was already a Safari user. SEE! I’m telling you that there is hope to lure her over to this side eventually! Maybe.

As Mac enthusiasts, we sometimes act very dismissive towards Windows. I think it is important for us to expose ourselves to it from time to time just for the experience. Frankly, I was left with a pretty nice impression of Windows 7. It’s by no means a bad operating system. It just isn’t the one I want to use.

Photo Credit: FelineNoir.com

Do you travel a lot, or are you the type of person that needs to plan out every aspect of your travel itinerary? If either of these two things apply to you then Knapsack is something that you’ll want to check out. The feature list for this application is everything you need. I wish I had it on my last Euro trip, and it’s going to become quite a useful application moving forward.

The first thing that sprang to mind was how well laid out the application is currently and how quick it is to enter new information to your trip itinerary as well as checklists, and some other things. It gives me some confidence that the application is going to seriously help me manage my trips in the future.

Export/Sync to iCal

One of the other things that this application does very well is integrate itself with iCal. You can add all your trip details, time sensitive dates, and other info right into iCal. That’s pretty huge considering the application currently lacks a mobile device application for the iPhone. If I can get my information on my phone easily, then this application becomes much more useful to its users.

iCal syncing is a must, and KnapSack takes care of it nicely.

Export to PDF and printable formats

Call me a caveman, but sometimes having access to a hard copy of your itinerary is a lot easier to use. Rushing between flights or spending time on the beach doesn’t really bode well for your iPhone. Printing out your itinerary as a fail safe is always a good idea, and you’ll be thankful that Knapsack included the ability to print off a well laid out itinerary.

Two possible improvements

Knapsack is very well laid out currently, and they’ve pretty much incorporated anything one would want in a travel planner. There is one thing that could be a little better integrated however.

The map section of the application is pretty non-existent. They offer a world view of a map that lets you zoom in to the locations that you might be travelling to, but they do not give you street view access. There’s no way to get quick directions to your hotel or to an airport. That’s a pretty big oversight. I’m not sure why they’ve not included it, or if there’s an particular reason why the Google Maps API wasn’t utilized here, but I think Google Maps inclusion in the app would really add to KnapSack’s utility. It would help me not only plan my trips a little better, but it would also help me get last minute notes on route to that museum I wanted to see.

The final improvement would be an iPhone app. I know this really lies outside the criteria for a good desktop utility, but I couldn’t help imagine how much easier travel life would be if Knapsack was syncing its database to my iPhone. It might already be in the pipeline, and if it’s not, I’d highly recommend the Knapsack team considers it.

Knapsack comes in at 39.95, and it’s worth every single penny if you plan a lot trips.

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I had a couple interesting patent conversations today, both completely unrelated, but both offering me some insights into this Nokia patent fight with Apple. Neither of my conversations were particularly focused on this new suit and complaint filing with the USITC, but I thought I’d pass on some of the thoughts because there’s some valuable insights into this whole Nokia Vs. Apple Inc patent complaint.

For those of you who aren’t in the know about what’s been going on, the Finnish telecommunications Nokia has petitioned the USITC to look into the allegations that Apple is infringing on a host of their patents.  It started with a couple of patents, or more specifically 10 patents related to wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption. Nokia then petitioned the US District Court to put an injunction on the sales of iPhones because the device included patent infringing technologies. Then Apple Inc. provided a rebuttal and submitted a claim that Nokia is infringing on 13 of their patents.  Now we’re seeing a USITC complaint from Nokia against Apple Inc.

The patent system is broken

The race for patents is so accelerated that firms and companies, whether it be technology related firms or universities, are trying to patent the most cryptic information they can, hoping that it might be useful at some point in the future. They’re trying to patent ideas as soon as they can, in a hope to protect their assets and reap royalty-like benefits.

While the logic of this is surely a pretty sound risk-reward scenario, there comes a point where it becomes detrimental to the actual evolution of science. Intellectual property (IP) rights need a reworking and this Nokia lawsuit is a prime example of this problem. When we have a couple of firms who both seem to be using similar technologies in their devices, some quickly jump on the information theft bandwagon, but few realize that it’s just as likely that some of these firms developed these technologies in parallel. I’m pretty far away from being anything remotely resembling an IP professional, but it doesn’t necessarily take a rocket scientist to realize that parallel discovers are a huge problem with patent filings.

Someone once said to me (unfortunately I can’t remember who), “unique ideas don’t stay unique for long. It’s only a matter of time until someone else comes up with your idea and does something about it”. It’s a pretty noble insight, and I wish I could remember who said it to me. I think we need to take it into consideration when we talk about patents.

For the record here, I’m not acting as an apologist for Apple Inc., but I am questioning the validity of patent infringement lawsuits as a whole. The system is so mucked up with vague patents that we can’t even begin to understand exactly what is being patented these days. Corporations want to protect their assets and Research & Development sectors by leaving out details on their patent filings, and being purposefully vague on their submission requests. In my opinion if you can’t tell me what your patent is really for you shouldn’t be issued a patent.

As a consumer, we should be thinking about what patents are doing for real innovation in the tech sector. How many times in the past, and how many times in the near future will huge technological break throughs be stymied because of a vague patent filing? It’s pretty scary when you think about it.

One of the gifts I got for Christmas was a Playstation 3. I decided that I would finally sign up for Netflix in order to enjoy the Blu-ray capabilities of the PS3. Since I tend to do as many things on my iPhone as possible, I decided I would need a Netflix Queue managing application. Thus began my journey into finding the right queue manager. I’ll be going through eight different Netflix related Applications.

PhoneFlicks

PhoneFlicks is an Application that allows you to manage both your DVD Queue, Instant streaming queue, your recent activity, current movies that you have at home, personalized recommendations and reviews that you have. You can browse general topics, and some categories allow more specific category selections like ‘HBO Documentaries’, ‘Heist Films’, and ‘British TV’. PhoneFlicks is available for free in the App Store. PhoneFlicks is free, but does contain ads at the top. This is definitely worth getting.

ezMoviePick

EzMoviePick is an application that allows you to manage your queue by removing or adding movies only by using a spinner to randomly show movies. Other than that, there is no way to search for an individual title. You cannot select any specific category and lock that category in. It’s somewhat disappointing. It’s available for $0.99 in the App Store. I would not recommend purchasing this.

iPhlix

iPhlix is one of the better designed applications that allows you to do everything you would want to, just like PhoneFlicks. There are a couple of additional features that iPhlix has; including the ability to search via actor or actress, and search for streaming content. iPhlix is available for $2.99 in the App Store. This is definitely worth the purchase.

Retro

Retro is just like PhoneFlicks, just with a more basic interface. It allows you to search via instant streaming, currently available, rental history items, and by actor or actress. It is available ad-free for $0.99 in the App store.

PocketFlicks

PocketFlicks, just like Retro, iPhlix, and PhoneFlicks allows you to manage your queue, add items, and the like. The interface for PocketFlicks is a bit gaudy. It is a combination of Gold and Red, which does not look very good. The application works as expected. It is available for $1.99 in the App store.

MovieFlick

MovieFlick is similar to the other applications, with the addition of the ability to view YouTube trailers, if available. It is available for $1.99 from the App store.

iRentMovie

As with all of them, iRentMovie does all of the same things that the rest of them. It provides the details of the movie, view trailers on Youtube and manage your queue. It is available for $2.99 in the App Store.

QueueTastic

There is nothing particularly special about Queuetastic, excluding the name having nothing to do with ‘flicks’ or ‘movies’. It is available for $1.99 in the App store.

Overall, any of the Applications would work well for a Netflix queue manager. If you want the ability to search and look at all of the details of a movie anything except EzMoviePick works quite well. If you don’t mind the ads, PhoneFlicks is absolutely free.