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Updates from March, 2006 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• Andy 8:39 pm on 3/26/2006 Permalink | Reply  

  Kicking Horse 2006 

  
  Sorry it’s taken me a week to finally get these posted. You can see the pictures from our trip to Golden, BC and Kicking Horse Ski Resort here. We had a great time with our friends Meredith and Justin and you can see us finishing off our fondue dinner in the later pictures. The skiing was also fantastic as they got LOTS of snow while we were there. I think all of our legs were toast by the end of the trip (except maybe for Justin – he seems to have endless energy!) All in all, a great trip that we’ll hopefully be able to do again next year. Our friends Kristen and Chris are coming from Ontario in a couple of weeks, so we’ll be out skiing Sunshine that weekend – looking forward to that as well.
  

  Technorati Tags: kicking horse, skiing

   

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• Andy 10:26 pm on 3/20/2006 Permalink | Reply  

  Everyday FreeMacWare 

  Seeing as I’ve been talking about some of my favourite Mac software on here lately, and FreeMacWare.com is running a contest involving free sofware for the Mac, I thought now would be a good time to write about by Top 5 Free Mac Software that you too could use for free if you switch to a Mac!

  Up first is Camino. I use this as my everyday (actually every minute) browser. It’s built off the same engine as FireFox and has the feel of a Mac program. It also has the nice side effect of feeling “snappier” on my Powerbook than Firefox.
  

  
  This is about as easy as Bittorrent gets on a Mac. With Transmission, you just download and start the torrent file – that’s it! No frills, no messy interface, just an easy download.
  

  
  If you want a player that can handle virtually any audio and video file out there, look no further than VLC. This player is available for many platforms and seems to “just work” for almost every file.
  

  
  Audacity is a great (and very powerful) audio editing program. We use it every week to edit The Skinny on Sports Podcast and it comes in handy for trimming lots of other audio files. A must have tool for anyone doing audio work.
  

  
  Last, but certainly not least, is Cyberduck. It’s a simple FTP program with drag and drop support. Can’t ask for much more from an FTP client – especially for the average user with very simple FTP needs.
  

  That’s my list! These little free applications make me realize everyday that I definitely made the right decision switching to a Mac!

  Technorati Tags: apple, audacity, camino, cyberduck, freemacware, freeware, transmission, vlc

   

• Andy 12:30 pm on 3/17/2006 Permalink | Reply  

  Kicking Horse This Weekend 

  
  We’re off to Kicking Horse this weekend. Looking forward to a nice weekend away with some friends from school. We haven’t been out skiing in a couple weeks though, so I’m hoping that my legs are up for the challenge of two days in a row, on new trails that are supposed to be a little tougher than we’re used to. If my legs feel like Jello on Monday, then mission accomplished. Have a great weekend – I’ll post photos when we’re back!

  Technorati Tags: kicking horse, skiing

   

• Andy 8:00 am on 3/16/2006 Permalink | Reply  

  LaunchBar 

  
  This is another one of my picks and LaunchBar is an application that I can’t live without (sorry to all you windows users, it’s Mac only). Someone recommended LaunchBar to me when I first got my Mac and I checked out the website, but I didn’t really get it. I thought, sure, it looks interesting, but is it really a necessity. Then I started using it and then it just clicked, and I realized why I needed it. Instead of having to clutter up my Dock, I can keep the bare minimum of items, and then use LaunchBar to quickly launch anything else that is on my computer with quick keyboard shortcuts.

  LaunchBar is smart. For instance, if you type “ITU” it will give you a list of everything starting with those letters in a drop-down menu. Then, after you choose iTunes from the list, it remembers this and next time you type the shortcut, it becomes the first item in the list.

  LaunchBar is fast. You would think that having to go through everything on your computer and remember what you picked last would slow everything down. Not at all. LaunchBar is always there when you need it and quickly makes itself invisible when you don’t.

  LanchBar searches. You can even setup shortcuts to search templates. For instace, when I type “G” it selects the Google search template, then I just press the spacebar, enter my search term, and my web browser launches with the search results. This is especially useful when multitasking since you don’t have to keep switching between windows, it just does it. I’ve also setup other shortcuts for Wikipedia, IMDB, Pubmed, and many more searches.

  LaunchBar emails. (Or at least launches email). You can configure LaunchBar to search the email addresses in your address book. When you select the address from the list, it launches a new message in Mail with the address already entered.

  LaunchBar rocks! If you aren’t convinced yet, you just need to try it for yourself. At $19.95 it’s a steal considering how much I use it. You can configure LaunchBar to do as little or as much as you want (I haven’t even talked about launching iTunes playlists or bookmarks in your web browser). Once you “get it”, it will change your Mac experience forever!

  Technorati Tags: apple, launchbar

   

• Andy 12:47 pm on 3/15/2006 Permalink | Reply  

  Let the Madness Begin! 

  
  The regular season is over and this is what they are playing for – The Road to the Final Four begins tomorrow. The great thing about NCAA Men’s Basketball is that anyone can win. It’s not like NCAA Football where it comes down to rankings – the basketball teams actually play it out. Of course, there are favorites to win, and there is always some dispute about how the brackets are setup, but when it comes right down to it, you just have to play the games! I’ve got my picks in!

  One thing that is annoying me is that iTunes will be offering a “season pass” for the tournament. For $19.99 US you get shortened versions of all 63 games and the semi-finals and finals in their entirety. So, what’s annoying about all this you ask – it’s only available in the US. Come on Apple! I’m sitting and waiting with my credit card to give you 20 bucks – can’t we work this out!

  Technorati Tags: apple, bracket, canada, itunes, march madness, ncaa, season pass, tournament

   

• Andy 5:17 pm on 3/12/2006 Permalink | Reply  

  Mac OS X – PVR Video Extraction 

  Now that we’ve had a Bell PVR (like a Tivo) for a while, and no longer have a VCR, I was looking around trying to come up with a way to get video off of the receiver and burn it to a DVD. This would provide the functionality of a VCR in that you are able to bring a VHS tape somewhere, but I cannot just bring the receiver anywhere I go.

  After looking many different places and coming up with all the hardware and software that I would need (especially since I need Mac software), I decided that all of this information needs to be in one place. So, I’ve drafted up a “quick and simple” website that should give anyone using a Mac a good start in getting video off of their PVR (Bell or Dish).

  You can find the walk through here.

  UPDATE: I’ve received a few emails telling me that this site I made isn’t complete. It is a work in progress but you also have to click on the “triangles” to expand and collapse sections. This “dynamic” ability makes it easier to view and print only the sections you want. Let me know if there are any other problems.
  

  Technorati Tags: mac, mpeg, os x, pvr, pvrexplorer, streamclip

   

• Andy 10:28 am on 3/11/2006 Permalink | Reply  

  Train – For Me, It’s You 

  
  Back in the fall, I heard that Train would be putting out a new album in the new year, but I somehow missed the release date of January 31st. I’ve been a fan of train since their early days. I saw them open for Hootie & the Blowfish in Toronto the night before they were on Conan O’Brien and they’ve skyrocketed since then. While the song Meet Virginia from their originally album still probably remains my favorite, they’ve put out some real quality albums since then. This latest album, For Me, It’s You is also really good. A lot of times I need to listen to an album a few times to warm up to it, but on the first listen through, I can see this one becoming part of my regular rotation in iTunes. If you’re a fan of Train, you probably didn’t miss the release date like I did and this will be old news to you. But, if you’ve never heard of them or haven’t listened to them in a while, this one is definitely worth checking out.
  

  Technorati Tags: train, music

   

• Andy 8:19 am on 3/2/2006 Permalink | Reply  

  Med Show This Weekend 

  Every year, the medical students at the Univesity of Calgary put on a show for the public and raise some money for charity. This weekend, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night is this year’s production of Med Show. I’m helping out with some of the “tech stuff” for the show including the music and videos that gets played during many of the performances. I can’t believe that the whole thing is brought together so quickly but having seen the rehearsals for a couple of days now, I think it’s going to be a great show. I’m planning on recording some of the live musical numbers, so if all goes well, I’ll hopefully have some links to some sound files for everyone to check out. The show must go on!