andyskinn.com » Technology

Happy Halloween!

Andy — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 05:22:56 +0000

OK… so the real reason for this post today is so that I don’t go the entire month of October without an update to the website. Things have been busy, but not with the sorts of things to update on the website.

We had everyone to our place for Thanksgiving which was a lot of fun.

Matt and I are also trying our hands at video podcasting now with The Skinny on Sports Tech. The latest episode talks about my new toys – the new iPod nano and the Nike+ Sports Kit. You can check out the video to find out more about that. The easiest way to play the videos if you’re having trouble is with iTunes. We’re hoping to make it much easier in the future for those of you that just want to see the video within the web page itself.

That’s all for now. November is just around the corner!

Technorati Tags: apple, nano, nike, podcast, sports kit, video

New Skype Phone

Andy — Thu, 25 May 2006 23:07:15 +0000

After doing some searching, I finally found a Skype phone that is compatible with a Mac – the IPEVO Free-1. If you’ve never used Skype, now is as good a time as any to try since they recently announced that not only can you call between Skype users for free, but you can also call any number in the US or Canada from Skype for FREE! This will be great when I’m traveling this summer and that is part of the reason for getting the phone. If you’re wondering what I mean by “Skype Phone”, basically it’s a USB device that looks like a phone and communicates with Skype. It’s an easy way to avoid having to use the built in mic and speakers on your computer – plus it seems less awkward to be talking into something that looks like a phone instead of just a mic on the computer! To use it, your computer needs to be on and connected to the internet, but then you can place calls on the phone and it goes through Skype. You can choose to either call one of your Skype contacts, or call any other regular phone line. I’ll let you know how the quality is, but as I say, it was the only one I could find for a Mac, so I thought I’d give it a shot! You can get all the details about the phone here.

Technorati Tags: apple, ipevo, skype, usb phone

USB Flash Memory Drive

Andy — Thu, 11 May 2006 14:22:26 +0000

If anyone is looking for what I would consider to be a good deal on a USB stick, check out this link. For $74.99 after $15.00 mail-in rebate, you get a * 2 GB * stick. Shipping is only $7.99 and I’ve dealt with this online shop in the past with good results. Also, this particular USB stick has received very good reviews for really fast transfers. I’m sold!

I can’t believe how cheap USB Flash memory has become. I finally took the plunge to upgrade my old 32 MB stick. I figure it will come in handy this summer since I may not always be able to carry my laptop around with me to and from the hospital in Sydney. Less than a month now until I’m on the plane to Oz!

Everyday FreeMacWare

Andy — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:26:21 +0000

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

LaunchBar

Andy — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 15:00:15 +0000

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

FireAnt for Video Podcasts

Andy — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 18:49:17 +0000

I use iTunes for my podcasting needs, but I found that I didn’t like it as much for video podcasts. It just seemed a little slower to me and I wanted a bit more control over the content. That’s when I found a great application called FireAnt. The application is still in development, but even with a few minor bugs, I’m using FireAnt as my everyday video podcasting client. The developers are also very responsive to email about problems and suggestions and I’m looking forward to upcoming changes. If you’re looking for a new way to manage all of your video subscriptions, give FireAnt a try!

Technorati Tags: fireant, podcasts, video podcasts, videoblog

Spell with flickr – New Header Graphic

Andy — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 16:20:46 +0000

I thought it was time for a new header graphic after seeing this cool use of images on flickr.com. If you haven’t heard of flickr, it’s a way to easily share photos online. What the people at Spell with flickr have done is allow you to type in a word or phrase, and then using letters that are found within pictures on flickr, it creates an image of your word (as seen in my header graphic). You can also click on each letter that it gives you if you want it to choose another one from flickr until your image looks just the way you want it to. While there may not be many super practical uses for this site, I still think it’s fun!

Technorati Tags: flickr

iPod Battery Replacement

Andy — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 02:36:30 +0000

They say there comes a point in time for every iPod where the battery doesn’t like to hold a charge any longer. That time came before Christmas for me. I headed onto Ebay.ca and picked up a new battery for my 4G 40 Gig iPod. It arrived and then it was the fun of trying to crack it open and install the new battery (since iPods don’t have any screws, this can be a little more “fun” then you might think!)

I found these great instructions – there is a PDF document and even a video to show you how it’s done. I followed it step-by-step and didn’t seem to have any problems.

However, shortly after changing the battery, my iPod started to act a little weird. It would just randomly crash and tell me that the battery was out when it wasn’t, etc. Not fun! So, after almost giving up and possibly shipping it back to Apple to see if they could fix it, I decided to do a complete “Restore to Factory Settings” – bascially it wipes out everything and you’re left with a fresh iPod as if you just bought it. I was skeptical about this working, but I would want to do this to ship it back anyways.

So far, (and I know it’s just one day), it seems to be behaving as it should. I know that’s not the ideal situation for others that are having problems with their iPod, but as a last resort, it seems to have done the trick! I’ll post an update if things change…

UPDATE: The replacement battery does not seem to be holding a charge for nearly as long as it should and my iPod has still been randomly crashing. The guy who sold me the battery on eBay is going to let me exchange it, so I’ll wait for that before giving up and sending the whole iPod back to Apple. I’ll keep you posted.

UPDATE: I installed the replacement battery and the problems I was having seem to have gone away and I’m getting a good charge out of the new battery. I wanted to wait a while before posting the update since last time I said all was good, it all went bad again! All in all, besides the hiccup with what was likely a faulty battery, I’d recommend that anyone who’s iPod needs a bit of a boost check out getting a new battery.

Yahoo! Podcasting

Andy — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 18:30:39 +0000

Yahoo! has jumped in on podcasting with a new website. It’s been out for a couple of weeks now, but I wanted to point it out now since we are on their front page as one of their Staff Picks. You can view a full screenshot here.

Thanks Yahoo!

Everything Moved to New Host

Andy — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 18:00:48 +0000

Everything should be moved over to the new host now. The frustrating part for me the past few weeks was that the site always seemed to be down on the weekends, which is when I usually actually have some time to think about posting here. Then by the time the site was back up, I had forgotten what I was going to write about and the site would sit quiet for a while again.

Hopefully this new host will be a bit more reliable. Let me know if you notice anything weird about the site as there may be a few kinks yet to be noticed from the move.