Transition FX, you always need more

You always need more booms, whooshes, etc. Here’s a nice free collection I came across the other day.

Transition FX Demo by Bronto Scorpio

Current Mac apps

I use a lot of technology. I’m frequently on a computer, phone, etc., and frequently explore various applications, changing routinely. It’s just what I do. Occasionally an application will win my loyalty and I stick with it. Here are the services I’ve sticking with, at least for the time being.

Evernote – for all types of note taking, information housing, everything
Chrome – currently my browser of choice. I’m sure that will change in the next 30 days
Rdio – streaming music to browser, iOS
Twitter desktop app – formerly Tweetie, I like most of the things they added to the new Twitter
MagicPrefs – as a Magic Mouse fanatic, this allows me to fully geek out the multitouch wonder to the point where it becomes nearly unusable
Logmein – I’ve tried other remote access services, but with Logmein Ignition on iOS every computer I touch or support (we’re talking family and friends here) is a few clicks away… time saver!
Xmarks – technically a browser extension, it syncs bookmarks across all computers, all web browsers. Good when I decide to toggle between Firefox and Chrome routinely
Windows Live Sync – to sync files between my desktop and laptop. Sure, dropbox is a great alternative, but Windows Live Sync doesn’t limit the file size (though it does have a 20,000 file limit… discovered this when syncing picture folders)

If I were to go PC

If I were to ditch my Apple loyalties and go PC, this is one of the few things that may sway me. I say may. Also, there is a video.

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Multiple gmail logins

Do you use more than one gmail address? Perhaps you have a personal address and a Google apps work address. Until recently you could log in to both, but as Google apps has been beefed some things have been changed. Now, however, you can enable “multiple accounts” in your gmail very easily.

This article details how to enable the feature for your gmail account.

Once you’ve enabled the feature, log in to either of your email accounts. In the upper right corner, click on your email address and choose the “switch accounts” option to then log in to your other email account.

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Going forward, you can just click on the email address in the upper right and toggle between your accounts with ease.

Wifi long exposure experiment

Yes it’s artistic, and creative, and quite nerdy. If all three describe you, please continue. (via Adam)

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi from Timo on Vimeo.

Nomad brush for iPad

Now this is just cool.

Blog PHP 5.0 update – DONE

After an evening of unsuccessful attempts, I was able to get my WordPress database updated to PHP 5.0; turned out to a more laborious chore that I’d anticipated. Thankfully this article described exactly how to get things working again. The trick, it turns out, is wading through the 1,000s of web code forums to locate that particular article!

Where was that line?

Downright brilliant. You enter the phrase, this site tells you not only which movie it’s from, but also where in the movie it’s located. Pretty slick. Looking for a quote will forever be easier.

You enter the phrase, it tells you which movie it comes from. Amazing.

Subzin.com

iTunes 10 reverted back to iTunes 9

Not loving that shiny new iTunes 10 look? Fear not, you can revert it back to it’s pre-10 glory, colorful icons and all with this handy guide. Took me all of about 2 minutes to get it back.

Hint, this link was the most useful.

Vintage calculators

Why do I love so much?

Evernote power tip

If you use Evernote on your iPhone and want to import a large chunk of
photos here’s a power tip for you. Rather than using the built in “camera roll” importer that limits you to one upload at a time use your iPhoto app. It let’s you email up to 5 photos at a time. BONUS FEATURE: emailing from iPhoto on iOS4 also gives the option to downsize/compress photos when it sends to save you some space.

Just be sure to set up your Evernote email address first. The option is available on the app under the SYNC tab.

Homemade Salsa (and assorted tech)

This weekend’s projects include:

1) Jailbreak iPhone and get Netflix app working
2) Order new dishwasher as our Maytag one was recalled
3) Make salsa from scratch

I was able to accomplish them all. If any of the above interest you let me direct you to lifehacker for the netflix hack (and www.jailbreakme.com for an easy way to jailbreak). Then head over to the Maytag recall site to see if your washer is a candidate.

Finally, I made up the salsa recipe from scratch. Here’s a rough approximation of my recipe.

3-4 cups of small tomatoes (I used grape tomatoes, but roma or cherry will probably work)
1/2 onion
4 cloves garlic, peeled and cut into several pieces
juice from 1 lemon
sea salt & pepper (to taste)

Combine all ingredients in a food processor, combine until your heart’s content.

The results? Mmmm.

Clean Cable layout

I was really inspired by this article on Unclutterer about one way to manage the natural byproduct of a complex computer setup. I don’t know about you, but regardless of what I try to do to keep it neat I always end up with a rat’s nest. This might end up being an upcoming weekend project.

my favorite under-the-radar iOS features

So I’ve been on iOS for several weeks now and with a plethora of new features there are a few subtle ones that I’ve really enjoyed. In no particular order;

- You can turn off individual calendars. – Emails are threaded (like gmail conversations)
- And if someone references a date in email (ie “next Thursday”) you can click and make it an appointment that goes right into the calendar application. Truly inspired.
- SMS has a character count
- you can lock the auto rotation, making it 1000% easier to read a document lying down

What about you, what (other than the obvious) is your favorite subtle iOS feature?

Hipstamatic app

This is just way too fun.

Korg iElectribe

Great, another reason I’m going to want an iPad.

iPhone stylesheet

Just for some extra sizzle I created an iPhone stylesheet for commonly used text styles. For all of the lovely new advances on this phone there’s no simple way to even bold text or make it red. Enter my stylesheet.

I created a google doc with the text styles I commonly use (say, for making red notes on an email forward). Then I open the google doc, copy it, and paste it into an email. From there you can select a bit of text, and edit the type. Now you’ve applied text formatting to an iPhone-generated email.

NOVA for iPhone…

Watching the demo of NOVA, an upcoming shooter for iPhone, makes me think “could this be our new mobile HALO?” Wow.

Convert youtube videos online

Well that’s downright handy. It takes YouTube clips, extracts them for you, and converts to your preferred file format. Head over to Vixy.net/ to give it a try.

Outdoor projections

I really dug the outdoor projections at Dirt provided by Visual Worshiper. Take a look here.