Why do I have duplicate app icons in my Launchpad?

via my Google+ post

iRegistered

via skitch.com

mmmmm. yummy. refreshing. Koolaid.

Posted via email from TheMacMommy

Spreadsheeting the Love

iWork Numbers Invoice
[Edit: I've added a link to the original Numbers document in addition to the Template version. Enjoy!]

Hand-Made Mac Tip No. 15

Taking the Spreadsheet to the Next Level - Spreadsheeting the Love

Did you know you can create a customized template with iWork Numbers?

(Please note: there is no 's' on the end of iWork. The application that preceeded it was called AppleWorks and that did end with an 's.' Sorry, pet peeve of mine.)

Did you know that Apple's iWork Numbers is the equivalent to Microsoft's Office Excel?

Did you know that Numbers can do more than just create a  plain old spreadsheet? You can actually design something extremely usable with Numbers!

I've been working on this project for some time now and I'm pretty pleased with the results. I'd like to share it with you and would love some feedback if you decide to use it and modify it to suit your own needs. I've created a customizable invoice that will calculate time and pricing using a series of sliders and cells where you enter variable information.

Sure, Numbers does come with its own ready-made templates for which there are invoices. I took a look at them first to be sure I wasn't reinventing the wheel. I didn't like any of them. They just didn't do what I wanted my invoice to do for me. Like with many of our technological advances, when you can't find it, you build it.

Here is a screen shot of what one of my
TheMacMommy invoices looks like.
Click to view larger.

So, this is what I've built: a client invoice to send to my clients showing them how much they owe me and how I arrived at the total. I also use it to document what we worked on during our sessions together. Tech support is not cheap. I at least try to make it affordable for my clients so they call me back again and again.

Until I find a better solution, I've been using PayPal to invoice my clients so they can pay me online using their credit card or bank account. Most of my elderly clients still prefer writing out a check, which is fine and I can deposit it to my bank account using my iPhone camera. That method is free, and takes a bit to clear, while PayPal is somewhat convenient and helps me keep better accounting for my taxes. I still don't like the cut PayPal takes though (even though I realize I'm paying for convenience) and pretty soon I'll be needing to hire some part time childcare and will need that money for a babysitter.

The way it's working for me is I first create an invoice for my client using the Numbers document I've built. I plug in all the variable information and type up my session notes. Then, I log in to PayPal and use the custom invoice template I created there and plug in the same information regarding fees, rates, hours and dates (not enough room for session notes though). If the totals match up, then I know I've got everything accounted for. That makes me feel more confident to bill the client.

I saved a copy of my customized invoice and created a generic version so you can make changes to it that suit your needs like using your own company colors, fonts and logo. Basically, all the variable text or cells you need to interact with have blue text. Other cells where the text is black or a shade of grey are automatically calculated based on what you modify in the cells with the blue text. When you click on the cells with blue text, you will be presented with either a slider or a drop-down menu with different choices. Adjust the values and watch other cells update automagically! Try it! If you use the Inspector tool, you can adjust those settings and enter your own values. I thought this was such a cool feature!

Here is where you can download the Numbers Template File I created using iWork Numbers '09 version 2.0.5. If you want to original Numbers document, you can download it here.

I'd love it if someone could try this out on an iPad and let me know if it works!

Once I've created an invoice for a client, I then save it as a PDF file using the nomenclature of YYYYMMDD_LASTNAME (of the client). The date I use is the date of the invoice to make it easier.

This screen shot shows you the path of where you should save the template file. Once the file is placed in your Home/Library/Application Support/iWork/Numbers/Templates/My Templates folder, you can then launch Numbers and select File/New from Template Chooser/My Templates (from the sidebar)/Generic Consulting Invoice.

Click on the image to enlarge it so you can read the path at the bottom.

Development

This all started with a spreadsheet I created in Numbers. Then one night, I asked my science teacher of a husband to help me adjust the formulas to make the cells calculate time and present me with a  total. We both kept tinkering with the settings and features in the Numbers Inspector and finally beat it into submission.

Every couple of days I would just keep tweaking it and moving cells around and adjusting formatting until I felt it could be a viable tool to use in my consulting business. Sure, I KNOW there is an app for this...I know there are probably over 50 that might do it on my iPhone easier. I just had much more fun creating this on my own. I can only imagine this might be somewhat similar to what application developers might experience when they create an app. I enjoy working with the user interface of iWork products. I think they are beautifully designed and very intuitive.

Every time I use Numbers or Pages, I'm always amazed at what these applications have to offer. (I wish I had more use for Keynote because it has a gorgeous interface!) Having come from a printing, production and graphics background using Pro applications like Quark Xpress and Adobe InDesign, that's saying a lot. I used to consider myself a real snob and couldn't be bothered with the inferior AppleWorks or other lowly "desktop publishing" applications. I loathed converting files from programs like "Punisher" — which was my pet name for MS Publisher. I just hated the interfaces and it rose my blood pressure whenever I had to take some layperson's "design" and make it print-ready. Despite being damn good at it, I didn't like being a Production Artist.

Years ago, I cringed whenever I heard the words "desktop publishing." I used to correct people whenever they asked me if I was a "desktop publisher." I would correct them by saying, "No, a desktop publisher would be my little brother making greeting cards on his PC. I use a Mac and have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Communication Design, therefore I am a designer." (and you have to say it in a really snobby voice and elongate the "i" sound in deeeee-siiiiiiigner.)

Much of that changed when I exited the printing industry and started honing my technical skills. I realized that maybe it wasn't all that bad being a Production Artist and started focusing more on my skills in the areas of production, training and troubleshooting. When I started working in the education field as a site technician, I no longer had the luxury and access of using Adobe products like Photoshop or Illustrator. I had to make do with whatever the schools could afford and so I forced myself to become proficient in using the Apple products that came with the machines or could be had for educational pricing. Even though I could still use my creative side, it was the enjoyment I found in teaching staff and students how to use creative applications like AppleWorks or even TuxPaint. I learned how to embrace desktop publishing and ironically, became an advocate for it. Working in a school setting, in my opinion, really teaches you how to be frugal. So, if a teacher wanted fancy certificates for her 5th grade class, then I took pride in creating a turn-key workflow for her using the AppleWorks database feature combined with the built-in fancy borders. It made them happy and I felt like a rock star.

I'm still rather picky about certain things that have been programmed into my brain from college professors. I still think some of them might be proud of me if they could see some of the things I've designed over the years. I've gotten very creative when it comes to tweaking user interfaces and pointing out to consumer level users the intricacies that they might never have noticed on their own. My eyes are trained to see details that others might not see and I utilize that in my teaching much of the time.

I wish more people used iWork and really learned how to make it a replacement for Microsoft Office. It always pains me when I watch my husband use Word. He gets so frustrated when it just won't do what he'd like it to do. Having a former typesetter for a wife hasn't helped him much as I've berated him over the years about using single spaces and properly formatting text the way I was trained as a designer.

I understand people's needs to just use what they know. I just wish for people to step outside of that zone a little bit and try something that might alleviate some pressure and strain. You know, um, Think Different. I would like for others to experience the satisfaction I get from my computing experience. Creating this invoice for my business use was technically work, but I enjoyed working on it and it felt rewarding to create something that would later save me time and do the work FOR me.

Instead of swearing at your computer because it's just not computing the way you told it to, give iWork a chance and use a product that doesn't actually make you feel like you're doing, well, work. You might be surprised or even delighted.

Please leave me a comment if you've found this useful. I enjoy getting feedback :) Happy tinkering!

Mommy's Little Monsters

Lady Gaga's got her Little Monsters.

I do too.

Mine are volume partitions on bare external drives I have connected to an old PowerBook G4 that has a busted screen. I mount them via FireWire 800 using a "toaster" a.k.a. Newer Technology Voyager Dock. This one's name is Backup_Grover. You know... "Near!" "Far!" "Near!" "Far!"

All because Hubby didn't like my previous nomenclature using the date, time or drive size formats. He said, "Can't we just call them Bert and Ernie?"

"Fine." I made it so.

I named the first drive partitions Bert and Ernie but then I decided I wanted to go with a theme for the rest of them so I named them all for Sesame Street Monsters. I have several drives, both partitioned and single with various monster names such as Elmo, Telly, Zoe, Oscar, and Murray. I even made my own disk icons for each one.

Depending on what mood I'm in, I can mount them so I have little monsters pop up in my Dock, Sidebar or on my Desktop. I really like to see them in the Time Machine Preference Pane window.

It just kinda makes you WANT to be sure you're doing your backups, right?

So, what have you named YOUR hard drives?

Time for Tax Prep

I'm in the process of reviewing iBank and wanted to pass this press release along to readers in hopes that it might help you prepare for taxes this year. As you might already know, the kids have been sick, so I haven't had the amount of screen time I'd like lately. Pretty soon, push is going to come to shove and I WILL be camping out in this back office crunching numbers for tax time while Hubby reassures the kids that mommy hasn't run away from home. yet. I sure hope the kids will remember what I look like!

I know this sounds weird, but I'm actually looking forward to preparing for taxes this year! In the past, my tax preparer has always been impressed with how organized my information is because I've been using iWork Numbers to create custom spreadsheets. Just wait till he sees my fancy new iBank reports!

I can tell you already that iBank is fantastic and I'm not just saying that because I've been provided a review license. It is beautifully designed and well thought out unlike "Quicksand" (which is what I'd rather call it!) I've witnessed clients go through the painful process of trying to manage their finances using 'product that shall remain nameless.' It always amazes me the hoops some people are willing to jump through in order to remain a slave to that program. I'm glad I don't have to do that because I'm using iBank. There is even a companion iPhone app so you can sync your data and manage on the go. This is a must-have for Moms who use a Mac and/or an iPhone. In our case, the Hubby also has it on his iPod Touch so he can help me fine tune the nitty gritty information like categories.

Check it out for yourself using the demo and let me know what you think! Take a look at the press release for more information and watch the tutorials. Then, check back here for a more personal review from yours truly!

January 26, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

IBANK 4: PERSONAL FINANCE SOFTWARE THAT PAYS FOR ITSELF 

New iBank Tutorial Video Showcases Tax-Season Tips For Saving Time And Money 

(Putney, VT) — IGG Software has posted “Preparing For Taxes With iBank,” a timely tutorial for tax-paying Mac users. The latest in an online series of iBank 4 instructional videos, the new how-to emphasizes ways by which users can improve organization, track deductible expenses, and save time, trouble and accounting costs. And for do-it-yourself filers, data compiled in iBank 4 is also compatible with export to TurboTax. As tech writer Tim Johnson has noted: 

“The real money saver in iBank comes around tax time,” Johnson wrote in Post magazine. “With data you’re able to compile in iBank, and with a reliable tax person, this $59 app will save you countless hours. If you’re like me, it will pay for itself four or five times over the first time you file your taxes.” 

In just four minutes, the new tutorial guides iBank 4 users through the advantages of categorizing tax-related transactions, the use of tax codes, generating a Tax Report from iBank’s flexible report templates, the benefits of additional reports such as Category Detail, Payee Summary and Net Worth, transmitting files to a tax professional, and exporting data to tax preparation software such as TurboTax. The iBank 4 tutorial library is online at http://www.iggsoftware.com/ibank/tutorials.php 

The leading Mac-only personal finance app, iBank offers users an elegant, intuitive means to track accounts, investments, loans and budgets. iBank 4, released in September 2010, has been called a “new standard” for managing money on a Mac. The full-featured application offers essential features like check printing, portfolio support, and easy transaction downloads from online accounts. iBank 4 also delivers beautiful, dynamic reports and fast, reliable iPhone sync. 

Syncing iBank to iOS devices requires iBank Mobile 1.2 for iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, sold separately via the App Store. The app offers mobile transaction entry, QIF data export and sync with iBank for Mac via Wi-Fi, MobileMe or any WebDAV server. Additionally, iBank 4 offers free, unlimited support and is available for $59.99, directly from the IGG website or from the Mac App Store. More information can be found at http://www.iggsoftware.com/ibank 

IGG Software, Inc., was founded in 2003 by developer Ian Gillespie to offer intuitive, elegant and powerful applications for individuals and small businesses. Based in Putney, Vermont, its flagship products are iBank 4, for personal finance management, and iBiz 4, for time-tracking and billing. For further information, review licenses, or to schedule interviews with Ian Gillespie or Chief Architect James Gillespie, please contact IGG Marketing Director Scott Marc Becker: scott@iggsoftware.com.

How To Add Special FX Photos to Your Address Book Cards

Hand-Made Mac Tip No. 14

How To Add Special FX Photos to Your Address Book Cards

I discovered some funky, new photo editing features in Snow Leopard's version of Address Book!

When you edit a contact card, you can also assign a photo to that individual by double-clicking on the photo icon.

Below that, there are two buttons. The camera button is for taking a photo using the built in webcam. The button to the right of that is for adding special effects. I can't remember off the top of my head if these were present in Leopard, but I'm just discovering them now.

There are six different choices. Try on a few for yourself!

You know, it's soon time to get those holiday cards out in the mail. Next time you're digging around in your Address Book, pruning and gardening your contacts database, you might want to have some fun with a few of the faces in there.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from TheMacMommy

Wrong Date or Time Stamps on Photos & Videos & How To Archive Them

Hand-Made Mac Tip No. 13
Wrong Date or Time Stamps on Photos & Videos & How To Archive Them 

I was archiving some audio files today and discovered some of them had the wrong date stamp in the Finder's list view when sorted by "Date Created" so I thought I'd share this tip.

You just never know when the OS is going to bork your time/date stamp. It happens periodically and sometimes the time stamp does not transfer properly when burning files onto a disk or transferring to an external hard drive. Sometimes some of the data has become corrupted but is still perfectly useable. You can view the photo or video just fine, but the metadata – or time stamp – is wrong — REALLY wrong, like Y2K wonky! Sometimes it's the operating system, sometimes devices are not properly configured by the user, for example, in the case of a digital camera.

I discovered this when my mother-in-law got a brand new digital camera last year. She was so excited about it and started using it right away and was trying to learn about all the features as she went along. That's how I do it — manuals??! we don't need no stinking manuals!!

In our family, we always swap our camera chips/SD cards so that we all have the same collection of photos taken by each other when we get together for special occasions where all the cameras are out snapping away. This way there's a backup of everyone's precious memories all over the place — and at different ends of the country sometimes. Most all of us have a MacBook of some flavor with iPhoto so it's very quick and easy to download the photos and videos off the chips and be on our separate ways.

Right around the holidays, my mother-in-law and I were exchanging files from our camera chips. She had captured some really cute video footage of Lucian at his preschool holiday party. After I finished importing the files, I went to go view the photos and video in iPhoto but couldn't find them! I thought I was losing it. I could swear they imported properly! Usually, the newest photos and videos show up at the top because I've specified that I want it to view that way. I looked up and down, but these recent imports were no where to be found.

Luckily, I do not store my video files in iPhoto permanently. After some time I usually go back through my iPhoto library and move all of the videos to my Movies folder into the appropriate year folder. Then, I go through and manually rename the file names to the date and use a short description of what the movie clip is about. If it's a clip about the same thing, I add 01, 02, 03, etc. to the end. It's also much easier to navigate and locate clips in Front Row because they list nicely in a hierarchy by date and description. I use iPhoto to view & present photos and Front Row to view and present video.

When I archive the videos, I copy them twice. Once onto an external drive partition separate from my Time Machine backup partition. I repeat this process on another drive partitioned the same way located off site. Once I label them green, that means they've been archived twice on two separate drives and it's safe to remove them from my local hard drive on my laptop if I choose to do so to save space.

I don't bother to rename most all of my photos because I feel iPhoto does a decent job of managing everything for me and I can usually find what I'm looking for quickly by scrubbing through my Events. I'm fairly anal about it. There are some times where I may need to rename a file and for that I can use the batch feature in iPhoto or export them and do it manually in the Finder.

Now, in the case of the missing import from my mother-in-law's camera, the search feature in iPhoto is what saved the day. I was able to just type "movie" as the search term and this way it narrowed the results because I only keep a small amount of movie files in iPhoto before they get archived. I was able to locate the few movies that had been recently imported and that's when I discovered the date stamp was wrong which is what caused them to become buried in the 2009 files when I was expecting to see something in the January 2010 section at the top. It turns out, her camera was not properly formatted for the correct date nor time zone! Sometimes new cameras are formatted with the current date and time, but most times, you must set it up yourself. If you leave the date stamp on your photos where it shows up in the lower right corner, you might notice this, but that's not always on by default either.

You might not think this is a big deal, but when you're swapping digital files between family members, it helps when your camera's are synched up. Imagine five years from now, you're trying to view a collection of photos and videos of a family member's birth — or wedding and reception. You're scrolling through a beautiful slideshow but it gets confusing because the photos are out of order! The first couple of photos are in order — there's the baby getting weighed, there's the baby in grandma's arms, there's the baby — wait....why are these photos next ??— that's from the baby shower? Huh? The next few photos jump back to the hospital and then another few are from a different time. This is particularly annoying when looking through wedding photos that are out of order.

Now, imagine there are three different cameras being used on that special day. The first camera is set to the current date and time zone because the user went through the camera settings and configured it properly. The second camera was taken out of the box and never tinkered with. The third camera belongs to a family member visiting from the other side of the country where the time zone is three hours different and that camera has been configured to their local time.

Do you see what's happening here?

Many times it's just not convenient or even proper to school your 78-year-old Aunt Henrietta who barely speaks English about her fancy new gadget. You're lucky she even handed you her camera to pop out the chip so you could download it and you were able to convince her that you didn't just break her camera and no, there really isn't any film inside of it.

I have no idea why these voice memos from my iPhone did not save the correct date in the Finder listing but it's not helpful when I go looking for something and my search criteria or sorting is by date and time. Luckily the default file naming nomenclature IS date/time, albeit an ugly version of it that uses punctuation, which is why I clean up my file names removing the special characters. It's a habit from my days as a pre-press technician when I used to preflight files for printing service bureaus. Either way, I had no idea what these voice memos were about without listening to them. Now that I've renamed them, I'll know what to look for when searching later on.

This is why I take it upon myself to manually name my movie files using date format soon after the event because you never know if the data will reflect the true time stamp. I also try my best to name, tag, and comment on photos in iPhoto as much as I can and back up my iPhoto library on a regular basis. It's a practice I'd encourage you to try. It's best to try and manage the data right away rather than discovering problems with it years down the road when you no longer remember what happened and when. Maybe you won't even care, but maybe, just maybe, you or someone else will.

So now, my mother-in-law's camera is set to the correct date and time. When we swap chips, our photos are in the correct order. I can tell which ones she took versus mine because hers is a Kodak and mine is a Canon and they prefix the filenames differently. I can use the batch comment feature in iPhoto to make a note of which photos she took because I believe credit where credit is due.

I hope this may have cleared up a little bit of the mystery surrounding time and date stamps on media files and what you can do about it.

Be a thinker. Don't be afraid to tinker!

Some People Collect Cats. I Collect Macs.

At least it won't pee on my carpet or knock up any other strays.

Don't judge me, yo.


P.S.
Spay and neuter your pets.
word

Just another gizmo to tinker around with. Someday it will have a good home in a classroom. Keagan currently enjoys opening and closing the lid. I swear this thing encouraged him to really start crawling!

Thanks to my Fairy Geekmother, Pat :)
xoxoxo

Posted via email from TheMacMommy

More Blogging Toys - Adding Audio

Right now, I'm using the Dragon iPhone app called Dictate to record my voice and transcribe it into text. (I tried this before, but it's since been updated) Next, I'm going to copy and paste that text into an e-mail that I'm going to compose using the Voice Memo app so that I can also attach an audio file to the text for this post.

The Dictate app did ok, but I had to come back and manually edit most of the text here on the iPhone to correct the grammar. I thought perhaps the update would be an improvement but it still stops recording every so often. In the time it took me to speak it and then edit it all, I believe I could have hammered it out on the iPhone keyboard faster and more efficiently.

Finally, I'm going to post this email to Posterous which will in turn, post to my Blogger blog, facebook, Twitter, friendfeed, etc.

What I'm most curious about is what will become of the audio recording I've attached. Last time it didn't work but that last post went FUBAR anyhow. Let's see if the audio file attaches this time.

  
Download now or listen on posterous

Testing an audio snipit.m4a (142 KB)

I also went into my facebook Notes application settings and tried removing my blogger rss feed. I didn't like the result. It seems that instead, I need to remove the Posterous autopost from facebook so that wall posts are not duplicated. If I just leave the blog feeding the notes and the notes feeding the wall, I think that might make the user experience more positive so they won't have to leave facebook to read my blog. Only problem with that is my blog traffic stats then take a hit -- which isn't a huge deal to me since I primarily use facebook to keep in touch with friends & family. It's just not something I'd recommend for a business or professional brand. I suppose it all depends on where you pull your stats from and which services you like best.

Play It Again, Sam
Now, let's also see if I did html formatting, tagging and signature removal correctly!

Posted via email from TheMacMommy

Edit: Live Mobile Blogging with Posterous

Now I'm testing out how to make edits to a post by forwarding the original email from my Sent folder. I'm guessing I could also use copy & paste.

I wonder who can see these emoji I'm using with the iPhone app?



In this test, I'm trying out the tagging feature. Hard to tell in the instructions if I need double (( )) or just single ( ). I suppose only one way to find out.

In the subject line should it be:

(tag: tinkering, random thoughts)

         OR

((tag: tinkering, random thoughts))

If this post shows up without tags then I'll know what I did wrong.

 Nope. I did it wrong I guess. Now I'm trying it with double (( )).

Can I use HTML code within the text to make a word <b>bold</b>? Let's see.

<b>Yay! It works!</b>

Here's another thing I'm tinkering with. Trying out different ways to add multiple photos to posts. I know there is the PicPosterous app, but what if I also want to edit the photo using the PS Mobile app? [Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photoshop-com-mobile/id331975235?mt=8 ]

Here is an example of a photo I snapped the other day using my iPhone. Within the iPhone's interface I can take this photo and edit it using the PS Mobile app, save it, then using copy & paste to post

BEFORE

and AFTER shots

How to get iTunes store links for apps to post like I did above? Use the "Tell a friend" feature in the App Store app like so:

Word to the wise: don't address the email until you're really ready to send it/post it. That send button is very sensitive. Lucian bumped my elbow while I was composing this and I accidentally pressed the send button. If you don't put anything in the address field then the send button is not yet active. You could press cancel by accident but at least then you have the opportunity to save a draft.

When it comes to editing though, I really wonder what is the best way to handle corrections, edits or retractions after you've pressed the send button. Since I currently have Posterous set  to autopost to my other online social services, the feeds get autoposted but changes made do not get reflected everywhere in an auto update fashion. Facebook is one example. If I make a change to my original blog or here in Posterous, it's tough noogies when it lands on facebook. Facebook won't pick up the change. At least not in my experience.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to deal with this monkey wrench in an otherwise well-greased wheel?

I'm also trying to figure out how to manage the duplicates. I have my Blogger blog set to auto update my facebook and friendfeed feeds but Twitter is also hooked to FriendFeed so my posts are multiplied like an echo there. It almost feels like bad mic feedback.

I know I need to do some feed gardening in the friendfeed settings and also for facebook. The question is which feed weeds to pull from which garden?

I still like my Blogger blog, but I also really like the clean look of my Posterous (and everyone elses for that matter).

I don't like the way text ends up formatted (or a complete lack thereof) on my Blogger site from Posterous.

Here is a crack at adding audio to my posts. I recorded a memo using the built in Voice Memos app. Next I pressed 'share' and then I copied and pasted it here:

Boy am I sure glad I waiting till after they added copy and paste to the iPhone before getting one. Now I can see why so many people were complaining about it!

Ok, this is funky!

Right now I'm editing this post on my MacBook Pro using Mail.app because after I pasted that audio file while on the iPhone, this is what the portrait and landscape keyboard looks like!!! Weird, huh?!

Not all the keys function at the moment on the iPhone while editing this post but I was able to copy and paste those screen shots in then save the draft while still on the iPhone then open the draft in Mail.app and add these sentences.

Right now I'm going to save this draft using Mail.app. Then I'm going to restart my iPhone and see if I can come back to this draft and edit it from the iPhone without the wonky keyboard issues above.

Now I'm back on the iPhone after restart but now the images are missing. Hmmm.

Going back to Mail.app to see what's up.

Back on the laptop in Mail.app now.

Crap. I lost all of the attachments. Now I'm wondering if it's because I tried to copy and paste an audio file or if it has something to do with an email cache that got too large for the iPhone to handle in composition mode and it just purged everything.

For my next trick I will attempt to go back to the iPhone and copy and paste the attachments back into the spots where I originally had them in this post. Right now all I see are little blue squares with question marks in them where the attachments used to be. I also wonder if I'm allowing enough time for the draft to save onto the Gmail server and then get retrieved on the iPhone before switching back. I know there is some kind of autosaving going on, but I'm not certain how it works.

Ok, back on the iPhone now. Going to attempt to put the attachments back using copy and paste. First I'll do the pics and then the audio last and see if I can post the final version from the iPhone. Here goes!!

Well, anyhow, these are my thoughts on blogging (for free) from the iPhone using apps and services in a turnkey manner.

Also testing how to remove the signature. Not certain if I need the single quotes or not. Let's see.

Yep, it works. No single quotes needed.

Has anyone tried the Glue app for the iPhone? I may try that one next. Let me know your thoughts.

Posted via email from TheMacMommy

Mobile Blogging with Posterous (tag: tinkering, random thoughts)

In this test, I'm trying out the tagging feature. Hard to tell in the instructions if I need double (( )) or just single ( ). I suppose only one way to find out.

In the subject line should it be:
(tag: tinkering, random thoughts)
OR
((tag: tinkering, random thoughts))

If this post shows up without tags then I'll know what I did wrong.

Can I use HTML code within the text to make a word bold? Let's see.

Here's another thing I'm tinkering with. Trying out different ways to add multiple photos to posts. I know there is the PicPosterous app, but what if I also want to edit the photo using the PS Mobile app? [Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photoshop-com-mobile/id331975235?mt=8 ]

Here is an example of a photo I snapped the other day using my iPhone. Within the iPhone's interface I can take this photo and edit it using the PS Mobile app, save it, then using copy & paste to post

BEFORE

and AFTER shots

How to get iTunes store links for apps to post like I did above? Use the "Tell a friend" feature in the App Store app like so:

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Also testing how to remove the signature. Not certain if I need the single quotes or not. Let's see.

Posted via email from TheMacMommy

If Batman Used Twitter

If Batman used Twitter, I bet he would really dig this "Nearby Tweets" feature in TwitBird Pro. [iTunes Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twitbird-pro/id317777108?mt=8 ]

I love how the tracking beam circles around an epicenter each time you recenter the map. It's just fun to watch the tweeps pop up.

Hey, look, there's someone I actually recognize. Cool!

Actually, I checked and twitter.com/batman IS on Twitter so I suppose if I were looking at a Google map of Gotham, I would probably see the bat signal.

Now I wonder if there even is a Google map of Gotham?

Melissa Davis
TheMacMommy
Sent from my iPhone

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what goes here i wonder.

From Evernote:

Blogging with Evernote iPhone App?

I don't know why I just can't get into using Evernote. I'm definitely a notetaker and jotter-downer. Now with the pain in my wrist and thumb, I find myself focused on trying new tools that will enable me to keep blogging and podcasting. So, I thought I'd fire up the Evernote app on my iPhone and see what I might be able to do with it. It seems I can type out a note, add tags and then email it. Posterous supports tagging and I remember reading somewhere a way to tag posts but I can't remember how to do it. So, I'm curious now if Evernote will transfer the tags I give it into Posterous.

Yet another test.



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Can You Guess the iPhone App?

As some of you may know, Lucian has his own pages of kiddie apps on our iPhone and iPod Touch so at times we hand one of the devices to him so he can entertain himself for a few minutes while one of us tries to complete (ha, yeah, right — ok, at least start...) a task around the house. (He's mostly supervised while using it, knows to tell us right away if an ad pops up or if it does something he can't read.) Yesterday he sat quietly on a chair and played a game on my iPhone for several minutes. He was so quiet that I wondered what game he was playing that could be so intense!

So I asked him what game he was playing. He said, "I'm playing the golden lemon game, Mommy."

Can you guess which game this really is? I figured it out when I heard the sounds the game makes, but I'm curious to know what you think it might be.

Just for fun :)

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Hands Free Blogging?

I'm recording this message using an iPhone app called dictation made by Dragon I'm not using a keyboard I'm just using my voice and I'm talking and it's recording what I'm saying I'm wondering if I can post a blog post using this application it seems you have to keep talking in order for keep recording or else it stops and you have to press the record button again actually no it only records for certain amount of time I wish there was a countdown so I can see how much time I have left before it stops recording my voice it only records for so long and then it tells you it's processing and then you have to press record again emergency continuing the same message as you can see if you're reading this message some of the words don't really make sense. So it's good but it's not perfect. I've also found that it's very difficult to just talk stream of consciousness for me personally. Anyhow I just thought this was a fun little app to try out and see how it might come in handy for hosting status updates or blog posts or even tweet I wonder if anyone else has used this app called dictation by dragon I also noticed that there's no capitalization or punctuation and you must also speak very clearly I guess that makes sense of course I suppose it saves time and that you don't have to type everything out and then you just go back in and edit were text with proper E. capitalization and punctuation I'm sure you can figure out where the mistakes are in this text I wonder how this would be used in combination with the iPhone's built-in universal access features in other words being able to speak commands such as Don or capitalize the letter AA or stop with me and insert it. It would be great if I could just say e-mail, post and have it actually e-mail the text to posters and have it show up on on my blog automatically or auto magically I wonder if it will figure out that word well anyhow Hailis just having some fun. Let me know if you used this app and how you used it and if you like it

Melissa Davis
TheMacMommy
Sent from my iPhone

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I Was In Las Vegas. again. sorta. Did Ya Miss Me?

My Tweet Made the Big Screen at Blogworld!

Thanks to Allison Sheridan for snapping this photo! Cool beans!!

I love being able to "virtually attend" Blogworld Expo every year. One of these days I will try to get there "in the flesh."

One of these days I won't have a child attached to me. These times don't last forever, so Blogworld-Live will just have to wait. Since I've been in nesting mode and preparing for the arrival of our new baby, I didn't get to follow along quite as much, but I did manage to see bits and pieces by following my favorite peeps on twitter and watching a webcast or two. Same as last year, I managed to get in some little contribution to Allison and her Nosillacast, which is always fun to do.

I "virtually" attended last year and had lots of fun. Read about my adventures in couch surfing from last year.

Don't forget to check out my podcast, Moms Gone Geek and listen to our interview with Allison Sheridan, who presented at #bwe09 this year.

Even better yet, SUBSCRIBE!

We have a few more shows still on ice that we'll be producing and publishing soon. (Before baby gets here, I hope!!!)

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How to Make an Application Inventory

Hand-Made Mac Tip No. 12

How to Make an Application Inventory

I've been dragging my feet about upgrading to Snow Leopard. Reason being, I wanted to make sure all my apps will be compatible. I need this machine for work for when I do consulting, so if I upgrade, I want to make sure everything works so there are no surprises down the road when I go to demonstrate something for a client.

There is a pretty extensive list in the form of a wiki here that shows which applications will work with Snow Leopard and which are buggy yet. I wanted to check my own applications list against this for compatibility. Problem was, I didn't really have a good inventory list of all my apps, let alone license keys, so I set out to create one in a spreadsheet format that I could stash away somewhere for safekeeping in the event of another upgrade, or God-forbid, catastrophic loss which might result in a clean install of every piece of software I own.

Here is a handy way to get started by getting all the application names into a spreadsheet using iWork Numbers (or Excel).

I could have sworn at some point in time — and this may be reaching as far back as the days of Mac OS 9 — that you used to be able to just highlight all of the application names using the list view in the Finder sorted by Name, then copy and paste them into either a text document or spreadsheet and they would just magically appear in alphabetical order. When I try this now, however, I get mixed results. It just doesn't work that way anymore. You may get a list of apps, but the names are duplicated several times over and it's just messy.

I also remember the days, again in OS 9, when you could simply print out a Finder window's contents. This came in extremely handy when I was a production manager preflighting jobs for print services in ad agencies. I had a handy system in which I would neatly organize and gather all of the print-ready data onto a CD and then print the window contents out, fold the paper a certain way and it was an instant CD cover for the jewel case that told you exactly what was on the CD that went out to the client. That feature disappeared for some reason as well in the new OS X system. I always wondered why they brought labels back, but not the Print Finder Window feature.

Well, there is a third party solution to the rescue. It's called, appropriately, PrintWindow 4.0. It does just what it says it does and even snazzier than the old grayscale teeny icons of OS9.

So what does this have to do with making an inventory list in a spreadsheet format you ask?

Well, it turns out, that if you print this list to a PDF, you can then view the PDF, press command A to highlight and select all of the text, then command P to paste the text into a spreadsheet. This will give you an alphabetical listing of all of the applications in the Applications folder.

It's easy-peasy. Just launch PrintWindow – either from the Dock, or you can do like me and put the icon in your toolbar of your Finder so it's handy. Next, select File, then Print Folder Listing. Navigate to your Applications folder and select it. Then follow the rest of the settings, it's pretty self explanatory. Just be sure to sort by name.

http://skitch.com/macmommy1228/nb8uq/applicationlisting (<---- link to larger image)

In the screen shot above you can see my Applications Finder window with the status at the bottom indicating that I have 181 applications in that folder. Next, you can see that when I copied and pasted the names from the PDF into the spreadsheet, the total number also matches by looking at the last line in that spreadsheet. This tells me I got them all copied.

From here, I can now go about tweaking my spreadsheet and adding in important information like serial numbers and versions. Later on, I can then sort the columns however I'd like or add check marks to remind me which applications are ready and which are not for Snow Leopard. This will help me to better decide when to upgrade and which applications I'll need to upgrade along with it. I might even add a column for the vendor link so that I can just run down the list later and click on the links to go to the download page for the updated software.

OCD is so much fun when you have the right tool for the job!

I hope you've enjoyed this Hand-Made Mac Tip!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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A Long List

Yes, it is a bit ridiculous that I could not fit the entire list in one screen shot.
Yes, I am a bit compulsive, but it's fun! :) Like I said, I like to tinker!!

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Some Results & Findings

Greetings from my iPhone. I'm now composing this post using the built in Mail app where it's mostly comfortable typing in landscape mode.

Drawbacks:
- No typesetting or text formatting available
- I can only seem to post one photo at a time

I'm thinking there has got to be a way to place more than one photo in an email on the iPhone and I just have yet to figure it out.

So, for now, here is a screen shot of my last blog post as seen from my iPhone. Notice how you can see and interact with only the YouTube video that was posted using a link, not an embed code. Of course the Vimeo video doesn't show because it's flash. Not sure why, but evidently the iPhone can't handle embed code for YouTube either.

For my next trick, I'm going to save this message as a draft and then edit it back on my MacBook Pro. Gmail IMAP syncing will allow me to do that. Pretty cool, eh?

Back To My Mac

Ok, now I'm back on the laptop composing this message in Mail.app. I took another screen shot, this time of my Blogger Blog from the Safari browser. As you can see, all three videos appear as intended. This is the same over on my Posterous Blog as well.

Oh yeah, that's the other limitation (among many others I'll think of) with composing blog text on the iPhone. You can't do that fancy little hyperlink thing like you can in Mail.app on the Mac.

Typesetting Results

The spacing at least looks much better this time around as opposed to last time I tried posting to my Blogger blog from email via Posterous. This time I'm going to add a hard return after the header since it was too close together in the previous post.

I'm also not changing the font from the standard Lucida Sans 12 pt. that my email client is currently set to.

No dice on color changes although now I'm wondering if I somehow stir in some html code in the text as I'm composing it in Mail.app, I wonder if that would do the trick? Problem is I don't know much code off the top of my head. I know how to do a <s>strikethrough</s>, but that's about it. And, I'm not even sure if I did that correctly. I wonder if composing this message in Rich Text as opposed to Plain Text will have much to do with that theory.

One way to find out!

Pressing the   Button now!! (there is supposed to be a copied screen shot of the send button there in that space, let's see if it shows up!)

Weeeeeee!!!!

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Playing Nicely With Posterous

I'm still messing around with Posterous, trying to figure out a comfortable workflow. As usual, I'm trying to beat a service into submission to get it to do what I want it to do — and then some.

I like to tinker with stuff. Explore it, try to use it in a new way perhaps. Sometimes I like to try something just for the sake of seeing if it can be done. I realize that just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it SHOULD be done, I can't help myself. I just come from a long line of tinkerers!

In this blog post, I'm going to attempt to use different media and formatting methods as a test to see just how the results look on all the various blogging platforms I use. I'll also be modifying this post or adding subsequent follow up posts using different tools such as Mail.app on the Mac or different iPhone apps. I'll be documenting my steps along the way till find a suitable workflow. (and then someone will invent something new and I'll be back to square one!! ha ha!!)

iPhone App for Posting Photos

I just posted a couple of pictures using an iPhone app called PicPosterous. I ended up deleting older photos and albums from Posterous and Facebook because despite the fact that you can create multiple albums in PicPosterous, it will only let you post multiple photos to only one of those albums. So, for now, I'll just have one album for PicPosterous photos. I'll call this album "Posterous Snapshots" just to keep it simplified.

Findings:

I've now posted several different photos into the Posterous Snapshots photo album. So far, only the first of 3 has shown up in both Picasa Web Albums and Facebook. All 3 show up on the Posterous site in that album. Also, Facebook and Picasa Web Albums change the album name to "Posterous Photos" instead of "Posterous Snapshots." For another test, I created a new album within the iPhone app called "Nature" and the same thing happened. Only the FIRST of 3 photos that I uploaded made it into the "Posterous Photos" album that was automatically created in Picasa Web Albums and in my Facebook photos. The photos still have not been aggregated. All of the photos show up in the two separate albums on my Posterous site. There are now 2 albums: "Posterous Snapshots" and "Nature." Also, a tweet is automatically sent giving the link to the Posterous photo album.

The fact that not all of the photos show up in Picasa Web Albums or on Facebook is unsettling. It's not very intuitive. I would expect all of the photos to show up, not just the first in that series.

Mail.app for Posting Photos

Using the Photo Browser tool in Mail.app, I'll attach a photo inline to this email text and see where it ends up.

This is a photo of some Mums I took last year. I'm hoping to try and plant some in planters in front of our house for the fall season. I like this type the best.

When I place the photo, it places it at full size. I must then use the Image Size selector to make the image small. (My choices are small, medium, large or actual size) I've typed some caption text below the photo and italicized it. Let's see what happens to that formatting on the other end when this gets posted to my blogs.

Here is another photo placed as Small size.

Testing, Testing, 123

The reason I'm doing all of this testing now is because I'm really looking for something easy to use for when Baby arrives. And not just for the arrival of Baby, but also for making blogging easier after he gets here too. As I mentioned before, my Blogspot blog feels so cumbersome to me now after using other social networking services. I've experienced so many different user interfaces that I've become spoiled by all the different choices out there. I wish I could take bits and pieces of them all and combine them into my version of the best blogging platform.

Right now, I'm composing this post using Mail.app on my laptop. Composing a post this way enables me to at least have a tiny bit more control over some basic text formatting as well as adding multiple photos and video links. Once I email this email message to "post" it will then be posted automagically onto several different blogging services I use.

I use different types of blogging services for a couple of different reasons. The main reason being that, as I mentioned above, I love to tinker and try new things. Another reason is that different people consume content in many different ways. It's impossible to keep up with all of the different services out there. When I'm trying to communicate with my peers, I figure using various compiling and aggregation tools, will at least make it appear as though I'm making an effort to reach out to each one of their styles. If I solely used Twitter, then none of my family or close "IRL" friends would know anything because the majority of them do not use or "get" twitter. When communicating with my closest friends and family, I usually choose email as my method of communication. That's why this Posterous workflow seems more natural at this time and why I'm going to greater lengths to put it through its paces. Email is a super accessible format for me. I'm already familiar and comfortable with the UI of Apple's Mail.app.

It would be really, really, awesome if I could use Mail.app to compose all my blog posts with Posterous using the built in stationery and formatting features. It's sooooo much easier to format (typeset) text, add hyperlinks, images, video links and other graphic elements. I've tried to do it this way, but the HTML stationery doesn't translate properly on the other ends. Earlier I tried to do some formatting and it ended up looking super crappy on my Blogger blog. I've since tweaked my template code again to see if I could rectify that situation. This post will be a test to see if my new code will translate this email text as I intended.

Let's Do Some Experimenting

The header lines above have been stylized using bold and I have increased the size by 2 to 4 points.

So far as I know, if I make this text red and bold italic, it will not exactly obey the formatting I've applied in Mail.app and end up red, bold, italic on Posterous or my Blogger Blog.

On this line, I'm going to attempt to change the fonts. The base font I've used up till now has been Georgia, 12 pt. The headers are bold stylized and 14 pt. I'm going to change this line of text to Trebuchet and see what happens.

For this line of text I'm going to switch it back to Georgia, but change the color to blue.

Here is where I'm going to link or embed one of my YouTube clips just to see how the email conversion works.

I've just pasted the link above and the font has now changed, but I'm going to leave it as it to see what happens at this point in the post. I've just copied and pasted a link as opposed to embedding, so now I'll try using some embed code from Vimeo. The only problem with Vimeo is that the iPhone can only view YouTube videos presently, so while this might work on most websites and browsers, it's not going to show up on the iPhone.

Now I'm going to see if I can embed a YouTube Video here:

Ok, so now I'll press the send button and see what happens in all my other various sandboxes. Weeee!!!

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