It's twhirl for This Girl

Hand-Made Mac Tip No. 8
Take twhirl for a whirl and manage your social networking in one place.

I love using an application called twhirl for keeping in touch with my friends on twitter, in seesmic and on FriendFeed. Whatever I tweet as a status update (different than replying to someone) also gets fed directly into my FaceBook as my status there.

I pretty much always have twhirl running and I use Leopard's Spaces to make viewing all of the information manageable. Space 2 is designated for twirl and I give it a full desktop area with the largest font so my eyes don't strain to read the information. I have assigned a key command to Space 2: command-right arrow so I can quickly press that combination and swipe the whole thing out of my way quickly when I'm just checking in. Spaces is awesome once you get used to it and train yourself to use it in your work flow.

Here are some screen shots of my Spaces Preferences along with a view of my desktop on Space 2 featuring twhirl. (I've blocked out a few of the private messages in order to respect communication preferences.) Click on the images for a larger view.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Sometimes I also use the Orange-Gray color scheme. It just depends on my mood.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Here is another screen shot so you can see the text better. The color scheme is 'Purple Rain.' For my twitter and FriendFeed panels, I'm using the font Myriad Pro, 16 points. For my seesmic panel, I'm using the font Myriad Pro Condensed, 14 points. I've tweaked the settings to make it the most comfortable for my eyes. This font is the smoothest to me. I wish the color were more purple than pink, but overall it's the most pleasing color set to my eyes.

I decided to position the seesmic panel in the center since it feels the most intimate there for interacting with video recording. When the video recording screen pops up, the proximity is closest to the webcam where I can establish better eye contact.

I've positioned the twitter panel closest to the clock area of my desktop on the far right side. I also keep my twhirl Dock icon positioned in the lower right corner of the screen so my muscle memory is accustomed to clicking there for updating – both reading and writing. The text entry box is also at the bottom since my cursor always lands there.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Overall, this is my favorite app for viewing these kinds of messages. There are still some things I would love to be able to tweak like customizable color schemes and the ability to make different accounts a different color scheme. You can select from many different pre-existing schemes, but so far you can not change the colors within those schemes. I like the 'Purple Rain' and 'Orange Gray' color schemes the best. I like that there are subtle hues for different kinds of messages and different input areas. The color feedback is very important to me.

You can download twhirl for free and it works on Macs and PCs.
http://www.twhirl.org/

Sign up for a free seesmic account and, if you have a webcam and mic, you can record video messages all from the same application.
http://seesmic.com/

If you want to help improve this application, the development team is extremely responsive to suggestions using http://feedback.twhirl.org/

I hope you've enjoyed this little review and find it useful!

Fun With iGlasses

Hand-Made Mac Tip No. 7
Give your webcam a different point of view!

I've been having some fun with a piece of software called iGlasses and a piece of hardware called a Huckleberry. Here is an example of a response in a video conversation using seesmic. If you watch Freida's post, (embedded below mine so you can see the post to which I was replying) she demonstrates many of the settings available in iGlasses for use with your webcam. (Alternatively, you can click on the arrow icon inside the video or view the other videos in the conversation underneath the video to see more of the dialog we had in seesmic.)

(Sorry if my audio is a little blown out in some spots. Adjusting your volume before playback might be a good idea.)

Check Out Them Apples!

25 years. Wow. I can't believe it's been that long. The Macintosh was released in 1984 and I was in the fourth grade. Later on in high school, I attended a Vocational Technical school where I studied Commercial Art. I'll never forget getting Macs and all the fun (and naughty) things we designed with them. The technology was so new in our school that we were literally teaching our instructor how to use it! Aldus Pagemaker was the design and layout application of choice. System 7 was the operating system and After Dark was loaded on the computers as the screen saver application. We used to love watching the flying toasters and the lawnmower man!

In my senior year I took a screen printing course. The teacher had been on a waiting list for a single Mac and finally got one. By that time, I had some experience using a Mac, so I spent most all of my class time showing my teacher all the things you could do on it. By mid semester, I was designing the high school physics teacher's wedding invitations on it. (Interestingly, I married a physics teacher — it was a sign!)

As the course progressed, I fell behind on the projects I was supposed to have been working on and I was very worried I would fail the class and not be able to graduate. I pleaded with my teacher, asking if there was something I could do to bring my grades up. He looked at me over the top of his glasses and told me that he had considered failing me. My heart began to sink. Then he said the reason he'd like to fail me (but couldn't) was just so he could keep me around for another year to teach him how to use the Macintosh!

From that time on, I can't remember a time when the Macintosh was not a part of my life. I was nineteen years old working as a typesetter and production artist for a department store ad agency when I got the sweatshirt you see pictured above. It was a promo that came with one of the Macs our production department had recently purchased and my manager tossed it on a table so I grabbed it. I still have it and dug it out of my closet just for this post! (I think the Macs we used back then were Performa 6300s.)

It's just amazing thinking about how far Apple and the Macintosh has come in twenty five years. I'm happy to have been a Mac user for the majority of this time period and even happier to be using Macs for the years ahead. I really believe the best is yet to come.

A couple of days ago I hung out with the guys from MyMac Magazine to reminisce about Macs for the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh. Check out the podcast and you can hear Tim read some of my comments from the chat room. It's always a good time geeking out with those guys! We talked about classic pranks and troubleshooting. Talking about extensions gave me a twitch and I vaguely miss making cheat sheets for Zaph Dingbats.

They're running a contest, so you might want to check it out soon!

I take Made on a Mac to heart. I met my husband on a Mac.
I'm raising my child on a Mac. I make a living using a Mac.
I manage my life on a Mac.

What do you do with your Mac?

Dancing for Hope

LDObamaDance from TheMacMommy on Vimeo.

The hope we had back on August 28th, during The Democratic National Convention, has paid off and we now have Barack Obama as our 44th President of the United States of America. Here is some home video footage from that time. We are overjoyed that Mr. Obama with his lovely wife and daughters are now our new Presidential family.

From our family living room to yours, here is our goofy son expressing his happiness at seeing Obama on TV at the DNC. That time seems so long ago and now the day has finally come to see the first of our hopes already being fulfilled.

Let's keep on giving our children a reason to dance and sing.

My Life. My blog. My rules.

I'm not taking my blog down, but I admit I had considered it for a few minutes after I got attacked by trolls who posted nasty comments here and other places. I have seen trolls on others' blogs, but never my own! I guess people are getting desperate. I've now received a spiteful email and been sent a friend request on FaceBook (most likely a trick based on the person's profile — much harder to trust anyone associated with this now!) One went as far as to pick on an older entry and the nasty comment was directed at my son.

That's where I draw the line.
______________________________________________

My comments are now moderated because I refuse to take any crap from anyone. Negative comments will be filtered and simply deleted from now on. I never had to do this before now and it's sad that it's come to this, but this is part of digital life so I am learning.

Thankfully, I'm still here.

Know why?

In addition to being supported by my wonderful husband, it's because a community of people I either didn't realize I had — or perhaps even took for granted — spoke up after I posted to twitter, my steam vent at times, that I was considering taking down my blog because a negative comment aimed at my son went over the line.

One friend even called me on the phone to make sure I was alright. Another friend emailed me with kind words and a link to some very thoughtful and motivating insight on the matter. Yet another friend, from across the pond, emailed me with words of inspiration and motivation to push on.

I am truly overwhelmed by the support and I am so grateful for everyone's encouragement!

Nobody puts Baby in the corner.










My microblog, serves as several different things to me. It is, among other things I haven't yet thought of, my: Personal Journal, Mini Baby Journal, Idea Storage, Think Tank, place to share ideas and thoughts, outreach for tech support, place to chat with other parents, Favorite Bar, Research Bank, News Reel, News Source, Macintosh Community, Social Media Community, Steam Vent, Comic Relief, place to help others and give back to the community, and especially tonight, it was a place to send a smoke signal.

I just figured that last one out. I didn't realize what had happened when I posted that and how it would affect others. I thought I was just venting but I realize now, I was really frustrated by a new and negative experience and wanting to pound on a shoulder I didn't think was there. Except, a shoulder WAS there and not one, but several! It's amazing how many people have experienced this same emotion and frustration and they have all found ways to deal with it. Then they turned around and shared their ideas with me through phone calls, emails, replies and direct messages.

So, I just wanted to say Thank You for the encouragement. You have no idea how much it means to me.

Get Well Steve

Dear Steve,

I heard you were taking some time off to focus on getting well. I think that's a great idea.

A lot of people are concerned about you. A lot of people are pretending to be concerned about you but they're really worried about their stock portfolios. I guess they just don't get it. Perhaps if those people would focus more on their creative portfolios, they would see the fun and greatness in the many Apple products I've enjoyed for the past nineteen years.

I hope you get to spend some quality time with your family. That new face recognition feature in iPhoto looks pretty sweet. I imagine you'll be spending time playing with that during your time off.

I, for one, am confident you're in good hands. It will all iWork out.

Take care,
Melissa Davis
TheMacMommy