Ryan's Blog » Tech

Got a Mac? Get Quicksilver.

Ryan — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 22:54:11 +0000

Quicksilver is a small “launcher” application – totally free – that I had checked out when I first got my Powerbook, but I guess I just didn’t “get it” at the time; I tossed it in the trash and moved on with life. As of today, it’s back on my machine and there’s no way I’m tossing it this time! It takes some getting used to, and a little imagination to figure out how it can serve your particular usage patterns, but once you find two or three short-cuts that you’ll actually use often, you’ll never want to be without it again.

Here’s the 10-minute-tutorial that got me hooked.

My favorite so far is the custom trigger I setup which lets me search iTunes by artist. In the mood for a little Bloc Party? No problem. I hit CTRL+SpaceBar, type in “bloc” and hit . That’s it – I’m now listening to all of my Bloc Party tracks. Looking for a specific Arctic Monkeys track? CTRL+SpaceBar, type in “arctic”, hit the right-arrow key and see a list of every one of their songs on my machine. Up and down arrows to find the one I want and hit . It’s all good.

Give it a spin, have fun and if you come up with any excellent uses pass them along.

Preeettttyyyy

Ryan — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 00:03:30 +0000

My new toys arrived (despite Amazon saying the “big one” wouldn’t show-up ‘till Monday).

It’s been all of 30 minutes since I hooked up my new 20” wide-screen monitor, and I’ll tell you right now – you’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands to get it away from me. Screw that “dual-monitor” bullshit. This is what I’m talkin’ about!

Amazon – Love/Hate

Ryan — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 04:23:38 +0000

Amazon has great selection, prices, ease of use, blah, blah, blah. But do they have to make it **so** easy to buy stuff? I’ve got a couple of new gadgets on the way. I’ll post more when they show up … Continue reading →

On a positive note…

Ryan — Wed, 25 May 2005 06:38:14 +0000

…I love my PowerBook! I still don’t use it for as much as I would like to, but that’s my own failure to make time to do those kinds of things. But, I did – finally – find a blog tool I like (ecto) so I can post stuff to this thing without much effort at all. That’s definitely a requirement for me to post anything, so maybe this time I’ll get more than a half-dozen posts before quitting again.

Anyway…the PowerBook rocks. I love the integration between the apps, especially the iLife suite. The bluetooth “just worked” with both my phone and my Microsoft mouse (which didn’t even work on Windows XP without an hour long fight). I also finally got it to connect to a shared drive on my PC after trying several times. Turns out, it was a security restriction on the PC – nothing wrong with the Mac at all. Figures.

Ok…I have to at least try to sleep now. It won’t work, but I have to try.

Now Playing: Mina Loy (M.O.H.) from the album “Mina Loy – Single” by Billy Corgan

Dear Mr. Jobs – Let’s try this again.

Ryan — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 23:49:46 +0000

You may recall that a couple of years ago I (briefly) owned a Mac. I
enjoyed it thoroughly, and wondered why on Earth most of us were still
using PCs. That lasted all of a month. Another month or so and the Mac
was out of my apartment, having been sold to a friend who got (and
still gets) much more use out of it than I ever did. So why, then,
would I take a trip to the local Apple store and come home with this thing, you may wonder? I’ll have to get back to you on that one, as I’m not entirely certain just yet.

I had been lusting over the new Mac Mini
since it’s debut. The plan was to buy a new TV (still haven’t done that
yet) and hook a Mac Mini up to it for “day-to-day” uses, such as
surfing email, checking out sites I see on TV or in a magazine I’m
reading on the couch, playing music through the stereo (I’m already an
avid iPod/iTunes user). It seemed a perfect solution, as it wasn’t
terribly expensive, much more attractive than trying to hide a PC in
the living room and, most importantly, gave me the option of once again
fiddling with OS X and Macs in general. I did miss it, I had to admit.

Obviously, things took a turn when I got to the store. I had gone
with Michelle the night before as she purchased an iBook. I started to
question my Mac Mini idea, as I really, really hoped that I would find
myself using it for more than just the few things I originally planned.
I wanted it to be my primary machine for home use so much, but my prior
experience was making me doubt that would happen. Even so, when it came
down to it, I decided to go for the Powerbook. The portability is still
there (a plus of the Mac Mini, and more so with a full-featured
laptop), I’ve got a bit more power, which will come in handy as I
continue to play with GarageBand,
and I even sprung for the model with the SuperDrive, so, when I track
down something worth burning, I’ll make my own DVD (read: it’ll never
happen, but hey – it’s possible).

I’ll post again as I find what I’m liking, disliking, using, not
using that I thought I would, etc, etc, etc… So far, it’s all about
surfing, email and GarageBand.