Complete productivity app for the Mac?

My transition to being a Mac user has mostly been positive – extremely positive.  But, I am frustrated by the lack of a comprehensive productivity app – one that handles email, calendar, contacts, and tasks effectively.  Since I come from the Windows world, people have suggested Outlook 2011 for Mac.  I really would like to use this – it’s actually quite a nice interface – but, unfortunately, it can’t sync with Google calendar or contacts or tasks.  Email is great, but I need more than that.

I have also tried using Thunderbird/Lightning.  Its not too bad, but the lack of an offline calendar is problematic.

Now I am on to the native iCal, Mail, and Address Book apps on the Mac.  The interfaces are nice and generally superior to Thunderbird, but there is still a big lack in functionality.  A few examples:

• Can’t easily turn an email into an event or a task – I would like to click on an email item and send it to iCal, for instance.  Thunderbird had this, and it was pretty handy.
• While the Address Book app in Mac OS X now supports native syncing with Google contacts, you’re limited to a single Google account.  This doesn’t work for me, having both a personal Google account and a Google Apps account for work.  So, I had to move all of my work contacts to my personal account.  Oh, and, the only contacts that will sync are those that are on your My Contacts folder.  Kind of a pain.
• Interoperability is horrible.  For example, I was trying to email a contact to someone and ultimately had to (1) search for the contact in Address Book, (2) export as a vCard, (3) switch back to my email, (4) add an attachment and find/select the exported vCard.  You can do this in a single step in Outlook.

MS has said that they will be offering Google Calendar sync later this year; I’m anxious to see what they come up with…

A Surprise Trip to Kiss The Sky!

I was out in the Batavia, IL area today, meeting with a couple of clients/prospects.  Afterwards, I desperately needed a coffee, so fired up the Places app on my Driod Pro and found a Starbucks just a couple of miles away in Geneva.  I didn't realize that I was so close, and the bonus is that right across the street from Starbucks in Geneva, on State St., is a great music store called Kiss The Sky.  The best part is that they have a great selection of both new and used vinyl.

So, I took the opportunity to browse the latest selection and make a few purchases.  I picked up the following used titles:

• AC/DC - For Those About to Rock


• Queensryche - EP


• Rush - A Farewell to Kings


• Rush - Exit...Stage Left


• Ozzy - Speak of the Devil

All in pretty decent condition, though they definitely need a cleaning.  Will get to that when my discogs.com orders get here later this week...

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Seafood Linguine

So, my very good friend Dan bought me a cookbook for Christmas.  It’s called Mosh Potatoes, and it’s recipes from various Heavy Metal musicians, some more famous than others.  Dan had seen Julie and Julia, and suggested that I, like Julie in the movie, go through every recipe and bog about it.  So, here I am.

The first recipe I attempted was from C. J. from a band called The Wildhearts.  The seafood I used was a 1 LB bag of Trader Joe’s frozen Seafood Blend.  I’ve used this stuff before in different sauces and pasta and it’s good and quick and easy.

The recipe took about 30 minutes to prepare and turned out pretty good.  A little too much garlic (I doubled the amount of garlic specified in the recipe), and a little too thin.  I’ll probably use only a 1/2 can of water the next time I try it.  Also, I need to be more careful with the “splash of balsamic vinegar”, as I used a bit more than a splash.

The real test was Tracy, and she liked it so it was a winner!

A Good Week for Vinyl!

I’ve previously blogged about discogs.com – a fantastic site to keep track of your music collections and want lists.  As I mentioned, I get a daily email with items from my want list that are newly offered for sale by various sellers.  It’s all stuff that I want, because it’s, well, MY want list.  But, until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn’t bought anything, well, because (and this will sound silly) it seemed like an easy way out.  Meaning: I like the the thrill of finding a used record store and finding a used-but-in-great-condition original pressing of the White Album.  It’s easy just to buy it online, and that doesn’t feel much like collecting.

More practically, the ease of buying online is really dangerous to one’s pocket book.  I mean, if I wanted to, I could purchase everything on my want list online in a couple of hours.  And, several thousand dollars later, I’d have my collection, a big credit card bill to somehow pay off, and none of the thrill that comes from really collecting.  Plus, a lot of the stuff for sale on discogs.com is from the UK and Europe, and it just seems silly to buy Marillion’s Misplaced Childhood for 1.99 EUR.

Anyways, a couple of weeks ago, I took a little plunge because Rush’s Caress of Steel showed up in my email.  I bought that, and a well worn copy of Pink Floyd’s Meddle.  It was easy and relatively inexpensive, and opened the door to buying used vinyl online.  This week was pretty stellar:

• Watchtower – Energetic Disassembly
• Crimson Glory – Transcendence
• Hades – If At First You Don’t Succeed
• Venom – At War With Satan

Can’t wait for these to show up on my porch next week!

Tour of Australia Coverage on Versus

Now, I don’t really want to complain, because I ‘m just happy to see any TV coverage of professional cycling.  But, the 1/2 hour daily Tour of Australia recap show on Versus is nearly useless.  Keep in mind that, with commercials, it’s probably only about 20 minutes of actual coverage.  20 minutes to cover each stage’s pre-race interviews, the race (usually around 130k), and the post-race results.  Not nearly sufficient.  Plus, the format just doesn’t work.  It’s basically a replay of the full coverage, drastically chopped to fit in 20 minutes.  (During the Tour de France, this would get 3+ hours of live coverage and 2+ hours of recorded coverage).  The “chopping” is done very well – so well, that it feels a bit like traveling through time.  One second there’s 30k left in the race, and the next is the sprint to the finish.  No obvious skips in the video, no strange gaps in the audio, even the commentary is smooth.  It’s weird.

But, the broadcast team of Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggett is awesome, even though they’re only on for a nanosecond

Discogs.com

I came across this site a few months back, as I was getting back into collecting and listening to vinyl records.  Not sure how I found it, but I’m glad that I did!  It’s “one-stop shopping” for tracking your music collection, including records, CDs, etc.  In addition, you can build a want list of items that you’re looking for.  I found this really helpful as I’m attempting to rebuild my vinyl collection and am looking for specific releases, and mostly original pressings.

But, the way cool part, is that discogs.com will show you the other discogs.com members that have items on your want list for sale.  So, if you’re looking for the first mono pressing of The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds, you can click a link and see who has it for sale.  You’ll also get a daily email with a list of new items for sale from your want list.  You can initiate the purchase of an item through discogs.com, but the transaction will ultimately be run through PayPal or something similar, depending on the seller.  To close the loop, there is a feedback mechanism much like eBay so you know that you’re buying from or selling to reputable people.

Check it out!

Loving the Droid Pro

I’ve been a Blackberry user for the last 6-7 years – loved the email capabilities, but just couldn’t really use it for other things like productivity apps, internet browsing, or social networking.  Let’s be frank, BB’s are email devices, with “apps” being somewhat of an afterthought.  Or, at least, secondary.

So, I recently had the opportunity to get a new phone, and decided that I wanted to experience the whole Android phenomenon.  My wife has a Droid, and loves it, and everyone else I’ve spoken to has had great experiences.  The Droid Pro looked compelling to me, simply because it has a hard keyboard that is similar to the BB.  So, I gave it a try, and haven’t looked back.

The unified messaging is fantastic – all my email, text messaging, voicemail, social networking, etc. all delivered in one place.  Sure, it’s not exactly real-time, but I’m not exactly real-time anyways.

The available apps are really strong.  I use Documents-to-go for Google Docs access, Evernote for note taking, Mint.com for personal finances, RingCentral for business calls from the “office”, Skype and Trillian for IM/internet calls, Kindle for reading (I was really surprised how comfortable it is to read books on such a small device – I rarely use my 10” Kindle now), Andronos for controlling my Sonos whole-home audio, and a bunch of others.

I have to admit that I’ve not been very good with social networking with Twitter or Facebook, but with my Droid Pro I am able to update status across all networks with ease, and quickly keep track of all my relationships quickly and easily.

I use the Droid Pro as a Bluetooth network adapter for internet access when no Wi-fi is available, like on the train (where I am now).  Was easy to setup and works great.

And, most importantly, phone calls are clear and it’s reasonably comfortable holding the phone up to my ear.

The downsides of the phone are primarily battery life.  You definitely need the extended battery, and must turn of services like Wi-Fi and GPS when not in use.  The keyboard is a little clunky – it just doesn’t have the same usability as the BB.  And, I am constantly accidentally hitting the home or back buttons on the display when pressing the various hard keys in the top row.  And, I can’t type with nearly the speed or accuracy that I was able to on the BB.

My only other complaint is that the voice/data plans are too expensive in my mind, but that’s not really a problem limited to the Droid Pro.

The Droid Pro is easily the best portable device / phone / gadget I’ve ever owned. 

Mac App Store: Setup=Painful

OK, so I will admit that I’m a new Mac user.  Been a PC/Windows user for a gazillion years, but thought, with my new job, that I’d give the Mac a try.  Definitely a big learning curve to using a Mac, which I understand and expect.  However, simply trying to download Trillian took about 30 minutes.

I started by browsing to the Trillian site to get the software, which I would normally do in Windows.  Apparently, though, Trillian for the Mac is only available via the App Store.  OK, so fire up the App Store app.  Ooooh.  There it is, but, ugh, I have to setup an Apple ID in order to download the free Trillian app.  OK, I guess that makes sense.  Enter some information, confirm agreements, now on to choosing form of payment.  Well, I don’t intend on buying many apps, and I really don’t feel like entering a credit card #, so I’ll use PayPal.  Click on the little PayPal icon and continue.  Launches the PayPal web-site, login, confirm that the iTunes? store is allowed to use my PayPal account.  Click continue, opens the iTunes page in Firefox.  Huh?  Go back to the App Store app, and it’s still sitting on the “click continue to setup PayPal” payment option page.  huh?

So, I click continue again, and again PayPal web-site is launched.  Login, reconfirm, click continue, back to iTunes store web-site.  App Store app still sitting on the select payment option page.  Try it again, same thing.  I even try logging into the App Store using the email address and password I provided on the first page of the Create Apple ID wizard.  But, apparently, the my Apple ID was never created, because I couldn’t actually get to the Create Apple ID page of the wizard because it was perpetually stuck on the select payment options page!

I even try to do this via iTunes, because PayPal seems to think that I’m setting up this Apple ID for iTunes, but I get the same thing.  So, what the hell, I’ll provide an actual credit card.  Enter all the information, finally get to the Create Apple ID page and click Create……….and, get a “we are experiencing difficulties, please try again later message”.  You’re kidding, right?

I thought Macs and Apple, in general, are supposed to be far superior than, well, anything when it comes to user experience.  30+ minutes to create an Apple ID – and I didn’t even get to use my PayPal account – is far from a great user experience.  I did eventually get it to work.  Oh yeah, I want to install Trillian.  Forgot all about that…

Cleaning Vinyl Records

So, I spent a few hours this weekend cleaning roughly a quarter of my vinyl record collection – probably around 25 albums.  Previously, I had been using a spray solution, hand wiping each side of the record.  It worked OK – at least it cleaned the vinyl, but it didn’t result in the performance that I hoped for i.e. drastically reducing static and pops and other noises found on the old vinyl that I collect.  So, I’ve been looking at record cleaners, but did not want to spend $400 bucks (at a minimum).  So, I purchased a Spin Clean system for $80.  The concept is simple, fill the reservoir with water and some of the provided solution, then manually spin each record 3 times clockwise, then counter-clockwise, then remove the record and dry with the provided towels.  Simple enough and it’s gotten really good reviews everywhere I’ve looked.

I augmented this cleaning process, by using Last Power Cleaner before the Spin Clean process, and applying Last Record Preservative after the Spin Clean process.  Last Power Cleaner is a mold release agent, designed to deeply clean vinyl records, especially the gunk that is left after the record pressing process.  Last Preservative is, well, a preservative, designed to protect vinyl for up to 200 plays.  You see, simply playing a record causes damage – it’s slight, but still damaging.  All in all, it takes roughly 5 minutes per record following this process.

The result was well worth it.  My Rush – Caress of Steel album had a nasty skip in Bastille Day, but after the cleaning it played without skipping.  My Judas Priest – Hell Bent For Leather, which was in pretty beat-up shape played with very minimal surface noise.  And, overall, I found the albums to emit a cleaner, maybe even brighter, sound.  Now, it couldn’t work miracles, like on my nearly destroyed copy of the Beatles White Album.  Back in the U.S.S.R. had caked on gunk for the last 1/4 of the track.  The cleaning removed a lot of it – I was actually really surprised – and the track did play better, but it was still too damaged to be completely repaired.  Oh well, I’ll have to find a better copy, I guess.

The moral of this story is that I’ve am less worried – excited in fact – about shopping at my local record store for original pressings that may be in so-so condition.