Turns out that when I opened Google Music’s uploader system preference the other day it now appears that it supports playlists; regular not smart playlists. This should make it easier to upload only the music I want and exclude the rest.

The downside here is that I now have to find a way to clean up Google Music. I’m pretty sure the upload app won’t just remove what I don’t have selected. But that shouldn’t be too hard.

At least it’s a step in the right direction. Google Music is pretty darn cool and being able to upload some, but not all, music is a big step in the right direction. It’ll be even better once they can get some sort of smart playlists added in too.

Google Music’s uploader app finally adds playlist support. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

As I was testing them out I was finding it a bit difficult at first. However when Lily took ahold of the iPad, she had no problems; and that was a problem.

She’s be playing her piano app and use her whole hand to hit all the keys; which then registered as a five-finger gesture. Before we knew it, her piano app was gone and she was now in Facebook, or Mail, or whatever else I had open.

Turns out, the new multitasking gestures are cool, but I still don’t get to take advantage of them unless I remember to turn them off when Lily uses the iPad.

New iPad multitasking gestures are not so hot with a toddler. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

To use it, you just drag a document onto the application icon in the menu bar and it gets uploaded to the internet. It then copies the link to the file so you can just paste it into an email or use it wherever.

To make it even more handy, it can automatically uploads screenshots you take and return a URL to the file to your clipboard. This is very handy when I’m writing an email or a form post where I want to include a screenshot.

It’s such a simple app that works extremely well and one worth checking out.

To the CloudApp with that screenshot and return me a link. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

As an alternative, my wife and I usually use Facebook Messenger. I send her pictures and texts all the time. The downside here is that you need to be friends with someone to message them.

We also use Google Voice as their texting is free as well. Can’t do pictures, but we can send and receive texts with anyone. It’s also nice to know I can go online and read and write texts. I don’t have to use the phone.

I can also use Twitter direct messages as a texting system if need be. Plus there is always email which now everyone has synced to their phone and it alerts you just as fast as a text message. Then there is the new iMessage that iOS5 users can use as an alternative to texting. Again, for free.

I just don’t get why phone companies have to charge for sending tiny text messages. I guess it’s another revenue stream but I already feel like I’m getting ripped off from the phone companies that I don’t want to pay them more for what others give away for free.

Why do phone carriers still charge for text messaging when there are so many free alternatives? originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I have it set to back up once a day and it currently has backed up 112,452 files at 82,287 MB. That’s over 80 Gigs! All this for less than $5 a month.

Luckily I have never had a computer crash were I needed to get my files back. But, as my computer ages, it’s good to know that everything is safe.

I also run Time Machine but I’m not a fan of having all my backups in the same building as my computer. Backups are for when shit happens, like your house burning down, and if you keep your backups next to your computer, they’ll be lost too.

If you need an online backup service, Backblaze has given me no issues. With unlimited space for less than $5 a month, you can’t really go wrong.

Backblaze continues to backup my computer. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Box.net has a great promotion going on for iOS users. If you create a new account, or use an existing free account, login via the iPad or iPhone app and you’ll automatically score 50GB of space for life.

The downside with Box.net is that it doesn’t have desktop syncing like DropBox does. However, you can mount your Box.net account on your desktop and manage all your files. It’s not the speediest, but it works.

Get 50GB of cloud storage free from Box.net & access your files from your desktop. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

What? This is how I beat all the video games when I was a kid.

Anyone have Game Genie cheat codes for Angry Birds? originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Thank you Steve Jobs for changing our world. For looking at a device and taking it to the next level. For not being afraid to be different. For being the little fish in the big pond and showing us that anything is possible.

Your life may have been cut short, but you’ve left a great company behind and the most amazing fans. We will miss you.

Don’t be sad because it’s over. Smile because it happened. — Dr. Seuss

Thanks for the memories Steve. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Dear Mom and Dad and the D.A.R.E. people,

I listened. I’m not addicted to drugs, instead I’m addicted to the internet.

I’m not wasting all my money on meth and crack and things like that. Though I do spend money on hosting, Flickr Pro, online backup and Amazon. Not to mention all the apps and music I get from iTunes. But that’s not the point, I’m being good.

I don’t go around, stealing things just to get a fix. Wait, that’s not exactly true. I have been known to “borrow” the internet from the library across the street when mine goes out just to send an email. And I do know where to find free internet if I need it. Again, not the point.

I’m not doing drugs. 30 years from now no one will be saying how I wasted my life and money on something so stupid. Granted I do spend a lot of time reading RSS feeds, checking email and status updates. Come to think of it, I should be doing something else right now but I don’t remember what.

The internet is totally better than drugs. I mean I can quit anytime; I just don’t want to.

Anyway… I just wanted to tell you that you raised me right. I’m not addicted to drugs. Now I gotta run. Facebook needs updating and I need to go tweet this as well.

Love
Thomas

My parents should be so proud of me because I’m addicted to the internet, not drugs. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Sad Cat

It’s sad but it’s true, Lion won’t work on my iMac. It’s one of the first generation Intel iMacs and it didn’t make the cut.

Ohh well. I can still put it on my work computer so at least I’ll be able to play with it.

And I can still get backwards scrolling if I want it via Scroll Reverser.

Lion. Why you no like my computer? originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I tested four browsers with the SunSpider tests and it turns out that Firefox 5 was faster than Chrome, Safari and Opera. This was quite surprising to me as it beat out Chrome but quite a bit. It’s also interesting how far behind Safari is.

Opera 10.5 – 534.0ms +/- 1.4%
Chrome 12 – 524.6ms +/- 4.6%
Safari 5.0.5 – 566.9ms +/- 4.2%
Firefox 5 – 448.8ms +/- 0.9%

Now the tests aren’t scientific by any means, but they do represent my computer on a normal day. I’d suggest you run them for yourself and see what you come out with.

It’s also good to note that Firefox 5 had no extensions running, Chrome had 7, Safari had 2 + Glims and Opera had none. This could change the output but really shouldn’t have an effect.

I also got slightly different numbers when the tests were run a second time. But each time Firefox 5 came out in the lead.

The fastest browser on my Mac is Firefox 5. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I’ve been testing out both Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player and have to say that they are both nice services.

Below are my pros and cons of each service after some initial testing.

Price:

Google Music – Free (for now)
Amazon Cloud Player – First 5 gigs are free, after that it’ll cost. Tip

Uploading:

Google Music:

• Pro: Creates a native Mac system preference.
• Pro: I can set the bandwidth used to upload my music.
• Pro: Automatically uploads all my music. And when new music is added to my system, automatically uploads that as well.
• Con: It uploads all music in iTunes. The only other option is to manually add individual folders and that’s not very convenient. So my Google Music account includes Jingle Bells and The Wheels On The Bus. Not exactly what I want to hear all the time.

Amazon Cloud Player:

• Pro: Select which playlists or songs you want to upload. It organizes everything by iTunes playlist so you can choose only certain playlists if you want and exclude the Christmas music.
• Con: You have to login to Amazon Cloud Player on the web and click the upload button before you can use the upload app.
• Con: No bandwidth controls.

Playlists:

Google Music:

• Pro: Uploads all of iTunes regular playlists to the web.
• Con: Doesn’t upload smart playlists.
• Pro: Can create instant mixes.

Amazon Cloud Player:

• Pro: Uploads all of iTunes regular playlists to the web.
• Pro: Uploads all smart playlists too.
• Con: Smart playlists don’t auto update, they are basically regular playlists now.
• Pro: Can re-upload playlists to get them in sync.

Both can create new playlists on the fly, however there is no way of creating smart playlists.

Player:

Google Music:

• Pro: Android App – Android player is very user-friendly, clean and works well.
• Con: No iPhone App
• Pro: Website works on iOS so you can play your music on iPhone or iPad. However it is a bit slow but they do say it plays in the background.
• Pro: You can play your music on the web. The website is nice and clean and easy to use.

Amazon Cloud Player:

• Pro: Android App - Android player is decent, however it’s bundled with the Amazon store and it feels bulky.
• Con: No iPhone App
• Con: The website kind of works on iPhone and iPad. However it’s still pretty buggy.
• Pro: You can play your music on the web. The website is ok, not as nice as Googles, but it gets the job done.

Other Features:

Google Music:

• If you use Chrome, get the Play/Pause and Skip extensions for your browser.
• You can rate songs via thumbs up or down.
• You get free music just for signing up.
• Will work with Factotum on the Mac soon, which allows you to play/pause/skip via the keyboard.

Amazon Cloud Player:

• Having the Amazon Store available is pretty nice sometimes. You can quickly purchase a song and have it in your cloud player in seconds.
• You can download your music to your phone or back to your computer.
• Works with Factotum on the Mac which allows you to play/pause/skip via the keyboard.
• It’s open to everyone right now.

If I had to pick one, I’d probably choose Google Music as I like the web and Android user interfaces better. Plus the ability to control my music from my browser and auto uploads of new songs in iTunes just make it easy.

Granted both services could be over shadowed if iCloud comes out next week and creates an even better cloud music solution. However we’ll just have to wait and see how that pans out.

Even better than both services is my iPod. Cloud based music services like these are nice, but nothing beats the speed, portability and features of having an iPod with you.

Google Music vs Amazon Cloud Player – A quick review. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Bird Zapper has fantastic graphics, good game play and it keeps me wanting to play more. Basically you use your finger to connect three or more like birds and zap them.  There are plenty of combos and bonuses and it just hooks ya.

If you’ve got an iPad or iPhone I think you should check it out. For $0.99 it’s a heck of a lot of fun.

Spent $0.99 on Bird Zapper for iPad and it’s awesome. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I was doing fine for a few days. Granted it helped that Lily was sick and I had to sleep with her a few nights and that took away from my computer time.

However I found it difficult to live just on the iPad.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the iPad and think it’s a great machine. But it lacks advanced controls that you get on your computer and multitasking is pretty much non-existent.

What I found especially hard was blogging. Writing a post was easy, getting media into the post, formatting it and adding links was painful.

The good news is it works great for email, reading RSS feeds (as long as you don’t want to share the stories), games, Facebook, Twitter, weather, news and things like that.

I did like the simplicity too and the lack of real multi-tasking is nice at times. Do one thing and do it well is a nice philosophy.

For me, I’m to use to doing many things at once, copying & pasting & sharing things, saving out photos, creating graphics and lots of random stuff. It just took much longer to do them on the iPad or was to hard to get done. I am a nerd/geek after all.

The iPad is still the coolest gadget I have and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but it’s a supplement to my iMac, not a replacement.

Life on just the iPad doesn’t work for me. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Ok, they could be if I really wanted. But I thought it might be fun to see if I could survive a week without my main computer. Instead of an iMac, I have my iPad.

I’m already wondering if it’s even possible. If I just checked Twitter, Facebook and email, then this would be cake. But when you run multiple sites, have lots of apps and are use to multi-tasking, the iPad seems a little to simple. Don’t get me wrong, I love my iPad, but I’m pretty sure it can’t replace my computer.

However, if I’m going to make this work, getting a keyboard hooked up was priority one. Typing on a physical keyboard is very nice. Love the face that I can do that. I wonder if there are some keyboard shortcuts that I can use. I’ve already found about about that the media buttons control iTunes, but are there any other secrets?

And to be honest, I’m not really without a computer. My wife has a nice Mac Mini upstairs, I have my work computer during the day, and if need be, I could break out the PowerBook 667 for some slow fun.

I have to say I’m happy I’ve made it this long (3 days) and I’ll be amazed if I make it all week.

Wish me luck!

Can I survive a week with only the iPad? originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I think that’s why they are so awesome.

What are Macs made of? Sweet, majestic unicorn tears. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

It seems that I can’t find a browser that is perfect. I try them all, I love parts of them all, and there are always things I don’t like.

With Chrome, its startup speed is annoying me. It takes a while to do something on startup and I’m not sure what that is. I think it’s loading the start page images, but whatever it is, its been taking to long. It seems you can’t go anywhere until it’s got that thing done so I’m stuck wanting to go somewhere, but can’t.

So I switched to Safari.

Safari starts right up, lightning fast. Love this! The Top Sites tab didn’t slow me down either like it did back in the day.

However, Safari’s odd undo close tab keyboard shortcut is annoying. Plus the fact that it spawns new windows instead of tabs. I ended up with so many windows that I couldn’t find anything. And no search from the address bar?! What the…. Extensions are all but forgotten on Safari too. They never caught on sadly.

Safari could be great, but it’s not there yet.

Then there is Firefox 4. I’m a fan of the browser, but it still feels heavy. I don’t know why, but I can’t just love it.

I do love the awesome bar, themes, and it works well, but there is some disconnection that I just can’t put my finger on.

So now I’m back to Chrome. I set it to load a blank page at startup and that seems to have helped out most of my startup issues. I’m also trying to be more patient.

I’m hoping that Safari 6 comes sooner than later and brings with it a lot of wanted updates. I know Apple likes to keep it simple, but it’s hard sometimes when other browsers have so much more.

All three browsers are great browsers, don’t get me wrong. But none of them to have that perfect match of features, speed and reliability for me.

What do you use as your default?

From Chrome to Safari to Firefox and back again. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Best of all, there is no additional software or configuration needed.

What can you do?

If you hover over a tweet that is a part of a conversation, swiping to the right brings up the conversation.

If there is a link in the tweet, and it’s not a part of a conversation, then it’ll open that link.

If the link is a picture, Twitter will use its built-in picture viewer just as if you clicked on it.

If the tweet has no links, is not a part of a conversation, but does have a has tag in it, then swiping right will show you search results for that hash tag.

If the tweet has no links, is not a part of a conversation, but does have another Twitters user name in it, then swiping right will show you the profile of the Twitter user mentioned in the tweet.

If you hover over a Tweet with no links or mentions, and is not a part of a conversation, swiping to the right brings up that users recent tweets.

Swiping left in any of the above situations, or when viewing a list, DM or search, takes you back one screen.

Knowing these swiping commands can make Twitter for Mac even better as you can click less and read more. I’m finding it saves time and makes using Twitter for Mac even better.

Get more out of Twitter for Mac by using mouse gestures. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Tweetie 2

Tweetie 2 is released! Ok, so it should be released today when the new Mac App Store launches. TechCrunch as confirmed it so now we just have to wait a few more hours.

Tweetie was the best Mac Twitter app around until the developer was acquired by Twitter and the new app release was delayed. It’s missing quite a few features, but the new version will bring fans flocking back.

Twitterrific 4

Twitterrific 4 will be launching sometime this year. The hints seem to be sooner than later, but that could be weeks, or months yet.

It’s been years since Twitterrific had a real update. It was king of the Twitter apps back in its day but now lacks quite a few features. It’s still a nice simple app, but fans have wanted more for a long time. It’ll be interesting to see how it stacks up next to Tweetie 2 when it does arrive!

Echofon

Echofon was acquired by a company called Postup. They plan to keep updates coming along with a new iPhone & Firefox versions yet this month. No word on the desktop app update, but I’m sure it’ll continue to go strong.

I’m a big fan of Echofon currently. It’s one of the few Twitter apps that seems to have it all without a cluttered interface. It’s been my default Twitter app for quite a while now on the Mac and it’ll be hard to switch to anything else.

Socialite

The all-in-one social networking app Socialite was also acquired. This seems odd as it changed hands a little over a year ago and now it’s changing again. Not sure why no one seems to be able to hold on to it, but hopefully that stops now.

Socialite is not only a Twitter app, but it also incorporates Facebook, Digg, RSS, and Flickr. It’s a nice app and one that I’d love to use more, but also one that seems to feel heavy and a bit overwhelming when you get a few accounts added. I’m hoping that the new owners will take the app to the next level and make it as great as it could be.

The news of Tweetie 2 and Twitterrific 4 are huge. Those apps are king on the iPhone and seeing all new, updated, versions on the Mac will be a great battle for the best Twitter desktop application.

Echofon and Socialite have a lot of promise too and I’m hoping developers continue to build them out into even better apps.

This doesn’t even take into consideration other great apps like Itsy, Nambu, Syrinx, Kiwi, TweetDeck, HelTweetica and many of the other Mac Twitter apps that are out there.

The competition is strong, who do you think will come out on top this year?

Shakeup With Mac Desktop Twitter Apps originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I’m hoping to get iLife 11 as it’ll be a nice upgrade from my iLife 08. I’d like iWork 11 as well, but that’s not out just yet.

I’m also hoping Santa brings me an Apple iPad case. I love my iPad but lack a decent case.

And maybe a set of composite AV cables. I hear good things about people being able to project videos and photos on the TV and I’m thinking maybe I’d like to do that.

A BlueTooth keyboard would be kind of nice for it too, but I’m afraid a second device would seem a little awkward. Especially since I use my iPad on the couch most of the time. Plus I’m decent at typing on the virtual keyboard.

iTunes gift cards are always welcome. You can never have too much money banked in the iTunes Store.

I thought about a Magic Trackpad, but I have a Magic Mouse so I’m not sure I need one. Haven’t tried one though either. Maybe they are wicked cool. The reviews seem to be extremely positive.

The Apple TV looks sweet at the $99 price range but I’m worried it’d feel limited. I don’t buy or rent shows from iTunes, but we do watch a lot of Hulu and Netflix. With the Wii running Netflix, I’m just not sure I need an Apple TV.

What would be ideal, in my mind, would be a Mac Mini to use as a media center. It can do pretty much everything, but it’s not cheap.

Those are a few things that I’m hoping Mac Santa brings me. What are you hoping for?

What are you asking Mac Santa for this year? originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com