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

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 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 had an old keyboard lying around that I tested the theory with. It was from a blue gumdrop iMac from way back in the day so I wasn’t to worried if it didn’t work out. Then I put it on the top rack of the dishwasher, turned off the heat dry setting, put in no soap, and let the dishwasher do it’s thing.

Once it was done, I pulled out the keyboard and set it aside to dry. Every day I moved it around so that any water inside would shift from one spot to another. It defiantly has to be dry before hooking back up!

After 5 days I hooked it up to my computer and I’m using it to write this post. Everything turned out just fine and it looks a lot cleaner.

Sadly, I’m not sure if it works any better. It is an old keyboard and I hadn’t used it recently so I’m not convinced that it’s any better than before; except for the fact that it’s a lot cleaner. I probably should have tested the keyboard first to find out how it was before so I could compare it now. Oh well.

If you’re thinking of putting your keyboard in the dishwasher give it a try. Just remember that there is no guarantee that it’ll work. It worked for me and I’ll probably do it again. What’s the worst that could happen? The keyboard dies and then you get to buy a new one?

I did it. I washed my keyboard in the dishwasher. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Now my iMac is neat and clean again. I’m being very cautious of what apps I put back on as I don’t want to add a bunch of stuff that just ends up slowing down my machine again.

So far, here are the 16 Mac apps that I realized I can’t live without.

1Password – Most of my passwords and serial numbers are organized in 1Password. Without it, I’d be lost. I’ve tried LastPass but found 1Password much nicer on the Mac.

BusyCal – iCal is great, but BusyCal is better. Its integration with Google Calendar is fantastic and the event reminder window is smarter.

ClipMenu – I can’t live with just one clipboard. I need a running history and ClipMenu keeps that history at my finger tips along with text transformations and snippets. My review.

Coda / Espresso – I haven’t decided which app I like better so I have them both installed. Some day, I’ll pick one HTML editor to rule them all. Or maybe not.

CSSEdit – If you work with CSS, you need CSSEdit. It’s a match made in heaven.

Default Folder X - The finder needs a few super powers and Default Folder X provides them. From recent folders to currently open windows, it’s one app that Apple should buy and integrate into the OS.

Echofon – Right now, Echofon is my Twitter application of choice. Mainly for the list support, but the keyword tweet highlighting is very nice as well. My review. I’m still eagerly awaiting Twitter for Mac though.

Facebook Notifications – I’ve got to have my Facebook fix and desktop notifications are a must have as well.

Google Chrome / Safari – I love Safari, but it’s not perfect. I like Chrome a lot, but it still seems young and rough around the edges. I’m torn between the two, so I have both.

iPhoto – I’ve got thousands of baby photos that need to be organized and iPhoto is a great way to do that. Case closed.

JustNotes / MacJournal – When writing blog posts, I like to have a simple, distraction free environment. JustNotes is quick and conveniently placed in the menubar, where as MacJournal has nice full screen option & organizational features. Both work very well.

MailPlane – I’m all about the Gmail and what better way to integrate Gmail onto the Mac than with MailPlane. The way it supports multiple accounts makes it a must have for me.

Pixelmator – Quick and simple imaging editing at its best. I’m trying to transition over to it full-time, but that’s not going as well as hoped. Still it’s a great application.

Skitch – Skitch is great for taking screenshots, mocking things up and just making pretty arrows and text.

Transmit – I’ve tried many FTP apps and been pretty happy, but Transmit is the best I’ve found on the Mac. From design to usability, Transmit rocks.

One that didn’t make the list is Fireworks. I want to upgrade to Fireworks CS5 (I have CS3) but I haven’t done it yet. I don’t want to install CS3 because I don’t want to add all the files if I won’t need them in a few weeks. I’m trying to survive without Fireworks, but it’s hard. I think I need to just break down and get the latest version.

There are so many Mac applications that it’s hard to know what your top apps are until you start with a clean computer. Then you’ll soon find out what you can and can’t live without.

What am I missing? What do you think is a must have Mac app?

16 Mac Apps That I Can’t Live Without originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Teleport is a system preference that allows you to control other Macs with the keyboard and mouse that you’re currently using. Just scroll off the edge of your screen and on to the other computer. Then keep using the keyboard and mouse as you normally would and you’ll be working on the other computer.

Better yet, it can synchronize the clipboard between machines and you can drag files back and forth between computers.

Teleport is free, extremely easy to install and setup, and works well. I’ve been using it for months with no issues and it comes in extremely handy.

Easily Control Multiple Macs With 1 Mouse & Keyboard originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Fist up is Time Machine.

I’ve been running Apple’s Time Machine for years now and it’s backed up everything as far as I’m aware. I’ve done some spot checking and everything seems to be there, but it’s always a little nerve-racking as I don’t want to lose anything important. Have you found it dependable?

Also, how will it understand the new iMac configuration? Will the erased computer be seen as a second computer or will it try to intermingle the changes?

I guess the good news is that if Time Machine fails me for any reason, I also have BackBlaze.

Then there is partitioning.

Back in the day, I always partitioned my drives because that was the thing to do. But is it needed anymore? Does it really make a difference?

I’ve currently got 160gig hard drive and it’s split into 3 equal pieces. It seemed like a good idea at the time until iTunes grew to be 20gigs and iPhoto too. Now I have my system on one partition, iTunes on the second partition and iPhoto on the third. I can’t help but think that hurts performance.

My gut tells me to trust Time Machine, erase the computer, create no partitions, and just go for it.

What do you think? Is there a flaw in my logic?

Questions on Time Machine and Hard Drive Partitioning. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

You see, my iMac screen decided that a yellow vertical line was cool and I didn’t agree. So I called Apple and my screen was on recall so they’re fixing it for free. The downside is that it’ll take 5-7 days. So I’m living without it.

I guess it’s not to hard to survive when I have an iPod Touch and my wife has a Mac Mini; so it’s not like I’m computer less. But I am without my computer which I thought would be an issue.

Instead, I’m using Chrome on my wife’s computer and everything I really need is on the internet. All my email is in the cloud, Facebook, Twitter and Remember the Milk are just clicks away. It’s amazing how well I can survive without my iMac. Even all my files, if I need them, are easily accessible via BackBlaze.

I do have to say one thing though, my wife’s computer seems to run better than mine! She’s got the same processor and I think I have more memory, yet hers seems to do things effortlessly. It could be because she doesn’t have tons of things installed and running, or it could be that I need to do a re-install of mine. She also doesn’t have a partitioned drive or Snow Leopard. Hummm…

Either way, being without my iMac hasn’t been the end of the world. I’m kind of enjoying it as I have less distractions on this one and end up spending less time on the computer.

It will be nice to have my iMac back though in a few days.

Surviving Without My iMac originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I know what a lot of Mac users are thinking, what about Time Machine? Well, as great as Time Machine is, if my house were to burn down, so would all my backups. An off site backup solution is the only way to ensure that my files are safe. Time Machine works well for local backups, but really isn’t the best solution overall and that’s why I looked into other options.

Backblaze costs $5 month per computer and works for Mac and Windows machines. They give unlimited space and you always have access to your files via a web browser. Want a copy of your computer? Backblaze can send you a USB drive or a DVD with all your files for an additional cost.

So how does it work? Once you sign up, you install the application on your computer, put in your account information and let it go!

For those that haven’t backed up over the internet before, it takes a long time the first time. Why? Because you have a lot of files that need to be uploaded. It took days for my first backup to complete. Yes, the initial backup seems to take forever, but that’s based on how many files you have, your file sizes, your computer, your internet connection and a lot of other things. Chances are, any online backup system will take just as long. I found myself leaving my machine on 24/7 so it could work all night and all day long. However, once the initial backup is done, you never have to worry about it. It only backs up files that are new or have changed since the last backup and doesn’t slow down the machine.

There are a number of preferences to play with if you want too. I used these to control and prioritize my initial backup; plus make sure I’m not backing up stuff I don’t want or really need.

Throttle Preference

Throttle lets you control how many system resources Backblaze uses when backing up. I usually set this to Faster Network when I wanted to use my computer and then Faster Backups when I went to bed or to work. Backblaze might as well work as hard as it can when I’m not on my computer. After the initial backup, I just leave it somewhere in the middle and it’s all good.

Exclusions Preference

You can also filter out folders or file types that you don’t care to have backed up with the exclusions preference. For me, I had a bunch of old files and folders that I just hadn’t gotten around to removing and don’t really need. I also chose not to backup my Parallels drive and some random other folders. You can use this to prioritize backups too by adding the less important folders to the exclusions list so that everything else gets backed first. Then go back in and remove the exceptions.

All Backed Up!

I’m very happy with Backblaze and would recommend it to other users. I’ve had no issues and no complaints. I now don’t even have to think about backing up my computer as all my files are automatically backed up and safe!

Backblaze Lets You Forget About Backing Up – It’s That Easy originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Have you checked out Dromaeo.com?  It’s a Mozilla owned site that runs a set of JavaScripts and test out how fast your browser is.  I tried it on my iMac, 1.83 Intel Core Duo with 1.5 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, and found Firefox 3 beta 5 to be the fastest browser.  Oddly enough, Firefox 2 was the slowest, even behind SeaMonkey!

Granted, this is no professional test.  Firefox 2 has the  most extensions on my computer and that could cause slowness.  There are always a lot of factors to take into consideration, but this is what my tests show.

Dromaeo JavaScript Testing

2173.00ms – Firefox 3b5
3499.60ms – Safari 1.3
8193.20 – Camino 1.5.5
10798.20 – SeaMonkey 1.1.8
10859.20 – Flock 1.1
12161.40ms – Firefox 2

Did you run your own tests?  What did you find?

Fastest Mac Browser Test: Firefox 2, 3 and Safari originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

That got me thinking, what would be even cooler? I work in a paperless office, so a paper holder isn’t exactly what I need. What about…

• iPod/iPhone Cradle – With charging capabilities of course.
• A cell phone holder.
• Pencil holder. Kinda lame, but I always loose my pen.
• Candy dispenser. Full of M&Ms for me please.
• Atomic clock with weather capabilities.
• A Timer
• Cord Organizer
• Light so that my iSight makes me look good when chatting or playing with PhotoBooth.
• Mini keyboard with only Expose and Spaces buttons.
• USB Hub
• Flower holder. You know, for the girls. They were really popular in VW Bugs.
• Microphone for those that do audio chat.
• A bigger, multi level shelf for post-it’s and knickknacks.
• A rear view mirror so people don’t sneak up on me.
• A whiteboard so I can write down all my cool ideas.
• Funny signs to warn people of my mood. Like “If it’s important, you’d have told me about it already.” or “I was having a good day, until I got to work.”
• Some sort of cool color changing orb.
• Trash can for my candy wrappers.
• Disco ball. Who doesn’t want a disco ball?!
• Memory stick dock.
• Picture frame. For my cats of course. LOL!
• A rolladex. These are coming back in style. I just know it.
• A piggy bank. Or maybe a swear jar.
• A cool glowing Apple.

Are You Using That Magnet on the iMac? originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Check out the screen shot I took from wordpress.org. >

See how bold words are showing up in a weird font? I checked my appearance settings in Safari’s preferences and that looks OK. I’ve also used OnyX to run all maintenance scripts and that didn’t help either.

Firefox doesn’t have this issue and it doesn’t seem to happen on 10.4.x either. WordPress.org isn’t the only site that I’ve seen the problem, yet it doesn’t happen on all sites.

Thoughts? Ideas? Help?

Safari & Leopard Font Issue originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Smarter Renaming of Files

When changing a file name in Leopard, the OS selects just the file name and not the extension. Vary handy for those that want to keep the extension intact.

Spotlight Selects The Top Hit

In 10.4 Spotlight would suggest search results and then default to Show All. In 10.5, Spotlight by default selects the Top Hit. This is a very welcome feature and, with the new Spotlight search speed, I haven’t had to launch Quicksilver.

Spotlight Dictionary

Spotlight not only does math, but it also defines words. Put in any word and one of the results will be the definition as found in Apple’s Dictionary application.

New Screen Savers & iTunes Visualizers

Apple has a knack of creating cool screen savers and visualizers and have added some new offerings in 10.5. Shell and Arabesque make up the new screen savers and fit in nicely with Flurry. Lathe, Jelly (shown below) and Sitx make up the new iTunes visualizers.

Lots Of New Icons

We all know that the system preferences and folders were re-worked for Leopard, but so were a lot of other icons. Images have a nice white border around them, HTML files happen to be black and text files have a cleaner look to them also.

Expose and Spaces Applications

Spaces and Expose are features built into OSX and, in the past, features didn’t have a dock icon for the most part. Now they do. Just click on the icons to invoke the features. It actually quite handy as you don’t need to remember yet another keyboard shortcut.

Sure, the features I mentioned above are smaller ones, but it’s those smaller ones that you’ll interact with on a daily basis. I do have Time Machine but have yet to start it up as I don’t have an external drive. The updated Spotlight functionality has already come in quite handy.

What cool little Leopard features have you found?

Six Small But Nice Leopard Features originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I tried burning it to a DVD and it yelled at me as I didn’t have enough permissions for some files. So I tried to compress it and again I was yelled at for not enough permissions. Umm… Apple, I own the computer and OS. How am I not allowed access?

I did find out that I could copy it to another hard drive though.

A quick Google search and I ended up at the Apple support site where a lot of people were having the same issue. According to people on there I can just trash the ‘Previous Systems’ folder and re-claim my precious hard drive space. I’m making a copy or two first just in case though.

If you did an upgrade or an archive and install to Leopard, check to see if you have a ‘Previous Systems’ folder taking up a boat load of your hard drive too. It’d be located right next to your System folder if you had one.

Mac OS 10.5 Leopard – Bad Kitty Cat originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

So what’s a good open source graphic design application? I’ve tried a lot of programs and now I’m looking at GIMP. GIMP is the free alternative to Photoshop. But how well does it work?

A friend said that it’s hard to convert from Photoshop to GIMP. Since I’m a Fireworks fan, I guess I don’t have to worry about that one.

But what does GIMP really do? Does it open PSD or AI files? Does it do vector or just bitmap? Easy to use?

I’ve been wanting to try it, but it requires X11 on my Mac. I’m not sure what that is so I never installed it. I may though if GIMP is cool enough.

What do you think? Is GIMP a great piece of freeware or a lacking alternative for graphic design?

Is GIMP cool or lame? originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I love the new dock and the rounded corners on the menus. Small things I know, but Apple is known for the small details.

Safari 3 also rocks along with the folder quick view and stacks. I have a lot more features to go check out so I’m going to go play.

Now on Mac OS 10.5 Leopard! originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Chocoflop is a free image editor for the Mac. It loads quickly, has all the basic bitmap editing tools and doesn’t seem to take up many system resources.

I use Chocoflop to quickly do image re-sizing, cropping and image conversion. It even comes with layers & filters so if I want to, I can do some image creation. One of my favorite features is the ability to copy an image off the web and then go to Chocoflop and choose ‘New from Clipboard’. Sounds so simple, but it’s so nice.

Chocoflop is handy little tool for those quick image edits. Check it out for yourself. It’s free, so what do you have to loose?

Chocoflop – A Simple & Free Image Editor originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com