os x vs. windows: it’s the little things

Today while loading updates in XP and OS X I came across one of those little features that reminds me why I prefer the latter. Both are laptops (MacBook Pros in fact) and both were running off battery power when I started the updates.

I had 14 updates to load in OS X, including the 10.5.8 update. Just before it started downloading a prompt appeared advising me that I wasn’t connected to a power supply. It gave me the option to continue (with or without a power supply) or cancel. I told it to continue and the downloading began.

On the Windows machine I just had Service Pack 3 to install. It also popped up a notice that I didn’t have a power cord attached. However it did this after I had already downloaded the update and right before the actual install. I connected a power cord then clicked Ok (the only option). I assumed it would check again, see it now had power and continue. Silly me. It instead declared that the install had failed and I had to start the install all over again.

I’m not one who despises Windows and refuses to use it. In fact Windows 7 is the main OS I use on my eee (though I also have Ubuntu and OS X installed). It’s the little features like this one though that ensure my heart will always belong to OS X.

exciting and new

The blog has been updated, both back and front. Did a major strip down on the front side as I am a minimalist at heart and heck, most of you are reading this on some other site anyway, thanks to the future machines working under the hood.

how i roll (all of my content together)

Thought I’d do a brief write up of the mashed up input/output hub that is my blog.

Via SMS, email (plugin here), website, or ecto (which can be accessed via bookmarklets in my browser), I post directly to the blog.

Via SMS or website (including a couple of third party sites designed for the iPhone), I post to Twitter which is then grabbed by the blog and entered as a post (plugin here).

If I’ve added any links to del.icio.us within 24 hours, they are posted to the blog.

If I email a photo to flickr, I can specify that it be forwarded to the blog (theoretically zooomr does this as well, though it’s never worked for me).

Once the blog digests all of that incoming content, it then spews it back out to my accounts on Livejournal (plugin here), Facebook, and MySpace (plugin here) along with a “new entry” tweet and the standard RSS feed.

My motivation in writing down all of these details comes in part from a conversation with a friend the other day about finding a similar way to collect all of the stuff that you guys put out there on the web. My original thought involved setting up a subsection on my site for that, using some sort of blog or CMS software, but then I found Spokeo. It checks about 30 sites (everything from LinkedIn to MySpace to Amazon Wishlists) for your contacts and, while it takes a good deal of time to organize all of the profiles it finds, it works fairly well after that. It doesn’t update quite as often as I’d like (and there’s no way to adjust the timing) and misses updates, but it’s very very promising.

And while I’m at it, I’m going to go ahead and recommend two other sites/tools that I’ve been meaning to rave about for a while. First up, Sandy, which markets itself as a digital assistant. Basically, you send a message to the service via email (or Twitter or Jott, which I’ll be covering next) and Sandy then stores that information and sends a reminder if necessary. Everything can be tagged (or not) for easy access later. You can even have her send reminders to others. I’m not explaining it to well, but check the examples on the site. This is now where a large part of my memory is stored (the rest I load onto 30boxes).

The second service I found because I knew somewhere on the internet there had to be something exactly like it and sure enough I was right. One day I was walking to the book store and wanted to post something to my blog, but I didn’t want to stop and type it in. I realized what I needed was a service where I could call a number, have the call transcribed, and then sent out via email. While I discovered several ways to achieve that, Jott was the best. You call a toll free number (from your phone only) and leave a 30 second message. Magical robots then transcribe it (doing a bang up job in most cases) and then store it, or send it out via email to whoever you specify, or send it off to certain websites (including Sandy, 30boxes, Twitter, and Livejournal). One of the times it most impressed me, I heard about a website on NPR that I wanted to check out later. I called up Jott and recited the domain name including the “dot org” part. It recognized what it was and so mashed it all into one word (and spelled it correctly too).

So that’s how all of my stuff gets to you via email, websites, SMS, or even voice. Now I just need to find the perfect way to aggregate all of your stuff.

i’m gonna need a bigger shelf

Partially to satisfy my curiosity and partially to quiet the “everything must be organized” voice in my head, I signed up on Shelfari, an online book cataloging site, today. So far I’ve only gotten through the bookshelf in my living room (plus a few other scattered items), but somehow I’ve already got over 150 books entered. Of course said bookshelf contains mostly graphic novels due to its tall shelves so as of now the list is not all that indicative of my collection (though admittedly I probably do have as many graphic novels as regular books). Still it’ll be interesting once I’m done to see them all together and to see just how many books I do have.

Oh man. I just remembered all of the old Hardy Boys books and others that I still have in boxes too. Now I know what I’ll be doing over winter break. Well, that and finally doing my “six degrees” DVD re-organization (any offers of help on that front will be gladly accepted).

struck companies

Here’s a handy list of struck companies so you can boycott any content released by them digitally.

Don’t buy their content off of iTunes or Amazon or any other site.
Don’t watch their streamed movies or TV shows from Netflix, NBC Direct, Hulu, Joost, et al.

When anyone redistributes a movie without the studios getting a cut, they call it piracy.  When the studios do it, they call it promotional.