5 Great Mac Apps You Gotta' Try!

With the holidays approaching and money being tight, sometimes it's fun to discover new applications for your computer.  It's a lot like unwrapping a new present without the need to write a thank-you note or smile at a relative while you secretly loathe the fact that they bought you a years membership to the Steak-of-the-Month Club even though you've been a vegetarian for the past 12 years.  These applications are free and open source.  They cost nothing and make you feel good knowing that you are supporting free software.  Let's take a look...

Seashore (a Mac image editor based on GIMP with a simple and useful set of features)


Seashore is an excellent image editor for OS X.  Seashore is based on the popular image manipulation software known as GIMP.  Unlike GIMP, however, Seashore is very simple to use and navigate. There are many times when I've using my Macbook Pro that I've found that I need to edit and image or screenshot.  Seashore makes all of this stuff really easy,  You can save in many formats including the same format that GIMP uses natively.  When you first start the app, it offers you the chance to set defaults for image size, resolution and color. The interface will be familiar to anyone who has used Photoshop, GIMP, or other good editors.  It has a lot more tools than you might expect to find in an open source image editor. Seashore features plugins, gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes and supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. Effects include blur, Gaussian blur, invert, greyscale and posterize options and more.  Seashore has a fantastic comprehensive PDF help manual.  Grab Seashore here!

Electric Sheep (an awesome trippy and dynamic screensaver)

Simply put, I love Electric Sheep.  The "sheep" are absolutely mesmerizing kaleidoscope style movies which dance around your screen when your Mac or PC is idle.  I know this is a Mac OS X article, but Electric Sheep is actually available for Linux and Windows as well!  Here's a great description from the Electric Sheep web site:

Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver created by Scott Draves. It's run by thousands of people all over the world, and can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep". The result is a collective "android dream", an homage to Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

Visit the Electric Sheep web site and learn more!





Adium (instant messaging application)

I admit, I use instant messaging every day to keep in touch with friends, vendors, and colleagues from all over the world.  I get really annoyed when my IM client doesn't have the features I need.  I have not been a big fan of iChat lately since there are some features that other IM clients have that iChat doesn't.  Adium is an instant messaging client for OS X that works with multiple chat protocols such as AIM, Googletalk, Yahoo, MSN, Bonjour, MySpace, and many more!  One chat client to "rule them all"....


Check out Adium here!



Handbrake (an open source DVD ripper and MPEG-4 / H.264 encoder)

Let's get one thing straight, I'm not advocating anyone using Handbrake to rip DVD's they don't own.  Now...here's how I use Handbrake.  I have a Nokia N800 Internet Tablet that I like to take along with me when I travel.  The 800x480 resolution of my little N800 is perfect for viewing movies while flying or riding the train.  I find that watching movies tends to shorten the trip quite a bit...at least for me.  Handbrake is an awesome and easy to use program for ripping my DVD's into just about ANY format.  I've ripped movies for my own computer, my kids iPod Nano, as well as a PSP!  Apple TV support is now also part of Handbrake.  Given the noise on an airplane, I often find it helpful to rip my DVD's with the English subtitles included.  I highly recommend Handbrake for getting your movies on to your portable devices and computers.  Like Electric Sheep, Handbrake is also available for Windows and Linux!


Download Handbrake here!

Burn (Simple CD and DVD Burner for OS X)

Are you sick of using Disk Utility for burning CD's?  Don't have the $$$ for Toast?  No problem!  Check out Burn!  Burn is an awesome, simple, and easy to use CD and DVD burner.  Audio, data, and video...Burn handles them all with ease. 

Check out Burn here!

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When a backup ISN'T a backup!

Ok...I'm going to take a few minutes to clear up a HUGE misconception and also chastise some of you.  I'm also hoping it will shock a few of you into doing something NOW!  NOT LATER!  NOW!

Ok...90% of you do NOT have a backup!  I know, I know...many of you are saying, "But I copied all my photos and documents to a DVD before I deleted them from my machine...so I do have a backup."  Umm...NO!  Let me explain...

Many computer users go through their daily lives putting their ultimate trust and faith in their computer, that is, until disaster strikes.  Computers are not indestructible.  They are simply machines...some more prone to failure than others.  Not to pick on Windows, but given the user base and system design (aka most people are logged in as the administrator), Windows machines often have to be wiped and reloaded due to virus and spyware infections.  However, regardless of the computer make and model, any computer can crash and burn at any time and often without any warning.  Trust me, I know.  It's happened to me more than once over the years.  Laptops wear out from the constant bouncing and jostling.  Desktops get dirty while tucked away on the floor under the desk.  Dust gets sucked into the machine choking off the cooling air and causing components to overheat and ultimately fail.  For the most part, average people do a lousy job of taking care of their computers.  This is a huge reason to have a good set of backups. 

But I told you...I backed up my files to my USB flash drive!

And then you deleted the originals from your computer, right?  "Of course, I need the room for more files"  If this sounds like you, then you are one of those who does NOT actually have a backup.  The term backup implies that you have a "spare".  Think of it this way.  On a car we have a spare tire and the originals.  The spare is in case one of the four original tires goes flat.  Imagine if you treated the car like a computer.  Because you now have a spare tire, you would take off one of the original tires (let's say the front tire on the drivers side) and throw it away.  Sounds kinda' ridiculous doesn't it.  Ok, so why doesn't it sound ridiculous when you simply move your files off your hard drive onto another form of file storage?  Unless you have multiple copies stored in different places, then you don't have a backup or a spare in case of failure, you simply have moved the original.

Ah, so what!  What can happen?

Hmmm....good question...let's see.  Fire, flood, earthquake, theft, equipment failure, lightning strike, electrical surge, cat pee, small children, water spillage, coffee, drops, falls, bad driving, and many more.  Each of these comes from many years of experience and observation.  Some have even happened to me personally.  Let's see...my daughter sat on one of my laptops, I slipped and fell on the ice while carrying two laptops, a student of mine spilled hot cocoa on his laptop, a local family lost their computer in a house fire, several people I know have had laptops stolen...and the list goes on.  In many of those cases, people lost years of memories and hard work due to not having a good backup.

Ok...I'm guilty...I only have one copy...so what do I do?

Backup!  NOW!  Not later...your computer could crash in the next 2 mins...in fact, you may not even make it to the next senten....(Ok...just kidding...you're still here).  Seriously though, make a plan to backup your data as soon as possible.  Backing up your data can take quite a bit of time the first time you do it, so plan to do it in the evening or get things arranged and started before you go to bed.  There are essentially two kinds of backups.  One is a "whole machine" backup or an "image of the machine" which is used to restore the entire machine back to it's original state at the time of backup.  This is useful for when you need to wipe your machine and get back to work quickly.  It is NOT useful if you buy a new machine.  The other kind of backup that we'll be talking about is a "file backup" or the kind of backup where you save individual documents, pictures, music files and so forth.  This type of backup is the most useful in that it allows you to restore data at any time as well as move it from machine to machine.  In todays world, many people have family photos and movies as well as important documents stored on their computers.  In a blink of an eye, all of them could be destroyed.  So...let's get planning!

I'm ready to back up.  How do I put my computer in reverse?

Ha, ha..very funny.  Item number one:  We need somewhere else to save our data.  This can be done many ways. 

USB Flash drive

A very simple method for backing up documents is to buy a USB flash drive (also commonly known as a pen drive or thumbdrive) and store important documents on it for backup and portability.  However, DO NOT delete the originals unless you have more than one copy on more than one device.  USB flash drives are very common and can be bought at any local Walmart, Staples, Best Buy or other retailer.  They come in many different shapes, sizes, colors and capacities.  Prices varying according to capacity.  At the time of this article, the most common sizes are between 1 and 4 gigabytes (gb).  Larger sizes are available.   

CD or DVD

Most modern laptops and computers are equipped with CD-R and/or DVD-R drives.  This makes it easy for you to use your CD/DVD drive to backup your files onto CD/DVD media.  The average CD holds up to 700mb (megabytes) of data, whereas the average DVD holds up to 4.7gb (gigabytes) of data.  Therefore you can get approximately 5 - 6 times more data on a DVD than a CD.  CD's and DVD's (recordable media) range in price and are available from any major retailer in quantities as low as one or as high as 100 (spindle).  A rough estimate for the cost of a CD/DVD is about $1.  A common myth about CD's and DVD's is that they're indestuctible and last forever.  Anyone have old home movies that were shot using a Sony Betamax camera?  Nothing lasts forever.  Formats change...media changes...computers change...and DVD's/CD's have a shelf life of approximately 20-50 years when stored in ideal conditions.  CD and DVD backups are a good idea for archiving documents and photos, but I do not recommend them as your only backup as the media can be easily lost, broken, or scratched.

USB External Hard Drive

The falling price of hard drives has created a new market for storage devices.  External hard drive are just that, hard drives that you can connect to your computer via the USB port for purposed of having another place to store stuff.  Many USB external drives come with software that allows you to backup files with the touch of a button.  Prices for USB hard drives have come down drastically, therefore you can buy a LOT of storage space for a reasonable amount of money.  Dollar for dollar, this is one of the best methods of backup, however as I've stated before, you should have more than one backup.  Some folks buy more than one USB external drive and keep one off-site at a relatives house or at a workplace in case of fire or some other disaster at home.  USB drives come in various shapes, sizes, and colors.  The most common sizes a this time are 250gb, 500gb, and 1tb (terabyte).  USB external drives come in two basic physical sizes, 2.5 inch for portable use with a laptop and 3.5 inch for home or office use.  The smaller drives are usually a bit more expensive as they use the pricier laptop style hard drive.  In other words, you pay more for the portability.  The big advantage of USB external drives is that they often are quite large, many times 2 to 3 times the size of the hard drive in your computer, thus you have a lot of room to store not only pictures and other files, but also "complete backups" of your computer.  I recommend grabbing two drives....one for day to day backup and one for archival purposes (to be stored off-site).

NAS (Network Attached Storage)

NAS's are relatively new to the home network scene.  NAS, Network Attached Storage, essentially means a small computer with a big hard drive that sits on your network and acts as a server where you can upload and store your files.  The premise is almost the same as a USB external hard drive, except this one is attached via the network either wired or wirelessly.  NAS's are very convenient and great in situations where there's more than one computer involved.  Generally speaking, backing up to an NAS is considerably slower than using an external drive, but it is great if you're doing incremental backups (backing up only the changes since the last backup).  Incremental backups are generally quite small as you're only copying files that have been created since the last time.  There are many different types of NAS's available on the market today.  Some NAS units can simply be plugged into the network while others are wireless.  You can also easily convert your old PC into an NAS unit.  To build your own NAS check out some free software such as FreeNAS or Openfiler.


Online Backup Services

This one is a little tricky.  Why?  You're trusting your data to another party.  It is, however, a good option in many cases and certainly better than nothing at all.  There are many services, some free, that are available for online backup of your data.  Many of them offer software that you can use to configure your backups in terms of what data gets saved and how often.  Online backup is really only an option if you have a good high speed internet connection.  Dial-up is simply too slow to be practical.  The advantage to online backup is that your data is available to you anytime and anywhere you can get online.  Most reputable services seem to be priced around $4 - $5 per month for unlimited backup.


Setting up a backup strategy

Ok...you've got your backup drive and/or your media and you're ready to go.  Now what?  Well, take a few minutes to think about what's most important to you.  If you're talking about your home computer or laptop, perhaps you have a lot of family photos and movies.  What about family financial information or documents?  Depending on how you normally save things, it may actually be quite easy to back up your data.  If you have a Windows XP or Vista computer, much of your personal data is probably already stored in an area known as "My Documents".  In this folder you'll also find "My Pictures", "My Videos", and "My Music".  It's not a bad idea to spend a little time tidying up a few folders before your backup to be sure you get everything where it needs to be.  Gather up those stray files on your desktop, tidy up, sort some of those documents and make sure things are labelled so you know what they are.  If you're planning to use some sort of auto-backup software then now is a good time to set it up and test it out.  Be sure to think carefully about whether or not you wish to "sync", do incremental backups, or full backups.  If you bought a USB external hard drive or an NAS you may already have backup software that was bundled with the device, however if you don't already have backup software, then give SyncBack a try. (Windows only)  If you have a Mac, you can make use of MobileMe's backup software for Macs.  Many Linux distributions come with several choices for backup software.  One popular one is Simple Backup.  Simple Backup is available in Add/Remove Programs or Synaptic in many Linux distributions. 

Once you've got everything ready to go...run your backup!  Be sure to check it out and make sure everything copied ok.  Once you have a successful backup, be sure to make more than one copy.  It's also a good idea to keep a copy somewhere off-site, such as a workplace or relatives house.  Backup often, make multiple copies, and take precautions to safeguard your backup drives and media.  Share your own backup strategies (or horror stories) in the comments!

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Black Friday Guide for Newbies

No, it's not the latest horror flick at the local cinema nor is it a morbid anniversary for a terrorist attack. What is Black Friday? Why it's the start of the holiday shopping season silly!

Ok, what's this Black Friday thing anyway?

Black Friday is an unofficial US holiday that marks the start of the holiday shopping season. Since Thanksgiving always falls on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States, Black Friday may be as early as the 23rd and as late as the 29th of November. This year it happens to be the 28th. Most retailers open around 5 a.m. and offer huge deals to draw people to their stores. The term "Black Friday" has been traced back only to the 1960s. It is believed that the term "Black Friday" originated in Philadelphia in reference to the heavy traffic on that day. More recently, merchants and the media have used it to refer to the beginning of the period in which retailers are in the black or turning a profit.

So what do I do?

I often hear from many folks about how Black Friday has become a bit of a tradition for their families. The family often wanders off to bed a little earlier on Thanksgiving night, bellies full of turkey and trimmings, in anticipation of an early start the next morning. Some families even approach Black Friday morn with an "attack" plan. Quite often the strategy is mapped out well in advance with regard to which family members will "storm" the doors of particular stores at 5 a.m. Believe it or not, at least in my area, the local Dunkin Donuts, Tim Horton's and Krispy Kreme's are generally filled with Black Friday attack crews prior to or just after the early morning rush. Your choices are many, but it will probably involve getting to bed a little earlier and getting up a LOT earlier the next morning in order to get to the stores on time. Many folks choose to wait in line beginning as early as 3 or 4 a.m. in order to get first dibs on the "hot ticket" items being offered at ridiculously low prices. One trick is to find a smaller, more out of the way, retailer and hope that everyone else didn't have the same plan you did. Another trick, if you happen to be a wuss, is to locate a friend or family member who's willing to stand in line for you and pay them or treat them to breakfast. Whatever you choose, everyone should attempt at least one Black Friday morn shopping trip. It's an event, something to be experienced. One recent Black Friday I was waiting in line at the local Walmart near my parents house, along with my wife, sister, and brother-in-law, when the doors opened allowing the "cattle" to move forward. It struck me as kind of funny so I began to "moo" like a cow...everyone else followed suit...it was hilarious! Hey...if you're gonna' do this...then have fun!

Ok...why would I want to do this? Are you crazy?

Umm...one question at a time please. Ok...Black Friday is a bargain hunters wet dream. Seriously, if you've been putting off buying that new laptop for your mom, now's the time. Black Friday deals are generally pretty sweet. Many retailers have several products on sale, but it's always 2 or 3 "hot" items such as laptops, computers, TV's, or other devices that seem to grab most of the attention. This year several retailers are offering laptops for under $500. Black Friday is a great day for folks who want to satisfy their latest gadget craving. MP3 players, portable DVD players, GPS units, digital cameras, USB drives, SD cards, big screen HDTV's, LCD monitors, and digital picture frames are some of the "hot ticket" items for the upcoming Black Friday 2008.

Umm...dude...how do you know this? Does your mom work at Walmart?

No...my mom does not work at Walmart. Although, even though she's retired, she'd make a good Walmart greeter. :-) I just happen to know "The Secret". The secret is...in recent years all the major retailers have learned that creating anticipation is a pretty good marketing tool. Many retailers "leak" their super-secret Black Friday flyers a few weeks in advance so that certain web sites can post the information online. There's a myriad of Black Friday sites such as BlackFriday.info, The "Official" Black Friday site, Black-Friday.net, BlackFriday.com, and many others (just Google it!). You can search for specific items, read the actual scan of the flyer (here's the Walmart flyer), and compare deals. Visiting these Black Friday sites can help you formulate your "battle plan".

Ok, sounds like fun! Should I wear a costume?

It is fun! In this economy we can all use any help we can get whether it's retailers trying to make a buck or consumers trying to save a buck. Get the family together! Grab some friends! Come out and join the rest of the early-risin' crazy folk looking for bargains. Combine it with a nice breakfast out on the town...and you have the makings for a great time! As for the costume? Be sure to take a picture and post a link in the comments! :-) Have fun and Happy Black Friday to all!

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