Mac Net Journal

As you can tell by the surge of posts on this Sunday morning, I am catching up on some Web reading and thinking about tools for my MacBook Pro. As a result, I just downloaded the 30-day trial version of Aperture. I don't really have the time to play around with it, but I know that my current image management tool - Expression Media - is pretty stagnant and a Microsoft product that I am not sure I will ever update again. So, I am taking another look at Aperture, then maybe a look at Lightroom next.

Always looking ahead...

Nice pictures of spring training, featuring a few Mariners shots
Sunday, February 24, 2008, 11:18 AM

The Christian Science Monitor has posted a 12-shot slide show of spring training images, and it includes three shots from the Seattle Mariners camp in Arizona. I haven't been a sports reporter or editor for 14 years now, but I still appreciate the pull of spring training...

A nod to Rob Galbraith for the pointer to the slide show.

Experimenting with Flock - connected Web browsing
Sunday, February 24, 2008, 10:40 AM

Off and on over the last week I have been trying the alternative Web browser, Flock, as my main window on the Web world as well as a tool to stay in touch with folks on Twitter. Flock is really an offshoot of the Firefox browser, and if you are like me and you have been living life in either Firefox or Minefield recently, it is easy to have Flock import your settings and bookmarks and get up and running in no time at all.

What makes Flock an interesting alternative is how it integrates with the cliche Web 2.0 services - Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, del.icio.us, etc. You can log in to each of these services through the browser and manage and interact with your content. You can do all of this in another Firefox browser or with Safari or OmniWeb, but Flock is built with this interaction in mind from the start. For instance, by offering the option to see Twitter posts from those you follow in a sidebar on the left side of the browser, I can limit how often I go to the tab where Twitter is open in the full browser and yet still see what people are talking about. No other browser that I am aware of for the Mac offers this same all-in-one, dashboard view.

My verdict so far - Flock is an interesting alternative. I am still debating if I should shift to Safari as my main browser since I will be buying an iPhone soon, but Flock is still in the running. It works with Google Docs, gives me a fully capable view of Gmail and opens my eyes to some cool imagery through the media bar tied to Flickr.

A few catch up links for this light posting month
Sunday, February 10, 2008, 10:23 PM

My time has been occupied with other things for the first 10 days of February, but I do want to include a few links to catch up now that I am getting back in the swing of things:

About this Particular Outliner - A progress report - catches up on recent trends with Mac outliners.
The portable hotspot - a round up of mobile wi-fi hotspot options from an expert, Glenn Fleishman.

New Mac news aggregator, Alltop
Sunday, February 10, 2008, 10:21 PM

TidBITS notes the arrival of a new site that aggregates news headlines from top Mac sites called Alltop. It does look like an interesting dashboard for tracking news. I will be trying it out this week. Find out for yourself!