1Password Screenshot courtesy of Agile Web Solutions

That being said, Agile Web Solutions, the maker of 1Password recently launched the much awaited version 3 of 1Password. The new versions brings us a fancy new interface as well as some great features such as 1Password Anywhere.

1Password Anywhere allows you to view your information via web browser from Linux, Windows and of course the Mac. All you need is Safari or Firefox as well as access to your agile keychain. You can do this via USB stick or save your agile keychain in your DropBox account and your good to go.

Other great features of 1Password 3 are the ability to attach files to your item, editing your information via web browser, using tags to organize your items, the ability to organize software license and others. A total of over 50 new features that will make using 1Password all the better.

Syncing 1Password to the iPhone or iPod Touch also got better. You can now select the items that you want synced to your mobile device.

1Password is definitely a must have. I’m saying that from experience. So check out the new 1Password 3.0 here. Grab your copy if you don’t have one yet. It’s worth the money. Trust me. If you’re on 2.0, upgrade now!

Post from: EveryJoe

1Password: It Just Keeps Getting Better

The Spoon website and service provides the ability to access and deliver applications instantly with no downloads, installs, or hassles. [On a side note, this seems a little odd because you do have to install a the Spoon plug-in for everything to work.]

Spoon specializes in app virtualization and delivery technology, a family of sophisticated techniques that decouple apps from the underlying operating system and enable extremely rapid delivery and launch.

In support of its ongoing product development efforts, Spoon conducts fundamental research in the areas of virtualization, operating systems, formal semantics, programming languages, complexity theory, and cryptography.

All that being said, simply, you can run any app you want from your browser as long as they have it available to run. They have games and productivity apps. Just pick what you want to do.

Everything worked as expected. I installed the Spoon plug-in, then was able to run the apps available for testing. I can see how this type of functionality would really come in handy.

Post from: EveryJoe

Spoon – Delivering Apps On the Web

Snow Leopard

There are applications that are essential to both my work and personal life. I use my mac a lot and can’t imagine life without it. That being said, my Mac is only as useful as the applications I have installed. So these applications are must haves for me. If I can’t make it run on Snow Leopard or find an alternative to it then Snow Leopard isn’t that much use to me.

Let’s start of things with 1Password

1Password is currently on version 2 with the latest version partially compatible with Snow Leopard. The app works as well as the extensions for the other browsers except Safari. Safari in Snow Leopard runs in 64-bit mode thus the extension for it won’t work out of the box. You need to do some tweaking to get Safari to run in 32-bit mode in order for it to run 1Password.

Version three of 1Password will run in Snow Leopard out of the box with Safari support as well. However it’s still in beta mode with the final release set to launch at the end of the year. Agile Web Solutions, makers of 1Password currently has a promo for early bird upgraders. The license will only set you back $19.95 as opposed to $29.95 when it gets released. Buying now will get you access to the 3.0 beta.

Cost of upgrade – $19.95 (promo)

Next on my list is Adium. Both Adium 1.3.6 and 1.4 beta 9 work on Snow Leopard and Adium is free.

Cost of upgrade – nada

Adobe CS3

This suite of applications is the major workhorse of most Grahic/Web/Multimedia professionals in both Windows and Mac platforms. According to reports CS3 has minor bugs in Snow Leopard, Particularly Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I’m really more particular with Photoshop and Illustrator since those are the apps that I used. Adobe says the flaws are not critical and you can still use the Adobe CS3 apps.

Adobe CS4 is good to go for Snow Leopard.

So, Adobe CS3 for the most part should be ok for Snow Leopard but if you’re really a stickler for these things you’d probaly want to upgrade to CS4. In my case if I was to upgrade I would probably go and buy the Adobe Design Premium at a cost of $599.

Cost of upgrade – $599

Coda is one of the apps I use for designing web sites. The version I have is 1.6.4 and according to reports it is compatible with Snow Leopard. There’s an available upgrade to 1.6.5 that fixes some bugs.

Cost of upgrade – nada

CSSEdit is one of the apps that I really can’t live without. Since I code websites as my main job, this app literally paid for itself. The latest version supports Snow Leopard

Cost of upgrade – nada

FireFox is my main browser. Sure Safari is faster but Firefox just has a lot of extensions I use for work and so this is really my browser of choice. It works on Snow Leopard with some minor bugs reported. FireFox is free.

Cost of upgrade – nada

MAMP PRO is my server environment of choice. Thank god it’s also supported on Snow Leopard.

Cost of upgrade – nada

Microsoft Office 2008 is still my default office suite, however iWork is getting more and more work time with me. It works though with Snow Leopard although there are some reports that it is sluggish.

Cost of upgrade – nada

Parallels is an essential app because it allows me to run Windows on a Mac. It’s important because let’s face it majority of computer users all over the world still use the Windows operating system and as such, I need to test web sites on this platform. I currently have version 3.0 installed and it sucks that it’s not supported in Snow Leopard. I need to upgrade to 4.0. The upgrade will set me back $39.99 after a $10 dollar discount due to their ongoing promo. This is a must have. If I upgrade to Snow Leopard, I need to forkout the moolah because well… I just need it for work.

Cost of upgrade – $39.99

TextMate’s latest build for Snow Leopard works fine. This is my text editor of choice. All my web projects are coded with TextMate. So it’s also a must have.

Cost of upgrade – nada

Skype is one of the apps I use for communicating with clients. Along with Adium this gets me through most of my communication needs save for email. Skype’s latest build works with Snow Leopard.

Cost of upgrade – nada

Transmission is my bit-torrent client. The latest version is supported by Snow Leopard.

Cost of upgrade – nada

Transmit works in Snow Leopard with some warnings. It seems that automator actions do not work. I don’t use automator actions so as long as the file transfer works I’m ok.

Cost of upgrade – nada

Versions is one of the latest apps I’ve added to my toolbox. So I would really be bummed if I had to pay for an upgrade or if it didn’t work. Good thing it looks like it’s good to go for Snow Leopard.

Cost of upgrade – nada

VLC is freeware and it works. So this is not a problem.

Cost of upgrade – nada

While most of my apps will work on Snow Leopard, there are still 3 apps that might cause a potential problem. Of the three, two of them can be run with Snow Leopard albiet with some problems. Minor and workable. The one app I have that won’t work is Parallels which is really a bummer because apart from the upgrade cost I paid for Snow Leopard I will need to fork out $40 bucks for the upgrade. Bringing my total upgrade cost to $78. This is the minimum. If I want to upgrade to CS4 this will add to it significantly. But since CS3 is still workable I might hold out on this.

$78 is still not a high cost to pay for an upgrade of the OS however given the trying times it’s still added expense that I could otherwise save on. Being the Mac addict that I am… all reason flies out the window. So I guess it’s time to backup my files and find time to upgrade.

How much will upgrading to Snow Leopard going to cost you?

Post from: EveryJoe

My Cost of Upgrading To Snow Leopard

iPhone 3GS

One of the web sites I currently read with regularity is Smashing Magazine. I must say that I enjoy this site a lot and have been learning a lot of things. They recently published an article by Jen Gordon of Clever Twist. The article is entitled “How To Create Your First iPhone Application”. It lists the steps that you need in order to create your first iPhone application.

With the iPhone’s rising popularity, applications for this device are rapidly gaining market share. The great thing about the iPhone is that for the first time there’s a great mobile platform that people really want to use. I’ve been using mobile devices for a long time and I haven’t really seen a great platform that made me want to use my mobile device. In fact I think the Palm OS was the closest thing that did it for me. The sad thing is Palm’s development stagnated until recently with the introduction of the Palm Pre. We’ll see how that goes.

As of now the iPhone/iPod Touch is the mobile device to beat. So more and more people are getting interested in developing for it. I’ve read the article and here are some of the things pointed out.

A great idea is the most important aspect. No matter how good a designer or developer you are without a great idea your skills will just not be enough.

Assemble the things that you need to build the application. This goes both for the hardware and the manpower. Ask yourself, “What am I good at? What can I bring to the table?” and based on that assemble the other pieces that you need to build the application. Apart from the manpower you’ll need the tools such as a membership to the iPhone Developer Program, an iPhone or iPod touch, software such as Xcode, etc.

Learn the iPhone/iPod Touch OS and UI. There are a lot of great reads at the Apple Developer web site. This requires a membership though.

Other things that you need to do are upload it to iTunes and have your app approved and a have marketing plan to promote your app.

Like I said, the iPhone OS is a great platform that will surely become more popular in the years to come. More and more people are using it, the apps are getting better and better. So if you think you have that next great idea that you think will make for a good application get started and make it happen. Who knows, it might be your ticket to fame and fortune.

Read the complete article here.

Post from: EveryJoe

Steps To Creating Your First iPhone App

AIM for iPhone and iPod Touch

One of my biggest gripes before with instant messaging on the iPod Touch was that I always had to have the application on or else I would be disconnected from the service. If I’m waiting for someone I can’t do anything else on my iPod Touch. Hence I didn’t really use my iPod Touch much for instant messaging.

Push service finally comes and I think it’s an answered prayer. I tried it and it works. I could do other things with my iPod and receive notices when messages arrive. Cool. Yup until I encountered one problem. I’m still unsure if it’s just my particular set up or this happens to others as well.

I connected with AIM on my iPod Touch and it was working well. One thing I forgot was to sign out on my iPod Touch, I got so used to being signed out upon exiting the app that it didn’t cross my mind. So I transfer to my laptop and use Adium. I’m connected to AIM and I’m able to send messages. Unfortunately I wasn’t getting any replies. I just see the icon change to a “writing symbol” but I don’t get the replies of the person I’m talking to. I found out that the messages were being sent to my iPod Touch. It doesn’t go to both.

So now I have to constantly remember to sign off on my iPod Touch or I won’t get my messages. That’s quite a drag…

Post from: EveryJoe

AIM’s Push Notification Problem

I took this opportunity to buy Coda. I’ve tried this out before and generally like this software except for the $99 price tag that it carries. So now with the chance to buy it for $49.50, I snapped it up.

Hurry Mac users and avail of the 3 day sale!

Post from: EveryJoe

Panic Software Has 3 Day Sale

Brushes screen shot

In the hands of a gifted artist such as Jorge, the results of this application is short of amazing. You’d never guess that the cover artwork was done with the iPhone.

The great thing about drawing with an iPhone as your tool is that you can draw in the dark. The backlight makes it easy to draw under dim or low light situations. The draw back is that it’s harder to draw under sun light.

The Brushes application can simulate several brushes, as well as a host of colors including transparencies. Brushes also saves your strokes in the file and you can actually use the Brushes Viewer application for Mac OS X to view the step by step process of what you just did. The viewer application is free. You can export them as QuickTime movies.

Check out the story at the New Yorker blog. More information about Jorge can be found on his web site. Download the Brushes application here and visit the official web site here. Watch how the cover for “The New Yorker” was made below.

Post from: EveryJoe

Let Your Fingers Do The Painting

Battery Health Monitor Screen shot

It shows you the original capacity, current capacity, current charge, charge cycles, voltage and some more info. From this you can see how your battery is doing, if you need to change it, etc.

Granted these information can be found through System profiler, I just like it better when there’s a GUI to look at. Plus what am I gonna fill up my hard disk with but with tons of Mac apps. Right?

Download Battery Health Monitor here. It’s a free download.

Post from: EveryJoe

Monitor Your Mac’s Battery Health

Bokeh Effect Image created with Pixelmator

The Colorful Bokeh Effect tutorial was the one that caught my interest. I like these types of images and saw it as a great opportunity to learn how to create one. So I downloaded a copy of Pixelmator again since the last copy I downloaded was an older version and the trial had expired. After installing it I proceeded with the tutorials. I honestly thought that it would take longer but I was over and done in less than 10 mins. It’s really easy in Pixelmator.

Not only was I surprised at how easy it was to do the image but the quality of the resulting image was great. For this tutorial I got to use the gradient tool. All I can say is that the gradient tool was great because you can see a live preview of the gradient you’re creating. Pixelmator makes use of the Macs GPU and produces quick filters and tools.

For $59 bucks, Pixelmator is a great buy. It has most of the features that everyday people will use. Sure Photoshop is still better but it also comes at a price. Most people won’t need that. Pixelmator makes it affordable for people to start and improve their image editing skills.

I would seriosuly recommend this app.

Post from: EveryJoe

Pixelmator: Photoshop For Everyone

Screenshot of Scribbles

Scribbles won’t be challenging software like Sketchbook Pro but for amateur sketchers or doodlers, it’s ok. The interface is simple and intuitive. There’s not much clutter to distract you. There’s good eye candy when you play with the various tools. Some great features include an infinite canvass, 3D interface and 1-click sharing.

One neat feature I like is the “Tracing Paper”. When you switch on this option, it makes the window translucent, thus allowing you to trace what ever’s beneath. Acting like, well a tracing paper. Pretty nice.

I’ve only been using it for awhile, there’s still a lot to explore. Unfortunately as the article image shows, I’m not really that good of a sketcher or a doodler. Oh well. That’s life.

Check out Scribbles here. Download a trial copy and see for yourself.

Post from: EveryJoe

Scribbling Made Simple