My Online Thoughts & Pontifications

The way I backup now looks like this:

• Nightly SuperDuper! clones of my laptop to an external drive.
• TimeMachine running to a I have a TimeCapsule.
• All “currently working files” stored in Dropbox.
• Automatic cloud backups of all my irreplaceable documents, photos, music, and application support folders.

Interesting to read how Shawn Blanc has just gone through exactly the same process that I went through last year, gratifyingly ending up with exactly the same backup system.

Like him I tried a number of cloud based back-up solutions to compliment my local back-ups, initially going with Backblaze before switching to Arq. I couldn't be happier and now have a fully automatic and redundant back-up system, combining two cloud based services (Dropbox and Amazon S3) with two local back-ups using Superduper and Time Machine.

There are a few others I also add to the mix as well but I won’t bore with the details. You know what they say? You can never have enough back-ups!

Today, the Pixelmator team provided a peek at the next version of their namesake image editing tool. With the code name of Chameleon, Pixelmator 2.0 is a major upgrade that is expected to ship later in the summer of 2011. Anyone who has already purchased the app via the Mac App Store for US$29 gets a free upgrade to the new version when it arrives. Along with the increase in functionality provided with the upgrade comes a new price point -- $59.

The new feature list is quite comprehensive. First, there are drawing tools (pen, freeform pen, convert, and path selection tools) that allow users to create and edit vector shapes. These tools also include pre-drawn triangle, line, rectangle, circle and custom shapes available on a new Shapes palette. The fill and stroke settings for these shapes are adjusted in a new Shape Settings palette, and shadows are easily added from this palette as well.

Looks like Pixelmator is taking an even closer step to being the defacto alternative to Photoshop on the Mac.

The inclusion of vector shapes is something I have really missed and has held me back from using Pixelmator for general web design. However as a general photo editing tool there are few better and with free upgrades to version 2 for all those that purchase it now in the Mac App Store, its definitely worth a look

No sooner has my favourite text editor on the iPhone added Markdown support, then my favourite text editor on the Mac, Byword, is also updated to include similar support.

For those that like their applications distraction free, then you can’t get much better than Byword, with a full screen and focus word that allows you to get rid of the day to day distractions and focus in on your writing.

I personally use Byword for all my day to day text editing, including this post which I am writing in it as Markdown. There is a 15 day trial on their website and you can purchase a full copy from the Mac App Store.

Acorn, one of my favourite image editors on the Mac has just hit version 3 and is available to buy from both the Mac App Store and Flying Meats own website.

Always a great alternative to Photoshop for the majority of users, version 3 introduces layer styles (something I really missed), multi-stop live gradients, rotating text and shapes, new filters plus many more features. All the existing functionality is still there, including its ability to take screen grabs and break out all of the individual windows and components into separate layers.

For anybody toying with the idea of purchasing Photoshop for the Mac, then I would strongly recommend you pop along to the Mac App Store and try Acorn first. You may be pleasantly surprised and at £17.99 you will make a massive saving as well!

If like me you are a big fan of Omnifocus then you may want to take a look at this book. Aimed at the novice and advanced user alike, this book will show you how to make Omnifocus sing.

Even Merlin Mann, who is one of Omnifocus' biggest fans, adminited on a recent episode of Mac Power Users that he learnt a trick or two from it. If you haven't heard the episode I would recommend you give that episode a listen as well, classic Merlin!

Check /Volumes/. This has caught me a couple of times. Here's what happens: you're copying files to an external drive, or making a clone of your boot drive, and something goes wrong. The drive disconnects, but the operating system doesn't notice, so it creates a folder in /Volumes/ and copies the information there. You think it is going onto the external drive, but in fact it's just being copied onto your hard drive.

You can easily navigate to your Volumes directory in the Finder: go to the Go menu, choose Go to Folder, type in "/Volumes" and hit Return.

While I was aware of 5 of the 6 steps, I'd completely forgotten about the one above. Naturally I was over the moon when it freed up a whopping 60Gb on my Macbooks hard drive, which was practically bursting at the seams.

Thanks TUAW!

Apple releases Xcode 4; free for developers, $4.99 for everyone else

by Michael Grothaus (RSS feed) on Mar 9th 2011 at 3:30PM

Apple has released Xcode 4 for free for all registered developers. The new Xcode offers a streamlined interface "that integrates UI design, coding, testing, and debugging, all within a single window." In addition the embedded Apple LLVM compiler underlines coding mistakes, much like Microsoft Word underlines spelling mistakes, as you type and can even correct your mistakes automatically.

Interestingly, Apple has also decided to sell Xcode 4 to anyone for only $4.99 through the Mac App Store. It is not clear the reasons Apple has decided to sell Xcode 4 on the Mac App Store, however it's possible they want to spur app creation for both the Mac and iOS app store for developers who normally wouldn't have access to Xcode (or indeed, even know of its existence).

Looks like Apple are making the effort to publicise XCode beyond their developer program by putting it in the Mac App Store. Seems like a good idea but I can't see how it will yield that many more developers than their existing developer programme.

One of my favourite apps Sparrow has come out of beta today and is now available for purchase on the Mac App Store.

Badged as Miminal mail for the Mac, Sparrow takes a Tweetie style interface and applies it to email. Version 1 supports Gmail and Google Apps only but the developers are already working on a 1.1 beta which will expand support to wider IMAP services.

I have been using the beta for a number of months now and have to say I love it! The minimalist approach is fantastic and keyboard shortcuts allow you to churn through your email in seconds.

A free lite version is in review at the moment and should shortly be available in the App Store but with the paid version only being just over a fiver its not going to break the bank.

I will write a wider review shortly but if you are frustrated by Apple Mail and are looking for an alternative I would recommend giving Sparrow a try.

omz:software have just launched a Mac version of their popular iOS RSS Reader NewsRack. Users can run it as a standalone application or use Google Reader as a centralised sychronisation service, similar to NetNewsWire.

Personally I am a fan of Reeder on both the Mac and iOS but if you are looking for something new, then its definitely worth taking a look at NewsRack.