Category: review

  • Bluehost Internet hosting service eases upgrades with SimpleScripts

    I have generally good things to say about my web hosting service, Bluehost. They are very reliable, with uptime for my site of over 99.5% (at least since I started monitoring it in September using the free SiteUpTime service). Bluehost also offer lots of add-ons and free services, like high-end spam filtering and automatic installation…

  • An update on online backup: Mozy’s still good

    I just posted a lengthy comment at MacIntouch about using Mozy for online backup, so I thought it might be worth re-posting here: I have been using Mozy since April 2007 on both my iMac and Powerbook Pro. It is fast and reliable, working in the middle of the night to upload new or changed…

  • Acrylic Software’s Wallet, great password manager for iPhone

    (Updated 12/3) To keep track of all the various web site passwords, log-ins accounts, serial numbers and other top secret secrets in my life, I’ve been using the OS X version of Acrylic Software’s Wallet program (Acrylic was formerly known as Waterfall Software). It’s one of the best looking and best performing password managers I’ve…

  • Facebook isn’t a web site (or a spaceship), it’s a time machine

    I’ve been thinking a lot about Facebook lately. A couple of months ago, maybe around the time Barrack Obama got the Democratic presidential nomination in Denver, a funny thing started happening with my 50 or so “friends” on Facebook. Since I joined earlier in ’08, there’s been an awful lot of dead air — most…

  • Foxmarks browser sync adds great password syncing feature

    Don’t you love it when software designers listen to their customers? Gives me a warm feeling all over. So kudos to the authors of the incredibly useful Firefox bookmark synchronization add-on Foxmarks. After the demise of Google’s great browser synching tool back in June, I turned to Foxmarks to keep everything in tune on my…

  • Review: iTunes 8 is nifty but in need of a few tweaks

    Downloaded the latest, greatest version of Apple’s iTunes software this morning and I’m finding a lot of love from the new “genius” recommendations. There are a few annoyances that can easily be fixed in an 8.1 — or even 8.01 — version but on the whole it’s a worthy upgrade. By default, the genius is…

  • Fixing my blog’s del.icio.us widget without a widget

    I tend to read a lot of web pages every work day and they can all blur together if I’m not careful, or the coffee machine is on the fritz. So I use a couple of methods of saving and organizing my webstream, including Google Notebook for stuff that’s highly relevant to whatever project or…

  • Apple fixing broken keyboards right in the store

    (Updated 9/8) I’m super-impressed today with how much repair work Apple is performing on broken keyboards right at the local-store level. I really munged up my Macbook Pro’s keyboard this week. I spilled a little bit of water on it but the even worse move was my next — I tried to “dry out” the…

  • Fictionwise improving its e-reader and web site for iPhones and iPods

    E-book publisher Fictionwise opened a new, mobile-friendly version of one of its online bookstores today at the address m.ereader.com (tip o’ the cap to jkOnTheRun). It’s certainly a step in the right direction, especially for people reading e-books on their iPhone or iPod Touch. But it’s another piece of Fictionwise’s confusing and, at times, not…

  • Amazon-Tivo ecosystem works for me

    Stumbling around Amazon’s Unbox video store looking for a movie to rent last night, I happened across “21.” It’s the film about a group of MIT students who beat the Vegas casinos to the tune of millions of dollars by counting cards at Blackjack as a team. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan…