Posts Tagged ‘mac OSX’

My OS X Lion Horror Story

October 13th, 2011

My OS X Lion Horror Story

OS X Lion was released in July 2011 and includes a number of new upgrades. Some of these are very impressive, such as complex touch gestures for the trackpad. Others are more mundane, such as fullscreen mode for applications and hidden scrollbars. But all things considered the upgrade is definitely worth it.

The problem isn’t Lion, it’s how it has to be installed. You can no longer pick up an install disc from an Apple Retailer, instead you have to download the upgrade from the App Store. For slow connections this can be a nuisance, since the file is almost 4GB.

However, the main problem is that there is no discernible way to perform a clean install. Rather, Lion installs itself on top of Snow Leopard, and then deletes the installer. (Savvy users may know about the clean install method.)

Furthermore, if you have a problem … Read more…

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Posted in dev environment | 6 Comments

Dashalytics: Google Analytics for Mac OSX

April 7th, 2008

Dashalytics: Google Analytics for Mac OSX

If you’re anything like me you open up Google Analytics with your morning coffee, check your email, then reload Analytics, just in case the cache has refreshed. There’s a new version of an OSX dashboard widget, Dashalytics, that will revolutionize the amount of time you can spend obsessing over minute statistics. Dashalytics puts Google Analytics at your fingertips, providing a quick access point to some of the most used Analytics reports, directly from the dashboard in Mac OSX.

How to use Dashalytics

Configuring Dashalytics is simple, just enter your Google Analytics account information; it even supports multiple Analytics accounts through the keychain on OSX. After logging in, you are able to access the three most used tabs: visitors, content, and traffic sources. Within each of these tabs, there are three different reports, but these sub-reports are essentially only the overview of each tab.

Additionally, Dashalytics provides common … Read more…

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Posted in general web | 1 Comment

Spaces in Mac OSX Leopard – Best Workflow

March 22nd, 2008

Mac OSX Leopard

At first glance Mac OSX Leopard looks like Tiger with a new, sleeker skinning. A few new applications are available, and a few others are broken, but overall basically the same thing. That is, until you discover the Spaces command.

Spaces are great, they’re like the Expose flyout but taken up a level. With Spaces, you can arrange all the windows on your screen, all the clutter, into multiple, separate areas. Each of these areas functions like its own desktop, when you use the Expose flyout, only the windows in that Space are seen. And the best part is that you can set programs to open by default in certain spaces. I love this feature, since I am always working on such disparate things. Now my web development can be separate from my web design and … Read more…

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Posted in webdev

Workflow: Mac vs Windows

February 26th, 2008

Workflow: Mac vs Windows

Everyone knows the value of improving your workflow. Well it turns out I work a whole lot faster on a Mac, both in web development and web design. I think the OSX developers must have thought a great deal about workflow, because Mac has a lot of great features: from much more drag-and-drop integration between programs than windows, to little things like the mouse command to fly out all windows or show the desktop (this saves me so much time). But workflow on a Mac goes much deeper than these features.

Web development is great on a Mac, since the programs you need for coding run very quickly and the terminal is really handy for doing lots of things, its really easy to move between the terminal and the finder/other programs. Also since the terminal is Shell based, its … Read more…

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Posted in personal | 2 Comments

Mac Crossover

July 9th, 2007

Mac Crossover

Well I finally broke down and bought a brand new MacBook. I’m a lifetime PC user, but with the CS3 beta looking pretty nice, I decided that it was time to make the cross-over. Now, I’ve always been able to use a Mac but I love being able to really learn the OS like you can only do when you own a machine (I’m always a little more careful if it doesn’t belong to me 😉 )

The adjustment to MacOSX has been surprisingly easy. I’m really liking the OS actually, especially dragging programs from the .dmg file to the applications folder to install them, and being able to save preference changes without restarting applications. It’s so much easier! Also I really like how it mounts everything. I kept asking my friend what he uses to mount disc images with on Mac and he … Read more…

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Posted in personal