Showing posts tagged mac
StackTips | Boost Productivity with Alinof Timer
Time management is paramount for startups like StackSocial. If you want your business to thrive, or even your career, efficient time management is the cornerstone to success. Knowledge and skills just don’t cut it in todays competitive job market; motivation, efficiency, effort, and drive is what will separate you from the rest.
Our biggest enemy is ourselves. It’s just too easy to stray away from a task to check Facebook, Twitter, sports scores, shop, upon hundreds of other distractions accessible from the same screen as our work.
Task/time management is crucial and is more in depth than you may think. We recommend checking out David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” to tap into an industry leading task management system/philosophy. In the meantime, here is a great little tip to make sure you are handling your tasks in a timely fashion.
Meet one of our favorite Mac Apps: Alinof Timer. This little on screen gadget will simply help you get more done by leveraging the immense power of FOCUS.
Here are a couple tips on how to maximize this awesome tool:
- Kick off the day by writing down all your to-dos.
- Assign reasonable time blocks to your tasks. (i.e. 30 minutes of outbound sales emails)
- Set the Alinof Timer at the start of your task and get crankin’!
Once you set the timer and press the start button, you MUST promise yourself you will do nothing besides focus completely on the task at hand. Do not respond to emails, check Facebook, etc. You can do these thing between tasks, but when the timer is going you must be 100% focused.
Focus is crucial. Surfing the web will not make you more money. Be mindful of your work and give it your sole attention. Not only will you increase your efficiency, but your proficiency as well.
Check out this quick video tutorial on how to utilize the Alinof Timer:
Name Your Own Price, Help Charity, Stack Up on Mac Apps
We’ve been hustling around the clock putting together a sweet collection of award-winning Mac apps so you guys can sit back and judge us with your wallets. That’s right, for our Fall bundle we are letting our fans pay us what they please. We do encourage you kind souls to pay $49 dollars (which is close to $300 off the retail value) but please feel free to pay what you can afford or what you truly feel it’s worth.
Feeling charitable? Donate 10 percent of your purchase to one of three charities. You can Stand Up To Cancer to help put the kibosh on the dreadful disease, help bring clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations with Charity: Water, or you can help defend your rights in the digital world with the Electric Frontier Foundation. We hope this mounts up to a significant donation to each organization and you should feel good about your contribution even if you can’t afford much.
Beat the average price to unlock an additional three applications. The ramen eating college kids should ensure it stays considerably lower than the recommended $49 price so you won’t have to break the bank.
This deal model has panned out well for gamers and literature fans so it will be interesting to see how it goes with you Mac enthusiasts. The risk is a bit disconcerting for a young start up like ourselves, but consider it a thank you for helping us get to our proverbial first birthday. Doing a little charity, helping indie Mac developers gain recognition, and hooking our fans makes this little operation all worth while.
Top 5 Reasons Why Working at a Startup Accelerator Rocks
Top 5 Reasons Why Working at a Startup Accelerator Rocks
We here at StackSocial are lucky enough to be working out of the L.A. based startup accelerator,Amplify.la. Our average day is filled with Redbull (sugar-free of course…we are based in LA, ya know), a revolving door of VC’s and entrepreneurs, dogs snooping from desk to desk, the sound of seemingly never-ending construction and last but definitely not least, the Poké Poké salads picked up on the Venice strand and brought back to the office.
Working at a startup has been a great experience for our team. The casual atmosphere and friendly chaos is a cover for the hard work and sleepless nights that everyone in the office has been investing in their young (but rapidly growing) companies. The collaborative entrepreneurial environment and the guidance and support of our mentors have given us vision for when things get…uh…frantic.
Top 5 reasons why we love working at an accelerator:
Instant network - Working with the Amplify family puts us in touch with an amazing network of mentors and investors in the startup community inside and outside of LA. These are people who have experience in growing baby companies and running companies that have already taken off.
Mentorship/guidance - Amplify hosts weekly events including mentor office hours, Wednesday Mentor Panels, and monthly mentor breakfasts that keep us in touch with the people in our network who have “been there and done that.” We get to completely mooch off their wisdom and experiences; that means there is one less lesson we might not have to learn the hard way and we couldn’t be more appreciative for that.
Fun – It wouldn’t be hard to beat a sterile corporate environment in terms of “office fun” but Amplify.la seems to have more than our share of celebratory afternoon beers, office pranks and loud laughter that upsets marketing interns trying to write posts about how fun the office environment is.
Office space – One of the best things about being a part of an accelerator is that you finally get a little office space dedicated to just one thing—getting your company off the ground (unlike working out of your garage which also serves to holding that skiing gear you never use and the box of baby pictures your mom mistakenly assumed you wanted). Amplify is brand spanking new which means one thing: construction. The office is constantly a buzz with new additions and changes, and we’ve loved watching all the pieces come together.
Community – There’s nothing like having a strong sense of community to help us out during the ups and downs of being a young company. Working out of a space that has several other companies going through the same things have helped us laugh off some of the “struggles.”
If you have any questions about working at one of L.A.’s top startup accelerators feel free to reach out.
The Setup Series: What do people use to get stuff done?
Kevin ‘Lomokev’ Meredith
Photographer, teacher
Who are you, and what do you do?
I am a photographer, writer and teacher. I have written 3 books on photography, I also blog and run monthly photography courses. I am best known for my work using a cult classic Russian film camera, the Lomo LC-A. I slowly changed my career to photography through my use of Flickr where I can be found as Lomokev. I can also be found on Twitter and Tumblr as Lomokev too.
What hardware are you using?
When it comes to photography, I have a ton of cameras but the ones used the most are my trusted Lomo LC-As and LC-A+s. Most of the time I will carry 2 Lomo LC-As (with different film loaded). I have also recently acquired the new Lomo LC-W. The W is for wide, it has a 17mm lens instead of the LC-A’s 32mm. If you want to know more about this camera you can read my slightly biased review. I will also sometimes carry slightly more technologically advanced film cameras that have, wait for it: Auto focus! This will either be the Contax T2 that produces über sharp photos or the smallerOlympus Mju ii. When it comes to film photography it’s not just about the cameras, image quality is down to film as well. I mostly use: Lomography’s 100 chrome xpro film, Kodak Portra 400 VC, Fuji Reala 100 and I still have about 40 rolls of refrigerated Agfa Ultra that expired in 2008 that I bring out for special occasions.
I also have some digital cameras as well. I use a Canon 5D (Mark 1) with a28mm - 70mm 2.8 L lens. I got the 28mm - 70mm two years ago, it was my 1st L lens and I love it. Since getting it I have not really used other lenses as it’s a great all-rounder - I don’t even use my 50mm 1.4 anymore.
My main computer is a Mac Pro with 2 x 2.26 GHz quad core Xeon processors with 8 Gb of RAM. The first thing I did when I got it was to put 2x 1 Gb Western Digital Caviar Black drives to make a stripped RAID, which in theory makes saving files almost 2x fast when compared to using one drive. Because I have a stripped RAID, I am twice as likely to lose data in the instance of a hard drive failure. So for this reason, I am super anal about back-up. I use Time Machine to backup to a 1st gen Drobo. I have had my Drobo since September 2007 and find it reliable but sometimes the fan sounds like a jet engine, so I have to turn it off when it gets too annoying. I also use Crashplan as an online back-up, I used to used Mozy but when they hiked their prices I left, and have been really happy with Crashplan.
I have a 26” Apple monitor which looks beautiful, but I think it’s lacking a few things. Namely I really wish it had a headphone jack as when the Mac Pro is on the ground the headphone jack is just too far away for some headphones. An off switch would not go amiss, as sometimes you might set off a render or a back-up and just want to turn off the monitor but you can’t.
I love the Magic Mouse that my Mac Pro came with. In fact, I love it so much I have one for my MacBook too. It’s such a step up from the Mighty Mouse with the rollerball that only worked for a month and the stupid side buttons! Apple does not have a good track record with mice. What was the hockey puck mouse from the late 90’s all about? And for a long time there was no right click, but with the Magic Mouse I think they have finally cracked it.
I also have a 15” unibody MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM that I use at home and on the road. I find it great for most things, but when working on large Photoshop files or After Effects I find myself pining after my Mac Pro. I don’t think I could ever go back to just purely mobile computing.
I don’t own an iPad as I have an iPhone 4, a MacBook Pro and a Mac Pro. My commute is a 10 minute cycle so I don’t have a place for one in my life. I also have a 1st gen Intel Mac Mini under the TV for watching iPlayer and other Internet video on a big screen.
And what software?
I shoot a lot on the iPhone 4 but my iPhone shots will rarely end up on Flickr. I like to keep my iPhone apps lean. For photography, I use Instagram andEveryday. I used to use Hipstamatic, but I prefer Instagram because of the social element.
As for my non-photography iPhone apps, I could not live without Evernote for note-taking, whether it be text or a photo. I have DropBox which is great if I want to preview some of my computer documents on the go. I use the Twitter app to tweet and TidesPlan 10 to tell me what the tides are doing when planing sea swims. I think my most expensive app (£5) is Train Times, really simple but very useful for UK train times and it will even tell you what platform a train is leaving from. I love it because it lets you know whether you need to run for your train or not.
I am a big fan of Lightroom 3. I’m constantly amazed at photographers that don’t use it. I have 100,000 images in my library and it runs smoothly. If I need to do anything out of the ordinary, photo editing-wise, I will launch Photoshop CS5. I use After Effects CS5 to put together time lapse videos. I give a lot of talks, so I could not live without Keynote - the more I learn about that app the more I love it. For my writing, I use Pages. I used to use Google Docs all the time, I was quite an early adopter as I was a Writely user before they were taken over by Google. Now I just prefer desktop apps coupled with DropBox so I can get at my docs anywhere. I use Numbers to keep track of my course attendees and accounts.
I keep all the projects I am currently working on in DropBox and I use it to send large files to people. I really don’t understand why some folks still use YouSendIt or FTP. I could not live without the public folder feature that lets you share docs easily with other DropBox users. Some of the lesser known apps I use are Typinator, JumpCut and Skitch.
Typinator lets you have shortcuts for commonly used bits of text, so if I want to tag a lowdown photo on Flickr instead of typing: “ground, rats eye view, low, ground level”, I just type my shortcut “fllow” and it will swap it from my tags. I also have it set to auto correct 1000 of my most misspelled words. Because I am dyslexic, I can sometimes spell a word 10 different ways that are not recognized by a spellchecker. I take my different spellings and then input them into Typinator, so when typing as soon as I hit space after spelling words wrong they are auto-corrected. All my Typinator data is stored on Dropbox so that all my machines update text in the same way. Jumpcut is really simple, it remembers your copy history so, jumping between applications, copying and pasting can be less tedious. You can copy, copy, copy and then selectively paste from your copy history via a menu bar icon. Sketch is a fav of mine for taking screen grabs that you can then add notes to.
For some of my tasks, I really don’t see the point in having an app for something that can be done in a browser. When I tweet, I tweet fromtwitter.com. When I look at my email, it’s though mail.google.com and I upload all my photos to Flickr via their upload page. I have not used bookmarks in a browser for years as I use delicious. Because of Firefox’sappetite for RAM I have just dumped it for Chrome which I am finding easily uses 80% less RAM, but its URL bar is nowhere near as awesome. Might give Safari a spin but again it takes way more memory than Chrome.
For blogging I use a self-hosted Wordpress installation. My top tips for WP Plugins are: ‘Share Buttons Simple Use’ adds Facebook and Twitter share buttons to posts and pages. ‘Redirection’ lets you add 303 redirects without touching .htaccess. ‘jQuery lazy load’ stops images below the fold loading to improv page load times, and then only loads when you scroll down. ‘Broken Link Checker’ tells you if a page you have linked to is a dead URL or a 404 - because of this plugin I have been able to tell friends that their site has gone down before they knew. ‘Are You Sure’ stops you accidently posting when you just meant to save a draft, by asking if you are sure every time you hit publish. ‘After The Deadline’ is a spell checker. Last but not least ‘WordPress SEO’ by Yoast is a new SEO plugin that gives you preview of what the search result will look like in Google’s search pages as you input the page title and meta description.
What would be your dream setup?
I am tempted to put an SSD in my Mac Pro just as a system disk because of app launch times. I would also love to get the new 27” Apple LED display as it has a resolution of 2560 by 1440px which means you can view 2 web pages side by side. I have the raw power of my Mac Pro so it would make total sense to replace my MacBook Pro for a MacBook Air as you can get them with 4GB of RAM. When they just had 2GB it was not an option for me as Lightroom and Photoshop on 2GB is no fun.
I would love a new Mac Mini as my one does not read DVDs anymore, which means I can’t install Snow Leopard easily. So it’s stuck on Mac OS 10.4 and some new software won’t run on it, plus it struggles with some HD content. I can’t really justify it as my Drobo is only for back-up, but if the new models have quieter fans I’d really be happy with a new one. Actually as the Drobo is just for back-up and this is a dream setup a Gigabit Internet connection would not go amiss as I could all keep all my files on DropBox and also back-up to Crashplan instantly.
I wish Lightroom had facial recognition, geo-tagging and a light table like Apple’s Aperture does. Also I wish the Flickr uploader feature would better sync titles and descriptions instead of wiping them from Flickr when changed in Lightroom! That said, I am glad I am not an Aperture user after seeing how Apple has screwed pro users of Final Cut Pro - I know a few professional editors, and they’re all pulling their hair out.
As for my photo setup, I would love to get my hands on one of Lytro’s Light Field cameras when they launch to see if they are as magical as they are making them out to be. I have also been meaning to use Kodak’s new Portra film since Kodak took Portra NC and VC and blended them into Portra but I am still working my way though a stock pile of VC.
I am not bothered about getting a 5D Mark 2, but seeing as the Mark 3 must be just round the corner I would love to have one of those. The only thing that bugs me about my 5D is the exposure latitude could be better.
As this is a dream setup I would like to own The Vault, which is the photo lab I use, and all the kit in it. Plus a pile of cash so I could keep Dave and Mark on as my lab technicians. Also this is pie in the sky but I would love a digital sensor sticking out of a 35mm canister. That form factor should be big enough for Micro SD? It would allow me to capture digital images on any 35mm camera - that would be sweet!
This post is part of our The Setup Series, made possible by the folks at UsesThis.
(Source http://kevin.meredith.usesthis.com/)
Apple Introduces the New heatPad 3
You might have heard of the recent Consumer Report claiming that the iPad 3 has been found to heat up to as much as 116 degrees Fahrenheit while running games. When questioned about their new Heat Plate 3, Apple responded:
The new iPad delivers a stunning Retina display, A5X chip, support for 4G LTE plus 10 hours of battery life, all while operating well within our thermal specifications. If customers have any concerns they should contact AppleCare.
We know that you are shocked and impressed at Apple’s ability to dodge criticism while simultaneously sandwiching their rebuttal in a commercial for their product. If you have a problem with their sarcasm you can contact AppleCare.
We here at StackSocial don’t really understand the concern with the heat. Haven’t you ever accidently grabbed the handle of a cast iron skillet or placed your flat, open hand onto a steaming clothing iron? How much does gaming mean to you? What are you willing to sacrifice to play Angry Birds with a stunning Retina display?
These are the kinds of questions that iPad 3 users should be asking themselves. Isn’t it a plus that these new devices can both melt crayons and stay on for 10 hours?
Just something to think about.
The Setup Series: What do people use to get stuff done?
Mark Jardine
Designer (Tapbots)
Who are you, and what do you do?
My name is Mark Jardine. Most people know me from my work at Tapbots, a tiny iOS software company. I’m sort of a jack of all trades, master of none kind of guy. I struggled as a web designer for 10 years and finally realized that I’m a tiny bit better at designing user interfaces for software. In another life I’d be an illustrator or photographer.
What hardware are you using?
On my desk I have a 27” Core i7 iMac with 8 GB of ram. I interface with it via an Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Mouse. I also have a Magic Trackpadbut don’t use it often. My desktop is extended to an external 24” Apple LED Cinema Display and the audio is sent to a pair of M-Audio Studiophile AV40’s. My system is backed up to a 1TB Lacie d2 Quadra over FW800 and my work is archived to a Drobo with about 6TB’s of space. I’ll occasionally have myAudio Technica AT2020 USB Condenser Mic connected when being a guest on a podcast or for recording voiceovers in demo videos. Once in awhile I’ll connect my Microkorg XL or M-Audio Radium 61 keyboard to play around in Logic or Garageband.
When I boot into Windows (via Boot Camp) to play Bad Company 2, I grab my Logitech MX1000 and communicate with friends over my Creative Fatality USB Headset.
When I’m on the go, I choose between my second generation iPad or my 11” Macbook Air depending on the type of work I plan to get done. It’s a good thing they both fit into my tiny Tom Bihn Ristretto: bag (though not at the same time). I also never forget my Shure SE530 earbuds to drown out the outside world.
Related to my portable life, I also have a Sony PSP-Go and a Nintendo 3DS. But I rarely take them anywhere since my trusty iPhone 4 is what I always have on me. I take it EVERYWHERE except for in the shower. If only it were waterproof.
When I feel like pretending to be a photographer, I take out my trusty Canon 5D Mark II. People think I’m a real photographer when I set up my 430ex and580ex Speedlites on stands firing through 2 shoot-through umbrellas. And I really impress them with my 35mm 1.4L, 50mm 1.2L, 16-35 2.8L, and 70-200mm 2.8L IS lenses. When it comes to video, I’ll occasionally use mySteadicam Merlin or indislider Pro.
And what software?
Obviously, my main OS of choice is Mac OS X. I try to stay away from 3rd party software as much as I can. Apple’s software just works and works great for my needs. I love Safari. It syncs bookmarks to my iOS devices and I think it renders text the best out of all the browsers. I rely heavily on iCal,Address Book, and Mail. They all work very well with each other and with my iOS devices. I also use iChat for IM. I think it’s the best chat client by far.
I keep my notes in Notational Velocity because it’s fast and it syncs withSimpleNote on iOS. Also, life would be unbearable without Dropbox. It is the key to being able to own and use more than one computer. I usually haveTwitter for Mac running, but I don’t have much time to keep up with it these days. iTunes is the center of my media life. Besides music, I keep all the ripped (that I own) and digitally downloaded movies in iTunes format so they can play on my iOS devices as well as on both of my Apple TV’s in the house.
On the work side of things, Photoshop is key. 99% of my design work is done in Photoshop. For more complicated vectors, I’ll launch Illustrator. When marking up websites, I switch between Coda, Espresso, and Textmate, but the latter is my pick if I could only use one. Transmit is also a very handy tool that gets a good workout on occasion.
When dabbling in video, I use the full Final Cut Studio suite. I import all my photos to Aperture, but still rely on Photoshop for my heavy image editing. I’m trying to learn Logic, but I always get frustrated and drop back down toGarageband. I really do love Apple’s Pro Apps.
What would be your dream setup?
Two “27” Cinema Displays connected to the top of the line Mac Pro with 16GB of ram, a big SSD drive for the system and a redundant raid setup for my data. Oh, and for gaming, I’d want to build my own top-spec PC. But in reality, I just hope the next generation iMacs are significantly faster with some sort of SSD + HDD setup. I think they provide the best bang for the buck.
This post is part of our The Setup Series, made possible by the folks at UsesThis.
(Source: mark.jardine.usesthis.com)
5 Kickstarter Projects We Love.
Kickstarter just might be the hottest new investment trend in technology. Recently the founder of the site said that Kickstarter receives about 250 proposals everyday, 60% of which are accepted and posted to the site. By the end of 2011 over 150,000 projects had been submitted and over $125 million worth of funds were raised to try and get those projects off the ground.
We’ll admit it; we’re impressed. Here are a few of our favorite projects:
Dash
Dash is a car stereo run by your smartphone. It is made of a “faceplate” that is fitted to whichever kind of smartphone you have (meaning it can easily be changed if you get a new phone) and a stereo body which is installed in your car, replacing your current stereo. It also charges your phone making it possible to drive from one side of Los Angeles to the other in rush hour traffic without your phone dying. Sign us up.
Timelapse+
Timelapse+ is a intervalometer (timer device) for SLR cameras. It can connect to any camera with a cable release and has Bluetooth Low Energy technology for connecting with accessories. This device will allow photographers to control the interval, length of exposure in tenths of a second, the number of exposures per interval (for HDR) and a different duration for each exposure.
SolMate
Ever been hiking in the woods when your phone suddenly dies? Maybe not, but it could happen. This case uses solar technology to charge an iPhone. A great thing to have in the great outdoors or to keep in your car in case of emergency. As we’ve all learned the hard way: you never know when your phone might die; now there’s an environmentally friendly way to deal with it.
Node
Node uses Bluetooth Low Energy technologyto allow the “code-literate techie to the simple home owner” to enjoy the fun and power of sensors. The “Kore” features allows you to use Node to hang pictures or as a motion-based remote control. “Clima” allows you to measure your climate while “Luma” can turn your phone into a flashlight. This may just be one the most practicals apps yet.
Mail Pilot
Email…perhaps the best and worst thing that has happened to humanity in the past 20 years. Mail Pilot allows you to finally get control without having to store your information anywhere but your current server. This app allows you to mark messages as read/unread, organize review lists and browse through your emails for efficiently and accurately. The best past is that it’s compatible with all major email servers so you don’t need to get a new address. That’s one less thing to have to worry about!
The Setup: Kevin Kelly - Cofounder of Wired
Kevin Kelly
Writer, co-founder of Wired
- -
Who are you, and what do you do?
I package ideas. Author, recently of What Technology Wants. Co-founder of Wired magazine. Editor of the Whole Earth Catalogs. Publisher of the Cool Tools blog. Avid photographer, maker, traveler, father, bicyclist, designer, philosopher, and book reader. Also I sleep very well.
What hardware are you using?
A Mac G5 Quad Core tower with two, yes two, huge Cinema screens. I travel with a tiny, lovely, cheery 11-inch Mac Air, which I love.
On my desk is a classic Wacom Graphire tablet for drawing, an ancient Panasonic 2-line phone, a Radio Shack headset (the only way to talk on a phone), a Transcend USB Card Reader, and a non-electric Brock Microscope.
In my travel bag I keep a pair of Bose Quite15 noise canceling earphones, which I will keep on even while I sleep on a flight. A tiny Fenix AA LED flashlight, a 3G Kindle, a Lumix pocket camera (FX37), and an old Motorolla cell phone – no smart phone yet. When I am presenting a talk I carry aLogitech Wireless Presenter for advancing slides remotely, and a Mac VGA dongle.
In my boring Toyota minivan, I have a Garmin Nuvi 1300 and an old nano iPod, filled with podcasts and audio books. That’s where I get most of my “reading” done.
When I am seriously photographing I use a Lumix FZ35, with its awesome 18x optical zoom, the equivalent of something like a 400mm lens. It’s super light and compact. I can’t be bothered with an SLR, because I carried two of those and five lenses everyday for years and it was a drag.
And what software?
For the past 20 years plus the software I have used the most often wasEudora mail on the Mac. I used it for writing, too. But in order to sync my mail to my new Mac Air while traveling, I just moved my mail off of Eudora and over to Postbox, which I am liking. It allows me to read my Google App mail where ever and keep all folders synced since I often need to do mail offline.Safari is my browser, iTunes for music. I am a really bad person and keep all of the following programs open all at once all the time: Lightroom, Photoshop,InDesign, Bridge, Word, and Powerpoint. Because I am lazy.
I use MarsEdit, a Mac blogging client to blog on my MovableType blogs, so I can blog offline. I refuse to do coding, so MarsEdit has a drag and drop option for handling images. I use EasyBatchPhoto to resize images to fit the blog, despite the fact that I always have Photoshop open.
I use Scrivener to handle text while writing a book. It uses a 3x 5 card metaphor and it works for large complex projects. I use Evernote for clipping. And I’ve long used NoteBook for keeping notes, although I will eventually migrate that function to Evernote.
What would be your dream setup?
I can’t have too many large screens. I’d like to be surrounded by large screens the size of walls, and have full gestural and voice input (think Minority Report and Iron Man set ups). Also, I hope Google makes an html5 web-based publishing platform similar to Google Draw and other Docs. Just drag and drop inside your layout, better than InDesign, then hit a button to publish your ebook.
Thanks!
Check out this interview (http://kevin.kelly.usesthis.com) and more at usesthis.com!
