Do I Sound Funny?

I tried a new app this week called Voice Candy. I'm not sure how practical it is. I guess maybe for those of you in the witness protection program it might be handy. At any rate, it really is a lot of fun. It's made by Potion Factory. They call it a "fun, effortless recorder" and it is. Basically what it does is record your voice in one of nine preset filters. Take a listen to a recording I made:

Vader


I do think I might find it useful for recording a quick memo that I can then save to desktop, iTunes, Mail, or as a reminder with one click. I loved the voice memo app on my Palm Tungsten T3 for that reason. Almost daily, I would hit the record button on the side of my T3 and say something like, "Call JoeBob about the doodats and don't forget to mention that smatzles are half off." --Yes, I worked for Acme. Then I would set it to play the recording as an alarm at about 5 minutes before I wanted to make that call. It was like having a to-do list alarm sound and the item read itself to me.

I can totally see (or hear as the case may be) me using Voice Candy this way. I might actually cough up the $13 and register it just for that. You can download a free 15 day trial and check it out for yourself. You never know when you might want to kidnap some CEO's kids and place a ransom call. This could come in handy!

Geekbit Review: iClip Lite

Thanks to Doc for turning me on to this great widget. Be warned, this is one of those little utilities you'll use a few times and wonder how you did without. After you watch the video, head on over to Inventive and download it for free. There is also a helpful review of the difference between iClip and iClip Lite over at TwisterMC. Enjoy!

Geekbit Review: OmniDiskSweeper

If you're running out of space on your hard drive, you need this. Watch to find out how it can help. This cool little program is available from The Omni Group. You can head on over and down load it to try out for free. If you like it, it's only about $15.00. This is a great program, well worth the money and if you're a laptop user, it will be invaluable to you. (NOTE: The initial scan takes a few minutes in real time. I ran the scan ahead of time for this review.)

Review: Text Expander

I love this great little app from smileonmymac.com. It's a real time saver. They've even made pre-programed snippet files available for free. TextExpander can automatically correct misspellings and typos as you type. The free file contains approximately 100 common mistakes. The incorrect versions are added to the TextExpander snippet library as abbreviations that are replaced by the correct versions when typed.

Watch the video to see how it works. At $29.95, it's not cheap but how much is your time worth?

Make Up My Mind!

Have you ever made plans to take the family out for dinner and you can't decide where to go? Or maybe you eat out a lot and it really doesn't matter, you just need to pick a place. You need Dine-O-Matic, a free Dashboard Widget from iconfactory.com. It's a great idea for the office that likes to eat out together but can never agree on a place to go.

To set it up, you just enter your favorite places to eat (enter the phone numbers too to make ordering easy). And then whenever you need help deciding, just click the blue plate and leave the rest to providence. It's a cool little widget and did I mention it's FREE. Oh, I did? I really like that about it. You can watch the video below to see it in action. Bon Appetit!

Asset Management

Media assets, that is. Take a look at this big-time software set to release from Apple this summer. Just one more reason why Macs are so sweet!

Fring For All

Did you ever have to read something like five times to make sure you weren't seeing things or totally misunderstanding it. When I read through the description of fring, I had to take a quintuple-take. I'll spare you some of the technical jargon and cut to the chase. The bottom line is how would you like unlimited minutes on your cell phone and a guarantee that it'll always get a signal in your house? And what if I told you it would cost about $68 a year?

No, I'm not smoking anything. Yes, I feel fine. Of course I know what my name is. I'm telling you it's true.

In beta now, fring is "Mobile VoIP Telephony designed for GPRS, 3G & Wi-Fi Networks." That means with the right phone and a reasonable data plan you can basically use Skype as your primary phone service. Skype Unlimited gives you unlimited calls to any phone in the US and Canada for just $29.95 per year. You can get a SkypeIn number for $38 per year. You still have to have a data plan on your device (translation: monthly charge) but that is still a lot cheaper than my current 2100 min./mo. plan costs. $68 a year! Having managed for one of the global wireless carries for a few years, let me tell you this is their worst nightmare. And Ma Bell, nice knowin' ya.

UPDATE: Thanks to Rachel from Fring for letting us know that they do not yet support Skype Unlimited but plan to in the future.

There are several caveats. You have to have the right phone (Nokia is the primary choice now) and use either Cingular or T-Mobile service (in the U.S.) for now. I still feel like it's too good to be true or maybe I've missed something. If this is what it appears to be, I believe you're looking at the future of voice communications...and probably the reason that carriers will begin to hike their data plan rates.

***SpinVox Update***

I learned today (thanks Vince!) that SpinVox, which I wrote about a few weeks ago here, is limiting the number of people in the U.S. who get the free year deal.

From their website: "SpinVox is offering only 15,000 free Spin-my-Vmail accounts for US customers and they're going fast."

I got one. If it sounded interesting to you, you should sign up soon for the free year or it looks like you'll be limited to a two week trial.

Remote Possibilities

One of my favorite things about my Macs is that they are like compact entertainment centers. Sure, I bought them to facilitate my business needs but any Mac user knows that the reason you bought a Mac vs. a PC is because they're more fun!

I don't own a stereo system. My iMac and some fancy computer speakers does the trick. It's great–all my CD's are packed away because they're all in my computer now. In fact, until a few months ago, my 20" iMac screen was the biggest screen in my house. If I wanted to watch a DVD on the big screen, I watched it on the iMac. It does a great job. The new iMacs even come with remotes and software called Front Row to simplify your interface when in entertainment mode. Cool, but that doesn't help me. I got my iMac before they added that feature.

That's okay; I already have a remote for my iMac...my Treo 650. I have been using Salling Clicker for about two years now to turn my bluetooth equiped smart phone into a remote control for my computer. Salling Clicker is a software utility that turns a mobile phone or PDA into an advanced wireless two-way remote control for your computer. It works on both Macs and PC's. It really does it all. It lets me use the touch screen to control the mouse. I can control Powerpoint or Keynote from my Treo. I can control just about every app on my Mac from my Treo. Really the only apps I use it for are Keynote and iTunes.

iTunes is really the reason I bought it. It lets me browse my play lists, play, pause, fast forward, rewind, you get the picture. It even shows me the album art that is associated with each song or album. The best part is that it doesn't require line of sight. I can walk around the house with my phone in my pocket, as I always do, and have immediate access to my iTunes controls. It's really a great program for about $24. It's a cheap way to satisfy your inner control-freak. Enjoy!

Can't We All Just Get Along?

It’s kinda ironic when I think about it. Almost two decades ago, about the time I first drank the Apple Kool-Aid, I had to grapple with the question of being compatible with the rest of the world. “Everybody” used Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office was “essential.”

Well, even if I had bought a used Windows machine instead of the second-hand Apple Macintosh LC III, I wouldn’t have had enough money left over to buy the high-priced Office Suite. That was back when Macs really did cost a lot more than PC’s so there was no way I had money to get Office. I learned very quickly that I didn’t need Office as badly as I had been told; most of my friends and associates didn’t even have computers back then. It was still considered somewhat of a luxury.

Now today is a different story. Eventually, I had to breakdown and buy Office for Mac. Worked great; fully compatible cross-platform. More recently, Apple developed their iWork Suite which is fully Office compatible and has all the Appleness that keeps me on a steady Kool-Aid diet.

So back to the irony. I have a friend who is a long-time PC user. I produce a weekly slideshow in Keynote which she needs to be able to open and view. Shouldn’t be a problem. Keynote has an export feature that will produce a Powerpoint file for me to send her. The problem is that she doesn’t have Powerpoint. We tried to use a workaround involving me using Keynote’s export to PDF feature but her computer is also not taking calls from PDF files for some reason. Can’t we all just get along?

If you’re having similar compatibility issues, I recommend you check out OpenOffice. It is a FREE (you know that’s my price range!) multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute. I wish I knew about this solution back in the eighties (it has been around that long). So friends (you know who you are), go download it today and let’s be compatible.

"Take a Note"

This past week I decided to try a new service that one of my favorite tech writers, David Pogue, recommended recently. The service is called SpinVox. It's a really cool service that takes the spoken word an transcribes it for you. I realize that's nothing new. Software that does that has been around for a number of years. However, SpinVox puts a new spin on the concept.

As I said, SpinVox is not software but a service. There are four applications of this service to which you can subscribe: voicemail, blogging, memos, and broadcast. The power of these services may not be apparent at first glance but, trust me, the time savings and convenience these services offer are huge.

I get calls all the time in which people leave long strings of information that I will need to write down for follow up and reference. My kids probably think daddy is a leet-til unstable the way I'll shush everyone from talking when we're in the car getting ready to go somewhere and I keep replaying a voicemail on my Treo's speaker-phone while I try to make sure I got the right name and phone number of the potential new customer I need to call back. You see, I'm listening to the message in phone mode, and then I have to switch to task list mode and open the memo field to type in the info, and when I need to replay the message because the kids were asking "What's taking so long?" I have to go back to phone mode, and...never mind. You get the picture. All that's happening while the family is waiting for me to start the van and get going.

Life would be so much easier if everyone would just text message me instead of leaving a voicemail. Then I could just copy and paste the info into my tasklist for follow up. Well SpinVox turns all the voicemail's into text massages (and emails) for me. The accuracy is impressive too.

That's pretty much the feature that sold me. But in addition to voicemail transcription, SpinVox will also let you call a number and dictate a blog entry. My wife would love this feature-she's a blog diva. SpinVox will also let you call a number and dictate a memo to yourself and then send it to you email inbox. I can think of a friend who would love that feature (Ken Brown). And for those of you who use texting for keeping in touch with your friends or work groups, you can call and dictate a text message that will then get sent to your contact list all at once. I would have loved this feature when I managed for T-Mobile.

That's a pretty sweet package of features. If you've found yourself attracted one of these features, now you're thinking, "Okay, how much?" Are you sitting down? You can surf on over to SpinVox and sign up for your first year for FREE!!! Really, that's not a joke. It's FREE! You don't even have to give your credit card number. I've been using it for about a week now. They can probably charge whatever they want after the first year, I'm hooked!

MenuCalendarClock Review

Well, here it is. Sorry for the long wait. I hope you find this sweet little app from Objectpark as helpful as I have. This video is best viewed in full screen mode. You'll see a full screen button just to the right of the counter once the video is playing. Enjoy!