I like it, and I’ll pay for it.
I could actually stop there, because that’s really all that matters to anyone – do you like it, and if so, would you be prepared to pay for it? Simple.
But I thought I’d put down a few thoughts on why I like it.
I’m still fairly and squarely blaming Gaz from the MyMac.com podcast for this purchase. I had looked at various models of Thunderbolt dock in the last year or so and none quite made me pull the trigger. I didn’t know of the OWC Thunderbolt 2 dock until Gaz mentioned it on the podcast. Well, the price and feature mix was almost perfect for me, so I pulled the trigger.
I’ve often said (if not here, then in real life) that I tend to avoid hype. Mostly that applies to movies but in some measure also to music. The more ‘screamingly popular’ a musical artist is, the less likely I am to check out their work. This is as a result of becoming seriously jaded by “mainstream” music over a lot of years. I still rarely listen to the radio and when I do I am rarely impressed by what I hear.
So imagine my surprise when I began to seriously consider checking out the music of Taylor Swift. The first catalyst was when she appeared in a performance on Australia’s X Factor show final.
After yet another egregious use of the fictitious word “LEGOs” by a mainstream (American) publication, I sought evidence from the wide world of the Internet.
Further to my post on installing fonts on iOS devices, I came across a slight problem when attempting to include the ever popular Century Gothic font in my font payload. When I located the font it was in a Font Suitcase file which the Apple Configurator didn’t want to know about. I spent some time trying to work out a way around this and eventually hit on a simple method using only an OS X command and a simple piece of free software.
While I was mucking around last night trying, again, to figure out the much talked about “per app VPN” that iOS 7 supposedly offers, I stumbled across a rather glorious discovery. You can install any TrueType or OpenType font on your iOS devices and use those fonts in iWork across iOS and OS X. Hallelujah!
Some time ago, I heard about Bart Busschots‘s xkpasswd.net password generating site via his appearances on the NosillaCast Podcast. I absolutely love the passwords it generates and I’ve used the site many, many times when setting up new online accounts.
So imagine the look of joy that came across my face when I was mucking around with an Alfred 2 workflow the other day and realised it would be the perfect front end to the xkpasswd library!
Despite an idea of going paperless – eventually – a current reality is that my wife pays the bills and right now most of them arrive on paper. So one of the bills that arrives electronically usually gets printed in order for it to get paid and I got to thinking – can I use the same, going-paperless techniques to automatically print a document? Turns out yes, I can. It’s pretty easy, too. When you know how!
In recent weeks there have been a few stories in the Apple press about rumoured plans for Apple to switch from Intel to ARM chips in its Macintosh computers. What none of these stories delved into is that it is very, very simple to ‘predict’ when there will be a mainstream, desktop class personal computer, running an ARM CPU, that will hold its own against a contemporary Intel-powered system. In fact, I’ll do that for you in just a moment. I’ll give you a precise year.
In New Zealand, any swimming pool must have a fence around it with fairly serious dimensions and locking mechanisms – all because a handful of people weren’t watching the kids in their care. Smacking a child is against the law, too, as a ‘protection’ against the ravages of child abuse. Those same children can’t fail at school either, where everyone succeeds and it is an offence to even touch a student. It’s a mad state of affairs which doesn’t look like turning around any time soon.