Since my Mac Mini is my primary computer, I have been using an iBall keyboard and mouse combination with it, something that I purchased almost 2 years back with my PC. The keyboard has been playing well so far, the mouse however conked off a couple of weeks back. Since then, I’ve been stuck with a lame mouse which has a non-functional scroll wheel and is a mini mouse, so small that two of my fingers are enough to cover it completely. It was too plasticky and made weird clicky noises.
I’ve been trying to find a good mouse for the last couple of weeks and had zeroed in on the Logitech MX Revolution mouse. However, at a price of Rs. 5000, it didn’t seem worthwhile.
However, it was not until @shadez told me about the Logitech MX518 that I realized that I could get something as awesome as the MX Revolution at less than 25% of the cost.
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Twitter has been having its own set of problems lately. Even though the status blog set up by them helps the users in knowing what’s going on at their end, all they can do is wait for the services to be back to normal.
Twitter engineers have been trying to keep the high load off by turning off a few of the features. The API requests limit, which was 70 at one time has now been brought down to 30 20. This has rendered most of the apps making uses of the API such as twitterrific, hahlo and Twhirl useless.
Also, one of twitter’s most used features, the @replies tab is also disable many a times by the engineers to keep the load off, thus making it extremely difficult to track tweets which have been addressed to you. Interestingly, the @replies tab is only capable of tracking tweets which begin with @username. If a tweet has @username somewhere in the middle of the tweet, it goes unnoticed. A lot of users, who log in to twitter after a break have found it difficult and annoying to scan to pages of tweets to see if someone addressed them. It gets more annoying when twitter turns off the pagination feature.
What does one do in such a scenario ?
This is where sites like Summize and TweetScan are helpful. Let’s take a look at Summize.
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Two days from now, I complete 8 awesome months of using a Mac. My Mac Mini has been one of the two best purchases I’ve made, the second being my iPhone. These eight months have made me realize what I’ve been missing all these years and that there’s more to computing than viruses and BSODs.
No matter what kind of task it may be, doing it on a Mac is so much simpler and yet better. Everything in Mac OS X is so well thought out and implemented. And then came along Mac OS 10.5 Leopard which was like the icing on the cake. This version of Mac OS X brought along some super-useful features and one of them being the super awesome ‘Quick Look’.
However, this post is not about the OS but rather, some great apps written for the OS that completely blow you away. Here’s my list of 5 Mac OS X apps that I just can’t do without.
- MailPlane: MailPlane is a SSB ( Site Specific Browser ) for GMail. The app combines the features of Gmail with the friendliness a Mac by offering some nifty features such as (a) Drag and Drop attachment of files, (b) Attaching pics right from iPhoto, (c) Multiple Gmalil accounts, (d) Growl Notifications, (e) Same Gmail keyboard shortcuts and many other features. MailPlane also lets you set labels to your messages on the fly. There is also a OmniFocus plugin that lets your create tasks right from your conversations. I’ve been trying the latest beta releases too and I must say, the app looks really promising.
Grab the demo here, or buy the app here. There is also a family option available and a special discount if you’re a student.
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And I can proudly call myself an “Airtel-Boy”. I have now made the switch onto Airtel Broadband making me someone who uses Airtel services only. I have a Airtel postpaid connection with unlimited EDGE connection on it and an Airtel Landline phone with an unlimited 512kbps broadband connection on it.
I’ve had a MTNL Triband connection for the past 3+ years. I have had absolutely zero issues with the connection. The connection was stable, gave good speeds and rarely went down. However, I had two issues with MTNL and I have previously written about it here, here and here, with a special mention of this particular post. The two primary issues were:
1) Lack of an unlimited connection
2) Pathetic customer service
Fortunately, I was successful in convincing the society committee to allow Airtel to lay their cables in the society and I received my connection a week back. So far, I am extremely happy with the performance the connection has been giving me.
I have opted for their 512kbps unlimited plan allowing me to upload and download without those sleepless nights and without even a bit on worry. Interestingly, even though it’s a 512kbps plan, I get speeds upwards of 800kbps. Torrent download speed touch a high of 120KB/s with the low being around 85KB/s. I couldn’t be more happy.
If you aren’t yet on Airtel Broadband, I’d advice you to make the move now.
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