Solution Looking for a Problem?

As much as I appreciate the concept of Softmaker's office suite for Pocket PC, my trial expired without me finding a compelling reason to buy it. It is a really well-done program, but I never really used it. I decided that if I wasn't using it for free, why pay $69.95 to buy it? So, it's gone.

Office Mobile is a very feature limited product. Complicated document formats are not only not supported but apparently stripped out of documents during the round trip between Pocket PC and desktop PC. This can be a big problem. Softmaker's suite handles many more formatting features and has the look and feel of a desktop application. No feature larceny during the round trip, either. If you need this capability on your Pocket PC or HTC Advantage, then check out the free trial of this program. For now, I think the limited feature set of Office Mobile is all I need.

Testing, Testing, One...Two...Three...

I just downloaded the free trial of Softmaker's TextMaker and PlanMaker software. These programs offer full-featured replacements for the Office Mobile Word and Excel that come installed on the HTC Advantage. I'm just starting to play with them and I'll be back soon with more details. If you have any questions about the software or anything you want me to try out, please leave me a comment.

Interested in checking it out for yourself? Download the free trial here.

Meeting with Dr. Mac

I'm liveblogging from the Apple Corps of Dallas meeting. Today, our guest is Bob "Dr. Mac" Levitus. Bob is a real Mac genius (not the retail variety) and author of about 50 books about the Mac. Here's some bullet points from Bob's presentation:

* Plug for Time Machine in Leopard to keep us backed up so we don't lose data.
* Consulting business is 100% Skype. He doesn't even use a landline.
* Wishing us happy birthday - Apple Corps Dallas is 30 years old this year. We're the oldest MUG in the world.
* If you have less than 2GB RAM, upgrade!!!!
* Loves his iPhone, that he paid his own money for.
* What's the story on viruses, malware, and worms for Mac? No story as far as he's concerned...
* Just installed iWork '08...showed new slide builds in Keynote
* Cheap or free software demos
** Amnesty Singles - allows you to run widgets on desktop without invoking Dashboard. Not free but cheap.
** Whoopee Cushion widget - real easy way to make kids go away.
** istat pro - widget with Mac performance data.
** Mouse locator -- helps you find the cursor on big monitors. Free.
** Go to versiontracker.com or macupdate.com to find free software.
** Keyboard cleaner - launch before you clean keyboard so you don't type anything while you are cleaning. Free.
** SRS iWow. 30-day free trial on SRS Labs website. Makes iTunes sound better. $20
** Launch Bar - first $20 he spends on every Mac. Really smart file finder and launcher.
**** Remembers what shortcuts you type to search to launch an app without setup.
**** Finds contacts in Address book and shows phone number really big on screen.
**** it calculates.
**** It will even launch apps without hitting return if you hold down last letter for even faster launching.
** Marine Acquarium - $12.95 for those moments when you need relaxation and the fish never float to the top.
**** Fish will swim across two monitors.
** Likes a 5-button mouse - he's not exactly on same page as El Jobso on the mouse button. MX Revolution is fave.
** New Power Video Plus - $50 extends iPod or iPhone battery life significantly. Newer Technology.
** Omni Cleanz - use to clean monitors. Comes with microfiber cloth. Likes better than iClear. Radtech.us
** Back Office back-pack by Shawn Jackson Designs.

Composing Music: The Modern Way

This morning as I dashed into Starbucks for my "grande bold, no room", I spied a Mac user with my Mac of choice: the BlackBook. I couldn't resist commenting how much I enjoyed that particular Mac and I noticed music notation on the screen. Being an amateur hack musician, I was very curious about what he was doing on his Mac. Turns out he's a composer and he was working on a new score. He demonstrated an open source notation program called Lilypond that interprets a text file to create a complex music score. Apparently, Trevor was involved in programming as well as music composition. Not only did I enjoy the impromptu demo of the software, I thoroughly enjoyed getting a glimpse of how modern composers are embracing technology to further their craft. It was cool to see Trevor every bit as excited about computers and iPhones as me but for totally different reasons. Check out the Lilypad project if this sounds like your sort of thing.