My review of Google Wave

(from makeuseof.com)

Unfortunately, this is all too true. Perhaps if all of the existing users of Google Wave knew one another and had some sort of project they were all working on together, the current system would work. As it is, there is very little activity. Sure, you can search for specific topics in public waves and have a look at those, but the whole concept is collaboration and as it stands, I don’t see a lot of that going on. Maybe people just aren’t ready for this sort of system. I’m not sure I am. That being said, I still have a bunch of invites if anyone wants one.

Switching from the Mac to the PC – Why and How

As I recently mentioned in another post, I’ve just switched back to Windows as my primary operating system after years of using Mac OSX. The reason for this wasn’t because I chose it, but because my wonderful Macbook died after years of hard use and poor care. I loved it dearly, and I must say that it was the best machine I ever bought. I often took it with me when I left the house and I used it pretty much as my primary machine for years. At the same time, I also had this PC (the one I’m writing from) running a dual boot Hackintosh/Vista configuration. I only used Vista for gaming and the occasional Windows program, so most of my time was spent on the Hackintosh setup running OSX. I managed to mess this up recently and ended up having to rebuild the system. Rather than set it back up the way it was, I decided to give Windows 7 a try.

At first, I found switching quite painful, but after having several days to get used to it, I have to acknowledge that Microsoft has finally produced a decent OS again. I find the taskbar a huge improvement and the new window docking system is fantastic, especially coupled with use of the hotkeys. It goes a long way in making up for historical lacks in productivity features on Windows, and it makes switching applications, bringing them up side by side, maximizing and minimizing them all very intuitive and effective.

Added to that is the fact that the new look of Windows 7 with aero is quite beautiful in its own way, though I wouldn’t say it goes so far as to come close to OSX. Nevertheless, the themes feature is nice, as is the ability to dock items to the taskbar and control the colors/tints of the translucent areas of the aero interface.

However, there are certain features and programs which I still find lacking. One of these is stacks in OSX. Fortunately, there is something which comes close to dealing with this. Alastria Software has produced something called 7stacks which operates in much the same way as stacks. You essentially just create a shortcut with the software on your desktop, and then pin that shortcut onto your taskbar. What you get as a result which operates and looks very similar to the stacks you would get as part of OSX. At the moment, the software is free. It is in beta, however, and most of the other software on their site seems to involve charges so I wouldn’t be surprised if they went to a commercial system in the future.

Another feature I really missed from OSX was the popular free app, Quicksilver. While it was possible to get by without it by using Spotlight, it never worked as well and as intuitively as Quicksilver did, and didn’t have all of the extra plugins. The closest thing I’ve found to Quicksilver for Windows is an app called Launchy. It works in basically the same way as Quicksilver, and you can customize your hotkeys. Launchy also supports plugins and different skins, making it both a useful and beautiful app to use. It’s definitely a must have.

For the Spaces/Esposé experience, there are a few choices. Switcher and iEx are free apps which mimic these sorts of features, but there are also some commercial packages such as AnthaBounce (formerly Winplosion) which aren’t horribly expensive. Personally, I’d go with Switcher if you need this sort of functionality. You can change the behavior and style of windows, set different hotkeys or screen areas for activation, and it really does work very well.

For more must-have Windows apps to make your life more bearable, you should check out my post on My Top 25 Must-Have Free Windows Apps. I’ve written it from the standpoint of having just switched, so it should be useful for you. Other than that, stay tuned for more tips as they come to me.

My top 25 must-have free Windows apps

I’ve been using a combination of operating systems for years now, including Windows, Mac OSX and various distros of Linux. It is no secret that I prefer Mac OSX but I recently had the need to switch back to a PC. While I won’t go into the reasons why this happened in this post, I would like to share the software I find absolutely necessary in order to make life on a Windows machine bearable. So without further ado, here we go.

1. Launchy – I’m a big fan of Quicksilver for the Mac, so one of the first things I wanted was a hotkey launcher which would work on my Windows 7 machine. Launchy is exactly that, and makes it extremely easy to launch applications quickly. I like to keep my desktop clean and uncluttered, so instead of clicking icons or going to the start bar, I just bring up Launchy, type in the name of the program, and hit enter. Done.

2. Steam – I must say that I didn’t play a lot of games on my Mac for obvious reasons, so I’ve been using Steam for quite some time. I even stick my non Steam games in my Steam interface so I have a nice list of games I can access from one central location.

3. iTunes – I’m not huge on music these days, but I do have all of mine located in my iTunes library. What I use iTunes most for is podcast subscriptions and trying out new podcasts which sound interesting.

4. Chrome – I’ve used Safari and Firefox extensively, but recently decided to go with something quicker and lighter. I love the light feel of Google’s Chrome browser and it is lightning fast. While it doesn’t have the robust addon system of Firefox and I do miss the Ubiquity addon as well as the more intuitive Awesome bar, the consolidated search/address bar of Chrome as well as its helpful New Tab view really makes up for most of that.

5. Digsby – While I do think the IM apps on Windows are a bit lacking compared to the brilliant Adium on Mac OSX, Digsby is pretty good. With support for Social Networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace, a nice popup notification and update system (with inline text input for messages) which reminds me of Growl on the Mac, and a pretty decent customization system, Digsby is coming a long way toward the high bar set by Adium.

6. Skype – Everyone knows about the voice over IP client Skype, but I must admit the Windows client is better than the Mac version. As I live in the UK while all of my family lives in the US, this becomes quite an important application for me.

7. XBMC – XBMC is similar to Plex or other similar systems. It is essentially a home entertainment program for your computer. You can specify a source for movies, music or TV shows as well as popular sites and the software searches for updates and keeps records in the database. It’s a full screen app which is built for sitting back and watching your favorite TV and film. It’s definitely a must for digital age video junkies like myself.

8. VLC Media Player – VLC is not as beautiful as XBMC, but it is quicker and runs most video and audio formats. If you need to play something quickly and without any fuss, this is your app.

9. Evernote – Evernote is like a notebook for your life. You can create notes, clip webpages, take photos, and shove it all in. You can tag your entries and even photographs have text recognition. The idea here is the brain dump. Shove it all in and search for it later so you don’t have to waste energy trying to remember. With clients for phones as well, it becomes quite a helpful tool.

10. Dropbox – Dropbox is what the name says. It just appears as a local folder on your machine, but it synchronizes whatever you shove in it up to a server and then back down to whichever machine you log into with your dropbox account. So if I want to have the same file on all of my machines, I just save it in my dropbox and every time I edit it, the changes are replicated across all machines via the server. There is limited space with a free account, but still well worth the download.

11. 7Stacks – This is basically a copy of stacks for the Mac. If you’re a fan of the Mac feature, then you’ll like this. I especially like using it to quickly access my documents and my Dropbox folder from the Taskbar.

12. Fences – This one is probably a bit controversial, because you could claim that it makes your desktop a bit ugly. It all depends on how organized you are. Essentially, Fences is a system which groups and labels icons or folders on your desktop. At the best of times, I don’t need it because I’m too organized. At the worst of times, it enables me to organize myself quickly so that I can get some work done until I have time to sort things out properly.

13. µTorrent – A tiny torrent client, for when you want one but don’t necessarily need tons of features and a flashy interface.

14. Picasa – Without iPhoto or Aperture, I needed a way to organize my photos. Picasa fills that gap petty well.

15. OpenOffice – While I much prefer using Google Docs these days for maximum access to my work from any location, it is always good to have a solution which doesn’t require an internet connection. As it is free and works well with multiple formats, OpenOffice is really the way to go.

16. AVG Free – AVG Free is just a good Antivirus program for Windows. While not as full featured as some options for purchase, it has generally worked for my needs without any problems.

17. CCleaner – After a while, Windows machines often get bogged down with excess registry entries, etc. This is a way of cleaning up the registry.

18. Defraggler – Made by the same people who made CCleaner, Defraggler is an excellent solution for disk fragmentation. It offers a pleasing visual interface and can be scheduled to run.

19. SyncToy – SyncToy is a backup solution which offers various levels of synchronization from one disk to another, cloning changes across drives. It minimizes the need for long backups, only copying files which have changed.

20. GIMP – I don’t do a lot of drawing or photo editing, but I know that there will invariably be a need at some point. Rather than spending loads of money on something like Photoshop, you can do just as much for free with the GIMP. With a robust set of tools equal to any commercial package, with a bit of time you can find yourself just as adept at using GIMP as you ever have been with popular commercial packages.

21. FreeVPN – This is mainly a way for me to view videos on sites like Hulu from the UK. I’ve got to have access to US stuff one way or another, people. It’s an extremely easy to use piece of software. A couple of clicks and Hulu has no idea I’m viewing from the UK.

22. Filezilla – I’m a big fan of Cyberduck on the Mac but Filezilla is probably the best alternative to it on Windows. It’s just another ftp client, but it is easy to use, it works and it is free, which counts for a lot.

23. Notepad2 – Notepad2 is a robust text editor which is meant to replace Notepad on Windows. It is small, fast, and it has syntax highlighting, for anyone who occasionally works with code.

24. 7-Zip – 7-zip is something I use as an alternative to something like WinRAR, which gives me annoying prompts due to it being Shareware. 7-zip is a file archiver which supports multiple file formats and uses high compression. With options for strong encryption, shell integration and a version for use in the command line, it is a pretty nice piece of free software which will definitely come in handy sooner or later.

25. Handbrake – Handbrake is for those times when you get a video in a strange format and want to convert it. Whether you’re doing this because your media player won’t play it or because you want to stick it on a mobile device to watch on the go doesn’t really matter. Handbrake can handle it.

5 Google Wave Invites – Round 2

I’m giving away 5 Google Wave preview invites. In order to enter, just leave a comment after this post. I will select winners from 5 random comment authors and the winners will have an invite sent from me to the email address provided in their comment.

For those of you who don’t know what Google Wave is, it is “a personal communication and collaboration tool” which integrates social networking, email, wikis, and instant messaging. I’ve used it for a little bit, and although there is a bit of a learning curve involved, it has been quite an enjoyable experience. Third party clients are popping up, most notably Waveboard for the Mac. While I don’t think that Waves are going to replace email altogether, it is definitely worth taking a look.

I’ll let comments collect until 1600 (GMT) on November 30th, 2009 at which point I will begin randomly picking the winners. Good luck!

***EDIT***

Well, since only 2 people commented, they’ll both get invites. Congratulations to Deb and Eduardo. Your invites are on their way.

Site Update

Just a quick update to anyone following the site to say that I’m still around and haven’t given up on writing content. I’ve been busy lately with a recent project which is now complete. I was doing a site for my Dad for his new business selling classic cars  and muscle cars in the Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and Spokane Washington area. I think it’s a decent site and it should serve his needs well. Anyway, I’m thinking about giving away some more Google Wave invites, if anyone is interested.  Stay tuned within the next few days for details.

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