Rex Is Excited

Here’s a video I did awhile back, now in "HD" so you can actually see it, versus what Flickr did to my video the first time I uploaded it.

Twitter Reply Notifications (Screencast) from Rex Pechler on Vimeo.

I’m also testing here if a "private" video can still be embedded publicly (for a friend).

Jott just released a new feature, allowing you to subscribe to RSS feeds with their service, and then listen to them by calling a toll-free number. If you’re not familiar with Jott already, they provide a speech-recognition service to save text notes for yourself, and also integrates with other sites, like allowing you to post converted text to Twitter for example. So, this text-to-speech feature is an interesting addition that somehow makes the service seem more complete.

I haven’t really figured out what RSS feeds I would prefer to listen to a robot reading… however I’m sure I’ll find a use for it. Now if only Jott Feeds would integrate with Google Reader and you could listen to your Google Reader news, and then Jott would mark those items as read. That could be really awesome in the car.

Link

I’m considering using MacSpeech Dictate for blogging. However I can’t decide yet whether using dictation software is more liberating or more constricting in the writing process. So far I feel I have a limited vocabulary, and the dates it and the dictation software can’t pick up on my implicit punctuation. However the software is otherwise quite fast, and generally highly accurate.

The next thing that I would like to see, is MacSpeech Dictate implemented on the iPhone. A dictation application on the iPhone would be really awesome. However, I wonder about the accuracy of the built-in microphone. Although I imagine a Bluetooth headset, along with noise reduction technology, could be a solution.

So, I love my iPhone. There are some things that it can’t do that I really really want.

1. 3G Data Speeds… EDGE is too damn slow.
2. Video Broadcasting … no app exists, and it would be too slow anyway.
3. GPS. Location-based notifications among other things, also broadcasting my location. Also, tracking my whereabouts for posterity.
4. Ability to act as WiFi hotspot. I want to share that 3G speed to my laptop… or to yours, wherever we go.

These things -might- get updated this summer with the next iPhone, but I doubt we’ll see video broadcasting or real GPS. And frankly, I don’t really want to buy another iPhone. And I also don’t want to wait that long.

So I’m thinking about getting a Nokia N95, or something comparable. There are applications to do all of the aforementioned things. And, I could still use my iPhone to browse the web over the WiFi connection the Nokia creates. One cool thing is that I can just pop the SIM card out of my iPhone and into the Nokia, keeping the same phone number… and my unlimited data plan from AT&T includes 3G already so it won’t cost me any more per month.

The only thing is, I don’t know if it will work the way I want, or if I’ll be happy with the phone itself. Know of a better solution?

Ever playing music for other people from iTunes? And want to change the song without everyone noticing? Trying to do a manual fade is tough. This script lets you select the next song you want to play, and then fade the volume out and in to that track. Download: itunes-fade-to-selected-track.zip


property initialVolume : null
tell application "iTunes"
set speed to 5 -- lower means slower fade
if sound volume = 0 then -- if volume is all the way down, fade in
play
set initialVolume to 60
repeat until (sound volume) is greater than or equal to (initialVolume - speed)
set sound volume to (sound volume + speed)
end repeat
set sound volume to initialVolume
else -- fade out, skip to selected track, fade in
set initialVolume to (get sound volume)
repeat until (sound volume - speed) is less than or equal to 0
set sound volume to (sound volume - speed)
end repeat
set sound volume to 0
play selection
repeat until (sound volume + speed) is greater than or equal to initialVolume
set sound volume to (sound volume + speed)
end repeat
end if
end tell


Filed under: Software, Productivity

Things, the up-and-coming darling of the über-productive, due-date-defying, thing-doing GTD crowd has released a public preview today. And I, as your hyphen-wielding blogger, am duly excited.

A few of us here at TUAW have been playing with the private alpha of Things for a while. Things provides a unique and flexible way to handle tasks that can be refreshing for those who didn't quite get the whole GTD thing the first time around. Of course, you can adhere to strict GTD principles with it, but you can also forge a system that works for you using its tagging system and flexible project management tools. It even has some delegation capabilities that other GTD apps are lacking right now. Plus, it's downright pretty.

What Things is noticeably lacking at this point is a really great means of integrating with Mail and AppleScript support. Of course, if there were AppleScript support, Mail support would be a cinch. You can pop up the quick entry window with a hotkey and drag a Mail 3.1 message onto the notes section to create a link to that email; I'd just like to be able to incorporate Mail-Act-On or any faster means of getting my email-based tasks into my task manager.

Overall, this release from Cultured Code is very buzzworthy, both in the GTD community and for those on the periphery. If you're feeling like being productive, take it for a spin.

I use these all the time… especially holding Option or Command while using the arrows to move the cursor around.

To select text you hold down the SHIFT key and then use the arrow keys or HOME, END, PAGEUP, and PAGEDOWN. The left/right arrow keys (plus SHIFT) will increase the selection one character in that direction, if you hold down the OPTION (⌥) key the left/right arrows will select an entire word in that direction, and if you hold down the ⌘ key the left/right arrows will select to the beginning or end of the line. The up/down arrow keys (plus SHIFT) will select a full line up or down; with the OPTION key held down the up/down arrows will select a paragraph. The HOME key (plus SHIFT) will select all the text to the beginning of the document and the END key (plus SHIFT) will select all the text to the end of the document. Finally, the PAGEUP and PAGEDOWN keys (plus SHIFT) will select a full “page” up or down.
Mac 101: Keyboard text selection - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).

You only need to hold Shift if you want to select text. Without holding shift, the aforementioned key commands will just move the cursor around. You probably don’t realize how much time you waste trying to point with that Trackpad on your MacBook.

I know this isn’t really something worth blogging about, but I’m pretty excited to have finally gotten my Google Reader unread items count down to zero. I don’t think this has ever happened since I first started using it… I originally signed up for just too many feeds. Anyway, here’s a picture of my achievement…

I use a Treo 700w. It runs Windows Mobile 5. It’s not as powerful as I would like (I can only run 3-4 things at once), but I can still do a whole lot with it.

More and more sites are getting Mobile interfaces. For example, I can use Gmail, Facebook, Google Reader, Flickr and soon YouTube from Pocket Internet Explorer on my phone (many more sites too). And the phone can do mobile web browsing well.

Here are some of my other Mobile Web Favorites:
google.com/ig/mobile (iGoogle, my startpage. Access to gmail, google reader, search),
di.fm/mobile (Electronic internet radio stations),
m.facebook.com (Can message all your friends, see their pics… etc.)
m.twitter.com (For twittering…)

I also use a few applications on my phone:
Google Maps! (Amazing. Even works with that Bluetooth GPS thing I bought recently.)
Skype (Sound comes out the wrong speaker, but works great for speakerphone)
USB Modem (lets me connect to the internet with my mac laptop)
KeyLight (saves a lot of battery power by toggling off keyboard backlight LEDs)
Shozu (GeoTag your pics! neat new app that interfaces with many personal media sites YouTube, Flickr etc to upload your pics/videos etc. and can attach GPS location to your pics)

There are a lot of fun things to play with on my phone, but it can really feel productive when you’re responding to emails and reading your news subscriptions. I’m excited about the future of mobile phones, especially with that cool new iPhone from Apple. In the meantime, I know there’s lots more to do with my phone… what have I missed?

I use a Treo 700w. It runs Windows Mobile 5. It’s not as powerful as I would like (I can only run 3-4 things at once), but I can still do a whole lot with it.

More and more sites are getting Mobile interfaces. For example, I can use Gmail, Facebook, Google Reader, Flickr and soon YouTube from Pocket Internet Explorer on my phone (many more sites too). And the phone can do mobile web browsing well.

Here are some of my other Mobile Web Favorites:
google.com/ig/mobile (iGoogle, my startpage. Access to gmail, google reader, search),
di.fm/mobile (Electronic internet radio stations),
m.facebook.com (Can message all your friends, see their pics… etc.)
m.twitter.com (For twittering…)

I also use a few applications on my phone:
Google Maps! (Amazing. Even works with that Bluetooth GPS thing I bought recently.)
Skype (Sound comes out the wrong speaker, but works great for speakerphone)
USB Modem (lets me connect to the internet with my mac laptop)
KeyLight (saves a lot of battery power by toggling off keyboard backlight LEDs)
Shozu (GeoTag your pics! neat new app that interfaces with many personal media sites YouTube, Flickr etc to upload your pics/videos etc. and can attach GPS location to your pics)

There are a lot of fun things to play with on my phone, but it can really feel productive when you’re responding to emails and reading your news subscriptions. I’m excited about the future of mobile phones, especially with that cool new iPhone from Apple. In the meantime, I know there’s lots more to do with my phone… what have I missed?

Update: I have an iPhone now. =D