Writing on the iPad
From Alex:
Yep, before I discovered the magnifying glass [editing] trick, my
whole iPad writing experience was really frustrating. Once I discovered
it, I could then copy and paste much easier, so much that the onscreen
keyboard is passable and my iPad is much more portable as a result. Of
course, my iPad had to get a screen scratch as a result, but then again
a Windows 7 netbook I had got Dr. Pepper spewed into it liberally,
which was far worse, so I guess I should look on the bright side, which
I have an infamously hard time doing.
I must say, the iPad is amazing, even if it tries to replace
something that doesn't need replacing - the 128K and it's Snow Leopard
Intel Mac descendants.
Sent from my iPad,
Alex
Hi Alex,
I've found that
Infovole's TextKraft text processor (with many keyboard
enhancements and selection shortcuts) and lately
Nebulous Notes as well (best Dropbox sync yet) have proved the
charm for me, and I'm using the iPad a lot for composition. I find the
onscreen keyboard a lot easier to live with than I had anticipated, but
TextKraft's enhancements make it better yet.
My iPad 2 came
pre-equipped with a screen scratch that I didn't notice until several
days after the purchase, so I opted to live with it. However,
installing a Fuse
Antibacterial Screen Guard, which also protects against
fingerprints, static, and grubby residues, and covers the entire
touchscreen surface, also covers the scratch with a thick film of clear
plastic that should protect against further scratches. Once the Screen
Guard is successfully installed, it's not obviously visible, and you
pretty much forget it's there unless you're thinking about it, and a
happy bonus is that it doesn't seem to attract finger smearing as
efficiently as the iPad's own glass screen.
Charles
Mac and iOS Browsers
From Eric:
Mr. Moore,
Just read your column re browsers on Low End Mac. Since Safari
updated to version 5, I've found it to be a memory hog on my 2008 MacBook Pro and
mostly use Chrome.
In the iOS world, I use Safari (tabs made it much more useable) but
spend most of my time in
Grazing, which you didn't mention so thought I'd pass along. It's
fast and stable and very customizable (i.e., I can send links to
Instapaper, Reader, and
Pinboard with one click). Don't work for them, just a happy
customer as the saying goes - I use Grazing on the iPad and iPhone. Oh,
and it has adblocker built in.
And as an aside, as I know you like text editors, have you tried
Nebulous Notes on your iPad? What I like is the extra row of keys up
top that can be set with macros. There's a free version as well. My
other current favorites are
Phraseology and
Daedalus.
Guess that's enough Mac rumblings for the day :)
cheers,
Eric
Hi Eric,
Thanks for the comments. I really can't perceive any
compelling reason to use Safari other than its tight integration with
the Mac OS (or now just OS X), and that's a mixed blessing. There is
Reader, which is useful at times, and Safari starts up fast, but
neither is a must-have feature, and I just like Opera, Chrome, and FireFox better.
On the iOS front, I hadn't heard of Grazing. Looks
like it has some interesting features, but I'm skeptical that any Web
browser that isn't freeware will make much of an impact I'm the market.
Too many good ones available for free.
Thanks for the tip about Nebulous Notes. I've
downloaded it and have been trying it out, and it's a great little app.
It doesn't match TextKraft for text handling features, but it has a
great interface, and I think it's Dropbox implementation is the best
I've encountered yet.
Charles
Great Refurb Store Experiences
From Magnus:
I very much enjoyed your featuring of the Refurb Store.
I myself am a repeated customer of the store, and I am always
pleasantly surprised. Not only are the products, as you report,
virtually indistinguishable from new (save the box), but they often (in
my case always!) come with some nice extras.
All Macs in the Refurb Store are advertised with their respective
standard configuration but may come with way better specification. My
Mid 2010 Mini, for example,
was advertised as a 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo Mac mini featuring 2 GB
RAM and a 320 GB hard drive, but it came with 4 GB and a 500 GB
disk. Even more spectacularly, my 21.5" Mid 2011 Core i7 iMac came with
8 GB RAM (instead of the listed 4) and a whopping 2 TB hard
disk (instead of 1 TB). Considering the enormous costs of
exchanging the hard drives in an iMac, the savings were amazing.
I'd also like to mention the website http://www.refurb.me where all stock of the
different Refurb Stores worldwide are listed. One can even set an alert
to be notified once the desired machine is back in stop (that's how I
got the iMac).
Cheers from a cold and freezy Vienna,
Magnus
Hi Magnus,
It's always great to hear of good customer experiences
with Apple, and especially from happy refurbished hardware
customers.
Since Apple very rarely offers discounts (Black Friday
one-day discounts are an exception) and seldom other sales incentives,
the Refurb Stores are a substitute for bargain-hunters who hate to pay
full retail.
I did break pattern and paid full retail for my iPad 2
last spring, but I sat on a waiting list for a month just to get one at
all under the circumstances that prevailed with demand outstripping
supply for months.
Indeed, the rapid development of iOS devices
technology and features in general might confound buying refurbished
philosophy somewhat in that by the time iPads, for instance, are widely
available in the refurb supply pipeline, release of a newer, more
desirable model is on the horizon.
For example, my iPad 2 is only eight months old, but
the rumored better camera and faster processor in the forthcoming
iPad 3 sound tempting. I'll do my best to resist.
However, for Macs, which have (or at least have had)
longer service lives, Apple Certified Refurbished machines are the
value alternative.
We're finally getting a taste of winter here in Nova
Scotia as February draws to a close, although I think most of the cold
went to Europe this year.
Charles
Gaming Mice Great for Everyday Use
Following up on Vertical MacBook
Stand, Dan writes:
Hi Charles:
Dan [Knight] got it - it was the
BookArc stand I was looking for. Thanks for the assist.
Cyborg Rat 7 gaming mouse
On an unrelated note, in your quest for the perfect pointing device,
have you considered the Cyborg
Rat range of gaming mice? I'll be the first to admit they look
gimmicky, and the Rat 7
certainly isn't cheap, but they offer a degree of grip customisation I
don't think I've seen anywhere else. Adjustable palm grip,
interchangeable thumb and pinky rests - heck, they even give you a set
of weights so you can tweak the physical effort required to move it.
Oh, and about a dozen mappable buttons and on-the-fly tracking DPI
adjustment.
I bought it mostly for the sake of my gaming (I love the Magic Mouse, but I really,
really need a physical right button), but I found it far more
comfortable than the Magic Mouse (which really enforces a "claw" grip
to get the best from the multitouch) to the point I find I'm using it
day-to-day. I used to get a worrying wrist ache after a couple of hours
mousing, but with the Rat properly set up - not at all.
An unconventional approach to ergonomic problems, but you never
know.
Regards
Dan
Hi Dan,
Glad Dan Knight was able to steer you in the right
direction with the BookArc stand suggestion.
I haven't used the Cyborg Rat mouse, but I have used
gaming mice from SteelPad and Razor, and although I'm not a gamer, I am
a fan.
I find that mouse preference is a very idiosyncratic
thing. My personal faves include several Logitech models, the Targus
mice with touch scrolling, and certain Kensington models.
I absolutely can't get along without a right button,
but I find that for my needs, any more than two buttons are
superfluous.
Actually, my favorite of all pointing device in the
Contour RollerMouse
rollerbar, to which I am addicted. It's not cheap, and there is a
learning curve, but once your muscle memory adapts, it's extremely
slick from a functional standpoint as well as being very easy on the
wrists.
Charles
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