http://topteniphoneapps.info/

Guess I’ll let the Mac chug along for a little bit longer.  What’s the longest you’ve gone before having to reboot your Mac?

CoRD does a great job of scaling my 1680×1050 Windows desktop monitor down to my MBP’s 1440×900 resolution.  Granted, it’s a little small, but it’s still pretty readable, so all is well.

via Just Another iPhone Blog

A few places you can check out live coverage follows…

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/live-from-the-apple-tablet-latest-creation-event/

http://live.gizmodo.com/

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/apple-tablet-event/

http://live.slashgear.com/

http://theappleblog.com/live/

With having to do work at home sometimes and studying at work sometimes and both while traveling, it was becoming harder and harder to keep data synced up between computers, even with a USB stick.  So I thought I would look into some online file storage options.  After doing a little investigating, I settled on checking out three of the many options in the Wikipedia article: DropBox, Live Mesh (beta), and ZumoDrive.

My findings and thoughts after the break…

I didn’t have too many requirements for my online storage, but the first was that it had to work with both Mac and Windows.  That’s usually easy enough, especially if it had a web interface, but I would prefer that it had drag-and-drop capabilities, and preferably as a folder in Finder or Explorer.  I obviously didn’t do an exhaustive search, but the three I settled on do the job for me.  Here is what I found…

Installation and access

On the Mac (which I’ll be concentrating on), installing DropBox sets up my storage as a folder (or directory) anywhere you’d like.  However, at least on my Mac, I couldn’t find a way to create it as a Volume, but then, I didn’t spend too much time looking for it, so there may be a way.  I prefer it as a folder (as mentioned above), so it’s fine the way it is.  ZumoDrive sets up a volume on my Mac.  Live Mesh allows you to create or link folders.

On Windows, DropBox sets up as a folder, while ZumoDrive is a “Device with Removable Storage.”  Finally, Live Mesh sets up folders as well, but under a somewhat mysterious “Live Mesh Folders” under the User, although you can specify a location under other folders, such as “Documents”.

Storage

ZumoDrive comes with 1GB free, with the ability to get up to a total of 2GB free if you refer friends.  It also has options for paid accounts for more memory.  DropBox comes with 2GB free with options for paid accounts.  Live Mesh comes with 5GB free, and as far as I can tell, there are no other options for extra storage, paid or not.  It may be because it’s in beta, but who knows?  Something to dig around a little more for.

While DropBox really is just online storage to share files, ZumoDrive and Live Mesh allow you to sync up existing folders.  Live Mesh doesn’t push it like ZumoDrive does (perhaps because of the 5GB limit?).  ZumoDrive allows you to specifically sync up things such as your photo folder, your music folder (iTunes), etc.  I don’t know about you, but for me that’s multi-gigabytes, and that would mean paying for sure!

Resources

On my Mac, DropBox takes up about 10MB less of “real memory” than either ZumoDrive or Live Mesh.  The big difference is with CPU resources.  DropBox and ZumoDrive are both using about .1% CPU at idle, while Live Mesh is using about 2%.  That may not seem like much of a difference, and it really isn’t, but then why can’t Live Mesh use the same 20X less CPU while not really doing anything?

Extras

Perhaps it’s because Live Mesh is meant to do so much more!  I haven’t tried it yet (yes, I’m scared), but Live Mesh has an option to connect remotely to another computer.  It doesn’t appear that you can connect to a Mac from Windows, or vice versa, but you can connect Windows to Windows.

And as mentioned above, it appears that ZumoDrive makes it really easy to backup and/or sync your photo and music folders, among others.  You can do it with the others, but you have to manually specify the directories.

Conclusion

For the needs I currently have, just a simple way to synchronize work and school files wherever I happen to be and whatever computer I happen to be using, DropBox is the way to go.  Its combination of storage, ease of use, and resource usage made it the winner for me.  For others of you, one of the myriad of choices may work better.  Let me know what you decide.

I guess that’s why they call the app “Shrink Pic.”

Basically, anytime you want to send a picture via email, upload one to a blog or share one via IM, Shrink Pic “automatically creates a temporary copy, resizes it and sends it instead.”

For instance, the below picture’s size on my hard drive is 450K.  When I insert the picture into the post (which uploads it into my WordPress storage), Shrink Pic resizes it to 52K, saving me a lot of space for more pictures!  I’ve only had Shrink Pic for a little while, but it seems to work great!  One small caveat, though.  Shrink Pic doesn’t seem to work for me when sending from Outlook 2007 running on Windows 7.  I’m going to contact the author to see what’s going on since the website says it’s supported.

Shrink Pic doesn’t modify the original, nor does it seem to change it when moving pictures from folder to folder, even if it’s something like my online DropBox account.

via LifeHacker

Lazy because I have school some nights and I’m getting tired of packing the MacBook Pro to and from campus.  Yes, it’s only about 6 1/2 pounds with power adapter, but with books and such, it gets tedious for me to carry around.  Also, since it’s getting a little older (along with me), the battery only goes for about two hours.  Since my classes are usually 2 1/2 hours long, I’d need to make sure I’m near a power outlet and that’s just not possible a lot of times. (Pshah, did someone say paper notes?  Luddite)  The other reason is that it’d just be nice to grab-’n-go when I’m at home.  Right now with the MBP, I have to disconnect the power, two usb connectors, the speakers, the external monitor, etc.

So the solution?  Buy myself something that lasts longer and is lighter to carry, but that is also light on the wallet.  I took a look at various Mac based solutions, but even an older MacBook started at $750 and I really wanted to keep it under $600  (I actually wanted it to be under $500, but I gave myself a cushion).  I then turned to netbooks.  Many of them met much of my criteria, such as light weight–around 3 pounds–and inexpensive–around $400–but this is where the old comes into play.  My eyes can’t handle those little 10″ screens!  The resolution at 1024×600 wasn’t too great either.  So maybe I would have to save up a little and spring for the MacBook after all.

But while I was doing some research on netbooks through Liliputing and NetbookTech among other websites, I came across the Asus UL30A.  It seemed to be getting good reviews from any number of places but its specs were what really did it for me…

• 13.3″ 1366×768 screen (just totally trumped the 10.1″ 1024×600, although I may have been able to get by with an 11.6″ or 12.1″ 1366×768 that a few of the netbooks I looked at had, but that extra inch really does help the old eyes.)
• Core 2 duo CULV processor (as opposed to single-core or Atom).  This one (the 7300) even supports Intel’s Virtualization Technology.
• Windows 7 Home Premium (as opposed to Home Starter–definitely a no-no).
• 4GB RAM
• 320GB HD
• 12 hour(!) battery life.  This one blew me away, and I found it hard to believe. (Stay tuned for more real-life testing)
• 3.7 pounds.  Not the lightest, but certainly not heavy, especially when I don’t need the power plug!
• and other features, which I’ll probably write about in later posts.

I managed to find it at newegg.com on sale for $630 (so just a little over my budget).  Unfortunately, the price is back up to $750, but even then, that’s not a bad price for the features.

And you know what?  I kind of like Windows 7!   I am sure I will be writing more about it as well as the little notebook in the future as I play with them some more.