Web Worker Daily

I spent the weekend updating my Mac to OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard. It went well, thanks to a little planning and a lot of patience. Windows users are facing the decision as to whether and when to upgrade to Windows 7. Here are some questions to consider when you’re faced with an operating system upgrade. Read the rest of this entry »

I used to wonder why real estate and insurance agents put their photos on their business cards, even though I’m not good at connecting names and faces. Then, a couple of years ago, two things happened that made me understand how useful adding images to contact info can be.

First, I started using social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook heavily. As a result, my address book ballooned from a few hundred contacts to over 1,100. The additional contacts were all people I knew, but I hadn’t seen many of them for a long time — being able to see photos makes it much easier to find the right contact. Second, I switched to a Mac as my main machine, and I started using the Mac OS X Address Book. It’s a very well-designed application, and it makes adding pictures to contacts incredibly easy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last month, I made the switch to Google Quick Search Box from Quicksilver on my Mac. While Quicksilver improved my efficiency and cut the time I spent searching for files, Google Quick Search Box has upped the ante even further by adding in the ability to speedily access all my Google services through the same interface. I’m very impressed with it. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone has their favorite tricks to keep focused while working at the computer. Mine can be summarized as “out of sight, out of mind…but easily accessible.”

The Spaces function is one of the nicer features that I discovered in OS X when I started using a Mac as my main machine a couple of years ago. Spaces allows me to open programs in multiple virtual desktops, then move between them using mouse movements or hotkeys. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve long been a fan of the CrossLoop screen-sharing application as it provides an easy way to remotely provide support to clients, friends and family. Its straightforward setup and secure interface make it a great choice in a crowded field. However, its usefulness has been limited somewhat, because it was only available for Windows — a situation being remedied today by the availability of CrossLoop for Mac.

A compelling reason to use CrossLoop is the innovative Marketplace, which is a great place to find and offer tech support services. With thousands of registered support experts, you can get help with just about anything you can think of. The CrossLoop folks facilitate the connection and transaction, and handle the payment processing. The latest figures released show over 5 million sessions have been conducted through CrossLoop. With the Mac version available, support providers can now offer their services to Mac users, or use their Mac to provide  services. As more households are switching to Mac, or going multi-platform, being able to support everyone makes a lot of sense. Obviously, for Mac users needing support, this also makes the full Marketplace of support providers available to you.

In the CrossLoop community, the demand for a Mac version has been loud and strong. With this milestone reached, they can now work to appease the Linux crowd.

The CrossLoop client is a free download for Windows 2000 or later and, now, for Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Costs for using Marketplace services vary, depending on the services required and choice of provider.

Have you used Crossloop for screen sharing? Does the availability of a Mac version make it an option for you?

From The Apple Blog:

Virtualization software has come a long way since the days of Virtual PC on PPC Macs. Microsoft’s Windows-enabling program was more of a parlor trick than fully functional software. These days, Parallels Desktop version 4.0, available today for purchase, makes running a virtual machine more of a pleasure and less of a chore.

Earlier this fall, VMWare Fusion, the primary competitor of Parallels, released version 2.0 of their software. VMWare’s updated product added DirectX 9.0c and Mac OS X Leopard Server support, features which gave it a significant edge over the 3.0 release of Parallels. Parallels Desktop 4.0 evens the field, introducing both DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2.1 support, and the ability to run OS X Leopard Server.

Read about the rest of Parallel 4’s new features, as well as a head-to-head comparison of the new Parallels vs. Fusion 2.

Personally, I’ve been happy with VMWare Fusion 2…is it worth taking a look at Parallels 4?

Like Mike, I’ve been using the alpha releases of OmniFocus for a while now and I was thisclose to taking advantage of their pre-sale deal to buy the application for $40. But wait. CulturedCode has thrown their hat into the ring with Things. Yet another stand-alone and pretty GTD app for Mac OS X? Maybe.

A preview version is trickling out to newsletter subscribers. For those who can’t wait, the developers are promoting a screencast of the application’s main features. Looks promising. Much of the same functionality as OmniFocus, including a quick entry window for doing a brain dump of tasks to process later. But Things doesn’t force a project/context/task structure the way OmniFocus and other GTD-focused apps do.

So now I’ll wait to get my preview invite before deciding which application I’ll end up paying for. As with email, I’ve found that I prefer using a stand-alone application for task management instead of a browser-based one.

Are you already overloaded on to-do apps or are you giving these newbies a try?