Blue

Apr 27 2009

Feelin’ Blue(tooth)

The Mac is the best place to be, if you’ve got a Bluetooth phone. Not only can you bypass expensive download fees by installing themes, pictures, ringtones and games directly from your Mac (Bluetooth File Exchange), but you can also interact with your Mac using some of my freeware picks.

mu Feelin Blue(tooth)Romeo

Find your phone’s lost love in this great app. Romeo allows you to pilot your Mac from your Bluetooth phone. Use your phone as a mouse, control a slew of applications including iTunes from across the room and add addition applications with Romeo plug-ins.

mu Feelin Blue(tooth)BluePhoneMenu

Keep track of your signal strength, get and make calls from your Mac with this handy menu extra. Oh yeah, get and send SMS messages from your Mac too. The newest version requires Panther.

mu Feelin Blue(tooth)BlueNotes

Send quick notes to your SonyEricsson phone with this little app. Simple and straightforward.

What’s better than free? Getting a SonyEricsson T610 for -$150 after rebates* with T-Mobile. Buy it now at Amazon.

Or if AT&T is more your flavor, you can land a similar deal with the T616, here at Amazon.

There’s all you need to cut your first Bluetooth. Have fun.

Brian

mu Feelin Blue(tooth)Downloads provided by MacUpdate

*Offered by Amazon and T-Mobile/AT&T. Subject to their terms and conditions, blah, blah, blah.

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Apr 27 2009

A Brief History of Free Software (Part 2)

Two weeks ago we took a look at the roots of free software. Taking another break from downloads (last one), we’ll look at friends and foes of Open Source.

Companies that Understand Free Software

Apple – We’ve already noted that OS X’s evolving core is Open Source. Along with Darwin, Apple has made contributions that include Rendezvous.

IBM – Big Blue’s engineers are proponents open standard projects like XML’s FOAF. The company uses and promotes Open Source software, and has been a legal champion of the GPL.

HP – HP has been flakey on Open Source (the company has firm ties to Microsoft) but at a recent Linux tradeshow unveiled a Linux laptop.

Novell – Freshly burned my Microsoft’s monopolistic power, Novell purchased SUSE Linux and funds the development of Ximian (makers of Evolution and Ximian Desktop). The company joins Red Hat as a for-profit distributor of Linux.

Companies that Don’t

Microsoft – Redmond’s anti-Open Source efforts are the stuff of legend to hard core GNU’s. What is reality is the companies strategy of suing Open Source out of business over patent infringement. Microsoft claims hundreds of these exist in Linux. Companies like IBM have established legal funds to protect Open Source programmers.

SCO – This former distributor of Linux claims to own code present in the Linux core and is after licensing fees from Linux users world-wide. The problem with their claim is that the code in question was released by them under the GPL, which the group seeks to discredit. (here’s the latest on the SCO case)

Making Money of Free software

Microsoft has a right to be scared, don’t they? How are they supposed to make money on free software? Well, this would require innovative business thought (rather than Redmond bully tactics). Millions if not billions are made with free software, and here’s how:

  • Distributions – Under the GPL the software must be free, but companies can charge for distribution on CD
  • Consulting – Open Source software is powerful, but can be quirky. Custom installations bring in big bucks from corporate customers
  • Support – OS software comes with no support. Many companies who sell Linux distrobutions offer support
  • Supplementory Documentation – Manuals and tutorials are another source of revenue for software companies

For companies that use Open Source, there are great advantages. The nature of Open Source invites innovation and feedback from thousands of programmers not on the company payroll. Many have attributed the lack of OS X’s viruses to its open core. Since the source is public, more programmers and developers are available to find and plug security holes.

Open Source software isn’t going away. It is changing the shape of the industry, so it is worth taking time to understand the implications. For the Freeloader, Open Source means unprecedented, legal access to software for everyone (Free as in Freedom). For software companies it means closing a side. Now that you know the players, so you can spend your money in sopport of companies that get Open Source.

That concludes my brief history of free software. I’ll be back next week with more great Mac freeware.

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Feb 13 2008

Screen capture based tutorials just got easier. ScreenSteps 2.0.2 released

ScreenSteps 20080212 214450 Screen capture based tutorials just got easier. ScreenSteps 2.0.2 releasedI write a fair number of tutorials and this story caught my attention. Blue Mango Learning Systems has released version 2.0.2 of their ScreenSteps software. While this release is the first release available for Windows, it also includes some significant enhancements for us Mac users. Key improvements in this version include improved PDF output, importing and exporting of ScreenSteps lesson between libraries and the ability to take old, text based documentation and quickly create new visual versions.

Users can copy text from text based documentation and paste it into a ScreenSteps lesson. They can then use the new “Split Step” feature to break the text up into individual lesson steps. Once the steps are divided up users can quickly use ScreenSteps screen capture tools to add images to each step. In a few minutes text-based documentation can be transformed into a visual tutorial.

ScreenSteps is a rapid visual documentation tool that falls somewhere between screen recording applications such as Camtasia or iShowU and applications that take individual screen captures like Skitch. ScreenSteps reduces the hassle of capturing images and assembling into step by step guides. Teachers use ScreenSteps to capture an image of each step of the process they are teaching. They can then go back and add text and image annotations.

Once the lesson is completed, users can output individual lessons to HTML and PDF or assemble their lessons into manuals that can be exported as HTML or PDF (Pro version only). Lessons can also be posted to ScreenSteps Live, a hosted solution for lessons created in ScreenSteps.

ScreenSteps is available in two versions, Standard (USD$39.95) and Pro (USD$59.95). The Pro version adds the ability to assemble multiple ScreenSteps lessons into PDF and HTML manuals.

Note:

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