24 hours later....

Well it looks like the rumour mill is in full pitch since I posted yesterday.

It's highly probable that the new Mac Mini and new iMacs will be launched today but there is still some talk of a special event later on in the month. More goodies to come?

For some reason Apple always seem to slipstream product updates on a Tuesday following a fairly well established pattern. Being in the UK, it usually seems to mean that the US Apple online store goes off line either late morning or early afternoon building up incredible buzz within the Mac community. At the time of writing, I've just seen a tweet that the New Zealand Apple store is down (and now the Australia store) so it looks like we're off!

I'm sure there is no technical reason why Apple need to take the entire worldwide network of Apple stores down to simply update a few HTML pages, but kudos to Apple marketing in that they do know how to build up the anticipation and fuel the rumour mills. Of course, this can lead to disappointment when the announcement perhaps isn't all it's cracked up to be. A case in point was when they brought the entire site down, and when it re-appeared the only new product was an updated version of Aperture - nice though the Aperture is (circa Monty Python 1970 - The Architects sketch)

But this time round, there are some significant updates on the horizon especially for the MacMini, the machine people have often thought that Apple have given up on (and the one which has a special significance for me as my very first Mac)

It sounds like the MacMini will be given a significant performance boost all round with additional processor speed, faster graphics, more memory, lots more ports and an upgrade to 802.11n, along with DisplayPort support for the new Apple Cinema Displays (today or special event?) Some discussions about the MacMini revision not having a external redesign, but I can live without that. It's current form factor and importantly its low heat and noise output, make it unsurpassed as a small form factor computer.

I really hope that Apple price the MacMini aggressively and look to turning this into a killer switchers machine for 2009 and beyond. With the downturn in the PC market, they really need to look at the price point for Windows users considering a Mac and price the MacMini accordingly. Belts are being tightened in all markets so they really need to take a hit on the MacMini and perhaps lower their usually significant margins on this particular device.

By all means keep the price premium on the MacBooks, iMacs and Mac Pros but come on, cut a little slack on the Mac Mini to let people try it out. And yes, I know the premium for Apple computers is hotly debated, and you get what you pay for, and the equivalent specified Dell is more often than not more expensive that the Apple machine. But for the average man in the street, walking into a PC World and seeing the crap PCs at bargain bin prices, Apple just can't compete.

So come on Apple, take a profit hit with the MacMini so more people can experience the Apple experience. You know once they're hooked, they're hooked for life and you then start selling your premium products.

I know, that's what happened to me!

PS - I might even go for two MacMinis if they are released today.

One as a new Media Center for the TV and one as a Snow Leopard training machine. My original G4 based MacMini has given me sterling service but it just won't hack it as a media center.

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More Discipline Required....

When I first started life as a full time creative person, I envisaged a relaxed approach to work. My own boss, working from my home studio, the ideal situation to be in complete control of my workload and my tasks.

I have to say that in reality, that's certainly happened to a extent, but being the master of your own workload and tasks isn't all that its cracked up to be.

Working for yourself makes it really hard to set boundaries and switch off from "work", a huge problem for most self employed people working from home. It's all too easy to nip back in the studio for "an hour or two" after the evening meal to crack on with that project or finish up something. Even if you do extricate yourself from the studio for some TV time, it's so easy just to pick up the laptop and spend another couple of hours fiddling about.

This is made even harder by the fact that I love what I do and it really doesn't feel like work most of the time.

But I know it can't be good for me (or the family)

So as of this week, I'm going to try and structure my working week slightly differently to see if I can impose some restrictions on what I do and when I do it. It my even make me more productive and allow me to spend some more quality time with the family.

So this is the plan....

• Monday: Admin and Website Development
• Tuesday: Commissioned Work & Special Projects
• Wednesday: AM: ScreenCastsOnline Show Prep PM: ScreenCastsOnline Recording
• Thursday: Editing and Encoding
• Friday: AM: ScreenCastsOnline Publication PM: Buffer

As well as trying to impose such structure to the week, I think I'll be a bit more disciplined in the way I work each day by setting aside some time to do specific tasks:

AM

• Inbox Zero on the overnight emails
• Reply to any Twitter @replies or Direct Messages
• Quick scan of RSS feeds - Zap any I don't read
• Quick review of OmniFocus tasks
• Daily Blog Post
• Switch off email and Twitter (OK we'll have to see if that happens)

Lunchtime

• Inbox Zero on the morning emails
• Reply to any Twitter @replies or Direct Messages
• Switch off email and Twitter

End of Day

• Inbox Zero on the afternoon emails
• Reply to any Twitter @replies or Direct Messages
• Switch off email and Twitter

Now I fully appreciate that there is probably no way I can stick to this religiously, but it may be a valid experiment for a couple of weeks.

Anyway, it's Monday so off to do my Admin and Website Development.

A cup of tea first I think!

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Twitter and RSS feeds

When I first started using Twitter, one of the things that used to really irritate me was people posting links to new blog posts via Twitter.

I mean, that's what RSS feeds are for, right?

I even went as far as to unfollow persistent offenders as it really riled me so much.

So here we are a year or two later (maybe longer?) and I find I've mellowed in my approach to posting blog links in Twitter.

Heck, you may be even reading this from the link I posted in Twitter :-)

Since my initial opposition to blog links in twitter, I've seen Twitter start to become the primary source for news and information that previously I have relied on RSS feeds to supply. So much so that, my backlog of RSS feeds in Google Reader is becoming larger by the day.

I'm not 100% sure why this is the case? I suppose a couple of things are at play here.

Subscribing to Twitter is like subscribing to a real time RSS feed that is highly selective and filtered.

As I follow like minder individuals and interesting people, I find that the links invariably are interesting to me. On a side note, if I don't follow you, it doesn't mean that I don't find you like minded or interesting, it's just I've had to put a cap on the number of people I follow to find it manageable. It's just not feasible to follow everyone that follows me.

If I see a tweet link come in it's usually fresh and timely. The converse of this is extreme irritation if some one links to older posts or info - it happens a lot.

As tweets are streaming past in real time, it's easy to dip in and out at leisure. To catch up on my RSS feeds requires a significant investment in time.

Whilst out and about, it just seems easier to monitor Twitter using Tweetie that it is to catch up on RSS via Mobile Google Reader or even Byline. One of the really neat features of Tweetie is the inclusion of Instapaper so that if I do come across an interesting link, I can simply post it to Instapaper for reading later.

I don't suppose I'll completely give up on RSS feeds but I have to admit they certainly don't have the level of visiblity they've previously had.

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Wow!

Day three of my attempt to write a blog post everyday for 30 days. The selection of the topic for todays post is a no-brainer!

If you're not a regular Twitter user, you might not know about some fantastic news that I posted yesterday. The news was that ScreenCastsOnline is now included on the official Apple iWork Resource page at the Apple website - Link

I'm absolutely thrilled as you might imagine. I should point out that Apple specifically state that:

Mention of third-party products is for informational purposes only and represents neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

but still, it's a fantastic achievement to get linked to this way and I'm really grateful to Apple for the visibility.

Following my tweet with the news, I received lots of congratulatory replies, many to many to reply to individually but can I just say again, thanks! As well as the congratulations, I also received quite a few questions surrounding the news so rather than reply individually, I've summarised the answers to the most common comments and questions here:

Did you know in advance about the inclusion on the resources page?
Yes, I heard about it a few weeks ago, and designed a special landing page especially for the link. The landing page focuses on primarily the iWork and iLife tutorials I've done, so people coming from the Apple site can see those tutorials relating to Apple software.

I have to admit to being fairly secretive about the link in advance, preferring to wait until it actually appeared before mentioning it - well, you never know!

I guess we can expect an increase on our subscription rates now ;-)
No of course not, well not straight away

Do you get any schwag? Any hardware? Any discounts?
No, I'm just happy to have a link on the site!

Did you do the whole enchilada for iWork?
The Apple tutorials actually on the Apple site were done by Apple themselves, the link to my site takes you to the independent content I created.

This must feel like being knighted!
Don't know about that but I'm still on a high almost 24 hours later!

So anyhow, thanks again for all the tweets and sorry for not replying to them individually. If you want to follow me on Twitter, you can find me on as DonMcAllister

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Safari 4 First Impressions...

I like it!

Have to admit I've been pretty impressed with Safari 4 in the few days I've had it. It's still a bit of a struggle getting used to the tabs at the top of the window but I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually. Hopefully you've read my blog post on my theory behind it. Might be worth spending the time getting acclimatised to it now, just in case they decide to adopt this for other applications in Snow Leopard - new Finder design anyone. It does seem very modern and clean and I can well see them moving forward with this UI change.

I've seen a few comments about Apple ripping off the tabs placement from Chrome but unfortunately, as Google never released a Mac version of Chrome, I've never played with it. Call me a fanboy if you want but I realy didn't want to fire up my Windows virtual machine just to play with a browser!

Top sites is sort of OK but I'll have to admit to being a little bit perplexed on how to configure it? I mean, can you actually add sites to it manually? I know in edit mode you can delete and re-arrange but how do you add?

Have I missed something?

The adoption of Coverflow within history seems reasonable enough and does actually add to the experience so no issues there. I just hope that the lone developer who created Coverflow, which Apple then bought, was suitably compensated for his efforts when you consider just how much of a cornerstone Coverflow is to many Apple applications.

There is one aspect of Safari 4 which I don't like however and that's removing the progress bar and replacing it with a circular indicator. Whilst it tells you something is happening, there is no feedback on how long it's going to take. I may have to switch that back to the original behaviour but I'll see how long before it really irritates.

On the whole though, I think this is a really solid release from Apple and one that bodes well for the future. Now I must check if my on-line Bank supports this new version!

UPDATE - Yes it does! Result :-)

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