Category Archives: buzzword compliance

buzzword compliance

iSync. iSwim.

I'm gradually digging into the backlog of new software that Apple has been shoving across the Internet onto my hard drive, and finally got around to configuring iSync, a feature of the .Mac service. I never thought something so simple could be such a big deal–that is, until I suddenly found all the addresses and calendar entries on my laptop, desktop and Handspring synchronized.

Now, mind you, the results require a bit of a merge-purge, since I've had seperate versions of all this data in my e-mail, on the Handspring, and so on. But by pushing the button on the Handspring's cradle, I now sync the desktop and the handheld with the data from my laptop.

The Handspring's synchronization was somewhat temperamental (it crapped out on address book synchronizaton the first time through), but that's been my experience with the Handspring in general with OS X).

Standard
buzzword compliance, General Chaos

Instant intercom

For Christmas, I bought my kids a PC–a Compaq 1.2 GHz machine from Sam's Club. They needed a PC to play their favorite games (Roller Coaster Tycoon isn't available for the Mac) and to do school work on–both are now doing school projects in PowerPoint. We set the shiny new system up in our finished basement, which acts primarily as the kids' playroom.

My oldest son (just turned 12) also wanted to be able to instant message classmates about homework (yeah, right). So I set him up with an AIM account. Soon, we discovered an interesting side benefit to this arrangement:AIM has become our own little intercom system. Now, I don't have to strain my vocal cords shouting through two floors to get him to take the trash out anymore.

Standard