Strange & Charmed

The Missing Links 6.13.11

I have decided to start a new series of posts weekly on The Pink Mac called The Missing Links! Each week I am going to post links to some interesting articles I read in the previous week that I thought would be good to share. Obviously, with the WWDC Keynote from Steve Jobs last week, many of these will be related to the Apple updates, but in the future I am going to try to provide more of a mix of topics. So, without further ado, here are The Missing Links for 6.13.11.

{Happy Reading}

The Pink Mac

iPad therefore I am.

As a fan of sketch notes, I have always appreciated the work of others, but very rarely attempt to do the same on my own. Yesterday I wasn’t feeling very well so I lay in bed sketching for a bit. This is what resulted. I know Apple didn’t create the iPad to be used in conjunction with a stylus, but it really does help to use one if you plan to take full advantage of the sensitivity of the screen. Although the iPad is mainly a touch input device, I was reading an article from CultofMac.com that I thought I would share about how the iPad really is a great pen based tablet.

On that same note, I have been reading about various stylus’ to perhaps find one that would better suite my needs as I am finding that all styli are not created equal. I read a great review of 12 stylus’ from Macworld that I thought you may also find interesting if you, like me, are looking for a new stylus to use with your iPad.

{Image above was created using Penultimate for iPad and the BoxWave capacitive iPad Stylus}

The Pink Mac

Incipio Premium Kickstand Review

This is a quick review of my newest iPad case acquisition- the Incipio Premium Kickstand in sand/beige ($30). Made of durable ripstop nylon, this is a great case that quickly and easily converts to some great viewing angles and also into perfect typing position! Click the video above to see this case in action.

The Pink Mac

How to make your iPad 1 feel like an iPad 2

So, it’s the beginning of June, and all around you people are carrying around the newest iteration of the iPad while you are still toting the ever so clunky first generation model. Yes, you may be using last years hardware, and yes, your beginning to develop back pain from the extra weight of the iPad 1, but alas, you don’t have the extra cash to upgrade to that ever so slim sliver of aluminum and your medical insurance does not consider the upgrade a medical expense even though the .2 lb difference would mean worlds of relief for your sciatica. What to do, what to do?

Well, first of all, realize that you are not the only one in this situation, and actually, you may be ahead of the game in ways you’d never expect. After all, since you were thrifty and didn’t splurge on iPad 2, you can justify the expense of iPad 3 at next years launch! Okay, not making you feel any better? Luckily there are a few things you can do now to save yourself the money of an upgrade while also making your iPad feel shiny and new.

1. Wash your iPad head to home button

Maybe your screen is a bit dingy, or your aluminum has lost it’s sheen, but many of the superficial ailments your iPad is susceptible to can be cured with a good cleaning. Make sure to use iPad compatible cleaning solutions and cloths and also check with Apple support on proper cleaning methods before undertaking this task.

2. Give your iPad a facelift with a new case

One of the benefits of having a previous generation device is that the cases and accessories for it are usually deeply discounted. Take advantage of that fact and perk up your iPad with some new swag. Make sure to check popular sites like EBay and Amazon for even better deals as 3rd party retailers will usually give bigger discounts on last generation items to get rid of back stock. A new case and a fresh screen protector can make a big difference on an old iPad.

3. Refresh your iPad with some new content

Although you may not be able to change the physical appearance of your iPad 1 to that of an iPad 2, one thing you can change is your user experience. Splurging on a few new games, apps, books, and movies will make your iPad seem fresh and new. Find yourself some interesting new images to use as your background and lock screen to give your iPad a new look. Rearrange your apps and create a new filing system with folders to clean up your home screen. Only use your iPad for web surfing or reading? Try utilizing one of your iPad’s many other features to maximize your iPad experience.

Using any one or all of these tips will certainly add a little pep back to your old iPad, and remember, since it is an Apple device, it still has years ahead of it, so you will have to decide for yourself which price you would rather pay; the upgrade to the newest generation or the stigma of carrying around an old device.

Happy iPad-ing everyone!

{Image via Flickr}

The Pink Mac

Case In Point

Miss Trenchcoat and I love iPad cases… and by love I mean we are obsessed. At last count, we have eight cases and two body sleeves for our grand total of two iPads in the household. It is a little excessive, we know, but our cases are used for a plethora of reasons. Some are folio cases with covers to protect the screen which are perfect for when we travel, some are cases with built in stands for watching movies together, and some are minimalist back cases to keep the sleek feel of the iPad intact.

Lately I have found myself using one of those sleek cases for the past few weeks and I am loving it. But this case is special and very very different then any of the other cases we have. While The Pink Mac regularly features cases that we love, most of those cases range from the $50 – $70 range. Now these cases are amazing and have a great level of craftsmanship, however it is obviously a lot of money to invest in a case. This case I am using is different because it cost me a grand total of five dollars (tax not included). I got this case on a whim, it had a nice design, nice feel, and Miss Trenchcoat was getting a pink one so I wanted to match! It really impressed me with the simple design and how it protects the iPad. The rubber feels perfect for gripping and holding, and it surrounds the iPad totally from the back to around the front edge, so it is very hard for dirt and dust to get under the skin of the case. It doesn’t protect the front at all, but with a screen shield on I feel moderately safe leaving the iPad around on a desk or in a drawer. The upside to having no front protection is the iPad is still super thin as intended.

But the point of this article isn’t to review the case, but to remind everyone that those cheap-looking knock-off cases you find in dollar stores may actually turn out to be perfect for your needs. You don’t need to go out spending over $50 for some designer case that you spent hours online researching product reviews of – sometimes it is good to be spontaneous and give the $5 case a shot, because who knows you might end up liking it after all. And at the end of the day, the reason you buy a case for you iPad should be first and foremost: protection. So if it does the same job for less, why not give it a try?

The Pink Mac

Like New

For the last few weeks, my iPad has been acting a bit sluggish. Page turns delayed, apps were slow to open, and the touch screen was hesitant to react to my touch. I have also been having problems with syncing my iPad apps in iTunes. Trying to remove an unused app or trying to sync back on an app I had removed earlier resulted in random apps being removed and added from my iPad. My itunes and my iPad’s settings were both reporting that my ipad was close to full, no matter how many apps I removed from the device. So, this morning, I decided I should try restoring my iPad to see if that helped. I read through the process on Apple’s support site, made sure to backup the documents and images that were saved on my iPad in various programs via dropbox or if necessary, through email. Then I made sure to back up my iPad one last time before taking the plunge and restoring.

The process of restoring and updating took about half an hour in total, and once my iPad was up and running, despite the general disarray of my apps on the desktop, I found everything were it had been before the restore. All my documents were still in place, along with pictures, notes, sketches, etc. The best part was that my iPad and iTunes we’re now reporting that only half of my storage was used, where it has before claimed my iPad was at nearly full capacity.

Overall, I was very impressed with how easy it was to restore my device without loosing a bit of my stored data. I realize that whenever you undertake a restore on any device, there is a risk of loosing information, but in the case of my beloved iPad, I didn’t have to transfer back any of the files I stored in case of emergency. Now, of course, my iPad is running like new again, which is a great feeling!

Image via Flickr

Moleskine The Pink Mac

Moleskine New 2011 Collection

About a week ago, Moleskine released it’s new collection of goods which included not only new versions of their popular journals, but also a travel collection consisting of laptop/work bags, a writing collection consisting of notebook attachable pens and pencils, and a reading collection featuring reading glasses and a book/ereader stand. Their new collection, geared towards the “modern day nomad” blends the elegant styling of the Moleskine brand with the digital vs analog dichotomy faced by the creative and intellectual journalist. As an avid Moleskine enthusiast, I was eager to try out a few items from the new collection and immediately ordered myself the classic rollerball pen and refill, as well as the book/ereader stand.

The Classic Rollerball Pen ($15) is a bit more expensive for it’s quality than I expected. From the images online I would have thought the pen to be a sturdy or solid feeling pen, however, it is very lightweight and feels a bit cheap. It writes effortlessly, which is a plus, but the real reason the pen may be worth its high cost is the custom metal cap that holds the pen to the hard cover of a Moleskine journal. I denote hard cover here because this pen does not seem to be meant for the thin cover of the soft Moleskine collection. However, the pen does sit very nicely on the Moleskine when attached to the hard cover, and is the length of a pocket sized Moleskine. The pen attaches nicely on both the pocket and large sized journals and stays put via rubber lining on the metal clip. Overall, the pen is a bit expensive, but I believe worth it for the convenience of having a well designed pen always attached to my Moleskine.

The E-Reader Stand ($18) is much more of a disappointment to me than the pen. It isn’t that the stand feels cheaply made, on the contrary it feels sturdy in the hand, made from a thick molded plastic with a textured finish that aims to mimic the exterior of a Moleskine. My problem with the stand is that its design is overly simplistic. When it comes to using my iPad with this stand, which is what this was clearly designed for as evident in the stock photos of the product, its very hard to do so with certain cases on the iPad. Now, the iPad in the photos are without a case, but I think that it is a bit unrealistic to create a stand without taking iPad cases into consideration. The only cases that really work with this stand are very simple hard shell type cases, and as someone who prefers the use of folio cases, I was very disappointed. The only one of my folio cases I could get to work with this stand was ironically my Moleskine inspired Portenzo case. Now, iPad cases aside, their is one other gripe I have with this stand and it is that it is also being marketed as a book stand, and in the photos Moleskine shows the stand holding up a large sized hard cover journal. I tried to get the stand to hold up my large sized journal, but it just did not work the way you see it in the pictures. Instead of holding the journal at a nice angle for reading, the journal seemed to slip through the stand. However, when I tried this trick with a pocket journal the stand did hold it up properly, and when I tested some other books, things were either hit or miss, but mostly a miss. Overall, I am very disappointed with the functionality of this stand. I purchased it because I liked the idea of a dual iPad and journal stand for work, but it is not living up to the reputation of a Moleskine product.

tech

Gaming For Under $1 – Collision Effect

Basics: The goal of any level is to bring all the orbs of the same color together, without any hitting each other while on their way! You tap one of the colored orbs and all the orbs of the same color fly towards the one you touched. There are two modes, Action and Puzzle each with their own difficulties. In Action, colored orbs come in from off screen and you must quickly tap an orb before any hit each other. You have to be careful of the paths all orbs take since are all moving and no orb but the ones you touch remain stationary. In Puzzle mode the atmosphere is more calm as all the orbs aren’t moving, but the challenge lies in a more complex arrangement of the colored orbs mixed around.

Gameplay: Either fast paced or slow and steady depending on your game mode. In Action, the orbs come in from off the screen and you have to survive wave after wave of managing when to have them combine. Gets very hectic very fast and panic will rush many times as you see two orbs come within pixels of hitting. In Puzzle, it is much more calm but much more difficult to solve. Complex weaves of orbs blocking other paths cause you to have to think and experiment for a while before you finally get it right.

Controls: You see an orb. You touch an orb. It literally couldn’t be more basic. Working the menu system is more complex then the controls.

Graphics and Sound: Graphics are beautiful with vivid and bright colors and nice particle effects. The sounds and music are very space-themed and remind me ALOT of any Bejeweled game you might play

Overall: This is a steal for .99 cents. I cannot stop playing this even after reviewing it. Whether you want to play it for five seconds or spend half an hour trying to figure puzzles out, you’ll never be bored. With the choice of a mindless, fast paced Action game or the mindboggling, time consuming challenges of the Puzzle mode, you can play Collision Effect for whatever mood your in. Buy it now before the developers realize the goldmine they are sitting on and raise the price!

Cousy’s Grade: A+

The Pink Mac

Email Jail

Like most bloggers, I have a separate email address for my blog correspondences. This would be my Miss.Trenchcoat at yahoo address that I keep listed on my blog and use for all sorts of websites, etc. Well, because I throw this email around all the time, it has become a sort of repository for tons of junk email, so I have gotten into the habit of just never checking it anymore for fear that it will one day explode. This morning, however, I actually went in to see the status of my inbox, flooded with spam and such, but also I discovered that I had a ton of emails from people who had written to ask me questions about my blog and videos, etc. So, I spent the morning cleaning out the inbox and replying to some very old messages that dated back to September. I just wanted to apologize to anyone who reads that may have emailed me a question and never received a response until today. I am going to make an effort to check that email more frequently to clean it out and reply to my readers questions in a timely manner. I did want to put out one idea, however, and that is, if you have a question about a blog post, for the benefit of others, perhaps it would be better to post a comment on my blog, because I always reply to those, and it would be good for others to see the question and my answer in case they were wondering the same thing. Thanks everyone!

The Pink Mac

Incase Origami Workstation for iPad

I think I have found the perfect solution for writing on the go. The Incase Origami Workstation for iPad is a simple but unique Apple Bluetooth keyboard case that folds into a stand for the iPad. Not only does it lock your keyboard in place for a secure fit, but it also allows you to use your iPad while it is in another case. I am really enjoying the simple factor about this, and also the fact that it does double duty as a case for my bluetooth keyboard. All in all, this case is a great option for those who want to turn their iPad into a mobile workstation with the help of a case/keyboard/stand solution, and for only $30, it may be one of the better deals on the market right now! (Keyboard not included!)