Productivity The Pink Mac

The Missing Links 4.14.12

This week, the tech world was abuzz with news that Facebook had acquired Instagram after it had announced it had reached 40 million users after its release for Android. With all the commentary surrounding this epic move, you may have missed these little gems.

Happy Reading!
{Image via Flickr}

Productivity The Pink Mac

Paper: A Beautiful Experience

Paper’s simple, yet stunning interface mimics the feeling of your private journal perfectly.

The other day I tweeted “is it possible for a productivity/creativity app to make you more of both?”

This has been the question lingering in my mind for quite some time now ever since I downloaded the new app Paper by FiftyThree. The app is a seamless mix of productivity, creativity, and note-taking. The variety of pens for the app give the user the ability to express themselves in a seemingly endless number of ways. From sketching to notetaking, drawing to idea mapping, Paper brings the best of creativity to a productivity app. With Paper the user has complete control over their experience, able to transform the app to fit different day to day needs in a way no previous app has been able to. It is as if the full potential of the iPad has been reached with Paper as the app itself seems to disappear under the stroke of the users’ finger, opening up the creative channel of the user themselves. Personally, I have never found an app geared towards productivity and creativity that allows me to work in what I consider to be my own natural mode. The thing other great apps like Penultimate lack is truly the ability to mix media. Allowing the user to switch from a true drawing experience to a true writing experience to a true painting experience, all while allowing handwritten notes in a variety of styles. And the beautiful interface doesn’t hurt either!

With Paper I am easily able to sketch out ideas in a beautiful and expressive way.

The app itself of course is not without some flaws. There is the issue of the apps rigidity when it comes to manipulating the Moleskine-like journals, (for example one cannot reorder pages of a journal or transfer pages from one to another) and also some issues with the sharing capabilities of the app that are sub par for today’s app standards. The app is also missing some great functions like text input and image uploads that could open the app up to scrap booking functionality. All this, however, does not detract from the creative genius of the app as a whole. This app has made my own personal brainstorming sessions even more successful and creative then I could have originally imagined. Perhaps it was my own creativity laying in wait for me, or perhaps it was the app’s ability to open up and take in my ideas that forced them out. Either way I am sketching and brainstorming and notetaking in creative ways I have never before experienced on my iPad. As someone who has multiple unused productivity apps downloaded to their iPad, it is interesting that I have found myself continually coming back day after day, hour after hour to Paper.

tech The Pink Mac

What’s in My BAG?

The Pink Mac

Become a "TV Hacker" in 3 seconds.

Your watching your favorite TV show or movie, when suddenly the bad guy is 60 seconds away from blowing up the moon. There is only one thing your hero can do – hack into the mainframe of the villain and shut it down before its too late. They frantically type away, spitting out lines of code at 80 words-per-minute in an attempt to thwart this evil plot.

20 seconds left, and the impatience of the cast around the hero causes outbursts of “Dammit, dammit! I’m almost through the firewall!”

10 seconds. Your hero is in, writing the final lines of code to deactivate the moon-blower-upper. Beads of sweat drip from their brow.

3 seconds, 2….. Your hero hits enter, flawlessly executing the program with no debugging to save the day once again.

So the question is, do you want to be just like your hero in the show? Just go to http://www.hackertyper.com and start typing, soon enough and with enough practice you will be able to be just like your favorite actor or actress when they do it on the set.

tech The Pink Mac

DODODCASE Essentials Unboxing

My new DODOCASE Essentials for iPad 3 arrived today and I did a quick unboxing video to share with everyone since I know so many people have been buzzing about this case online. I am really loving it so far, but I have one major issue. I was under the impression from the DODOCASE.com website that the Essentials case came with a magnetic strip that activated the iPad’s sleep/wake function, however, I think I am missing that magnet because mine is not working 🙁 I left a message for DODOCASE on their Facebook page so hopefully they will let me know if this was a feature or not. I should have a full review of the case soon, but in the meantime, here is the unboxing… enjoy!

The Pink Mac

Backyard Home Office

Lately I have been obsessing a lot about the idea of a backyard home office, also known as a detached home office. For someone who works from home, I think it achieves the balance of convenience and professionalism because you are still working from home, but you are physically outside of your house so I think it gives that “at the office” mentality. In some scenes the extra space can be used for far more than an office and even function as a retreat in your own backyard. Either way I want one, but of course that would mean I would need to get myself a home and a backyard first. Well, we can file this under future plans! Below are some amazing backyard home offices I found from around the web. They are all so unique and peaceful, I would find it hard to pick just one.

The Pink Mac

Angry Birds: Space – an in-depth review

Not even kidding, just buy it. Seriously stop reading this review and download the game now. Your still reading, why aren’t you downloading it? GET IT ALREADY!!!

Okay, okay – you want a real review, got it.
I happened to browse the app store today to see that the newest installment of Angry Birds has been released. Now, I haven’t played Angry Birds since the original, and I have avoided the updated games Seasons, Rio, and whatever else they might have come up with. I really didn’t like Angry Birds too much anymore, it was old and boring. That was before Space.

Maybe it has something to do with my weird taste in games where anything involving space and orbits makes me happy, but Angry Birds: Space has quickly become my favorite game on my iPhone. It takes the classic game play of flinging birds out of a slingshot and updates it to a whole new game play. Now your birds rocket out, effected by the weightlessness of space, and the pull of gravity due to planets. A helpful guide shows where your bird will fly and how it will be pulled by the new forces. Birds will orbit around planets, taking out pigs on all sides, Black bombing birds will asteroids in weightless space to rocket off in an array of directions depending on where you detonate. There is so much more that I haven’t even touched on, but trust me, the whole game is amazing! This game has completely re-worked the universe of Angry Birds and the game play associated with it. I am only on level 1-18 and I am hooked.

So why haven’t you bought it yet???