Jailbroken!

So! I took the plunge and jailbroke my iPhone 3GS last night. I have to admit that I was nervous about jailbreaking, even though I had jailbroken both my old iPhones (2G & 3G). Regardless, the process was extremely easy and went quickly and smoothly.

I was most concerned about the speed of the device after it was jailbroken. All around, I have to say, I’m very pleasantly surprised! Its still fast. Winterboard (the iPhone theming app for jailbroken iPhones) now has a setting to only load on the springboard, so it won’t slow down any apps. This makes a huge difference and the phone feels just as snappy as ever.

So far this is my most positive experience with a jailbroken phone. I just love it.

iPhone 3GS & iPhone 3.0 Firmware

So… I got the new 3GS! A 32GB White 3GS, to be exact.

And… well, I love it. I’ve had both previous models of iphones (a white 16 GB 3G and a 8GB 2G), and now, with the added speed, space, and new firmware, it finally feels like the phone it was meant to be.

A few notes on the phone and firmware (all mixed together)…

(Read the rest)

Unibody MacBook For Sale!

I’m selling my high end mint-condition 2008 Unibody MacBook!

• Backlit Keyboard

• 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo

• 4 GB RAM

• 320 GB Hard Drive

• 2 1/2 years of AppleCare

• More photos here

Sold! Thanks to all who were interested! :)

Favorite Mac Freeware

For absolutely no reason, a quick top five of my favorite Mac freeware applications…

• Transmission
  Transmission is, without a doubt, the most reliable, usable, and best looking Mac BitTorrent client I’ve ever used. It offers great customization, and can handle a large amount of files while remaining relatively lightweight.

• Sequel Pro
  Sequel Pro is a fantastic MySQL application for the Mac. Its clean, fast, and as far as I can tell, bug free. If you have to spend a significant amount of time working with MySQL, I’d really suggest trying this.

• Symbolic Linker
  Symbolic Linker is a tiny contextual menu plugin that when clicked, will create a Symbolic Link for the selected file for you. This is a huge time saver if you ever create symbolic links on a Mac. Its one of those apps that I was wishing existed, and was incredibly happy when I discovered that it did exist. Its just plain genius.

• NetNewsWire
  I actually bought NetNewsWire many years ago, long before it became a freeware app. It is a fantastic RSS news reader. Many have created beautiful themes for the app. However I don’t always use NetNewsWire for its news reading capabilityes. I use it most of the time for it’s dock menu. It has a great dock menu that lets you know when your favorite websites have updated via RSS. The best way for me to explain it is with a screenshot.

• Fluid
  Fluid is another genius app. Fluid allows you to create “SSBs”, or site specific web browser. Basically you can make custom browsers that only go to a designated site. The fact is that there are many websites that we frequent constantly, or that we always have up in a browser window. The natural next step is designated ‘apps’ for those sites that you always have to visit, and Fluid does it wonderfully.

Nuvola 1.2

This is just a quick update to my Nuvola theme for Bluebird. The main difference is that it shows relative time instead of the regular time (such as ‘3 minutes ago’). When you mouse-over a tweet, the time disappears and reply/dm/permalink/retweet buttons appear. Its kind of fun!

Thanks to Na Wong & Alex Sancho for help with getting the relative time back!

Download Nuvola 1.2.

Nuvola 1.1 for Bluebird 1.1

I’ve updated Nuvola. Please see the update here.

I’ve made a quick update to Nuvola for the new version of Bluebird . It is a bit different, now when your mouse hovers over a tweet, buttons for replies, direct messages, and re-tweeting will appear in the upper right-hand corner. ;)

Download Nuvola 1.1.

Nuvola!

I’ve updated Nuvola. Please see the update here.

I’ve updated my Bluebird theme that I released last week. Although it looks very similar, it was pretty much completely redone. I have renamed it Nuvola, which means “cloud” in Italian. I figure it fits since it is white, blue and gray. ;)

When you double-click anywhere in a tweet, buttons will slide down for replying, direct messaging, and re-tweeting. It also now features relative time, and when you click the time of the tweet, it will take you to the tweet’s permalink in your browser. Lastly, the background colors have been refined for readability. You can see the new features in action here.

Thank you to Na (for relative time & avatar mask) and to Laurent (for his amazing themes!). :D

Download Nuvola.

Bluebird!

I’ve updated Nuvola. Please see the update here.

So a early beta of the great little Mac OSX twitter application, Bluebird was released yesterday! I have been testing it for the past few weeks, and its just a fantastic little app.

I quickly whipped up a mod of one of the bluebird themes for fun, you can see a preview of it above… and you can download my Bluebird theme here. :)

[For anyone who downloaded it off of my twitter, little changes include: better spacing overall and better-looking direct messages.]

MacBook Decoration

So I had been toying with the idea of getting my unibody MacBook etched for quite a while. I had my artwork all picked out. But then I lost my nerve. Although I have no plans to sell my MacBook anytime soon, I may want to sell her someday. Etching my laptop will most likely completely ruin the resale value. So I decided against etching.

Instead I had a custom decal of the artwork made. Overall I am very happy with it. I think it looks elegant and gives the same idea of etching. Except of course its completely removable. I’m a fan. <3

Just for fun, here is a second photo of the MacBook alongside my cat Daisy who is sunning herself on my bed…

You can get your own laptop decals made at Lewa’s. I highly recommend her. :)

Automatic Tr.im URL Shortening & Click Tracking with TextExpander

The guys who make one of my favorite applications, TextExpander, posted a great tip a while back to automatically shorten urls that are on the clipboard with the tr.im service.

It works wonderfully, except there is no way to track how many people click your shortened urls because you’re not logged into your tr.im account when the urls are shortened. There is a crazy easy way to log in to your tr.im account when TextExpander shortens your urls.

• Add this line as a new TextEpxander snippet and set it as an Applescript. Fill in your username and password where it says username:password.

• do shell script "curl --basic -u username:password http://tr.im/api/trim_url.xml?url=pbpaste | tr '>' 'n' | tr '<' 'n' | grep -m 1 -A 1 url | tail -1"

  
  

• You can also simply download this TextExpander snippet to add to TextExpander. You still must put your username and password where it says username:password. :)

• Set the shortcut to something like “trm” or similar.

Thats it! Anytime you want to shorten a url in any application, copy the url to the clipboard. Next go to where you’d like to paste the url. Type in “trm” or your shortcut, and it will paste the shortened url automatically.