Mac20Q news June 2012

Last weekend I took the opportunity to go and visit Dublin, the occasion was the final exhibition of my sons Art degree course. His final exhibit was a computer game which he produced on a Mac of course. I was able to play this game with one of those funny joystick things. I wasn’t very good at it because I haven’t used one of those things before, but I was still impressed with the game.

Procreate – make some drawings on the iPad

I was also able to introduce him to drawing on the iPad using the Procreate application. Procreate is my favourite drawing application for the iPad at the moment, although maybe it is joint first place with Art Studio. He is a caricature artist and I know of one or two other caricaturists that use the iPad for their work. Jack thought that the iPad was a pretty good tool for drawing with. Must get him to look at Pixelmator too.


free applications

iMage Tools

Dublin backpackers Hostel

While I was in Dublin I stayed at a backpackers hostel in Temple Bar. The first night there was pretty dreadful in terms of ability to get to sleep. Temple Bar is a very noisy area and there were people coming in and out of the dormitory style room most of the night. The hostel did have some Wi-Fi and I was very pleased that I was able to use it to have a Skype conversation with home. I did get a little confused having to Skype applications on the iPad. One was the actual iPad version and the other was the version for the iPhone. I have now deleted the iPhone version from the iPad to make things a little bit more simple.

I took quite a few photos one in Dublin and also on a visit to Loughcrew Gardens in Co. Meath. My oldest son runs a outdoor education facility there and I had fun walking around the woods and flying down a zip line.

One of the features of LoughCrew in HDR glory

<img style=”display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;” src=”http://mac20q.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Loughcrew-pond_strong.jpg” alt=”Loughcrew pond strong” title=”Loughcrew pond strong” ” border=”0″ width=”600″ height=”398″ />

Hands on with a Canon 5D Mk3

Another highlight of the visit to Ireland was to get to have a Canon 5D Mark three camera in my hands. This is the camera belonging to my middle son who is a professional cameraman, hence the very expensive kit. The Canon 5 D has a very high quality feel to it, as you would expect with the price of it. I will have to continue to make do with my excellent Canon 600D for some time to come.

Although I missed being in front of my iMac, I found that the iPad is a perfect travel companion. At one point, I did find that I wished I had a later version with a camera in it so that I could get an image of a QR code and the information that was behind it.

Roaming with the iPhone 3G

I did have my iPhone with me, my trusty old iPhone 3G. I was not able to use it an awful lot because I didn’t set up a roaming with my mobile phone network provider before I left. It was still handy to have with me, along with the extra fully charged battery pack that slots onto the back of it. This is despite the fact that so many applications these days do require that you also have an Internet connection. I really could do with upgrading the phone to the iPhone 4S, but the money is not going to allow that for quite a while. The first priority will be to get the new iPad. That is the trouble with being a geek these days, the cost of the gear leaves you with some conundrums as to which you need more urgently.

What? No password generator in 1Password for iPad

Password Crafter

This week I have wanted to set up a password while using the iPad. I have the 1 password application and I was surprised to find that there is no password generator within the iPad application. Within the desktop version of the software you can easily create passwords off sufficient length and complexity but there is nothing in the iPad version. I was quite surprised by this but fortunately I was able to find a free password generator called Password Crafter. With password crafter you can create passwords up to 25 characters long and you can choose to include uppercase lowercase, numbers and symbols.

<img style=”display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;” src=”http://mac20q.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/IMG_0333.png” alt=”Mac20Q News” title=”Mac20Q News” ” border=”0″ width=”450″ height=”600″ />

Once you have chosen the length of the password you can also choose how many passwords you wanted to create. You can choose up to 25 passwords to be created. I usually only need only one password to be created at any one time. I will let it create 10 or 12 passwords and then I can choose one from the list. All you have to do is to tap on the password that you want and then tap on the copy button. Once you have your password on the clipboard you can manoeuvre to your application, probably Safari where you are creating an account that needs a username and password on some website or other.

Agilebits told me it was coming

The people at 1Password have said that they are going to include password generator in the iPad version. I have to say that I think it is unbelievable that it is not in there already.

Mac20Q Accounting applications

As you can see from previous posts this week I have been looking at Mac financial software. I have started by looking at the application called Cashculator which looks at your finances in a broad brush style. Cashculator is more about gaining overall control of your money so that you can see how much you need to save for something. It is also there so that you can see what your money is going to be like in the financial future with regards income and expenses. I also have MoneyWiz on the iPad and I will be doing a review of that one quite soon.

Back to work at the beach campsite

I now have two months of work at the campsite beside the beach. This is where I’m going to find some of the cash to buy the new iPad. Hopefully I will still be able to keep up with the articles for Mac 20 questions and the videos for the Wizardgold to YouTube channel.