Working with Gmail on your Mac
Back in the days of my first connections to the Internet, first webmail services were something very useful. It was tough to get a POP mailbox, so connecting over very slow and expensive dialups was the only way to go. Nowadays I have 9 different POP e-mail accounts, but still use one on a webmail provider. Gmail is powerful and versatile, so I like having one of my non-business accounts in a place that I can access from everywhere. In the last year or so I have tested a couple of Gmail related "interfaces", including widgets and a notifier. Here is my perspective on the pros, cons and wishes...
I came across a number of situations where I needed to access my business e-mail from an insecure environment. I am talking about conferences, exhibitions, as well as airports and open WLAN hotspots. Majority of free e-mail providers, such as Google GMail and Yahoo! have options to login by using a https connection over secure sockets layer (SSL) or transport layer security (TLS). However, in my case, a couple of business mailboxes can be accessed via a webmail that doesn't offer any kind of encryption. The solution is pretty simple - create your own SSH Tunnel.
VisualRoute is a tool aimed at networking professionals that need reliable diagnostics software. It comes in six versions that give you the power of connectivity analysis from a single computer, a remote desktop or a remote server.
When it comes to your workstation, one of the things you certainly want to be aware of is what’s happening with your outgoing network connections. If you’re curious to find out if a program is sending information about your machine to a remote server or just want to see exactly what’s happening in the background during your usual surfing activities, Little Snitch will promptly tell you all about it.
While you're working in your Mac OS X environment, often you need to make an operation that requires a password (access e-mail, a password protected website, etc.) or you need administrator access to perform a certain task. As you use more services and access more systems, over time this entails the input of a multitude of passwords during your daily work.
I am one of those computer users that have hundreds of icons on the desktop and stuff lying all around my user folder. I often tend to complicate my life by not organizing files, so often my iBook gets clogged. In the process of finding cool tools to help me in my "spring cleaning", I came across a piece of software that should at least assist by finding duplicate files.
I had a situation where I needed to control two computers over the Internet. The best solution for me was to use VNC networking technology. VNC stands for Virtual Network Computer and is a real nice way to remotely control computers through a GUI interface in which you see the remote desktop. I tried all of the Mac OS X VNC clients I came across and from my experience Chicken of the VNC is the way to go.
A couple of weeks ago we received a review copy of Comic Life. Until that moment I wasn't introduced to this piece of software, but I always liked comics, so I took this software from our review queue. As you can probably figure out yourself, Comic Life gives you the possibility of easy creating your own comics or comic style photo images. I must say I am quite impressed with it, but read on for all the details.
While browsing, I often send interesting links to a colleague of mine. Every time I want to do this I need to copy the URL, open the Mail.app, fill in his info, paste the address and send the e-mail. As I am doing this about 4-5 times a day, it starts to be a little annoying to do all these repetitive steps. There is an easier way to do this by using Automator.
If you are using the Safari web browser, you probably either have your own solution for this, or you are in a desperate need to solve the little thing that gets on your nerves. I am talking about preventing Safari from automatically closing all tabs if you accidentally click the Quit Safari key combo.
Being an icon and wallpaper junkie I want my desktop to have a new feel at least once a week. This leads me to search high and low for all the design elements I need to gather in order to make the perfect OS experience.
Backpack is a powerful web service that offers its users a great way to organize their files, write personal and business notes, create reminders, collaborate on business ideas etc. Its structure is based on specific pages, where you can write or upload your files.
Over the weekend I was checking the Apple site to find some useful widgets. I found some good ones, but in the process of browsing I came across some rather useless "Gaming" widgets. Between all of the strange ones I installed, here are the ones that I find the most useless.
There's an abundance of software titles and services you can use to keep an eye on RSS feeds. Today I'm taking a look at NewsMac Pro, a software title that's been on the market for a while and has received praise for both its usability and overall feel. The target of this review is NewsMac Pro 1.2.2, the latest version of the program, released only a few days ago.
The good thing about sites like this is that you are always in the loop with news on the latest Mac software. Yesterday we were 
This article will show you how to easily setup a free DNS service that will give your Mac computer a static hostname. There are a lot of possibilities you can use this for, as most of the Internet connections offer dynamic IP addresses. Having a dedicated hostname can make it easier to remotely connect to your computer and run any kind of server.
Reading your favorite RSS feeds on iPods is a piece of cake. Naturally there will be questions regarding the actual need of reading RSS items on your iPod, but you should know that a lot of web sites offer full articles inside their feeds. I just tested a free utility called iFeedPod and it does the trick.
In this article I will try to share my experience with the best piece of hardware I ever used - a 12.1-inch iBook G4. I focused the article on giving my comments on different aspects of the iBook - software, hardware and the overall appearance. The article is accompanied by screenshots, photos and a small video.
In case you lose your iPod (or any other external drive for that matter) or it gets stolen your data is in danger. I'm one of those people that constantly carries data on their iPod between two locations and I want to keep it safe. What follows is a brief tutorial aimed at those that want their data protected without investing in commercial software. In case you didn't know, you can increase your privacy pretty easily with features embedded directly into Mac OS X.
Mac GNU Privacy Guard is the Mac OS X port of the popular security utility. I have been using GnuPG for more than 5 years now and it is the best available open source solution for various encryption purposes. This article guides the reader through Mac GNU Privacy Guard installation, as well as its basic functions.
