Brian Dusablon

Wow. Five years, already. Delivery Status is a great little app that started as a simple Dashboard widget. Now it’s a full iOS app with sync, and it’s awesome.

If you’re a geek, like me, and order almost everything online, you want to know when your latest goodies are going to arrive. Enter Delivery Status.

The latest version has a wonderful new feature, clipboard and tracking number detection.

In you’re copying and pasting a tracking number into the app, we’ve taken this detection a step further. As soon as you open the app, Delivery Status looks at your clipboard to see if you’ve copied something that looks like a tracking number. If you have, it will ask if you’d like to add a new delivery. Tap OK, verify the settings, tap Save, and you’re done.

I was pleasantly surprised by this feature last night.

The old process:

1. Copy tracking number from site or email.
2. Open Delivery Status.
3. Tap + icon to add new delivery.
4. Paste tracking number.
5. Select shipping company.
6. Tap OK.
7. Verify or modify settings and tap Save.

Whew…SEVEN steps!

The new process:

1. Copy tracking number from site or email.
2. Open Delivery Status.
3. Tap OK.
4. Verify or modify settings and tap Save.

Much better!

Kudos to Junecloud for five years of a great utility.

You can get a free version of the iOS app (the Dashboard widget is free) by liking them on Facebook.

This is a sentence I never thought I would publish: Beginning the first week in April I will be writing shawnblanc.net as my full-time gig.

- Shawn Blanc

Shawn Blanc goes full time. I’ve been a reader for several years now. Shawn has excellent, detailed software reviews, and his “Sweet Mac Setups” series is addicting and informative.

Congrats to Shawn. This is every geek writer’s dream. A full time gig to write geek stuff online. Awesome.

He’s having a membership drive, something I’m undecided on, but I signed up for three months, at least. Cool prizes are involved.

Along with the new MacBook Pros, Apple had some news about Mac OS X Lion, today. The biggest news for me, other than that they inexplicably don’t come standard with SSD, was that Lion Server is part of the regular package. This is awesome.

What intrigued me the most about Lion Server is this tidbit:

Profile Manager Profile Manager delivers simple, profile-based setup and management for Mac OS X Lion, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. It also integrates with your existing directory services and delivers automatic over-the-air profile updates using the Apple Push Notification service.

I might be reading too much between the lines, but is there hope for profiles on iOS devices? Oh how I would love to be able to manage multiple profiles on our iPad(s), and do it all from my Mac Mini hub.

I recently sold my 2008 Macbook Pro. I no longer need a powerhouse computer. We have a Mac Mini as our home hub, and I just dropped an SSD in it (which used to be in the Macbook Pro), and it has 8GB of RAM, so it’s the machine I use for photos, family videos, iTunes, iPhone/iPad syncing, etc. It lives in the study inside the house.

I sold the Macbook Pro because I found I wasn’t using it much. It’s battery life was mediocre, so I pretty much used it as a desktop out in the office. Recently, I’d been using the Mini a lot more often, and the iPad for reading, research, social media and drafting blog posts. I determined the reason for this was that the Macbook Pro was just too bulky. I didn’t want to use it as a true laptop while watching TV, and I rarely needed it on client visits.

Now to the point of this post – the basics. When I put the SSD in the Macbook Pro, I didn’t install all my usual apps right away. I decided to install as needed. The SSD is ridiculously fast (I highly recommend this upgrade), so installing and launching apps is a quick job. It was also only 120GB, but I knew I wasn’t going to be installing iLife or using it as my iTunes library.

Here are the apps I installed on days one and two (out of necessity).

• 1Password
• Alfred
• Audio Hijack Pro
• Chrome
• Coda
• Dropbox
• Evernote
• Growl
• MarsEdit
• Numbers
• Skype
• SoundSource
• SuperDuper
• Transmit

What I found was that I didn’t use much of the drive space at all for the apps I use every day.

In fact, I was only using about 12GB!

Even after a month or two, I hadn’t used much more of the drive. My client files are mostly WordPress theme files and temporary archives.

This post is rambling on. I tried to edit it a couple times and reorganize it, but it’s just that kind of post, I suppose. So what’s the point?

For me, it’s that I don’t need much. With just the basics, I can do everything I need to do. I don’t need the larger screen. I don’t need 500GB of storage. What I need is a light, portable machine that’s a pleasure to type on and begs to be used anywhere and everywhere. Enter the Macbook Air. I’m not purchasing one right away – I’m going to wait for the refresh and OS X Lion this summer.

In the interim, I’ll continue to use the Mini and the iPad.

I encourage you to look at what you actually use. I understand most of you have a laptop as your main machine, and need the space for photos, videos, etc. However, if you do have a hub, take a look at your portable and see if you need half the apps/content you have on it. I’ve purposely limited the space I allow myself on Dropbox, on my laptop, and on my iPad. This forces me to be smart about what I save, where I save it, and how I process it.

I don’t think I’ll ever need more than 64 or 128GB on a laptop again. 12-16GB for the OS and core apps, and the rest as a temporary spot for client files, photos and videos if I’m traveling. I want speed. Instant on. Immediate productivity.

I’ve been tweaking my setup for years, trying to find the balance. With the introduction of the iPad, and the drop in cost for SSDs, that balance has arrived. The powerful home hub, an iPad (or two) and a ultra-portable (the Macbook Air).

It’s just too bad I have to wait until the summer to try out this new setup.

This post is about Saddleback Leather Company.

I’ve been drooling over Dave’s creations for a while now. I’ve sent their customer service folks a bunch of blabbering emails about size, quality, fit, etc. They have been more than gracious and are incredibly responsive and sincere. What I should have done was bought one. I’ve finally done that, and now I’m eagerly anticipating the arrival of a dark coffee medium traditional briefcase. I picked one up off the “Dave’s Deals” page, at a significant discount.

Saddleback Leather Traditional Briefcase

I’m trying to minimize my setups and what I carry, but I went off-course a little with this purchase. I could have bought the slim or even a satchel, but I went with the traditional briefcase. The reason: my SLR. I want to shoot more photography. I love it. Why don’t I shoot more now? Because I never have my SLR with me. Why? Because I don’t carry my camera bag everywhere. I carry a backpack. I want a bag that is my everything, everywhere, every time bag and I’m hoping this is it. It should hold, comfortably, while not being ridiculously bulky or heavy (the bag alone weighs in at a moderate 6.5 lbs), my laptop, my iPad, cables, cords, notebooks, my SLR and a lens or two.

The quality will no doubt be amazing. I will be shooting some video (using a tripod and my new glif) when I receive it, and will post a thorough review.

My old method was to buy cheap and replace often, mostly because I’m indecisive and easily influenced. My new method: find quality, buy quality and use the hell out of it.

This bag will last me a lifetime (“they’ll fight over it when you’re dead”), and I hope to give it to my son when I’m finished with it.

Also, a side note, I love writing as well. I hope to post more on this blog, and possibly even start a book I’ve been pondering for a long time. This is the first attempt at writing more – I had a though, and rather than waiting until later to post about it, I just wrote. It felt wonderful.