Blogger/blogspot links: feedback and more

Useful Blogger Help & Blogspot Support Resources - Digital Inspiration - Amit Agarwal

A handy collection of Blogger power user links. Some I've seen, some not. I like Amit's blog; there's something useful every 1-2 days.

Mind Mapping software

I use Mindjet MindManager for mind mapping at work, and I've used Inspiration in the past. MindManager is quite expensive, the version I use (5) has terrible printing options (can't print the notes easily) and it doesn't have OPML output; but it looks 'professional' (corporate). Inspiration suffers in comparison by looking like an educational market product (which it is).

So I'm shopping a bit for something that has the best features of Inspiration and MindManager with OPML import/export, great PDF output, OS X and XP versions, and reasonable cost.

I'll update this post with my research. At the moment it looks like I should examine NovaMind and OmniGraffle and reconsider Inspiration. I may stay with MindManager -- it does run well under Parallels so I don't have to buy the OS X version.

Some good references so far:

• Open Thread: Mac Mind Mapping, and how you use it | 43 Folders
• MindMapping Weblog: I've added this to my bloglines list.
• google hits on all four: NovaMind, MindManager, OmniGraffle and Inspiration
• ATPM: ConceptDraw (2006)
  
• ATPM: Mindmapping Outliners (2004)
• Neuberg (Tidbits) on Novamind (2006-04-17)
  

NovaMind stands out. It has free downloads for Mac and Windows and does OPML well. The standard editing is $100 (cheap), and the web page seems to suggest that one license might work for Mac and Windows versions, but I can't tell from the page if that's legal use. NovaMind also integrates with the OS X Merlin project management package.

I'm going to try it!

Update 12/5/06: ConceptDraw too! I never expected so many options.

Update 12/5/06b: NovaMind through an uncaught exception in XP within 5 minutes of downloading while I played with a sample file. Scratch that one.

Exotic OS X installer tips: speed up multiple installs

Download all packages, then open all at once?

Minimizing how often you see "Optimizing System Performance" during software installation

....Simply open more than one installation package file at the same time. The Installer application will queue up the packages and install them in order. This even works with third-party package files that use Installer. After the last package is installed, Installer performs optimization on the computer, but usually just one time.

MacInTouch: saving drive space by removing non-english resources

It's not just about saving space on the drive, it's about saving backup storage and backup time! Also, if you don't use iWork, remember to delete the demo version that's installed on every Mac.

I wish Macintouch had permalinks, I'd prefer to link to them rather than quote so much.

MacInTouch: timely news and tips about the Apple Macintosh:

David Turner offered this tip for saving disk space with iWork (which may be especially helpful with a small hard drive in a laptop Mac or Mini):

[David Turner] While copying Pages one day, I noticed it was copying a whole lot of files from /Applications/iWork\ \'06/Pages.app/Contents/Resources/German.lproj. I thought, why do I have these localization files? So I deleted all the various .lproj directories that are not English.lproj. Before I did this, Pages was some 800MB, and now it is only ~250MB. The same trick works for Keynote.

[John Horridge] David Turner's tip for saving disk space by deleting iWork language resources can be made much simpler than digging thru Contents/resources etc. Do Get info on Pages (or Keynote) and under 'Languages, delete the unwanted language resources. ..

[Jim Meiss] Regarding David Turner's remark about slimming down Pages and Keynote by removing any unneeded languages: An application like 'Monolingual' will do this on all of your applications automatically.

[Jim Coefield] Another tip for saving disk space from the multitudes of language resources that eat up disk space on smaller hard drives: use Macaroni. It is a System Preference-level tool that will remove whatever subset of localized resources that you want, and do it regularly (customizable schedule), so you don't have to worry about cleaning up after every little update you may do. Many applications have localized resources, and plowing through your applications to discover them all can be tedious. It has a 35 day free trial, so you can clean up your hard drive, and see if you like it...

I don't like installing system preference tools myself -- too likely to cause subtle bugs IMHO. I've used monolingual before and I may try it again ...

Converting video: formats, methods and media

Pogue’s Posts has a brief discussion on the gloomy options available for archival storage of video. Ok, nothing new really. The comments, however, are excellent. Well worth reading.

XP: Edit the My Places list in the save dialog box

Add a place to store your files - Help and How-to - Microsoft Office Online

Turns out Microsoft Office apps have a hidden tool, seen only in the save dialog box, that allows one to add icons to the left side of the save/save as dialog. Thanks to Andy M. for pointing this out.

Very obscure, very useful.

Office is editing a registry setting. There must be a non-Office utility for managing these 'My Places' entries, I'll look around for it. In OS X one can do drop and drag to add or remove the equivalent shortcuts. Also in OS X, though little known, is the ability to drag and drop an icon from the desktop to the save as dialog to change the target ...

Update 12/3: Alas, the changes only affect Office. So it messes up my workflow by creating application specific behaviors for routine file management funcitons. Thank heavens I don't use XP as much as I once did ...

Update 12/4: XP Power Tools TweakUI allows one to change the standard Windows My Places list. The custom list allows five options. One of my five is a 'shortcuts' folder I use, it has about 20 shortcuts to the projects and files I'm working on currently.

Update 12/11/06: Check out the comments for a way to extend the list by directly editing the registry. I don't know if it's safe to add more than five entries.

Parallels: for OS X: now to try Windows 2000

I had mixed conclusions to my earlier Parallels trial, but seeing it in use by some friends, and thinking about what I need, I'm giving it another go. Microsoft seems to have done a good job getting rid of the cheapo gray-market XP Pro OEM supply, so I'll probably have to either get XP Pro Upgrade through the U (I teach) or use XP Home. Of course if I use upgrade, I need to install something -- and Windows 98 install on Parallels is miserable. So I was interested to read that Windows 2000 used to work nicely. I'll try installing Win2K in the new beta with my trial license while I wait for the copy I ordered from Amazon (via Macintouch) to arrive. (I could have gotten it for $10 less via a friend, but then I'd have to pay shipping. Amazon was about the same price even if I ignore the $10 "rebate".)

Updates pending.

Update 12/2/06:

Well, that's different! Win98 on Parallels is awful, but Win2K on the new beta is merely geeky.

True, all of the embedded strings have grammatical errors. True, my initial Win2K install crashed with a fatal error (secret was to manually enable CD attachment). True, you have to manually install Parallels tools and the documentation is worthless (Install Tools is an option on the Parallels menus, use that). BUT, it's really fast. Win2K boots on the VM about as quickly as OS X boots natively. It feels uncannily solid. Win2K is fundamentally more robust than XP (Windows hacked XP to make Win98 apps run better) and there were no device driver issues with the install. My license ends in 4 days but my copy from Amazon has been ordered.

Even the install flies (except for the crash). It was faster than the XP install.