Easier editing with MarsEdit?

RedSweaterLogo.png This is going to be an interesting test of whether I prefer creating my blog entries online in the WordPress interface or in the latest version of Red Sweater’s MarsEdit application. I have to admit I’ve got used to the WordPress interface since I’ve been blogging, and the fact that you can arrange text around your images so that it all looks seamless is a real plus point for me. Also, as I currently only blog from a Mac Pro, then I’m always online, so access to the WordPress interface is easy.

So what’s the interest in MarsEdit? Well I plan on buying a MacBook (some day) and I’d like to be able to travel about and perhaps update my blog as and when I feel like it, without an internet connection in sight – sort of roaming reporter style. Given that I’ve got rid of my car and will be relying on either my bicycle or public transport to get around, it’ll be nice to be able to create content for my blog while sitting on the train for example.

I have pitched right in and am writing this entry directly in MarsEdit so we’ll see Preview of “Easier editing with MarsEdit?”.pnghow it pans out. First up, it’s rich text I’m after. I want to make the words Red Sweater bold in the first paragraph. In WordPress you get a WYSIWYG editor, so it’s simply a case of highlighting the text and clicking on the ‘B’ icon. Here it’s much the same, just highlight the text, go to the Markup dropdown and choose bold from the list. Ok, MarsEdit isn’t WYSIWYG with the default setting of BBEdit as the editor, so instead of seeing the word change to bold type in the editor, you just see the HTML tags around the word. Having said that, with the Preview window open, you get to see the results straightaway – I can live with that, in fact I might even prefer it. You can choose from a selection of other editors like WriteRoom etc., so there’s flexibility in there.

The second thing I wanted to try out is adding an image. I’ll start out with Red Sweater’s logo, aligning it to the top left of my post and letting text flow around it to the right. Here goes… place the cursor where I want the image to go, click on the Media button, drag the logo image into the Media Manager window, choose the alignment and click Upload & Insert. There, what could be easier? Ok, I’m missing the padding that the WordPress editor puts around an image, so the ‘r’ or Sweater rides up against the text of the article, but hey it’s not bad for a first attempt. I dare say as long as I know what the HTML tags are for doing it I’ll be able to sort that out. Actually that’s a good point – using MarsEdit may take a little extra effort initially but I expect the plus side of having all these HTML tags floating before your eyes is that you can tweak it quite easily if you have the know how.

Right, the next test will be a little trickier. I want to add a screen grab around about the third paragraph, have it aligned over to the right, and make it a bit smaller than real life. Here goes…. Ok, first reaction is yikes! My preview window is showing a huge image bisecting my post. However, I can see a width=904 tag and a height=681 tag, so my initial thoughts are that if I reduce those values to 25% of what they are, I’ll get an image reduced in size accordingly. Ok, so change 904 to 226 and 681 to 170 and… yep, that did it. Ok, in the WordPress editor you can choose from four preset sizes and you can resize dynamically with a drag ‘handle’, but this still seems perfectly workable.

Right, I have two tests left. First is to add a hyperlink to the word MarsEdit in the first paragraph, so you can jump to the product page easily (aren’t I good to you). Second test will be to publish this little effort. Ok, I’ve already copied the link to the clipboard, so let’s go and highlight the word and see what the Markup menu has to offer… ah, Paste Link did exactly what I wanted, turning the word MarsEdit into a clickable link. I’m almost there, just have to choose a few categories and publish it. Picking the categories is just a case of ticking the ones you want seeing as MarsEdit has already downloaded my ones from WordPress – ok that’s done. Finally, the Send to Weblog icon looks like just what I’m after, so in a few minutes this little effort will be visible to the whole world.

I have to say my first experience of MarsEdit has been a positive one. Everything seems inuitive, and while I may not have been as creative with this post as I have been with others, well it’s a start. When I do finally get my MacBook I think I’ll be buying a copy of MarsEdit to use as an offline editor. The learning curve may be a bit steeper that the WYSIWYG editor WordPress now gives you, but the freedom of creating blog content on the go is quite appealing – just need to save for the MacBook first!

Click to enlarge...

Click to enlarge...

Addendum – I’m editing this post in the WordPress editor now as I’ve got one observation to make. The screengrab I added above and reduced to 25% of its size doesn’t have a link to the full sized version of the image, which is what you get by default when using the WordPress editor (see the example at the start of this paragraph). This may be as simpe a finding some setting or option in MarsEdit so I’ll have a look. Still, not bad for a first attempt eh?

Snow Leopard – Got the disk, but still waiting

Please wait...

Please wait...

Yes I’ve upgraded my Mac Mini to Snow Leopard, and yes I’ve done a test install of it on the Mac Pro using a spare disk, and it looks great. However, much as I’m keen to upgrade to the latest and greatest OS on my Mac Pro… I can’t.

There are a few key applications that are holding me back.

Logitech Control Centre 3.0 – having a Logitech MX Revolution mouse and a Logitech diNovo Keyboard for Mac, the LCC software is pretty much essential. The current version of LCC (version 3.0) won’t even install under Snow Leopard, and although there are some workarounds to get it installed and to get some of the functionality back, it’s not elegant. Logitech are apparently working on a Snow Leopard compatible version of LCC that should be released “any day now”.

Evernote 1.4.8 – I use Evernote all the time for creating and syncing notes between my two Macs and my Windows (work) laptop. While Evernote 1.4.8 will install and run under Snow Leopard, there are certain things that are broken. There is a Snow Leopard compatible version (1.4.9) in the works, but it’s not out yet. As I write this, Evernote 1.4.9 has appeared on MacUpdate!

VMware Fusion 2.0.5 – another of my core apps, I run my work (Windows) desktop under VMware when I’m working from home. Fusion 2.0.5 won’t even load up under Snow Leopard in 64-bit mode, so best to wait for a fix. No timescales on that one…

1Password 2.9.31 – again, this is something I use every day for storing website logins, secure notes, license details, etc. It will work under Snow Leopard with  some caveats, e.g. it only supports Safari in 32-bit mode. For proper supported S/L functionality it seems I should wait for 1Password 3.0 to make it out of beta. As a registered user I can access the latest beta 3.0 version, but given how critical the data is that I store in 1Password, I’d rather wait for the release version to be on the safe side.

Adobe Lightroom 2.4 – home for all my photos and version 2.4 is reported to have issues under Snow Leopard. Another wait…

DropBox 0.6.556 – great for syncing files between my various machines, but it seems a few bits of this version are broken under Snow Leopard. There’s a version 0.6.557 on MacUpdate but it doesn’t mention S/L compatibility. There’s an experimental build 0.7.12 available, but again, I don’t want to trust my data to something experimental.

EyeTV 3.1.2 – apparently it works but there are problems with the sound.

goSecure 1.2 – the developer hasn’t yet confirmed this is Snow Leopard compatible, although I tried it out on my Mac Mini and it seems to work OK.

MailTags 2.3 – the developer has stated that 2.3 isn’t Snow Leopard compatible and that a new version is on the way.

…and there are a few more.

Wake me up when it’s Christmas.

Snow Leopard thaws my Logitech webcam mike!

Speak up... I CAN hear you!

Speak up... I CAN hear you!

While I’ve upgraded my Mac Mini to Snow Leopard 10.6, I haven’t yet taken the plunge on my 2008 Mac Pro. This is mainly because I am bug testing some iPhoto software for someone and it would be unfair to change the underlying OS half way through as it would most likely just confuse matters. However, I do now have my Western Digital Caviar ‘Black’ 1Tb drive and so with an hour or so to spare I removed the existing 4 drives and popped it in, just to see how a fresh install of Snow Leopard would run on a Mac Pro.

The installation recognized my Logitech MX Revolution Mouse and Logitech diNovo Keyboard Mac Edition (both plugged in using a Logitech wireless USB dongle), so it was simply a matter of answering a few questions and waiting. Once installed, a Software Update for Remote Screen installed itself, then I was left to play for a while. The Logitech Control Centre v3.0 software refused to install (there is a workaround), so I was unable to use any of the extended features of my keyboard or mouse, however there was some good news about another of my Logitech peripherals.

Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro

Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro

My Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro now works with Snow Leopard’s built-in speech recognition!! Under Leopard 10.5.x, the microphone in this webcam simply refused to work with the Mac’s built-in speech recognition software. It would work fine with other apps like Skype, iChat, etc., and your voice would even register in the OS X speech recognition window, but getting the Mac to recognize anything was impossible and it was a widely reported problem. However, under Snow Leopard I decided to give it another go and what do you know – it worked! Off I went, quoting the phrases on the calibration panel… What time is it? Quit this application. Open a document… and so on. Each one registered first time and I was then able to use speech recognition as I’d always wanted. I am now wondering if the mike will work with MacSpeech Dictate under Snow Leopard? Who knows.

Eventually the time came to stop experimenting and put the Mac Pro back to Leopard 10.5.8. Naturally once I’d put all the original drives back I tried out speech recognition with the webcam and it steadfastly refused to play ball. I am wondering if I upgraded from 10.5.8 to 10.6 rather than doing a fresh install, whether or not the webcam mike would still work with the Mac’s speech recognition? Maybe that’s an experiment for next week…

Quickbitz – Mac Mini Snow Leopard Upgrade

The Mini hits a snag...

The Mini hits a snag...

So I have seen lots of reports saying that the upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard is the smoothest thing ever, and having gone out and bought a copy of Snow Leopard because the Royal Mail can’t decide if they want to ever deliver my Family Pack, I plumped for upgrading my Mac Mini.

Well it wasn’t an upgrade as it turns out. As there was no data that I needed to keep on the Mini, I decided to do a fresh install. This meant popping the Snow Leopard disk in and then wiping the Mini’s 80Gb internal drive before installing. The installation took about 45 minutes at which point it hung. I didn’t associate the Mini with a MobileMe account, I simply defined a user id and it then got to it’s “Talking with Apple” stage. My router is set up to provide DHCP and I was using a cable to connect the mini, so that wasn’t the issue. My internet connection was fine and I was able to browse the Apple web site from my Mac Pro, but the Snow Leopard install still just sat there… for two and a half hours.

Ooops...

Ooops...

Tired of waiting I switched the Mac Mini off then back on again. Sure enough, this time it booted up (very quickly) and then told me that it didn’t recognize my Apple Wireless Keyboard, prompting me to press the key to the right of the Shift key so it could figure it out. Nothing. The prompt wouldn’t go away, however I opened Text Editor and the keyboard was working fine so I simply killed off the prompt. After installing a small update for Remote Screen or something, that was it my Mac Mini had been 10.6′d.

Was it as smooth and painless for me? Not quite.

Is it quicker? Yes, but then I had installed Norton Antivirus for Mac (as an experiment) on the Mac Mini and I reckon just not having that installed any more makes it much quicker.

Next is the 2008 Mac Pro which is my main work machine. Again, I think I shall do a fresh install so that I can get rid of six months accumulated junk. In the meantime, I think I’ll start using the Mac Mini s an application test bed to see if some of those question marks on the Compatibility List are ticks or crosses.

Snow Leopard Application Compatibility

This got me thinking...

This got me thinking...

I ordered Snow Leopard via the Apple Store, and despite being told it was dispatched on August 27th it still hasn’t arrived. I did hear there was (yet another) strike at Royal Mail so all I can hope for is that I get it some time before Christmas.

Anyway, it has given me a bit more time to look at things like application compatibility. Apple themselves have posted a short note on a few applications that have issues, but if you’re looking for a much more extensive and detailed list then head on over to WikiDot and the Snow Leopard Compatibility page here. It’s been put together by the Mac community and contains a lot of useful info if you haven’t already taken the plunge. If you have taken the plunge, then … you luck whatsit!

That’s probably all I’ll say about Snow Leopard for now. The web is awash with reviews, etc., so you’re probably suffering from overload like me. However, the graphic I added to this post got me thinking. Apple obviously see the Snow Leopard as symbolizing their latest OS, so the question is – if Windows 7 was an animal (bird, fish, whatever), what would it be? Have fun in the comments!

Logitech diNovo Keyboard, Mac Edition

Since I got my Mac Pro back at the start of 2008, I have been using the Logitech diNovo Edge (Windows) keyboard with it. I was a hang-over from my Windows PC days, and as a keyboard I was very happy with it despite the rather high price. My only real complaints were that I had a bunch of keys on it that I couldn’t use (the Mac simply didn’t recognize them) and the Logitech Control Centre software uses a couple of kernel tricks that break certain bits of software (like A Better Finder Rename for example).

So after a lot of deliberation I decided to splash out on the much cheaper diNovo Keyboard Mac Edition and it arrived this morning. I am now wondering if I shouldn’t be calling this blog “I spenddiNovo Keyboard Mac Edition my money so you don’t have to”? Ok, the first thing I need to make clear is that this keyboard shares the diNovo name and colour scheme with the Edge and that’s where the similarity seems to end. If you think you’re going to get the build quality and feel of the Edge, then either stick with the Edge or buy the diNovo Edge Mac Edition which for reasons best known to Logitech, isn’t available in the UK.

Right, let’s start with the construction. As I mentioned, the colour scheme is the same but the Plexiglass of the Edge is replaced with glossy black plastic.  The aluminium palm rest at the bottom is still there, and although the spec says it’s aluminium, it feels like painted plastic. The keys themselves are the same dimensions as on the Edge, and have a similar feel to the Edge, but the first thing I noticed when I started typing is that the keyboard sounds different. The spacebar has a nasty ‘clack’ to it, reminiscent of the old IBM keyboards from the nineties. On the subject of keys, the layout and spacing is almost identical to the (wired) aluminium Apple keyboard with the numeric keypad, except that the styling of the Apple keyboard makes it look and feel less cluttered.

Caps Lock LightWhat about the rest of the keyboard then? Well the neat ‘features’ of the Edge are all gone. The diNovo Mac Edition has a small green power light which illuminates when you switch it on and then goes out after ten seconds, presumably to conserve power. There is also a small orange light on the Caps Lock key to indicate whether it is on or off, although you can disable this in the Logitech software (and have the Caps Lock status shown in the OS X menu bar instead). That’s it… gone are all the nice touches of the Edge, but then that’s a reflection of the fact that the diNovo Mac is a lot cheaper – on Amazon UK it’s currently £58.98 + postage vs. £94.96 + free postage, a saving of around £30 ($50).

On the subject of downsides… the diNovo Mac Edition uses a Logitech 2.4GHz wireless dongle rather than Bluetooth, thereby taking up another of your USB ports. What’s more, the keyboard isn’t compatible with Logitech’s new ‘Unifying’ receiver (bang go my thoughts of running this keyboard and my MX Revolution mouse through just one dongle). Also the batteries are not rechargeable via the dock arrangement the diNovo Edge has, although they say these batteries will last three years (I’m two years and 364 days off confirming that figure!). And for the Health & Safety guys out there, this keyboard is not adjustable in any way – the angle of the keyboard is fixed unlike the Edge which had little retractable feet to change the angle of the device.

There must be some plus points, yes? Well yes, the keyboard is fully ’supported’ by OS X so you’ll have the Ctrl, Alt and Cmd keys in their proper places as well as the full range of (programmable) function keys, where on the Edge the function keys were, well just there. Some of them did what you expected (as their Mac equivalents), and some of them… errr, didn’t. Also, you now have more configuration options via the Logitech Control Centre (LCC) software rather than it simply telling you there’s a keyboard there and not letting you configure it, which is what it does with the diNovo Edge. The LCC software will let you:

  • Program function keys 1 thru 6 and 13 thru 19. (F7 thru F12 are fixed).
  • Toggle the Caps Lock status between the OS X menu bar and the little orange light on the Caps Lock key itself. Interestingly you have to switch the keyboard off/on for the change to take effect.
  • Display the Caps Lock status on the screen, rather like a Growl notification.
  • Toggle the function keys between standard and ‘fn’ by using the fn key on the keyboard. This effectively doubles the number of function key assignments you can have.

In the past I’ve had an issue with the Logitech software. To get the @ and ” keys assigned correctly for UK users, you had to load the Logitech UK Intl key map. That was fine except that the kernel extension it used to make it work would break some software. If I had Logitech UK Intl enabled, I was completely unable to type in the input boxes used by A Better Finder Rename, but switching to the default British (Apple) key map, it would work again. PublicSpace (the Better Finder Rename developers) were very responsive and helpful in helping me pin this down. Anyway, the diNovo Mac Edition has the correct key map for the British (Apple) layout, so that’s a problem solved.

Take your pick...

Take your pick...

So what are my conclusions then? Well it’s early days as I’ve been using this keyboard for less than a day. So far I have to say that I still prefer the diNovo Edge from a comfort perspective. As I type this I find I am resorting to the ‘hunt and peck’ style of typing, rather than using all my fingers as I had managed to do with the Edge. That’s probably more to do with the keyboard being new and very slightly different rather than anything else and will hopefully improve with time although it’s fair to say that the diNovo Mac Edition feels more cramped than the Edge. Will I keep it and grow to like it, or will I get frustrated and donate it to a good cause? (My step-mother may be getting a Mac Mini and will need a keyboard). Can’t really say at this stage. In a perfect world, Logitech would sell the diNovo Edge Mac Edition in the UK, rather than what is essentially a re-badged diNovo Keyboard for Notebooks. But it’s not a perfect world and so I shall persist with this for a while at least.

If you like the Apple aluminium ‘extended’ keyboard with the numeric keypad, and wonder why they don’t make a wireless version, well the diNovo Keyboard Mac Edition would probably be what you’re looking for, if you can live with the cheap and noisy spacebar. If you’re after the experience the diNovo Edge gives you, then you’ll probably feel disappointed as only the elusive diNovo Edge Mac Edition will fill that gap, and it’s even disappeared off the Logitech’s US website now.

Finally, if you’re a little confused by some very similar sounding keyboard names, then blame Logitech. There’s the diNovo Edge (essentially the Windows version), the diNovo Edge Mac Edition (a proper Mac version of the Edge), the diNovo Keyboard Mac Edition which I’m looking at here, and the diNovo Keyboard for Notebooks which is what this Mac keyboard seems to be based on. Their marketing men must be laughing all the way to the bank!

Quickbitz – Windows 7 Family Pack… How much?

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.K.)Yesterday I placed my order on the Apple Store for the family pack of Snow Leopard. It will cost me the princely sum of £39 and will allow the upgrading of up to five Macs in my household (there’s just four at the moment). By contrast I read today that Microsoft has announced its pricing for the Windows 7 Premium Family Pack in the UK. It comes in at £149 and will allow you to upgrade just three PCs under the same roof.

Now whether or not you subscribe to the idea that Windows 7 is really just a bug fix for Vista, or Snow Leopard is just a series of patches for Leopard, the Snow Leopard deal seems far better given that the Windows purchaser also has to factor in the cost of a decent security suite (antivirus, antispyware, etc.) as well. 11727-windows7boxes

I am currently running two Windows VMs for personal use – one is XP SP3 which I bought back in the mists of time, the other is the RC evaluation version of Windows 7. All I use them for is to run Helium Music Manager (and I have two Eset Smart Security licenses to cover them both), but I am seriously considering whether it’s worth going any further with the Windows 7 VM or just ditching it as an expensive curiosity…

One other thing – Microsoft has said that Windows 7 Family Packs will only “be available in limited quantities”. Do they really need to resort to tactics like this to sell copies of Windows 7?

Netgear is forgiven (sort of) and Entourage is dead, long live Entourage!

My initial joy with my new Netgear DGN2000 ADSL router gave way to disappointment as it repeatedly dropped my internet connection. At times the connection would stay up for as little as 30 seconds at a time! No amount of fiddling with settings made any difference, but the probem did eventually seem to go away, only to return with a vengeance a couple of days ago. Enough! Good as the router may be, it is obviously on the threshold as far as my BT connection was concerned and flakey connectivity just wouldn’t do seeing as I need to work from home some times.

Enter the Linksys WAG160N. A very sleek looking device to replace the misbehaving Netgear. Setup was a breeze, the Mac setup guide walked through getting setup for BT’s connection and within 5 minutes of unboxing it was all systems go…. for about 10 minutes! Then sure enough, the Linksys….. dropped my connection. Several hours of tweaking, rebooting and swearing followed before the Linksys was put back in its box and my old D-Link G624M was reconnected. So I’m back on an 802.11g MIMO router – slow but much more reliable than the other two.

My guess is that BT have done something. Why else would a router work for days then keep dropping the line every 30-60 seconds for a few hours before working again? What chance have I got of convincing BT that it’s their problem? In all honesty both the Netgear and the Linksys routers are fine, it’s just that they can’t cope with my dodgy line. What next – I have no idea.

And so on to Entourage 2008, Outlooks younger dumber brother. When I first installed Office 2008 for Mac I was full of anticipation that Entourage might be a worthwhile replacement for Outlook on the PC. How wrong I was… Entourage is probably equivalent to Outlook ‘95 and while I did persist (honest I did!) I kept going back to Leopard’s native Mail.app. So it was with some excitement that I read that this is the end of the line for Entourage. Office 2010 for Mac is reportedly going to get Outlook – re-written from the ground up using Cocoa. Where do I sign up for the beta??!

My ‘not so speedy’ WD 1TB Drive

My Mac Pro sports four 1Tb drives. Sounds like a lot but in truth it’s not that much with the way I have it set up which is:

  1. The boot drive has two 500Gb partitions, BootA being a 500Gb Leopard system partition and a 500Gb ‘VMA’ partition where I store all my VMware Fusion virtual machines (currently 186Gbs-worth).
  2. The second 1Tb drive is a clone of the first. Twice a week I use SuperDuper to clone disk #1 to disk #2 so if my boot drive ever fails then I’m good to go off disk #2 without (hopefully) too much loss of data.
  3. The third 1Tb drive is where I store the bulk of my data. That’s music, photos, videos, etc. That all gets backed up daily to a LaCie 1Tb firewire drive, and weekly to a network drive.
  4. The fourth 1Tb drive is my TimeMachine drive…. yes I’m paranoid about backups!

WD RangeAnyway, this obviously isn’t how Apple shipped the Mac Pro to me – that was a machine that had a single Western Digital Caviar 500Gb drive (model WD5000AAKS). I added the 1Tb ‘data’ drive first by buying a Western Digital ‘Green’ 1Tb drive and it worked brilliantly. Quiet, cool and did the job of storing my precious data just fine. I was so impressed that I added another for TimeMachine and now I have four of them. They are still good drives but I think installing one as my boot drive was maybe pushing it too far. It works well enough but it seems to have slowed the system down. These are 7200rpm drives and are built for their green credentials rather than outright performance, like say the Western Digital ‘Black’ or ‘Blue’ versions.

So, when Snow Leopard hits – rather than upgrade my existing Leopard installation on the 1Tb ‘Green’ drive, I’m thinking about building a new boot drive from scratch using a Western Digital VelociRaptor 300Gb drive. Yes it’s quite a bit more expensive (per Gb) than the Green drive, it’ll certainly be hotter as it’s a 10,000rpm drive and it’ll probably be noisier. But it’ll be a lot FASTER and it seems the Mac Pro benefits from a speedy boot drive. I’ll keep the other three 1Tb drives and re-jig how I clone the boot drive for recovery, but it’ll be interesting to see how snappy it makes the Mac as currently I seem to spend too much time waiting for OS X to access my ‘Green’ boot disk.

Goodbye old friend(s)

Today CleanApp is doing its stuff on two applications which I have used a lot in my Mac days.

The first is NetNewsWire. I’ve been a fan of this app since I got my Mac, having been a FeedDemon user on Windows. It’s clean uncluttered layout was just what I wanted and the fact that in the early days I could keep my feeds in sync whether I was using NetNewsWire or FeedDemon was really handy. Truth is though, I only use Windows for one or two specific tasks these days and reading RSS feeds isn’t one of them so the sync feature is not really critical any more. Also, even though I installed NetNewsWire on the iPhone, it was more out of curiosity than anything else as I much prefer to read my news on my 24″ monitor. The actual nail in the coffin was the introduction of adverts in the newest releases of NetNewsWire. Yes I know I posted a tip on how to block the ads using LittleSnitch, and someone commented that you can also use your Hosts file to the same effect, but it’s more a case of not wanting to have to. How long would that tactic last before blocking ads would somehow mess up the app completely?

Vienna

Vienna

So have I abandoned news feeds altogether? Not at all! I have switched to using Vienna instead. It has the same sort of nice uncluttered interface and most of the features that NetNewsWire had are there or will be at some point. Sure there are a couple of things I miss at the moment, like not being able to flag a news item from a button on the toolbar (you have to right-click/Ctrl-Click and choose from the menu instead). Also, if I double-click an item to see the full article in my browser, the colour of the item doesn’t change in Vienna to indicate that I’ve done this (in the past this proved useful for a few items I forgot to flag). Still, these are minor points and Vienna works just fine at the moment. Oh and one other thing… every time I see the word Vienna that song by Midge Ure in his Ultravox days pops into my head!! Please make it stop!

The other application that CleanApp has worked its magic on is Nambu. Now it seems these days that there’s no end of Twitter clients out there, each with their followers and for me Nambu was the one I used the most. However, the developers of Nambu have called time on it so it’s days are numbered. The Tr.im network is closing at the end of the year and they’ve said it’s unlikely Nambu will be developed any further. It’s a great shame but I respect their decision.

Now the question is what to replace it with? Well possible candidates are Twitterrific ($14.95) or Tweetie ($19.95 or ad-supported), but I really would prefer one that’s free and doesn’t contain adverts. My other main requirement is  that it doesn’t require Adobe Air in order to run, so the search is on….

Addendum – there’s a new lease of life for Nambu. The developers aren’t going to can it and are currently working on the beta of a new version. Check out the Nambu blog for more information. Me? I’ve already registered for the beta!