Thank You

I stumbled upon your Web site this evening and thoroughly enjoyed what I found.

Many thanks.

—Chris Harris

Phone Bills and Forms

For filling in PDFs (which aren’t actually editable forms), I prefer PDFPen to the alternatives.

—Matt

• • •

Formulate is excellent for typing on PDFs, and you can even print to PDF to produce an electronic filled-out form.

—daiya

Cricket Laptop Stand

Nice review! I want one.

You said:

The two front legs expand outward, and a prop pivots down from each of the legs.

It is important to note, however, that the Cricket is slightly too small to hold a 17-inch laptop all that securely.

On Innovative’s Web site it looks like there is an extension that pulls out of each leg so that the tri-pod gets bigger to hold larger laptops. Is it still too small if you pull them out all of the way?

—David VanDuzer

Next Actions: February 2009 Master List

Great job keeping track of this fast moving space! I personally use Things to manage my tasks, but I use Curio for idea capture and management—and it does at least as good a job managing tasks as many you’ve listed here—and tasks can be spread across the physical idea spaces and even different files, yet be managed through a central hub. Powerfully elegant.

Curio also has a wonderful integration with Evernote, which I use as my knowledgebase.

I use Things because of its iPhone sync. Both sync with iCal, and I’m looking for a way to seamlessly sync across all three—so my tasks can be played with among the ideas they help bring to fruition.

—Patrick Jones

• • •

Thanks for the updates.

I just downloaded Chandler and really like it. I had been watching it since its first release and thought it had potential, but was not usable. Now, however, Chandler shows signs of maturity, stability, and ease of use. It may become my default for to-do and calendar work.

—Rich Shields

Freeway Pro and Freeway Express 5.3.1

Nice well balanced review.

Comparing Freeway and Dreamweaver is always going to be difficult because they are completely different animals. The biggest difference being Dreamweaver is an HTML editor with a GU interface, and Freeway is a compiler and therefore cannot edit HTML.

I use both, and both have there advantages. For example, I like the way I can highlight a word in Dreamweaver and it pinpoints its position within the code. I also like new preview in CS4 plus its general feel. In fact, there is a lot I like about Dreamweaver, but—and it’s a massive “but”—in reality I wouldn’t swap it for Freeway for anything.

In real world scenarios as a designer, I am forced to make changes which clients throw at me constantly, which include: design, positions, tweaks, colour changes, etc. In fact, sometimes wholesale layout changes need to be incorporated, and this is where Freeway wins hands down. I can just do it. I don’t need to recode anything—in fact, I can keep on designing rather than worrying about if the code I had created four days ago is relevant or even valid. So for that reason alone I tend to create 99% of my Web sites with Freeway. It really is a fantastic designer’s tool.

—Max Fancourt

Qaptain Qwerty

Cool! I remember going to AUSOM meets (Apple User Society of Melbourne), and everyone brought their Macs and copious volumes of SyQuest cartridges (you couldn’t fit much on those 44 MB ones).

Of course, the inverse size rule even applies within the Syquest family—the larger size being 44 or 88 MB and the smaller size being 105 or 270 MB.

Nice reminder in this 25th anniversary era!

—Mark Aufflick

• • •

“Conformity palpitates only vexation” is the Goreyesque title one might apply to CD, DVD, Blu-ray, multilayer and fluorescent, mixed-session/burned-over-quickly media. Perhaps our humble lanky-armed USB keyfob is like that as well.

One is reminded of interstitial fun made on Star Wars where the Death Star Command has a single, well-labeled USB port and R2 makes off with his goods on a 2 MB stick.

I had SyQuest Orbs at 20 GB. Now that’s the size for 2nd grade homework.

—Steve Nordquist

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