ForkLift

There are several apps which I come back and forth and deciding if it fits into my usage pattern.

ForkLift is one of them.

The first thing to intrigues me in using it is the 2 panel display. I've been grown up from the DOS and Norton Commander is my preferred way of file manipulation. There are several offering of apps on the Mac platform that enable this but I like ForkLift in several way.

First, I can create "Groups" on the left panel. For instance, I can crete a new group for work and drag all work folder as a short cut. Then, there's a built-in app delete tools. I can remove application that I no longer needed easily. Also, the lower panel provides information that I need at times, one of them is the size of the folder. And the integrated "Connect" capability let me transfer file to my remote server in the same application.

Yet, there are some features which I want. I use terminal a lot, and I hope there's a short cut to let me open a terminal and change location to there. Alternative, it would be nice if they provide a shortcut key to copy the filepath.

I've mentioned I like the "Connect" option but I couldn't find a protocol that I used a lot - SAMBA. When I need to connect to the SAMBA share, I need to do it in Finder and switch it back to ForkLift.

I've found it can be bought in a discount from MuPromo. Go check it out.

Product Promotion - Learn Objective-C on the Mac

There are several website that offers daily deals which I will check everyday, Apress is one of them and today, they are offering a one day promotion on the above mentioned book.

You can own the ebook of "Learn Objective-C on the Mac" for US$10 (regular price is US$27.99).

Product Promotion - Timeline 3D

I love MacWorld, definitely because of the keynote by Apple (sad that it's gonna be the last one this year) for the new product announcement. Apart from that, vendors will usually offer special promotion in this period.

Today, I came across a very nice offer from BeeDocs. They are offering a big discount on their flagship product - Timeline 3D, which usually cost $65, is now offering to user at a special price of US$30.

I tried this once sometimes ago and love it. But I encounter some problem in using it, which Andy reply to me promptly and turns out it is the driver from Logitech that break the software (to be precise, that driver render Growl from working properly).

If you need to draw some timeline, go grab it before it goes away.

BeeDocs

Size Does Matter

HA, don't worry, it's not a SPAM.

What I am talking about is the size of screen estate.

Have a look at these images and you can tell.

I've bought my own Dell 2408WFP lately and the increase in screen estate enable me to open both an IDE and a PDF reader at the same time! It's a joy to work but I am still finding the best way to organize the windows.

Anything tips from your guys?

The Netbook Era

2008 is definitely the era of netbook - low cost but under power laptop, which is good enough for day to day internet surfing and light enough to bring along.

I keep hearing a voice telling me to get one and finally, I could resist this temptation and place my hand on this.



The price of a netbook varies, some could be as costly as a low end notebook but in general, the specification for most of them is more or less the same. As a secondary machine, I prefer to spend less on it, although there are some drawback (which I will talk about it later).

The brand "Hasee" might be unfamiliar to most of you as it is a manufacturer in mainland China. The specification of the machine as follows - 80G HDD, 1G RAM, 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 10.1" LCD (LED Backlit), 130 Megapixel webcam and it all costs me US$346.

It comes with no OS and I am having Ubuntu 8.10 running on it just fine (with most of the drivers available except the webcam), the only draw back is the size of the keyboard. It's small when compared to the others (HP M1000 offers the best keyboard btw) but I couldn't complain for the $$$ I am paying.

It serves very well as a browsing machine but I found that the resolution (1024 x 600) hinders the using of IDE application since some of the menu items cannot be shown properly in this resolution.

Before MBA comes down in price (or given a refresh in hardware specification), I will settle my desire in having a small notebook with the Hasee.