So I followed this app since I saw the Kickstarter page – I didn’t donate but I was quite happy to wait until the app arrived. I’m glad I did, it adds a bit of fun to my runs! I tried it out today and got this as my first run. Nothing fantastic but now I know how the app works, I’ll be turning on the Zombie Chases (basically HITT intervals!

Early Morning So the day didn’t get off to a good start really. Friday sees me paying some regular bills and moving some money around. Not an issue, I can easily check the payments using the Santander iPad/iPhone app. Easy. However, the problem comes in when I try and add it to my financial records. I keep these in GNUCash and with no iPad app, I’m stuck having to use the main desktop to enter the details in.

Ok, so I’ve had the iPad for a while now and it’s been a great help to me for work. Just being able to mark up PDF papers (I read a lot of academic papers and the ability to highlight corrections etc in my thesis drafts is fantastic), keep a copy of my notes beside my Macbook screen and be a small, easy to use, portable device I can easily carry around, easier than my MBP is terrific.

Email is a daily fact of life for most people. Whether it’s just getting the updates from web stores about special deals or swapping files for work, email plays a big part of our lives. And I’ve begun to hate it on the Mac. This seems like an odd statement and especially as its aimed at just OS X and Apple. Don’t get me wrong, I use email a lot. It’s de facto communication method at work and I use Gmail and iCloud like others but I’ve begun to dread sending emails for a variety of reasons which I’ll discuss.

So for the second part of my 5 items I can’t live without, I’m focussing on Mac applications. I use a Mac at home and at work (I’m lucky – basically I bought my work laptop myself!) so I’ve a fair few apps that I’ve tried for various tasks, both at home and work. However, the best tools will be the ones that are used in both locations. Alfred

First run with my Garmin strap for my Garmin 500. Uses the Garmin mounting kit for the Forerunner 201 and 301 (but actually fits the Gamrin 500 as well). Note that with the 500, the device runs down your arm, not perpendicular like a watch. Nothing major but something to consider.

So the Mac has managed to blow me away again today, almost as much as when I first started using it, about this time last year. How you might ask? Well I found out today that you can create custom keyboard shortcuts. As a self confessed keyboard lover (I love shortcuts and desktop launchers, like Alfred ), I really missed some of the keyboard shortcuts in Mail that others such as Sparrow and Postbox have, such as the ⌘ + Enter shortcut key to send email.

Seems my Garmin is going a bit mental – those altitudes are very much out and that heart rate, whilst it looks reasonable, I’m not sure I hit 242 bpm!! Time to sort out my bike and get back on that!

So I took the plunge this week and purchased iTunes Match. After using it for a bit, I thought I’d make a quick post about it. Background iTunes Match is a cloud based music system built into iTunes and iOS devices that allow you to upload your music to iTunes servers and lets you download it to up to 10 iOS and OS X devices. It’s primarily a music storage service, rather than a streaming service like Spotify as when you listen to the song on an iOS device, it downloads the music to the device, whilst playing it as it downloads (streaming would then wipe it from the device to clear space, this doesn’t).

So for a while, I’ve been using LaTeX to write up my work but every now and then someone wants a copy of my work in Word so they can edit it or mark it up and they cant use a PDF editor. This means converting my PDF into a Word document or my LaTeX file into a RTF document. The PDF route was probably the easiest as everything was nicely laid out already and set out as it should be and various services on the web manage to convert PDF’s relatively well to Word documents such as Zamzar However, the LaTeX to RTF option is also a possibility using the linux2rtf program however, that seems to be awkward at the best of times and annoyingly problematic at times.