So I found a gem of a little App in the Mac App Store that really simplifies my workflow and saves me time everyday. The App is called Cloud. I know, the most generic name possible that is made even worse by an icon that looks just like the icon for MobileMe, Apple’s short lived and much hated service. This will get worse when Apple starts their new iCloud service. But apart from that little problem this App is absolutely brilliant.

To illustrate the utility of Cloud let me give you an example of a situation most people face many times a day. You are chatting with someone on iChat, Skype or your IM service of choice and you want to show them a file on your computer whether it is a picture or a sound. Most people (myself included) don’t use the file transfer options on instant messengers because they tend not to work most of the time.

So you find the item in Finder and either drag it over to Mail or open a browser tab and log into your Web based mail account and upload the file. You then type in the mail address of the person you are trying to share the file with and if you don’t have it you have to ask them for it in chat.

Once the file is sent they have to log into their own mail and find the message you just sent them and view the attachment. All of this takes about five minutes or so and is a pain to do if you have to repeat it many times a day.

This is where Cloud comes in. You install it from the App store and it shows up as a cloud icon in your menu bar.

Now, say you are chatting with someone and you want to send them a file or just show them a picture or share a screen-shot of  your Mac.

You highlight the file in Finder and hit Ctrl+Option+R and Cloud automatically uploads the file to the web in a few seconds. This works for files in iTunes and iPhoto as well. You don’t have to right click and locate the file in Finder first. Just select it in the App, hit the shortcut and you’re done.

Once done Cloud gives you a Growl notification and plays a sound to say that the file is ready to be shared and it pastes a URL for the file right into your clipboard so all you do is hit Cmd+V to paste the link in your chat window and the person clicks on it and sees your file.

If you still aren’t convinced you should try using it for a few days and see how much easier it makes sharing files from your Mac with others.

Also, did I say it’s free? You can’t argue with zero dollars.

Some would say that they use DropBox for this but I think DropBox is nowhere as simple to use for  file sharing. Even though I use it constantly it is mostly as a means of having a web based backup of the most important files I am working on for when the shit hits the fan. <Dead computer>

It’s the most well thought out App I have used in a while. Your mileage may vary, caveat emptor etc.

Here is a link. Enjoy!

I have also done some minor tweaking and removed the ‘Sporadic Creativity’ page because I’m putting myself out there as it is and don’t want to overdo it. So. I’m going to talk about two geeky things today.

1> I got my first real chance to play around with my ‘trial copy’ of Adobe’s brilliant new Photoshop version for the Mac platform. CS4.

I’ve always thought of Photoshop as a huge resource hog of an app that takes ages to launch and for small jobs is a bit like unholstering a Colt to kill a fly but I must say I’ve been pleasantly surprised with this new version. It’s screaming fast, light and for the first time ever it’s features are easy to get to and use even if you aren’t some Photoshop Uber-Geek with mad skillz. The speed difference must be because this is the first version of Photoshop that is actually GPU accelerated. On a mid level system like mine (2.4 Ghz Merom Core2duo, 3 Gb DDR2 and a 256MB Nvidia 8600M GT) that seems to make an immense difference. The usability is much better too, for me at least. So I spent a few hours and threw together the logo at the top of this page and ventured the courage to edit the CSS style sheets for this site to get WordPress to display the art work.

So. Two thumbs up for Adobe Photoshop CS4 for the Mac then. Interestingly if you search ‘Teh Google’ for ‘CS4 Mac’ it displays PirateBay’s link first and then Amazon’s link. LOL. Tells you a lot doesn’t it? I’m sure that gets on the Adobe people’s tits like nothing else!

2> My Apple Mighty Mouse Wireless. I am gonna throw this white piece of shit against the fucking wall one of these days.

When I first bought it, Christmas before last, things were all groovy, I loved the 360 degree scroll, the typical ease with which it paired up with my MacBook Pro and the fact that its top surface was smooth and joint free, less chance for gunk and hair from my two large dogs to clog it up. But the damn scroll ball on this thing is a vector for dirt and keeps getting clogged up. Alcohol, cotton buds, rubbing the little ball upside down, I’ve tried every way of cleaning the damn thing. Now the ball has gotten stuck and since there are no physical buttons on the device I’m reduced to a single button mouse and having to Ctrl-Click to get a right click. I feel like I’m using a Macintosh from the fucking nineties.

So. Mighty Mouse Wireless. Avoid,