I just upgraded my MacPro to Lion last night and got the customary “you have incompatible software” notice, but it does not tell what software is affected.  Here’s a quick way to find out:

1. Click on the Apple Symbol in the menubar.
2. Select About This Mac.
3. Click on More Info…
4. Click on System Report.
5. Expand the Software section of the tree hierarchy on the left and click on Applications.
6. Sort by Kind and look for PowerPC.

All PowerPC applications are incompatible as Rosetta is no longer available.  Applications that are listed as Universal or Intel will be functional.

Apple recently announced the iPhone4S to the disappointment of many who were hoping for the release of the iPhone5.

I won’t go into details about what new features will be available in this incremental update, but I do want to highlight what I believe are the two key features of this new model:

1. It’s a worldphone
2. Siri

Worldphone
With the release of the worldphone, Apple no longer needs to develop separate GSM and CDMA devices.  The issue remains whether or not the USA carriers will allow their customers to go overseas and plug in a SIM card from another carrier (i.e. unlocked).  In an article I was reading, one of the journalists who attended the event on the 4th asked Apple and the response they got was “it’s up to the carriers.”  Knowing the way things work in the USA, I doubt the carriers will allow that to happen without requesting the phone be unlocked.

Siri
Siri adds a neat voice activated feature to the iPhone4S, though the technology isn’t something that new…I’ve been dictating emails, text messages, and creating calendar entries on my Android phone for some time now.  The only feature that I don’t have is the ability to invite or reschedule via voice.  IMO Apple should have made this an offering that is included in the iOS5 release, and I have a feeling they’ll bundle it with the iOS after the iPhone4S users have at it exclusively for a period of time.

What do you thing about the 4S?  Is the device worth an upgrade from an iPhone4?  I don’t think so…

The world lost a visionary on 10/5/2011.

How many of you, like me, use multiple macs and run Adium on all of them as your choice instant messaging application? Do you ever run into situations where you were in need of a link or some information you received while chatting with a contact, but didn’t have access to it because it was on another computer? That happened to me a few times this week, so I decided to sync my Adium chat logs with the help of my Dropbox account. Here’s how I did it in three easy steps (requires terminal):

1. Consolidate all of your logs from your various machines into one.
2. From the command line, cd into your Adium chat folder.
   cd "~/Library/Application Support/Adium 2.0/Users/Default/"
3. Create a symbolic link to your Adium chat logs folder that you created on Dropbox.
   ln -s ~/Dropbox/Path/To/Adium/Logs/ Logs

Run #2 on each mac you want to sync so that your logs are stored on Dropbox.

Ever had the need to send an SMS, but didn’t want to keep tapping away at your phone?  I’ve been using a few different apps which allow me to send an SMS to my contacts through a web browser.  Here are the apps I’ve been using:

GTalkSMS
GTalkSMS is a service that, when enabled on your android phone, lets you communicate with your contacts via SMS, and perform various other actions all by sending special commands to your phone through GTalk/XMPP.

LazyDroid Web Desktop
LazyDroid Web Desktop is a new app that I just started to play with. This app allows to take the control of you android phone via Wifi/Internet/Usb connection, simply using your web browser and accessing the app’s web server.  You get the ability to send/read SMS, manage your contacts, a file manager, copy stuff to the clipboard, and remotely view your phone (this requires root).

Hey Android users, do you use foursquare to check-in to locations often?  Tired of having to pull out your phone, launching the foursquare app and checking in?  There’s a quick way to check into your favorite locations quickly using the Tasker app and the foursquare API.  Here’s how to do it with a few profiles:

Check-in Profile:
Context: %VENUE_ID is set

Task: HTTP Post
Server:Port:

phone_number:password@api.foursquare.com

Path:

/v1/checkin

Data:

vid=%VENUE_ID
private=0
facebook=0
twitter=0
shout=”shout text”

The %VENUE_ID variable is the numeric ID of the venue (you can get that by viewing a venue on foursquare.com).

Next, create one or more location-based context profiles and have them set the %VENUE_ID variable as an entry task and clears the variable as an exit task.

I have a lot of tools and gadgets in my belt for use in development (both web and otherwise). I’ve recently started using the iPad (no, I don’t have an iPad2) for some of the work, whether it be mockups or code. Here’s a list of apps that I use.

• Evernote: for note taking
• iTap RDP: Remote Desktop
• LogMeIn Ignition: Remote Desktop
• Air Display: turning my iPad into a 3rd display (used just for fun)
• Markup: for code
• Penultimate: another note-taking app
• iMockups: to create mockups
• PaperPad Lite: Let’s me write on PDFs that I receive

I also use a Kensington KeyFolio cover, which has a built-in USB keyboard, and a stylus/pen combo.

What are your iPad apps/gadgets?

Amazon just announced the launch of it’s new Cloud Drive service which allows you to store up to 5gb of data for free.  If you purchased any MP3 from Amazon you get bumped to 20GB for free for a period of 1yr.

Now, I’m all for cloud-based computing. I’ve got accounts with Box.net and Dropbox, which I use on a daily basis, so I figured I’d give the Cloud Drive a try.

My first impressions are as follows:

1. Does not have any way of connecting to the service w/o logging into their website.  This is a negative for me.
2. Does not let me share files with other users. Also a negative.

I’ll play w/the service a little more over the next few days and post back some more thoughts.  For now, I think I’ll just stick with the other two service I mentioned before.