The Complete Mac (Student) Life

Part 1

With the recent proliferation of Macs on campus – both in my school and elsewhere (I know this as I’ve sold quite a number to students of the latter category), I keep getting asked for tips and ideas on how to make it “even cooler”. Even back in my PC-weenie days I’d always been the kid to go to when you want to know what’s the best and cheapest software to use for a specific task, what websites to go to for something you have in mind, etc – so it’s only natural that my compulsive computer-abusing behaviour carried over after the Switch, and in fact was encouraged further by the bevy of excellent apps by our ever ingenious Mac software developers, at little or no cost.

Being a half-hearted practitioner of GTD (half-hearted in that while I believe in the philosophy I don’t always excel at its implementation; a little bit like how religion is for me), it has become second nature for me to be constantly looking out for applications, big and small, to help me do the most in the most little (keystrokes, time, effort). Much of what I will recommend here is not specific to the educational context; in fact many of them enjoy widespread usage in everyday life, though I am choosing the apps and tweaking them to appear useful specifically to that unfortunate group of people known as students.

There are wonderful applications out there, especially for OS X - but I understand not everybody has the time or interest in trying out every app there is (unlike yours truly); and it is a shame, because students especially, can put a lot of these to good use.

Communication and PIM
To Dos

Sure, iCal and Entourage can let you have a To Do list – but if you want a simple system to do so, look no further than Check Off. It sits quietly in your menu bar, allows for labels, groups, and notes, and even syncs to your iPod.

Messaging
We all know how important instant communication is for students – we are obsessed with text messages and IMs. In an educational setting the restraints of a classroom can thwart our enthusiasm (or need) to connect instantly; but Mac users especially need not fear.

Should you own a Bluetooth phone, there is a wonderful app that will help you get more out of it. This means two things for the student: 1. You can leave your phone in your bag or pocket, and be able to text by typing into your laptop (making it seem like you are making notes) 2. If it rings you know who’s calling (it flashes on your screen) and you can choose to accept the call or reject it without taking the phone out, thus minimizing embarrassment if it should ring in class (and it happens a lot, doesn’t it).

If you’re not willing to spend US$20 buying BluePhoneElite, you may be pleased to note that Apple Address Book would let you send SMS from your phone, through your Mac. First ensure your Bluetooth phone has been set up for use with your Mac. You may wish to send your mobile’s contacts to your Apple Address Book if you don’t actively update them in Address Book (on Sony Ericsson it should be as simple as selecting Options>Advanced>Send all contacts in your contact list, then importing the .vcf file into Address Book).

To send an SMS to yes, that “Rosie”, simply hit SMS Message.

Making sure you connect to your phone (by hitting the Bluetooth symbol, as highlighted) – simply choose the contact you wish to SMS and hold, to reveal a menu with SMS Message as one of the options, and you’re good to go.

_IM_

Does this look like your screen whenever you chat? Coming from a rather geeky environment in which nobody within miles uses Messenger for Mac (because, because.. you guessed it, it doesn’t just suck, it sucks balls), I’m always a little appalled when I see a screen like that. And why does choice of IM client matter for a student? 1. You can reduce that clutter. If you’re a student you probably don’t want to have to deal with that many windows – considering you probably already have your word processor, slides, and other necessary applications running. 2. If you’re working with exchange students, as it happens for many of you in my institution, you may note that MSN Messenger may not be the IM network of choice. 3. There are better options out there, and they are free.

Adium here connects to every IM network you can possibly think of. AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Jabber, and more; tabs (a feature the rest of the world has had for a long time but is shockingly under used in many circles) reduce clutter, the overall UI is much better, and what’s there not to like about a cute little ducky icon in your dock? (Then again, I am partial to any kind of duck..)

Notes and Presentations
Wikis, when chosen well and executed well, can be a wonderful tool for many people – especially students, since we always need to take down notes a little moment’s notice, revise what we have written, take down little details that are too important to forget. For the wiki newbie and veteran alike, Instiki is a wonderful tool. While it isn’t for Mac exclusively – the fact is that it is much easier for a Mac user to install Instiki than for anyone else – there is a package for OS X for the usual, simple drag and drop install, since Ruby is already installed on OS X (how cool is that!).

Wikis can be used in many wonderful ways. You can take notes with them. You can organise your thoughts around them. And if you are like me, you can use a wiki as a natural extension of your brain, as below:

I’ve organised my wiki in a manner which reflects how I think and work – i.e., messily. I have “in flux” for content I am constantly and presently working on, like new writing ideas, web ideas, the agenda for the Mac group in my school. Then I have a Random Shuffling in which, for lack of a better heading, I create wiki pages on anything which comes to mind then sort them out later. One of Instiki’s selling points include the ability to go back to any previous revisions, and of course, the ease of installation and usage.

In actual classroom usage I find it much easier to create a new wiki page (simply typing ThisIsNewPage will output “This Is New Page”, on which you can edit instantly), than creating a new document in Microsoft Word. I’m able to take notes without interrupting the flow, since instead of bothering about formatting, bullets and numbering or headings, enclosing a term within asterisks bolds it, a # preceding each bullet produces a numbered list, and producing deeper lists is only a matter of adding another ## or ### to the succeeding item, since Instiki uses Textile, which is in turn one of the best things since sliced bread.

Presentations
Applications such as Romeo (free) and Sailing Clicker (not free) let you turn your Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone into a remote control for your Mac, good especially in the context of a presentation. Instead of using a wired mouse or a trackpad (and therefore having to be next to a computer at all times) you could use your mobile; wielding a wireless mouse just doesn’t have the same kind of class. You could even use these apps to do other funky things like.. start playing music for your presentation the moment your phone comes within a certain range, as an introduction.

Collaboration
SubEthaEdit lets you collaborate on projects/note-taking over Bonjour; excellent for joint editing of a document. It is also an excellent, lean text editor on its own, even minus the collaboration feature.

Images
From time to time, you, as a servant of the education system, will need to perform little tricks with images: to go on reports, presentations, or to amuse yourself. With Photoshop you could do almost anything; though it may be too expensive, too unavailable, too large to launch for a small task. Seashore (native OS X application based upon GIMP: think of it as GIMP on steroids, speed wise, since it discards the need for X11 windowing; feature-wise, being a pre-1.0 release, it is still improving everyday). There’s also LiveQuartz. Both of them are free.