Julio Ojeda-Zapata's Blog, page 3

My iPad as touchscreen Mac (kinda sorta)

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Laptops with touch screens are pretty much the norm these days, with a prominent exception: Macintosh notebooks.

Apple has stubbornly refrained from adding fingertip interaction to the displays on its MacBook-branded notebooks while accommodating touch aficionados in other ways: With gargantuan trackpads, for instance, and a cool but controversial MacBook Pro Touch Bar.

So what’s a touch-y Mac user to do?

A company called Astro HQ goes part of the way to solving this problem by...

I turned my fixed desk into a sit-stand desk

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I love sit-stand desks, those contraptions that can be raised and lowered so you can work on a computer in a sitting or a standing position.

Standing desks have been hailed on health grounds, though the science on this is a mixed bag, at best. Prolonged sitting isn’t good for you, but switching to a standing desk doesn’t appear based on current evidence to be miraculous wellness enhancer.

So why do I love standing desks?

As I recently wrote on Facebook:

I am ever in motion when I use a stan...

WCCO has me on to talk holiday tech gifts

Tech gifts for the holidays run the gamut price-wise from $20 or less to $1,000 and over, which can make shopping for such products confounding — especially if you are not a geek.

I recently appeared on WCCO-TV, my local CBS affiliate, to shed some light on this. Here are the products I featured in a WCCO Sunday Morning segment.

Apple’s iPad Pro

This is the fanciest of Apple’s tablets, with a price tag to match — $999 and up, not including the add-on keyboard and stylus.

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I have the larger...

WCCO asks me to talk tech for the holidays

Tech gifts for the holidays run the gamut price-wise from $20 or less to $1,000 and over, which can make shopping for such products confounding — especially if you are not a geek.

I recently appeared on WCCO-TV, my local CBS affiliate, to shed some light on this. Here are the products I featured in a WCCO Sunday Morning segment.

Apple’s iPad Pro

This is the fanciest of Apple’s tablets, with a price tag to match — $999 and up, not including the add-on keyboard and stylus.

I have the larger 1...

I embark on an Apple adventure in Chicago

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Just home from Florida vacation late last month, I headed to the airport again — this time on a work trip to Chicago.

I was off to attend my first Apple media event in years, and I was pretty excited about that.

Such press events are normally held on or near Apple’s California campus, but this one was staged at an inner-city Chicago magnet school. That is because the event, like one held in 2012, was heavily focused on education.

I even got a “class schedule.”

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Officially, I was on this tri...

TidBITS debuts fab-looking new website

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I am beyond proud to be on the TidBITS masthead.

I therefore celebrate any improvements to this venerable, Apple-flavored tech-news operation.

TidBITS, run by amazing wife-and-husband duo Tonya and Adam Engst, saw a major upgrade last week: After months of planning and prep work, it debuted a spiffy new website.

It’s hard to overstate what an improvement this is.

Aesthetically, the old site had a lot of charm but was badly out of date. So were the wiring and plumbing that made the site go.

...

TidBITS debuts a fine-looking new website

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I am beyond proud to be on the TidBITS masthead.

I therefore celebrate any improvements to this venerable, Apple-flavored tech-news operation.

TidBITS, run by amazing wife-and-husband duo Tonya and Adam Engst, saw a major upgrade last week: After months of planning and prep work, it debuted a spiffy new website.

It’s hard to overstate what an improvement this is.

The old site had a lot of charm but was badly out of date. So was the wiring and plumbing.

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The new site looks delightfully minim...

I try out Apple’s new HomePod for TidBITS

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As someone who’s ambivalent at best about listening to music, I’m not an obvious user candidate for Apple’s new HomePod speaker.

After all, the audio device is inextricably tied to the Apple Music service and aimed at those with ravenous appetites for all manner of melody. The speaker is, first and foremost, a music appliance.

Yet, I adore the HomePod.

It’s precisely what I crave, a compact yet killer-sounding speaker for my home office so I can play my favorite podcasts, get caught up the...

I like winter just fine if I have a snowblower

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For this Puerto Rican, living in Minnesota can be a trying experience.

Oh, summers are just fine, especially when deliciously wet, Caribbean-like air slaps me in the face. (Once, when I was visiting friends in San Juan, the weather was hotter and more humid in St. Paul, which sounds crazy but is not uncommon).

Minnesota winters, though? I have been in the Twin Cities for three decades now, and I still have my “dear God, what have I done?” moments in January or February when the mercury takes...

Twitter for Mac is no more; I try alternatives

[image error]As a Twitter power user, I’m in mourning because my favorite Mac-based software for accessing the popular social network will soon be no more.

That application, also called Twitter, is an elegant one-column construct that for years has permitted me to effortlessly and enjoyably access my various accounts. Now, though, Twitter is killing off the Mac app. That’s a shame.

With a sniff and perhaps a barely audible sob, I must move on.

For a TidBITS article, I kicked the tires on three Mac-based T...