Kyle Thomas

The Website of Kyle Thomas (KyleWith)

5 Minutes with Mac OS X Lion

I have spent about 5 minutes with Lion so far. I’m not even on Lion writing this because I left it at the office, but I do quickly want to touch on a couple of the main feature, features which I don’t think I will use all that much.

Launch Pad

This is Apple’s way of making Mac OS X more iOSy, right? The idea is you press a button or the icon and a group of your apps shows up on-screen. This is not going to work for me. I don’t need it, next, boring, useless feature. I really don’t use that many apps when I’m on the computer. Maybe browser, mail, twitter client, marsedit, aperture, itunes, all which fit on my dock. To even go one step further, I have become accustom to using Spotlight to quick launch any app I need. Cmd + Spacebar, enter first 3 letter of app and hit enter (it learns what I want) to open. That process takes me less time than it would with opening Launchpad, finding app and clicking open.

Reverse Scrolling

This is the one feature I don’t really care about. I’m unsure why Apple is trying to reverse our habit of scrolling, maybe because they have some master plan or maybe because Steve Jobs just wanted to change the way we do things. Either way it is not a big burden on me, I simply just scroll up instead of down. I learn the new way, I move on.

Mission Control

Supposedly Mission Control is the combination of Expose, Spaces, All Window Display and a couple other older features together. First off, I have never really used Expose, mainly because I don’t really know what it does and secondly, I use to use Spaces, but found I hated it for some aspects, so I abandon it (I have two massive monitors at work, why do I need spaces). Really the only thing I seem myself using here is the ability to display all the open windows I have, but that is nothing new.

Mac OSX Lion

So those are the three features I briefly used in the 5 minutes I had to try out Lion. There are somethings I still need to check out and report on, like Mail and Full Screen Apps. I have a hunch those two might get used more than the others.

We will see. Have you played with Lion much, what are your thoughts?

OS X Lion is out today

I could jump up and down in excitement that the latest Mac OS X is out (Operating System), but unfortunately I’m not. I’m a little sceptical as to how great it really is.

There is a lot that is change in terms of UI and I like the current way of doing things, so I don’t know how open I am to changing somethign I don’t think is broken.

I will admit it all looks really good and the price is unbeatable, so eventually I will upgrade, but I think I’m going to wait and see how other folks like it.

Mac OSX Lion

Thinking about it though, I do have three Macs, one being the MacBook Air. From what I am guessing the Air will benefit the most from this upgrade. It will make it more iPad-ish if you will.

If you happen to download it today, let me know what you think.

KyleWith on CBC Daybreak North talking Google+

After talking a lot about Google+ (by the way I’m not done yet) the past couple days, I was approached by CBC Daybreak North host Robert Doane about doing a quick chat about the new network.

We prerecorded it yesterday afternoon and it aired this morning (July 19, 2011) on their show. I think it went really we and I feel I touched upon all the points I really wanted to make about Google+

The one thing I wish I had a better answer for though, is how rural areas can use Social Media. Obviously the first thing that comes to our minds is how slow their Internet maybe, but I don’t think that is as big of excuse anymore. Using a Social Networking site really don’t take much internet and more and more places do have 3G cell service now. I hope to work more on putting in place a way more rural community can connect on some of these networks.

Have a listen and tell me what you think.

My Blog Post on Google+

Who came here because they wanted to read my thoughts on the latest and great social network? Well I am sorry to disappoint you, but I’m really just going to direct you to somewhere else.

In fact, I’m going to suggest if you want to read all my thoughts and observations about Google+ you should head over to the Motion Media Blog.

I might as well give you a seek peak though, to hopefully entice you into actually go over there and reading what I put my blood, sweat and tears into. Basically I wanted to highlight the key features that I believe are drawing people in to G+, but I also wanted to mention some of the down sides of the new platform thus far. I believe it is a well balanced post, please leave me your comments.

Motion Media Blog

New Socialnomics Video

At the beginning of every workshop I give on Social Media, I like to show this video to pump up the room. It spits out a good amount of Social Media statistics, many people never think of.

The video originally was made by Erik Qualman in 2009 to promote his book, Socialnomics (Affiliate link). The book is based on how the world has changed because of Social Media. Many of us are now connected to each other 24/7. We are meeting and talking to more people, from all over the world, than we ever would have on these sites.

Social Media does move quickly though, new products and services coming out everyday. That is why this video is now in its 3rd revision, which is current to June 2011. Have a watched and get pumped for Social Media.