Month: July 2005

Categories
Software Technology

Two Great Mac Apps and One Missing In Action

iCalView - Great software.

The good:
1. iFlash – a flash card application for OS X, is everything you’d expect a Mac app to be. Clean, simple, intuitive and functional. I’m using it to study for the Real Estate exam and I couldn’t ask for better. It’s stable, actively developed and has enough features to make it powerful without being complex. Highly recommended $10 shareware with a generous trial period and free mode.

2. iCalViewer – shows your iCal appointments on your desktop in a unobtrusive, useful way. I’ve never gotten in the habit of opening iCal to see what’s coming up, but with iCalViewer events are always right there, in context and only the relevant ones show up. Shareware, $11 with a generous trial and free mode.

The missing:
A good sync application for PocketPC to OS X. I have PocketMac and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I’ve read the reviews for the Missing Sync and wouldn’t consider dropping $40 on software that has 2 1/2 of 5 stars on MacUpdate and 3 of 5 stars on VersionTracker with enough bad reviews to scare anyone off. Maybe I need to switch to Palm or just give up on having a handheld that syncs properly with a Mac.

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Categories
Entertainment

War of the Worlds Review

War of the Worlds
Last night we saw War of the Worlds, here’s my review in a nutshell (I’ll try not to spoil it too much if you haven’t seen it):

The plot of War of the Worlds is “run away from the aliens in large machines.” That is the entire plot, there is no love story, no hero, no real purpose for the invasion of Earth, no philosophy and no bad guy (at least none with any human emotions). Though most people on Earth die in the movie, almost no one with more than 45 seconds of screen time dies. The space from the climax to the end of the movie is about 2 minutes. In those brief moments, no real explaining of anything that happened during the rest of the movie takes place. Morgan Freeman (who doesn’t appear anywhere else in the movie) does at least make an attempt to give some justification for the sudden ending, but falls short of anything with substance.

The graphics are great, the sound is awesome and there are definitely some tense moments, but the acting is unconvincing and there is absolutely no food for thought.

Wait for it to come out on DVD is my verdict.

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