I recently posted about Grooveshark which dubs itself as an “online music community”.  I think Grooveshark is great when you know what you’re looking for, but other sites like last.fm and Pandora are fantastic if you want to hear something new.  Based on the Music Genome Project, the idea behind Pandora is simple:  you type in the name of an artist that you like, and Pandora finds similar music.  For each song you hear you can choose to strongly approve of the song (in which case you’ll hear more material like it), disapprove of the song (you’ll be streamed a new song right away), or let the song play through, where Pandora assumes you liked it.

One issue with Pandora is that you can’t easily control it like you can a standalone program like iTunes, meaning you hvae to have a browser open at all times, and you don’t get hotkeys.  You also can’t stream your Pandora music to an Airport Express like you can with iTunes.  PandoraJam for the Mac solves these issues, and also gives you the ability to record what you’re hearing (tagged and added to iTunes automatically) and also scrobble to your last.fm account.

There’s a program similar to PandoraJam for Windows called Pandora Jar which was reviewed at Lifehacker.

Leopard has been out for a few weeks now, and there have been plenty of reviews. I upgraded, and have no regrets, but I have found that the only real advantage I am seeing is the performance boost. I have a MacBook Pro 2.16 Core Duo with 2GB of RAM and have experienced about a 30% speed increase overall. Programs launch quicker, boot time is reduced, and the system is more responsive overall.

What about all the other new features? I tried Spaces and couldn’t get used to it. I’ve tried VirtueDesktops in the past, which is similar to Spaces, but didn’t find it really increased my productivity.

As for Time Machine, it’s an awesome feature for those who don’t already make regular backups, or who have lots of documents that they update regularly. I back my computer up every week or so using SuperDuper, which creates a bootable image of your computer on an external drive. I’ve read that Time Machine can do this too, but SuperDuper has worked for me for a few years now. As for document versioning, I don’t really have that many documents that I update, and hardly ever feel the need to get back to a previous version.

The updated Finder with CoverFlow is pretty slick, though I can’t see any reason to browse regular documents using CoverFlow. I have been using it to go through pictures and video though.

There are many other features (around 300) in Leopard that I haven’t mentioned, but the major ones Apple is pushing don’t really apply to me. That being said, the performance boost was well worth the money.

Check out Lifehacker’s Leopard articles for more info.

Because I’m sure you’ve never heard of it. I got one, and it’s sweet. But it might not be for you, just yet. There are plenty of reviews, (including a fantastic in-depth review over at Ars Technica) so I’ll give you my pros and cons so far.Pros

• The screen is fantastic
• The interface is really something…the level of detail is there
• Net access is very fast on wifi, not too bad on EDGE
• Cover Flow in iPod mode is awesome
• Video quality is excellent…I would consider watching a movie on a plane or on a road trip

Cons (who knows if some of these will be remedied with software updates in the future?)

• sync via Bluetooth, only using included sync cable or other ipod cable
• Can’t buy things on iTunes…have to buy using your comp then sync
• 8 gb (or 4!) fills up quick…I had to be pretty selective about what I put on there in terms of music
• Google Maps program doesn’t know where you are…no GPS built in
• Have to buy $20 unlimited data plan…and stuck with evil AT&T (although i’ve been with them for 4 yrs with no issues…)
• Doesn’t interface with computer much yet…with my old phone I had a program (BluePhone Elite) that displayed caller ID alerts on screen and allowed me to send and read text messages on screen

What do you think? Has anyone else been disturbed enough to buy a $600 phone?

Knowing keyboard shortcuts is a great way to boost your productivity.  I’ve put together a list of a few keyboard shortcut cheat sheets.  There are cheat sheets for just about every common program out there…Google is your friend.

• Mac OS X
• Firefox
• Word for Mac
• OpenOffice.org for Mac
• iTunes

Being an efficient typist will help out a great deal, too.  Check out these typing games and apps:

• Word Shoot via Lifehacker
• Typer Shark on Yahoo Games
• CueType by DL&DS Software
• Bubbles Typing Game on TypingMaster.com

Check out your typing speed at www.typingtest.com.  I got 88 wpm!

WriteRoom from Hog Bay Software is the perfect tool for doing a bit of distraction free writing. Fire up the app and you’re immediately greeted with a full-screen black window and a blinking cursor. That’s it. Type away! WriteRoom has an auto-save feature, spell-checking, and the ability to save files as plain or rich text. You can also set WriteRoom up to be your default text editor and even use it to compose your emails if you’re using Mail.app. Change the font, colors, scale, and margins to suit your taste and get on that novel. WriteRoom is $25 but there’s a free download to try it out.

A couple of links to reviews of WriteRoom:

• on Lifehacker
• on The Unofficial Apple Weblog
• on The Apple Blog
• on 43 Folders

For a Windows alternative, check out Dark Room. There’s a web-based version too, called Writer.

BluePhoneElite, by Mira Software is a Bluetooth application that interfaces with your mobile phone, providing caller ID on-screen, the ability to dial from your computer, and send text messages without pressing the 7 key four times for an ’s’.

The software has some additional features that are pretty awesome in my opinion. One is the ability to customize “proximity behaviors”. I have my MacBook set up to lock when I walk away with my phone, which is usually in my pocket. Another neat feature is the DVD player and iTunes pause feature, which pauses whatever your playing when your phone rings.

This software is not free, but worth every one of the $20 it costs. Check it out.