Navjot Pawera - Navjot Pawera's Blog

Recommended Mac app: QuickCal

I’d really recommend QuickCal if, like me, you also:

Use iCal regularly
Don’t like to keep it running as it just sits there most of the time
Like the idea of using plain english to add stuff to iCal
Would like to have a quick and simple way to add and view events

After setting it up, now I can quickly press:

“Shift + Cmd + C” to add a new event in plain english (love the feedback from the different fields that get filled in as you type)
“Shift + Cmd + X” to get an overview of your days appointments

I had been reading about Fantastical the past few days, but I think it’s a bit overdone design wise. Feels “bulky”. And it costs more than 15 times the price of QuickCal ($0.99).

Update: Quickcal does not support caldav sync, which means you need to keep iCal running all the time otherwise the events you create will not be synced (until you run iCal). This might be a problem for some (like myself).

25 May 2011

WVIL Concept Camera

This prototype blew my socks off! Even though the idea isn’t something completely new, but the execution here it is pretty impressive. The WVIL basically separates the body (or the viewfinder) of the camera from the lens – allowing you to fire the shutter in the lens remotely from the viewfinder. Their viewfinder interface seems to be quite interesting as well.

I actually tried something like this a while back. If you have any two from iPad, iPhone, iPod (atleast one has to be camera enabled) – download the “Camera for iPad” app on both. You should now be able to use one of your devices as a “lens” and the other as a “viewfinder”. It won’t be even close to the awesomeness of the WVIL but it should give you a feeler

I’m tempted to think of a camera that can work on it’s own and at the same time, can be completely controlled wirelessly by a phone/tablet/computer interface as well.

WVIL Concept Camera by Artefact

26 Apr 2011

Notes on Sparrow’s UI

I’ve been meaning to write about Sparrow App – my now default mail app for work. It’s really worked for me. I like the lack of things I can do to incoming mail. I either read it or it stays unread. No filing, no labelling etc etc. Sparrow might allow you to do more, but I don’t know how and it works for me. Best of all, the app does a great job of keeping all those options that I don’t want to use, out of my way.

I recently caught a link to Olivier Charavel’s thoughts about Sparrow’s UI. It’s always interesting to read other people’s UI reviews, but I certainly hope Sparrow doesn’t go the way Olivier proposes. I’m not obsessed with it’s “Tweetie” like interface, but another “Thunderbird” would certainly be missing the point.

19 Apr 2011