More Mac software bundles – Parallels Desktop plus 9 apps

13 days left!

StackSocialParallelsDesktopBundleforMac2013

If you were considering buying Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac, it costs $59.99 alone (from B&H Photo).  If you have a previous older version of Parallels, the upgrade is $49.99 alone, so this bundle is a no brainer for you.

Included are 10 apps, my favorites of which are:

  • Parallels Desktop for Mac – run Windows on your mac
  • Winzip for MAC – advanced file compression archiver
  • LEAP – a file organizer/viewer/search tool
  • SnagIt – this is also worth the price of admission.  One of the best screen video capture programs, allowing you to make tutorial videos, recording your onscreen action and mouse movements to various movie formats to be shared or streamed online.
  • Typinator – predictive text shortcut typer – much like how your cell phone can predict what you’re likely typing

I almost exclusively buy Mac software only in bundles, and have been waiting for a Parallel bundle for the last 4 months.  Unlike some of the other software theat seems to be perpetually in some bundle (Leap and Yep  are currently in 2 bundles simultaneously, yet never DEEP (can find photos by color – great for graphic designers and photographers) by the same company.  I’ve been waiting on that one forever and have yet to see it offered.), Parallels and Snag It don’t normally go for discounts often.  So if you’re interested, go grab a copy.

 

Find your android phone, even on silent!

Green Google Android mascot icon

I lost my phone a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t on silent, but it was on the lowest volume level – even worse than silent because it didn’t even vibrate when called.  We had to resort to waiting until dark and hoping that we’d see it when it lit up.  Great idea, but didn’t work since the phone was buried under clothes in the laundry!

Enter the free app Android Lost, available from the Google Play Store. It can do everything but wash your dishes, including:

Features:
* read sent and received SMS messages
* wipe phone
* lock phone
* erase SD card
* locate by GPS or network
* start alarm with flashing screen
* send SMS from web page
* message popup
* forward calls
* remote install
* phone status: battery, imei, etc.
* remote SMS alarm
* remote SMS lock and unlock
* remote SMS erase SD card
* remote SMS wipe phone
* remote SMS APN control
* start/stop GPS
* start/stop WIFI
* hide from launcher
* email when SIM card is changed
* get call list
* take picture with front camera
* take picture with rear camera
* make your phone speak with text-to-speech
* SMS message command
* SMS speak command
* lock timeout
* restore settings on boot
* record sound from microphone
* start and stop data connection from SMS
* start and stop WIFI connection from SMS
* content browser prototype

 

I’d originally tried “Where’s My Droid“, another free app, but it didn’t work for me. In theory. you text your magic phrase to your phone (from a friend’s cellphone) and it will make your phone ring, screen and/or light up. But I lost my phone in my house earlier and have about 9 text messages with the magic phrase and it didn’t do a single thing. Then I went and tried Android Lost and fell in love.  What a great app!

The Apple equivalent free software is Find my Iphone, available from the Itunes app store.

Hats off!

My kids have big heads.  I mean, big.  My oldest son can wear hats that are mine, or at least were mine before I got larger hair.

Here’s mon petit fils for my entry into the I Heart Faces 30 day challenge, themed hat:

#iHeartFaces

 

Boudoir Mini-Session Sneak Peek { North Hollywood Boudoir Photographer }

In the launching of my boudoir and pin-up services, I decided to do a couple of mini-sessions to entice some people who were interested, yet scared of boudoir to try it.  Lower initial investment, and once they see the photos, a full service session ensues.  Here are some of a very pretty lady to remain unnamed.  Thanks for letting me display your photos – you know who you are. LOL.

Movie test

StackSocial Double Down Bundle – Name Your Own Price

 

This one’s a mini-bundle.

I’ve been giving StackSocial a lot of money lately. LOL.  But they tend to have really neat bundles of mac software apps that would otherwise cost exponentially more.

Tempelmann-Find-Any-File I really only wanted the Find Any File app, which isn’t $6 as they’ve estimated, it’s $7.99 in the dreaded mac app store. So I was willing to pay a couple of bucks for that. No, I literally mean a couple of bucks, as in perhaps $2.50, with the $.50 being added in to feel less like a cheapskate. That $2.50 would’ve only gotten me that app, which I was okay with initially. I’d been using an app called EasyFind that was head and shoulders above Finder and Spotlight searches on the Mac, which inexplicably, eons of OS’s later, is worse than Sherlock was on my old G4 pre-Tiger!  Finder and Spotlight do not allow you to sort your searches by size and a couple of other things that’d be super easy for them to code, but for some reason haven’t.  Enter Find Any File.  It searched across 3 mounted external drives and the internal one and found my file in question, lickety-split!  Sold!

Nulana-ShortcutsApp

But then I did check out the Shortcuts program by Nulana and it may hold some promise for me. I was originally concerned that I already have too many assigned shortcuts in my digital life, being a super duper fan and upser of Cinch and Size Up, but I think there still may be some room for a few more.

And the great thing is that, in addition to naming your own price, a percentage of your purchase goes to one of 3 charities of your  choice.

This sale is on for 13 more days, but the longer you wait, the more the average price goes up, and you only get both apps if you pay at least the average of what most people are choosing to pay.  It went up 12 cents between the time I started the purchase transaction and when I was finally signed in and allowed to purchase, so if you want this deal to remain a steal, act sooner than later.

The three charity choices are

  1. WWF, no not Captain Lou Albano, or Hulk Hogan’s WWF (I think this is why they had to change the name), but The World Wildlife Fund.
  2. Child’s Play – a charity that brings toys to hospitals with sick children, something near and dear to my heart, since one of my friend’s infant son got diagnosed with a disease that virtually had them live in a hospital for the better part of a year.  A baby can’t play video games, but I like the charity’s idea nonetheless.
  3. Creative Commons – a nonprofit that provides copyright licenses for people to determine the terms with which people can use their intellectual property on the web.  Without lawyers or pain or whatnot.

So far, they’ve only raised $108, so I decided to post so that people looking for a Finder search alternative could save some bucks while profiting a charity simultaneously.  Happy computing.

Patriotic Pin Up { North Hollywood Pin Up Photographer }

It’s difficult to narrow these to just a few – I love them so!  Izzy, the pinup queen shows off her patriotic spirit. She’s channeling the Fourth of July. Wondering what to get daddy for Father’s Day?  Consider pinup photos – dad’s favorite model is you!