It’s those little things that make OS X so awesome.

I was having a bitch of a time just importing the 15 minutes of video I shot with my iPhone of our daughter hunting Easter eggs into iMovie yesterday.  Her grandparents, who live 1,000 miles away, really wanted to see video the video that I shot, and I was getting really frustrated in my attempts to share our video.

After some preliminary searching, I found a few threads where it was recommended that you delete the iMovie preference files (Home Folder>Library>Preferences) Look for anything like com.apple.imovie… and simply delete them.  I found two files:

com.apple.iMovieApp.plist
com.apple.iMovieApp.plist.lockfile

Note: if you’re having a hard time finding your Library directory, take a look at my article here.

It was also recommended to repair disk permissions.  I didn’t think that would do anything, but I tried it anyway.  To repair your disk permissions, go to: Home Folder>Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility.  Then, select your hard drive in the left side of the app and then click the ‘Repair Permissions’ button in the main section and wait for Disk Utility to do its thing.

Unfortunately, deleting preference files and repairing disk permissions didn’t fix my problem.  iMovie was still crashing when I tried to import my videos from iPhoto.

Finally I found a fix that worked for me.  Simply move your ‘iMovie Projects’ folder and then delete it from the ‘Movies’ directory.  Your iMovie Projects folder should be in the Movies folder of finder.  I simply copied mine to my desktop, and then deleted it from ‘Movies’.  Apparently there’s a tendency for something to get corrupted in the iMovie Projects folder, and when it’s deleted and iMovie is started from scratch, all is well again.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Early in February I was inspired to finally build an iPhone app. I’ve had countless app ideas, but this one I knew I could do, and I felt strongly that there would be a market for it. I knew from before the word go that I wasn’t going to learn how to code the app myself. I spent three miserable years of my life in college as a computer science major and I knew I didn’t want to try to learn how to code again. I don’t like coding, I suck at it, I find absolutely no fun in it, and my brain just doesn’t work that way. I greatly admire, respect and hold in high esteem those who do code. In my career I’ve really enjoyed working with developers, and I like to think they’ve enjoyed working with me. And that’s why I leave the coding to those who enjoy it and are good at it.

Years ago Elise told me she would love a simple grocery list app. She wanted one that would allow her to type or copy & paste in her grocery list items, and then be able to check off each item as they were procured in the grocery store. It’s a really simple app idea and I’ve always liked the concept. I’ve kept this app idea in the back of my head for a couple years now. When I finally had some downtime this last summer, I created a graphical workflow for the app as I had interpreted it. Once I started on the workflow design, the project started becoming fun, and I got a bit of wind in my sail. After spending a couple days on the design, I reached out to a friend who was the sales director for a local app development shop. A week later, he came back to me and said, “iOS 5 is slated to have this exact app. If you still want to do it, it’s going to cost you $20,000.”

And that totally took the wind out of my sail. A few months later, iOS 5 came out and, if I had to guess, the app that was supposed to be just like mine was ‘Reminders.’ That wasn’t the case. I kept my workflow design filed away on my computer and it wasn’t until I recently tripped over some inspiration that I decided I was just going to have my app built anyway. Reminders isn’t the same app, and there are tons of list, to-do, grocery list and getting things done apps out there, but my gut kept telling me that mine was unique because it solved MY (wife’s) specific problem. And that is how great things are created.

Late one recent evening I opened my workflow design in Photoshop and gave it a once over. I made a couple minor changes, wrote the “story” of what problem my app is supposed to solve, and then I sought a developer to help me. Two years ago I hired a developer when I barely had enough money to pay him for the work, and today that little idea has turned into a successful and profitable little side business called Scrubbly.

I consider myself very blessed to be of the “get shit done” mentality. I love having a to-do list, but I hate having stuff on said to-do list. I get things done, and this was one of those things that I had to get into motion or the mental inventory would weigh on me. Like most, there’s a small part of me that thinks, “Oh, but what if some developer steals my idea and makes millions?!” With Scrubbly, and other ventures, I’ve learned that “what if” is a leading cause of procrastination. Someone else might think my idea is great, but that’s just it, it’s my idea and vision. I’m the one that’s passionate about it. I’m the one that’s treating it like it’s my baby and will push and fight and make it happen. The passion and the enthusiasm are the driving forces behind seeing an idea through to a product. It’s all about the execution.

So while my developer was working on the nuts and bolts of the app, I worked on the other facets of the app, like graphic design, copywriting & marketing strategy. I knew I wanted a landing page website for the app, so I built that. I spent a couple hours creating and updating the copy on the site, as well as swapping out icons, updating meta data and app screenshots. I also created a couple menu items: a “buy” button (an extra call to action never hurts) and a link to watch a demonstration video. I think a demo video is a must have for most every product. I created a simple demo video of Scrubbly, and I think it really helps in showing customers what the app actually does. I did the same thing here with SlimList.

I probably spent the most time on the logo. My first inclination was to outsource the logo design, but thought I’d give it a shot first. I kind of knew what I wanted in my head, so I figured I’d try to harness my vision and get it onto my screen. My initial design idea was a list (a vector image of a piece of paper with a list written up on it) and some kind of belt or ribbon wrapped around the middle of the list to make the list look “slim.” I also knew I wanted a checkmark on the list. I didn’t know how I would go about making the ribbon to make the list look slim, so I started playing around with general button shapes and checkmarks. It didn’t take me long to figure out how to create the square with rounded edges and the gradient, nor did it take too terribly long to create the checkmark. I was actually quite surprised with how my first iterations came out, so I just kind of stuck with what I’d come up with on my own. As I thought more about the logo and looked at the one I’d created myself, I realized that what I’d come up with was simple and to the point, so I decided to stick with it. It works.

At first my logo was going to be red. Then I simply changed it to blue in Photoshop because Elise’s favorite color is blue. Blue stuck. Blue also invokes feelings of calm, rest, peace & tranquility. Blue’s always a good bet. Plus, simple blue icons on my iPhone always seem to attract my eye. Just look at Skype, Facebook, Amazon and Google — all simple. All blue.

Because I’d spent many intimate hours with the SlimList workflow diagram last year, there wasn’t a whole lot more that my developer needed from me. He’d plug away at the code and reach me via Skype with any questions he had. We collaborated very well and ironed out any kinks together as they came up.

I had a couple last minute feature requests toward the end of the project (like the little ‘note’ icon for list items and the ability to repurpose a list stored in the ‘Logbook’), and we had to design the search functionality together as I hadn’t really thought that part through in my original design.

And then the day came when he sent me the final version of SlimList for approval. I signed off on it, we collectively indulged in a sigh of relief, and then it was time to submit the app to Apple for approval.

I’ll spare you the details in submitting an iPhone app to Apple for approval because honestly, I don’t know all the minute details of the process as I had my developer do the legwork there. I’d heard that the process can be somewhat daunting and painstaking for a first-timer, so I saved myself the headache and paid him to create the profiles and upload the binary. I created my own developer account, setup my “company”, categorized the app and handled all of the marketing aspects such as the logo, screenshots, keywords, description and pricing.

The name SlimList was kind of an accident. When I designed the app, I called it “Simple List Maker” As it came time to think about what to actually call it, I first thought of its acronym – SLM, which quickly became SLiM, and then SlimList. I really like “Slim” because I wanted it to be a “slimmed down” and simple list management app by design. There are tons of list apps out there, but most of them are bloated with so-called features that are too clunky and aren’t appealing or useful as an everyday to-do list management tool for most people.

It’s impossible to put into words how much fun I had, and how much I learned from the experience. And I can’t wait to get started on the next one!

I don’t remember why, but many years back I researched and decided to convert all of my videos to Flash before posting them in blog posts. And I fell in love with Techspansion’s VisualHub. It was inexpensive, quick, simple, and it did exactly what I needed it to do in that it took the .mov or .mp4 files that I would export from iMovie and convert them to .flv files. And it did the conversion crazy-fast!

When OS X Lion came out, VisualHub stopped working. Even though they’d stopped supporting VisualHub all-together, Techspansion was awesome enough to offer an update for Lion. And it worked for a short period of time.

It’d been two months since I last posted a video on one of my websites. Last night I had a video of our unborn baby kicking his or her older sister, and I really wanted to post it on Janicek.com for the grandparents to see. I fired up VisualHub and was immediately greeted with a “Download Extras” screen. I thought I needed to update VisualHub again. I manually installed the updates only to be greeted with this error when I tried to convert my video:

Apple Script Error
Cant get text item 1 of “”. (-1728)

So I decided it was time to move on. VisualHub had been nice to me over the years, but it was time to find a new solution. After some quick Googling, I found iSkysoft’s Video Converter for OS X. For $35, you can’t really beat it. It’s simple, intuitive and quick, just like VisualHub once was.  It allows me to take my .mov and .mp4 files that I export from iMovie and easily convert them to .flv files to play on my websites. iSkysoft Video Converter for Mac lets you easily convert videos, movies and TV shows to optimized preset formats to fit iPad, iPod (iPod touch 4), iPhone (iPhone 4S) and other devices. It also lets you onvert video to and from a vast array of video formats including AVI, WMV, MPG, and MOV. Video Converter for Mac is compatible with Mac OS X Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion!

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s really easy for me to sell the notion of buying a new Mac to my in-laws (or anyone, for that matter), but it just wasn’t in the cards for them. They kicked around the idea of buying a new iPad as their collective Christmas present, but they’re needing to focus their finances on getting their house ready to sell. So, I offered to bring the trusty iBook back to Austin and replace the drive for them. I thought this was going to be a simple feat seeing how I’ve done this kind of surgery before.

Well, upgrading an iBook G4 hard drive ain’t easy. And to add insult to injury, I figured I’d upgrade the OS to Leopard.

Here’s what I learned.

• Getting to the iBook hard drive is intensive. I used this YouTube video to help me through most of the process. Worth noting that this video is of a 12″ iBook while mine is a 14″ iBook. So there are quite a few extra screws on the 14″ model. Just have patience.
• An iBook uses an IDE drive. Most drives today are SATA. I drove over to Fry’s yesterday afternoon and picked up a 160GB 2.5″ IDE drive for $75. One of my gadgets that’s worth it’s weight in gold is my universal drive adapter, which made it easy to format the drive and install Leopard.
• Since an iBook is PowerPC architecture, there are a few caveats:
  1. If you’re installing Leopard onto an external hard drive first, make sure you partition and format the drive correctly. Using Disk Utility, select the root drive, then create 1 partition (or however many you want/need). And here’s the important part!: Click the ‘Options’ button. That will bring up a dialog where you choose the partition scheme. For a PowerPC Mac, you’ll need to check Apple Partition Map (not GUID Partition Table).
  2. Here’s the awesome kicker: you’re not going to be able to install OS X Leopard onto the Apple Partition Mapped drive.  This means you’re going to have to install Leopard on another external drive (assuming you’re doing this via the external drive route) that’s formatted using the GUID Partition Table.  Once you have Leopard installed on the GUID drive, use Carbon Copy Cloner (or whichever app you fancy) to make a bootable clone of the drive with Leopard on it onto the Apple Partition drive.

It took a lot of trial and error, scouring the web and re-doing things to finally get Leopard up and running on the iBook G4, but it was totally worth it.

Here’s what I’ve tried:

• Restarting the Dock by opening Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal) and typing “killall Dock” (sans quotes)
• Rebooting. This always does the trick, but who wants to reboot their Mac, even if it’s an Air and reboots crazy-quick?!
• Repairing Disk Permissions (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility). Select your local drive and click the ‘Repair Disk Permissions’ button.
• And what I’ve found to work like a charm is simply turning off Screen Sharing. I always have Screen Sharing open because I’m often times accessing the Mac Mini that’s hooked up to our TV in the living room.

So, if your Command + Tab isn’t working in OS X, simply try closing Screen Sharing.

I know how frustrating it can be in finding that “next great thing” for you. You’re going through the motions, sending out resumes, reaching out to friends, colleagues, acquaintances, looking for any kind of lead — that tiny little glimpse of a light at the end of that long and dark tunnel. That little light is out there, but you might not be able to see it because you’re squinting with disdain and your eyebrows are all furrowed.

You’re probably downtrodden, disheartened, discouraged and more than likely, at some point, downright mad. Don’t be. If you didn’t get an email or a call after you sent in your resume, followed up, interviewed, whatever, on that job that you knew fit you to a T, then it wasn’t meant to be. Call it fate, call it destiny, call it your resume got stuck in someone’s spam folder or they just didn’t like you. It wasn’t meant to be. Stick your chest out and move on.

And do it with a smile.

For me, attitude and enthusiasm plays just as an important role in my hiring decision as knowledge and experience. For the past 2 weeks my number one goal has been to find a rockstar of a Project Manager. I’ve met with some really great and qualified candidates, but the resounding and missing ingredient has been enthusiasm. I know that three recent candidates with whom I spoke really wanted the job, but they just fell short in conveying the, “I really want this job!” attitude.

I’m sure nerves play a large part in conveying that enthusiasms because, let’s face it, guards are up in the interview process. We all have that tendency to be stern, straight-faced and “professional,” especially when our livelihood is on the line. Let that guard down a little and let your happy, enthusiastic and human side shine though.

And here’s the easiest and most effective strategy in conveying your excitement about a job: just ask for it. If the buy signs are all there, ask for the sale! Strike while the iron’s hot!

“I’ve done x, y & z at my last 2 jobs. This job sounds perfectly in line with where I want to go in my professional development and I think I’d be a huge asset to your team because of my abilities to solve the problems you’ve outlined for me. I can’t put into words how excited I am about this opportunity. Can I have the job?”

You may or may not get a yes or no right then and there, but you’ve told me you can do the job, you’re really excited about the opportunity, it’s where you want to be, and you asked me for the job.

You just went straight to the top of the list.

I wasn’t the Apple fanboy who pre-ordered the iPhone 4S. I figured I’d wait a few weeks until the demand died down and I could just walk into the Apple store and pick up a new phone. The family and I happened to be in Katy this past Saturday (the day after the iPhone 4S hit store shelves) and I decided to just swing by the AT&T store, just for shits and giggles to see if maybe they had a few iPhones left in stock. I was surprised when the salesperson told me that she had plenty of 32GB and 64GB models in both black and white. I let her quickly sell me a black 64GB model. While we were there, we went ahead and upgraded my wife to a 16GB iPhone 4S as well (the 16GB had to be ordered).

But all that’s kind of beside the point. When I got my shiny new iPhone, I immediately synced it with my iTunes account and pretty much got everything how I wanted it (folders, apps, settings, etc.) I was almost ready to wipe my old iPhone 3GS to sell it when I realized that my new iPhone didn’t have my text message history. All of my previous text messages were still on my old iPhone 3GS (or hopefully stored as a backup on my MacBook).

After doing some scouring with the Google, I learned that your text/SMS messages are stored and backed up on your Mac when you do a backup of your iPhone via iTunes.

Your iPhone’s backup file on your Mac is located here:

/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup

If, for whatever reason, you can’t find your ‘Library’ folder, try pressing the ‘Option’ key when you click on the ‘Go’ menu item in Finder.

Your backup files should look something like this in Finder (click image below to enlarge):

What do you do with your iPhone backup files?

You should see a bunch of folders and a ton of individual files with non-descript names like “0b6dc57b11f9862d66c0a08f34c0786ddf6b6427″. Those are your backed-up files. Awesome, huh? What the hell are you supposed to do with those? Well, you can go through them individually and you might see a photo or two among the thousands of other files in that backup folder. You could get yourself some kind of SQLite browser and spend your precious time figuring that out.

What I found was a cool little application called Decipher TextMessage from DecipherTools. It takes all of those weirdly-named backup files, pulls them into a nice-looking, well-packaged user interface that lets you view, print, save and copy your text message archives onto your computer’s hard drive. I don’t necessarily want all of those old text messages on my new iPhone, but I do want those old text messages saved, if only for the sake of for posterity.

If you want to save your text messages from your iPhone before upgrading, you just can’t beat the $9.99 price tag for Decipher’s TextMessage. I was hesitant at first, but quickly reminded myself that someone took the time to bundle a slick and easy-to-use software application that does something really well, and saves folks time in researching convoluted ways to archive their text messages from their iPhones. You can buy Decipher TextMessage directly from their site or by clicking the Decipher TextMessage image below:

To find your ‘Library’ folder in OS X, do the following simple step:

While in Finder, click ‘Go’ in the top menu and then press the ‘option’ key. You will see ‘Library’ magically appear. I’m not sure if this is Lion specific.

A few years ago I decided I’d just be myself in email. Email inherently lacks tone and inflection, so I like to let folks know of my perpetual lighter side. I’ve had so many conversations via email that just seemed to portray both sides as fake. Whenever the conversation(s) carried over into a phone call or a face-to-face meeting, it’s like I was talking to the person for the very first time. Like we’d never exchanged any kind of words in the past. I didn’t like the feeling on my side of being insincere and disingenuous. A client, colleague, friend or family member should and will know me for who I am. I’m not the kind of person who writes you off in a closing by saying “Best, Josh.” Where applicable and in most cases, I’ll always be professional. Usually I’ll use the old stand-bys like “Thanks,” or “Cheers,” (I usually use the latter when I’m typing in my British accent), but by and large, you’re getting a piece of me in the email I’m sending to you. You should feel special for playing such a integral part in the contribution to my carpal tunnel syndrome.

In recent months when corresponding with colleagues via email, I started closing my emails with off-the-wall photos. Nothing offensive, but something that would, in my hopes, brighten someone’s day by garnering a chortle. For instance, I was replying to a coworker’s email one morning after we’d collectively solved a problem. In closing, I said, “Happy Friday! Here’s a picture of a guy playing a guitar with a rabbit on his head.” I don’t know why a photo of a guy playing guitar with a rabbit on his head came to mind, but it did, and I decided to include it in the closing of my email (Google Images is your friend). It was completely off the wall, irrelevant and sporadic. My colleague wrote me back and said, “That just made my day!”

If you’re going to try to be cute with your closing salutation, be clever. Make someone laugh or at least scratch their head. Sign off with something like “Cottage cheese,” or “Graham cracker airplane,” Life’s too short to be arrogant and distant.

Best isn’t the best.

Fushigi balls,

Josh

I usually don’t do full-on product endorsement or media reviews, but I just have to on this one. It’s Labor Day weekend and the family and I totally indulged in doing pretty much nothing and enjoying some downtime and a much-needed opportunity to relax. Yesterday afternoon, I found myself on the couch and doing nothing productive on the computer. I fired up the App Store (which I think I’ve only done thrice since it was released) and went to the Game section. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular – maybe a casual game like Angry Birds or Plants vs. Zombies. After I was just about to purchase Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, something caught my eye… a familiar game icon… something I’d grown intimately familiar with many years ago. Could it be? My focus shifted and there it was – exactly as I’d remembered. Raptor Call of the Shadows was available in the App Store, and playable on my MacBook Pro! Woot!

I used to play Raptor on my old PC for hours and hours on end back in my college days. I’d burn through 12-pack of beer, huddled in my 425 sq. ft. apartment just blasting away enemy aircraft, amassing cash and upgrading my arsenal. It’s such a mindless 2nd person jet fighter shooter but it’s such a blast! It totally reminds me of the old days of Zaxxon and it’s just such a fun game to play. Not much strategy to it — you’re just a fighter jet flying around a blowing up other jets, buildings and machine guns on the ground. I love the 2nd person perspective where you, the game player, is looking down at your jet. I guess I’m just old school like that. Even after having not played the game in a decade, the gameplay quickly came back and I was just as quickly reminded of my weapons preference. After getting through “Bravo Sector”, I was able to amass enough cash to purchase the optimal arsenal of weaponry. For me, I like having the “Always Equipped” variety which include: Machine Gun, Phase Shield, Plasma Cannon, and Micro-Missile. Then, as I progress, I like to toggle among the Auto-Track Mini-Gun and Laser Turret.

Raptor is such a fun game, and I’m so glad DotEmo ported it over for OS X! And for $4.99, you just can’t beat it. You can click the button below to buy Raptor Call of the Shadows for OS X directly from the App Store.

This aren’t hard, “final” numbers, but more of an approximation given that we know what our monthly car payment was (we’ve since sold one of our cars), and what gas and insurance were costing us per month:

• $275 car payment
• $200 monthly gas
• $60 insurance

Now, if my math is correct, since I started riding the bus in mid-June, we’ve saved $1,329.80 in just me driving to work (well, and a few miles on the weekend)! Subtract the two bus passes at $30 each that I’ve since purchased, but those barely put a ding in the cost savings.

It really puts into perspective how much transportation actually costs us. Now, I’m not apposed to personal transportation. I love having a vehicle, I love driving, having my own space & music, but when you take a few minutes and look at the numbers, it’s pretty easy to see where a large chunk of your money is going. To me, I see: I can spend $535 per month to drive myself (with stress), or $30 per month (without stress).

Since riding the bus, I’ve learned that Google Maps in my very good friend. Google’s bus schedule is far more accurate than Austin’s Capital Metro schedule. Google also gives you a handy “Estimated Driving Costs” calculator for each bus route you look up. Google tells me that my route just to get to work would cost me $5.13. That number doesn’t take into account a car payment, and it’s allocating the average cost per mile allowed for tax deductions by businesses — our car gets terrible gas mileage (~10 miles per gallon).

Savings like these get my wheels spinning (pun intended). In April 2010 I paid off our student loans in full, 14 years ahead of schedule. After being unemployed for the better part of 2010, my first goal will be to rebuild our “oh, shit” fund. Then it’s onto how to get that money to work for us; that’s while keeping my fingers crossed that our home’s air conditioner doesn’t fail on us before the end of summer.

In 2004, and after having been encouraged to wait for a couple years, my wife bought me a 14″ iBook. I’ve been an exclusive Mac user ever since (worth noting that my family’s very first computer was an Apple IIGS Woz Edition, circa 1984). There are 4 Apple computers in our house, two iPhones, a handful of iPods and a pleasant looking stock portfolio, with AAPL shining at the top of that list.

It wasn’t until late last night, after putting our daughter to bed that I hopped on Facebook and saw where people were talking about Steve Jobs resigning as CEO. CNN.com confirmed what I was hoping to be a sick rumor. While my jaw didn’t necessarily hit the floor, a flood of thoughts came rushing through my head. My first inclination was to log in to my Ameritrade account and put in a sale order to cash in all of our Apple shares. That thought dissipated as quickly as it came on. I’m no investment guru, but have stood by a simple mantra that I heard years ago when I first purchased my own shares in a company: Invest in companies that you know and love. Just because Steve Jobs is no longer going to be the face of Apple (although I’m sure he still will be, unofficially, for years yet to come), I’m sure the Board will keep him on as Chairman and as an employee. While Tim Cook might not be the same pitch man as Jobs, he’s done one hell of a job on the operations front as far as Apple’s retail stores and supply for product launches. Cook has Jobs’ blessing, and that has to be worth it’s weight in platinum iPads. My two cents: let Cook sustain the business as it is today. Let Jonathan Ives run keynotes and product launches. As a consumer, I firmly believe that Ives can keep Apple’s face sexy, creative and innovative. Watching Cook deliver a keynote or product launch is up there, for me, like watching a presentation on podiatry (no offense, podiatric professionals).

In the aforementioned CNN.com article, Mike McGuire, analyst at Gartner said, “One of the most important things that Steve Jobs did in Apple 2.0 is rebuilding the culture.” And other articles I’ve since read talk to the culture of Apple, the foundation of which Jobs laid, which will hopefully carry on for years to come. It reminds me of another chapter (or two) in The E-Myth Revisited, where a common paraphrased theme is: your business is not to sell a product or a services. It’s to sell your business. Love or hate Apple, you know that they’re an innovative company the delivers consistent products and results. For me, Apple has recreated and embodied the business ethos of consistency, quality, reliability, innovation and sexy. I “bought” Apple as a company when I saw the iPod in person. I have proudly been an “Apple Fan Boy” ever since. And I will continue to be a die-hard Apple fan with or without Steve Jobs, so long as the company gives me reason to be.

I feel I have absolutely no reason to sell a single share of Apple stock. In fact, I just might drive over to the local Apple retail store this evening and buy something, just to show some love and support.

I upgraded to OS X Lion a couple weeks ago, and it’s been quite a while since I did any video editing and encoding. I created a new video this evening of our daughter’s first day at Kindergarten, and fired up VisualHub to encode the finalized video. VisualHub greeted me with the registration screen. So, I found my registration email from years ago and copied over my name, email and license ID. Those didn’t work. I figured this had to be yet another Lion “thing.” A quick search and I found today’s Macworld article stating that Techspansion had released a Lion update for VisualHub! Woot!

It’s very cool that Techspansion released an update to their long-since-retired VisualHub. I really wish they’d keep working on, updating and supporting VisualHub. Oh well, kudos to them for providing this Lion update.

You can download the Lion update for VisualHub directly from Techspansion’s site.

I don’t know why I get a kick out of this feature, but I do. I think if you’re at a loss for how to start on or update your resume, this PDF export might be a good place to start. What I find most valuable is when you export the PDF from LinkedIn, it will also include all of the recommendations that have been posted on your LinkedIn profile. Don’t have any recommendations? What?! Go ask some folks to recommend you on LinkedIn! And better yet – you should recommend folks on LinkedIn as well; It’ll help folks in getting that next great job, it’s great for karma and hell, who doesn’t like getting a glowing recommendation?!

If you already have a great resume, a thought might be to edit the PDF that you export from LinkedIn so you’re only left with the recommendations. Then you could use the standalone PDF for your “references”, or you could just append them to the PDF version of your resume. Here’s a link to a discounted version of Adobe Acrobat on Amazon. I honestly have no experience with any other PDF editing software so I’m short of recommendations beyond Adobe Acrobat. I’m sure there are plenty out there, but Adobe invented the PDF so I stick with the folks who know best.