wow, cool

Hey, just found this cool software sale at MacZOT today only, 13 apps valued at $300USD for $13USD. Not too shabby.

Check it out if you're interested. There's some productivity apps, a cool workout app (hey, now I can get in shape!) and some utilities. You can find it here. The only catch is that as of now, there's only one more chance to buy, and you only have a 13 minute window. You also have to register with macZOT first, so do that if you're interested.

technorati tags:macZOT, apps, cool

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i'm a softie

yes, yes, I admit it. I'm a softie. Here's proof... I let the kids touch my new MacBook Pro.

technorati tags:macbook, pro, kids

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oh, and just so you know

Pro Tools 7.3 and OSX 10.4.9 (updated via Software Update) DOES NOT WORK!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!

I must have tried reinstalling PT, like, 4 times before I found this out on the forums. Doh!

Oddly enough, it's supposed to work if you update to 10.4.9 via the Combo Installer, which is a .dmg download (310MB, mind you... it's not small). I'm downloading it now. I thought I'd share while I wait for it to download. Lucky you.

i just got joost

after months of waiting, I finally got my Joost beta for OSX token. w00t! And me with a nice shiny new MacBook Pro to run it on, too...

technorati tags:joost, osx, beta

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8 Core Mac Pro Arrives

The Apple Store was down earlier, and now we know why! 8 core Mac Pro's are now available, utilizing dual "Clovertown" processors.



read more | digg story

cool...

well, with my new Core2Duo MacBook Pro, at least Flock sure is a lot zippier. I haven't really tested anything serious out yet, just been doing basic setting up, transferring of files and installing applications. I installed Lightroom but I haven't set up my library yet, so there's no pictures to play with. I'll be doing some work with Nuendo/Cubase SX soon, so I'll let you know how that goes. And yes, I installed Windows XP so I could work with Nuendo... I've been busy, no time to play, I guess.

Back to Flock. Flock used to take a good 10 seconds to open a new window, which was really annoying when you clicked on a link and nothing happened for 10 seconds. Now it opens a new window in under a second. Much more useable! :) I love Flock for blogging, because it gives me a nice offline blog editor, and works with blogger and wordpress.

I thought I'd share a bunch of applications that I downloaded in the course of setting up my new computer. Maybe you'll find some of them usefull. They are in no particular order, but are mostly web tools or media tools, or just cool stuff. Go searching for them at macupdate.com, they have tons of stuff. I like it better than VersionTracker. It's just nicer. I dunno.

• Adium
• Books 3.0
  
• Bootcamp
• bpmWidget
• Carbon Copy Cloner
• Cyberduck
• flock
• FontExplorerX
  
• Google Earth
• Growl
• iSquint
• iStat pro
• MediaFork
• MenuMeters
• OnyX
• Quicksilver
• SilverKeeper from LaCIe
• Skype
• Shades
  
• TextWrangler
• Vienna
• VLC
• Flip4Mac Windows Media Components

I'm using Shades right now, actually, because it's late and I'm typing in bed, and N is asleep. It keeps the brightness of the screen down to a more comfortable level. And cool, my keys are backlit! woo hoo! :)

technorati tags:Macbook, Pro, software, free, Mac, OSX, flock, fast

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surprise! new toy!

well, I gone an done it now. I went out and bought a MacBook Pro. Kudos to Coach for getting me a nice deal... :) I justify it to myself by saying that I have a new contract coming up for steady work, and it will cover the cost... and I NEED it for the job, so... yeah... ok, honey?

The first thing I did? After signing in and choosing my username, I shut it down and put on my protective film from www.bestskinsever.com. Thanks megs for the tip. I thought, well, this is as fingerprint and dust free as it's ever going to be, so I should just stay up late and put the skins on. It's kind of like putting on automotive window tinting, if you've ever done that. You get the film wet with soapy water, apply it, and then squeeze out any air bubbles until it's nice and smooth. Then you let it dry. I was a little apprehensive about putting something wet on my computer, but it's only a thin film and it dries pretty quick. I had a couple of towels around just in case to quickly dry up any excess liquid. I did the palm rest and the bottom. I'm not sure if I'm going to do the top, because I have a feeling that the apple will cause unsightly bubbles (it's slightly raised). I know, I'm anal.

There remains a few pieces for the battery, the battery latch area, and the trackpad button. There's a piece for the trackpad too, but I don't think you're supposed to use it. It would be hard to slide your finger along the trackpad with plastic film over it, don't you think?

Anyway, here we go again with new toy setup addiction. Maybe I can do some fiddling with it while I'm at work tomorrow... hmmm.... :)

one of the things I love

... about Mac is the ability to make multiple users. Now I know, Windows can do this too, I'm not here to bash XP today. But with my recent iBook failure (I got the data off, but it won't boot up now, even with the Heinz bottle...) I moved to a temporary Powerbook graciously lent to me by N & E while they are away on vacation. So I simply set up a new user account, set up my .Mac information, synced my address book and calendar, and I had all the information I needed right there on this new computer. I'm so glad I turned on .Mac sync on the iBook set to "Daily". I realize that I rely on my address book and iCal a lot, so it only makes sense to keep it synced to the main .Mac server. Hey, I'm paying for this service, I might as well use it as much as possible, right? If it saves my bacon in case of a hardware failure, then at least the pain of migrating to a new machine is lessened somewhat. If you don't have .Mac, a lot of this kind of functionality could be achieved by Google Calendar, Contacts, and so forth. I've always been an advocate of a web based email address, rather than one provided by your ISP, since I'm always changing ISP's, but tired of changing emails. What I like about offline email tools and offline calendars is that, well, they can be used offline.

This is becoming less and less of an issue, at least in major urban centres. There's internet access pretty much everywhere. Anyone used the Toronto Hydro One Zone yet? It's still free for a few more months. Just enough time to get used to it, and then miss it enough to sign on when it's no longer free. What a great business model! Make yourself indispensable. I still haven't gotten used to Toronto Hydro being a telecom company. My dad worked for Ontario Hydro before it became Ontario Power Generation, or Hydro One, or whatever it is now... :) Aren't these companies in the business of electricity? When did they start dipping into fiber optics and networks? Ah well, it's all the same thing now, isn't it.

Wow, this was my most rambling post ever, I think.

my tale of woe

My iBook died yesterday. It was working fine, we set it down, came back to it, and the screen was black. Tried to restart it, and it came on with the fan running full blast, and no startup chime. Uh oh. Tried a few basic diagnostics, but nothing worked. Everything ended up with about 20 seconds of working time, and then poof! Black screen.

Being Saturday, I didn't have much time to figure it out until the evening. It turns out it's the infamous iBook G4 logic board "issue", which involves a loose connector on the graphics processor. You can get the machine to work by applying pressure on the case, just under the 'option' key, on the palm rest. Here's what I used to keep the pressure on while I did an emergency backup of all the data... good ol' Heinz!

giddy, positively giddy

I'm such a geek, but I just discovered I can send contacts from Address Book to my cell phone via Bluetooth. This is awesome. Now I don't have to enter people's phone numbers and names using the phone... I wish I had figured this out sooner! :) w00t! Happy nonetheless!

sick

ugh.

After watching the iPhone being demo'd by Steve at the keynote, I am inflamed by desire to have one. So bad.

But really, I am actually sick. I have a wretchedly sore throat. hurts to swallow. Food goes down funny. Food tastes funny. I don't like that.

New Dream Rig:

• MacBook Pro 15" Core2Duo (must have 2GB of RAM)
• Rugged Portable drive (like the ToughTech eSATA from WiebeTech)
• (wait, the MBP doesn't have eSATA...)
• eSATA Express34 Card
• Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom (whenever it's ready to ship)
  
• and I've been eyeing the HP B9180 printer

And all this for what? I feel like an incomplete artist if I can't hold something in my hand. A print. We must do everything in service of the print. Every photographer wants to see his or her work in a print, preferably a big one.

I don't know, maybe I'm sick in the head. Anyway, the list is just the dream. The reality is a little bit slower, a little more pokey, but it works. So I just need to make some prints! :)

technorati tags:wiebetech, sick, sore, eSATA, Mac

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MacWorld Keynote

[my pseudo live reporting on the Keynote... as I read it on macrumorslive.com and engadget.com, and yeah, I stole the pictures from engadet...]

So, what have we here?

Apple TV. Knew about it already, the iTV. Cool. Only 720p.

The new device. A widescreen, touch contol, iPod/mobile phone/internet mobile communicator. Do I want one? Not sure yet. Looks like a revolutionary UI, though. iPhone. iPhone? Can they call it the iPhone?

RUNS OSX. wow, it looks sleek. Desktop class applications? They're giving Blackberry a run for their money. Cool. Looks like widgets to me...

Syncs with iTunes. shows 8GB on screen? is that enough? must be flash. Is that just for iPod?

2MP camera. Slim... 11.6mm. wow. Don't sit on that baby...

screenshot with Nemo (clown fish) looks gorgeous. my kids would love that. Nemo!

Oh, playing the Beatles on his iPhone. Finally!

Automatic sensors for orientation, automatically rotates. Very smart.

It's a GSM + EDGE phone. Will we be able to use that in Canada? My poor phone is looking pretty beat up by comparison... I think I need a new one, don't you?

SMS/texting is like iChat now. Nice. Probably still never use it, but nice.

Photo management. nice use of gestures, you grab the picture with two fingers and 'pinch' it to resize the picture.

Hmm, he's summing up the iPhone now, and there's still 45 minutes left in the keynote. What's next, what's next?

Push IMAP email with yahoo. smart. Web surfing with Safari. Mail with, well... Mail. OSX on a mobile. Who would'a thunk it?

Ok, so he's not wrapping up. Now it's the Internet capabilities. He's demoing Google Maps... which now senses where you are, and gives you a map of your surroundings. So that's what Google and Apple have been up to... Eric Schmidt makes a guest appearance on the show.

(engadget is so funny. They keep commenting on the crowd reaction. They're leaning forward, on the edge of their seats. Going crazy. "People are rapt, everyone is actually literally leaning forward and on the edge of their seat. We've never seen a presentation like this before." Guys, that's because you're used to watching Bill Gates talk. Sorry, Bill. Welcome to the Reality Distortion Field that is a Steve Jobs keynote.)

Steve is now showing the iPhone in use. He's not demo-ing the features, but he's using it like you or I would. Listening to music, call comes in, music fades, looks for a photo to send, looks up movie time, ends call and music fades back in.

I'm waiting for him to say "And it's available today." And how much? Wait for it... wait for it... details, I want details!

OK, here it is. 4GB for $499, 8GB for $599, shipping in June. Cingular in the US. Europe by 4th Quarter 2007. Asia by 2008. Canada... who cares to mention Canada? Nobody lives there.

So.

Anything else?

(wow, they're roasting Stan Sigman, CEO of Cingular. He's using cue cards. Aparrently, he's really boring.)

(ooh, Steve's presentation clicker went AWOL. The backup too. A rare hiccup in an otherwise stellar keynote so far... we could say it all went downhill after Sigman came on... so funny, he tells a story about Woz and their high school hijinks... smooth...)

Announces change of company name to Apple, Inc. dropping the "Computer" from their name. Look out Sony.

That's it?!

John Mayer is there to play. Cool. But... that's it?!

Mayer plays: Gravity • Waiting for the World to Change

And it's over.

technorati tags:apple, keynote, reaction, iPhone, AppleTV, Canada

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gaah... do I wait or do I tune in?

decisions decisions.... do I wait for the keynote video stream to be posted online, or do I tune in to the text only live update?

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things to know about OSX, part II

Hey, hope you all enjoyed teenagefanboy's OSX tips. Here are some of my own:

1) Don't turn on Filevault unless you absolutely have to. It's a hassle and a slowdown It's found in the Security preference pane. It's most annoying feature is that whenever you delete something, it has to do a secure delete from your encrypted user space whenever you shut down or restart, which can take quite a long time (5 minutes?) when all you wanted to do was restart because you installed a new program or something. Annoying.

2) Where do you put your Dock? Mine is on the right. I find it's easier to zip the cursor over to the right than to the bottom.

3) If you have a Macbook (Pro), you can two finger scroll on the trackpad. Put two fingers on the trackpad and drag up and down. Voila, you have scrolling!

4) If you want to convert an audio file from one format to another, say WAV to mp3, you can use iTunes. First set the import format to what you want to convert to (a little counterintuitive) and then select "Advanced -> Convert selection to"

5) Command-Option-Esc. This is the "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" of the Mac world. It will bring up the Force Quit window, in case you're experiencing the "spinning beachball of death". I like it better than Ctrl-Alt-Delete because you can do it with one hand instead of two. Use your thumb on the Command-Option keys, and hit Esc with whatever finger reaches up there and feels most natural. Maybe it's because of piano lessons, but it feels totally right to press two keys with the thumb.

let me know your favourite OSX tips, or questions you might have. I'm here to help. :)

for all you newbie Mac users... check out this article...

Ten things I wish I had known before I switched to OS X.

technorati tags:blog, quote

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superduper

with two friends recently switching to mac (lured by the ever so enticing MacBook Pro) I thought I'd share a neat utility that no one should be without: superduper. It's a backup utility for OSX that really is very nice. And because the new year's is always a good time for resolutions, make "Back up regularly" one of your resolutions for 2007. Somewhere down the line you'll thank yourself for doing so.

The nice thing about superduper is it's free, although you can pay for it and unlock extra features. I'd encourage you to at least use the free version to make a backup of your hard drive. Of course, you need some kind of external hard drive to back up to. And one might question the reliability of backing up one fallible medium to the same fallible medium, but hey, it's better than nothing. You can make the stack of DVD backups some other time, but for me, I'm backing up my hard drive overnight, automatically. It'll even shut down the computer when it's done. How cool is that?

Here's hoping your hard drive never crashes, but for those who have experienced that sinking, gut wrenching feeling, you know how much a backup is worth!

Happy 2007!

technorati tags:superduper, backup, hard, drive, computer, recovery, resolutions

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vienna

i've been trying out vienna this week for aggregating my news feeds, and so far I like it. It kind of looks like iTunes for RSS. check it out, it runs on OS X, and best of all it's free. And then you can subscribe to my blog and get all instantaneously updated and stuff. cuz you know I'm the coolest. LOL

technorati tags:vienna, rss, newsreader

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