Tagged "apple"

After some thought initially on a new laptop, I decided to spring for an iPad Pro 12.9". So far I am really glad I did, the computer comes with me everywhere. I bring it to work, to visit family, on trips and everywhere in between.

It’s the ultimate work computer in many ways, always with you, light enough and comfortable enough for real work™. The keyboard shortcuts in iOS have improved massively from iOS 8 to iOS 9 to the point of actually being useful and the split screen view is actually rather nice to use (I never “got” it on a Mac).

In alphabetical order:

• Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk - usually buy electronics here!
• Apple’s App Store - I use iOS & Mac heavily, buy a lot of apps!
• Dropbox - sync files across computers
• Evernote - I store a lot of notes here.
• Fastmail - My email, contacts, calendars
• Hover - great place for domain names (like this one).
• Lastpass - excellent password manager
• Newsblur - Personalized RSS for news junkies
• Pinboard - stores all my bookmarks (also archives the sites)
• Trello - I’m planning a holiday via Trello

Some of these are referral links, I stand to get extra credit on these services if you use it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e1DiEegB_c

h/t; reddit

update: I tried this myself, but I’ve obviously no talent for these things:

I recently purchased a Mac Mini Server, for this site to run on. It’s hosted on my home broadband connection, but it’s just really for small time side-projects like this site. Also it’s a way to play around with Docker, VirtualBox, Node.js and all those other fun technologies I don’t get time for.

I don’t really plan to post links, but maybe I’ll review things or cover things I’ve bought.

Interesting announcements yesterday by Apple, finally releasing an iWatch. A lot of the talk on tech sites was reminiscent of the famous CMDR Taco (of Slashdot) line: “Less space then a nomad. Lame.”

I happened to own a Nomad shortly after that famous quote was made. So we can see, quoting Steve Jobs “[They] have no taste” is applicable to me! I just don’t get the watch yet. As a permanent contact wearer, I’m waiting for Google Glass in a contact lens! What I do predict however is: motor accidents due to Apple Watch updates and laws banning staring at the thing.

I recently read an article that posed the question “Does your dock reflect your priorities?” - which is an interesting question. Further breaking that idea down leads to:

• What apps do I need the most?
• What apps should be next (or be higher priority)?

iPhone dock

• Phone app: pretty self explanatory
• Safari: Still the best mobile browser I think (though if Google ever gets going on a proper Chrome browser for Android that may change)
• Tweetbot: I like Twitter the most of the social networks and tweetbot is the Swiss army knife if twitter clients
• Music (aka. iPod app) : I use my iPhone in my car and sometimes at work to listen to music

iPad dock

• Safari: Safari on iPad is not as good as the iPhone version - it can be more full featured I think!
• Mail app: E-mail on the iPad is one of the most popular uses, it’s got just the right amount of screen real-estate to do it justice
• Photography folder: I don’t know why I mistook myself as being interested in photography, but here’s a folder I almost never use (bar camera app)
• Music: I like it uses the screen real-estate better then the iPhone version and it’s much nicer to browse music on
• Tweetbot: Tweetbot for iPad is the best Twitter client for iPad hands down (on the iPhone it’s more contested) and sync with Tweetmarker makes it much easier moving between iPhone and iPad versions.

Final thoughts

I guess I’ve learned I make pretty bad use of the dock on both devices. Evernote or Lastpass should probably be in the dock on either device - probably with a feed reader as a close run after that (Reeder or Mr. Reader). These apps feature on either home screen as you can see from the screenshots above. Food for thought I guess!

tl;dr It’s because LTE chipsets are very large and power hungry right now.

The very first slot on Athlone Community Radio. Aired November 2011 on ACR 88.4FM in Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland.

Topics Covered:

• iPhone 4S
• Samsung Galaxy S
• Discussion of Windows Phone 7

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Download Link: Episode 1 - ACR 88.4 Technology Show

• iPad
• Motorola Xoom
• HP Slate
• Android tablet apps
• iOs tablet apps

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Download Link: Technology Slot Dec 19 11

I purchased the iPhone 4 shortly after its release in Summer 2010. I have obviously been so quick to review this device, the iPhone 5 is upon us! My philosophy for reviewing items is you have to live with them. Well boy have I lived with my iPhone 4! As I write this on it, I do marvel at how good the hardware is. I’ve dropped this extremely expensive device on occasions too numerous to count, so luckily it is designed well.

Since Apple released an iPad there have been various competitors announced, so it got me thinking what would it take for me to buy one? I haven’t bought the first generation iPad because the lack of a camera on a device so obviously good for fullscreen video calls has baffled me. I guess they have to store up some ideas since they need a new hardware iteration every year, Apple’s revenue model depends on that vital hardware refresh cycle.

I usually listen to podcasts on the excellent Twit.tv network and it goes without saying Floss Weekly is one of my favourites. A recent episode covered Haiku - an open source operating system based on the design of the old BeOS. What’s very interesting about BeOS is the design, an integrated all in one operating system - and the fact Apple almost purchased it. That’s amazing to me, literally in one fell swoop, if Apple had of offered the 200 million Be Systems wanted, there would be no NextStep into Apple and by extension - Steve Jobs. It’s especially poignant since Apple just surpassed Microsoft to become the second most valuable American company.

Gizmodo seem to think so:

The $2,500 Mac Pro, desperately in need of a refresh, gives you a 2.66GHz Quad-Core Xeon (essentially an i7), 3GB of RAM (triple channel, but seriously?), 640GB hard drive (again, seriously?) and a nominal graphics card. Spend $800 more and you’ll get a another processor and 3GB more RAM.

The $2200, 27-inch iMac obviously includes a screen, plus you get a 2.8GHz Quad-Core (i7), 1TB drive, 4GB of RAM and a nominal graphics card.

I recently used Twitter to post about my journey on public transport from Kilkenny to Dublin. For people outside of Ireland the total Journey distance was about 90 miles.

I used only my iPhone on the O2 network and close to 50% of the time it seemed like I had 3G. This was on a train moving at speed, and YouTube played very well with little to no stutter. It did drop to Edge the other half of the time, with about 30% of time I still got speeds web browsing was acceptable on. So in summary: 80% of the time it was possible to surf the web.

I recently got an iPhone 3G and away from all that Apple mania; I thought I would give an honest review. This is framed in the mindset of all the past Nokia devices (which I have posted about here also) which I have owned.

Okay so where to start? Well I think a good place would be what I could have bought instead. Strange place for a review; but its good to see what is out there and what I was looking at beforehand.

Apple does it again: explosive growth in the computer market, no doubt in part to its Macbook/Macbook Pro line of laptops. As Ars Technica points out:

As predicted last quarter, however, Apple broke its tie for third place with Gateway by shipping 1.33 million units and growing by a whopping 37.2 percent (double that of any other US vendor) from third quarter 2006 to claim 8.1 percent of the US market for the quarter. These numbers also continue the company’s trend of steadily gaining market share every two quarters for at least the past year.

Is the much beloved Apple the new Microsoft? First there was IBM, the big all crushing corporate machine that was humbled by the next big giant in the form of Microsoft, so it seems Apple’s turn is long overdue. The next few weeks are crucial to this crossroads in which Apple finds itself: It owes a HUGE amount to the BSD (an open source Unix clone) which is the foundation for not just OS X, but the iPhone and now the iPod Touch. Basically without the kernel that runs these fantastic devices, Apple would still be up shit creek without a paddle. Granted the iPod would have been a huge success probably still, but OS X’s core is the foundation for the real money making Apple will do over the next few years, a point that is not lost on Mr. Jobs as the company intelligently markets different segments to different markets of which I have first hand experience of: Go to the Apple site for education and they extol the brilliance of a Macbook and make they deal sweeter by throwing in an iPod Nano. But if you go to a link I was provided in a college advert; they bring to a page pointing out key areas a mac can make a difference. I picked Computer Science naturally, and the site extolled the virtues of Open Source, a Unix base and programming tools like Xcode.

If you haven’t heard of Apple’s latest Operating system, have a look at Wikipedia Article on Mac OS X Leopard. Here are some of the features:

• Time Machine: an automated backup utility which allows the user to restore files that have been deleted or replaced by another version of a file.
• Front Row currently only available with the purchase of a new Mac, but will be included with Leopard. It has been reworked to closely resemble the interface used by the Apple TV.
• Photo Booth, currently only available with the purchase of a new Mac, but will be included with Leopard.
• Spaces: an implementation of “virtual desktops” (individually called “spaces”), allowing users to have multiple desktops per user and be able to place certain applications and windows in a desktop. Users can organize certain Spaces for certain applications (i.e., one for work-related tasks and one for entertainment) and switch between them. Exposé will work inside Spaces, allowing the user to see at a glance all desktops on one screen.[9])
• Spotlight incorporates additional search capabilities such as Boolean operators, as well as the ability to search other computers (with permissions).
• Redesigned Finder: a redesigned Finder based on iTunes 7.
• New Desktop: a redesigned desktop, which is comprised of a redesigned 3-D dock which uses a new feature called Stacks, as well as a new menu-bar which adapts itself to the desktop so menu-bar text is easily readable.
• Quick Look This allows documents to be viewed without actually opening them in an external application.
• Universal access: significant improvements to applications including VoiceOver, along with increased support for Braille, closed captioning and a new text-to-speech engine.
• Enhancements to Mail including the additions of RSS feeds, Stationery, Notes, and to-dos. To-dos use a system-wide service that is available to all applications.
• Dashboard enhancements, including Webclip, a feature that allows users to turn a part of any web page into a live Dashboard widget, and Dashcode to help developers code widgets.[14]
• iChat enhancements, including multiple logins, animated icons, and tabbed chats, similar to features present in Pidgin, Adium and the iChat plugin Chax; iChat Theater, allowing users to incorporate images from iPhoto, presentations from Keynote, and videos from QuickTime into chats; and Backdrops, which are similar to chroma keys, but use a real-time difference matte technique which does not require a green or blue screen. iChat will also implement desktop sharing, a feature previously available with Apple Remote Desktop.[15][16][17]
• Enhancements to Parental controls include the ability to place restrictions on use of the Internet and to set parental controls from anywhere using remote setup.
• iCal calendar sharing and group scheduling.
• Leopard will also include the software assistant known as Boot Camp, which has been available as a beta release download for Mac OS X v10.4 from Apple’s website since April 5, 2006.This assists the installation of Windows XP or Windows Vista to a separate partition (or separate internal drive) on Intel-based Macs.
• Menu Bar The new menu bar is now transparent and is no longer rounded like all previous Mac OS versions.
• Safari 3.0 will be included.

While some seem to be not impressed by Leopard, it is by all accounts an OS upgrade, with every major application recieving attention. To me I am overjoyed the finder is getting a revamp, though I am not certain following iTunes layout is such a good idea. I think this is Steve Jobs (CEO. Apple Inc) idea to “switch” windows people since they already use iTunes, although I am not sure it is the right path. I choose Mac OS X because its unique, it has a fresh take on how a user interacts with a computer, moreso than Linux (which adopts tried and true in the case of Gnome and KDE), and certainly Windows which has only tweaked the look since Windows 95: its the same concept. The fanning out of dock icons, and grouping them won’t be used by the vast majority of users: its the same reason they don’t use “smart” folders: its a feature that has little in the way of wide appeal. I know the same can be said of the dashboard, and I personally will most likely end up buying and using fanning out and collections in Leopard, but my experience of novices is that they are afraid of the unknown.

I heard the news one hour before it was announced: Apple and EMI are going Digital Rights Management (DRM) free, albeit at a slightly higher cost and quality. One of my pet hates is people who bash the European Union, often citing I will admit its not glowing charachteristics. These same people never admit the things Europe does right, which may well be this hopefully landslide affect against destroying DRM. To quote The Register:

I recorded a tutorial, showing people how to extract YouTube (and other flash based sites videos’) and get them onto your iPod. It was recorded on my Mac, so unfortunately its Mac specific, but really only iSquint program is, so if anyone can suggest a replacement on Windows or Linux, I will add it to the details of the video. I use Garageband for audio, iMovieHD to edit the video and audio and Copernicus to record my screen. I started by getting everything I needed ready (all the Firefox tabs etc.) and hit record in Copernicus. I imported that .mov into iMovieHD, and then proceeded to open Garageband, watch the video and talk myself through my own recording. I saved the voice part in Garageband, exported it and then imported it into iMovie. I checked to make sure the audio and video lined up perefectly (what I done on screen matched what I was saying) and then exported it as a .mov from iMovieHD. Then I uploaded the result to Youtube, which I think for a first try ain’t bad!! Watch it here:

Thanks to Dashcode, the tool for making dashboard widgets, there is now an RSS one for this site! Currently it only works on Mac OS X, but KDE 4 should support dashboard widgets (they are really just bits of javascript, css and html).

Well I guess you can call me a hardcore Apple Computer fan, I have a Macbook, an iPod Nano (1st Gen 4GB) and now a 80GB iPod Video! I bought i for a couple of reasons, namely price and storage. I had been put off before since I thought they were too bulky ( I know a couple of people who have older generation iPod Videos) after being with the Nano for over a year (its still chugging along gleefully). What can I say? I am impressed! Battery life is huge to me and well to be frank, its amazing. My first MP3 player was a Creative Nomad Jukebox II (circa 2002), which I still have. I know only one person who owned an MP3 player before me, and its nice to be there from the start, you appreciate the little details most people don´t, as they are new to mp3 players, so they expect it as standard. I now get all the latest tech podcasts, so I am very happy with that!

I have a Wiki for messing about! I haven’t found a purpose for it yet, but I’d like to have it all set up incase one day I turn out to need it (maybe for collaboration or something?). If you have any skill at themin' MediaWiki (the most popular wiki software, run but Wikipedia, no less) please, please get in touch! I would do it all myself, but my time is constrained at the moment, but I will eventually do it myself I suppose ;-)

Looks like Mactivate got it wrong, it wasn’t the heatsink, as referred to by my earlier post. Looks like I have seen good advice from the Web, never buy a first generation Apple product, until they work out the kinks! I guess Mactivate have been snowed under with heatsink problems, that they never bothered to check other parts of my Macbook, since it is such a common problem.They have ordered me a new “logic board” (I am guessing the PMU like I thought it was ;-) ). In other news Apple released a firmware update for those poor unfortunates that have been suffering Random Shutdown Syndrome (or RSS) for short :-D ). Hopefully I should have it back by this Tuesday (November 7th) plus a new heatsink and logic board…. fingers crossed anyway!

Turns out my prediction wasn’t quite correct, it was not the Power Management Unit (PMU), it was the heatsink. Mactivate have informed me they have one on order from Apple, so it will take a bit longer than I anticipated to get my Macbook back. I found this strange as I had not experienced random shutdowns like the ones that have been widely reported across the web. it was like I described in my earlier post, something to do with the battery not being able to charge. Then again, I am no expert on this and their is wide evidence (over 1600 people have identified heatsink as a problem in their Macbooks) that the heatsink is a definite issue. Sounds like good or bad I will have a lot more to say about Apple Computer in the future, thats why I have decided to add them as a category.

Well first of all, there has been some blog updates, inspired no less by my Grandfather! He’s at a fragile old age, so he can’t read the screen all too well. This is not a problem however, as he sets all fonts to 16 and higher in Firefox (which is out of beta and into version 2.0!). That got me thinking, as I really struggled to read this page being marginally away from the screen, as I am a [Keratoconus][] sufferer. As a result, I have enlarged all fonts in my blog, in an effort to make them more readable… I encourage everyone to do the same, or at least follow the [web standards][] so that it can be properly auto resized by browsers.

I have ordered and I am expecting delivery of my brand new Apple MacBook (or BlackBook as some call it)! It will be a Black, 2Ghz Core Duo, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD (5400 RPM) MacBook, complete with a remote, Bluetooth 2 and Wifi functionality. Not mention cool applications such as iSight built in Camera, Front Row ( a media center) and Spotlight search technology. It cost me close to €2.000, so hopefully it will be worth it ;-)

I feel I need to confess why I am buying a MacBook, have I turned soft to my Open Source/Free Software ways? No, definately 100% NOT. I’ll explain why: I think Apple Computer has an incredible product in Mac OSx. For anyone who has not used it before, pop into a 3G store and ask to have a go. When someone releases a good a product as that, they deserve money, in my opinion. Under “the” free software license (GNU General Public License) it is permissable for anyone to charge for software licensed under it, as long as an offer of source code is given (for 3 years afterwards). Deep down I love Ubuntu, and I will install it as soon as possible when they release a version for the Intel powered Apple computers. In fact I will use my Laptop to showcase Ubuntu you had of told me November last year I’d spend well over €1,000 on an Apple Computer, I would have told you that I hated Apple, and would never consider it! What has changed my mind? I got a iPod Nano for Christmas ‘05 and thought it was great, but the Nano on its own still wouldn’t convince me to get a Mac.

I am all for open standards, but they face huge problems. Not least is lack of intergration between them. Take SIP used by VOIP providers, such as OpenWengo. While OpenWengo is open source, and it is SIP, they are not helpful in informing you how to use other clients, or dial other OpenWengo users from other networks.

What I am really talking about is the need for an all-in-one communications program, that is multi-platform. Their is already open source code for: Google Talk (aka Jabber), MSN, AOL, ICQ, SIP, H.323, Yahoo! but why isn’t their an all-in-one client? Surely it would be easy to reimplement some code from other programs into Ekiga (SIP, H.323) , Kopete or Gaim (both Jabber, MSN, Yahoo, AOL and ICQ)? I know GoogleTalk is based on SIP, so why not SIP compatability? That is poor implementation which is fragmenting the Open Source community, how are we going to challenge MSN’s userbase with this sort of fragmentation? That said I like Google Talk and its way of doing things. Also it is rumoured GoogleTalk will be interoperable with AOL at protocol level, since Google owns 5% of AOL.