Technorati Tags: apple, games, half life 2

So I tried looking around for some free blog management software (that will allow me to blog from my MacBook Pro), where I can save the post and submit it when I have access to the internet (OK, I live in South Africa, where the wireless networks are all commercial networks).

I came across a really cool website, called MacUpdate and there I stumbled across Bleezer (which I am currently using to type up this short blog). Its ok, I have managed to spend less than a minutes configuring the WordPress Online blog that houses this blog and now I’m typing away. It also supports two built-in tags, technorati and del.icio.us. Plus you have the option of adding your own customs tags. The preferences interface is very neat and tidy.

I’m about to submit this post, and I have also included two links, lets see what happens.

Update: well it took forever to upload the blog entry and none of the links worked, so its back to Ecto, which seems to be doing the job exceptionally well.

Technorati Tags: blog management, apple

I’ve had some time to ingest much of what was said, and I’ve had a look at some of the pictures of the new gadgets.

The new Shuffles are oh-so-cute, just like the first generation…

The new iPod Videos are even better then their predecessors, more disk, brighter screen, just pure yum.

But the new Nanos?  Euch!  They look like mini-Minis!  Those rounded corners, the bright colors on the dull surface!  Yuck.  I never liked the iPod Minis to begin with, and I loved the way the first iPod Nano looked.  But now?! The Nanos look ugly.  Plain and simple.  Ugly.  Sorry Steve, you took a step back here.

I still don’t own a single thing Apple, so it might just be the Apple-Envy coming out here.

Check out the iTunes 7 (www.apple.com/itunes) where you can also find some more information on the new iPod’s as well.

Check out the full disclosure of the new Apple kit from
http://www.macrumorslive.com/

I did my research on Apple Mac OS X and decided to go for it. I also decided to go for a bigger laptop rather than one as small as my previous Acer (12″).

17″ was too big for me, so I settled on the 15.4″ – as I wanted the Macbook Pro and not just the Macbook. I wanted the dedicated graphics card as well as the funky keyboard that lights up – yeah, I’m a gadget guy

OK, first, let me deal with the specs of the latop I purchased: its a 2.14Ghz laptop, 2GB of memory, 256MB X1600 graphics card and a 100GB SATA drive. Now thats a kick ass laptop, its very fast, and has loads of space and can handle almost any kind of graphics I throw at it.

Secondly, let me deal with the operating system. I must admit – that the OS sold me on this laptop. I must admit that I am a long standing Windows guy, who played a LOT of games, used the Windows OS since Windows 3.1 and am looking forward to Vista.

So, to move over from Windows on the laptop was a very difficult decision for me. I could have gone for the latest Acer which would have cost the same amount as the Macbook Pro I wanted.

The operating system is awesome, it’s unix underneath, but unlike all of the other Unix’s it was usable and worked very well out of the box. The thing with MacOSX is that its designed to work with only a handfull of hardware designs as opposed to Windows and all of the other unix’s that needed to work with a million other harware combinations out there. This is the thing that makes MacOSX work so well.

I found equivalent applications I used on my Windows laptop for MacOSX and even my killer app – Mind Manager had a MacOSX version – awesome!!

Needless to say I am totally hooked and absolutely love the new laptop, with Tiger and I still have to try out BootCamp, which will allow me to dual or triple boot my Macbook Pro with Wndows Vista or any other Unix version

I must admit that I have not had the need to dual boot as I can do everything on my Macbook Pro I could do on my Windows Laptop.

Obviously, I still have my Windows XP gaming desktop that I use for ALL my gaming needs, as all my chat, email and video watching on the Macbook Pro.

I love my Mac

Anyway. After watching the guys from Project 3 demo some stuff on a 30″ Apple Cinema (More drool here…) display, and some other people arbing around some other Mac hardware, we were ushered into the cinema for a demonstration.

Welcomed by some Apple guy, then over to Kevin Miller, a Scotsman living in Paris, head of Product Marketing or something. “Part of the product evangelism team” he was introduce as. Heh.

He started off by mentioning the Apple hardware that everybody should have. “Hands up who owns a Mac?” “OK, hands up who doesn’t own a Mac?” “Right, don’t worry you guys, this is not a cult, you are not here to be converted. But you’ll see why you want to.” it all started with. He showed some slideshows showing the hardware, the white and black Macbooks, the oh-so-much-better Intel Core Duo Macbook Pro, and some pics of the iMac too. Then onto the juicy bits.

iLife ’06
Kevin started with the different productivity apps that form part of the iLife ’06 suite. I’ve never seen these apps in action, and he took each of them (except for GarageBand) for a test drive on a Macbook Pro plugged into a projector, projecting the images onto the whole movie screen. It was awesome.
Anyway, iPhoto was great. It felt very much like Google’s Picasa, but with a whole bunch extra. iMovie also looked very good. iWeb not *that* great, but good for a quick create a webpage/photoblog type thing.
I couldn’t help but feel that most of what iLife ’06 had, has already been done by other applications elsewhere. I don’t know if there was any version of iLife before ’06, but there were things like theming and auto-create-a-movie type features that I’ve seen in Pinnacle’s Movie Studio, etc. I wouldn’t know who came up with these things first, and I’d actually guess that it would be Apple, seeing that Apple’s been in the publishing and video editing market for quite some time. But that’s besides the point.
In a nutshell? iLife ’06 is a brilliant addition to the default install of MacOSX, and made me want to buy a Mac right there and then. Anybody have R23k for me?

iLife ’06 was not the highlight of the evening though.
Kevin went on to demonstrate the sheer awesomeness of what is Aperture.

Aperture is the post-production application for professional and serious amateur photographers. It costs $299, but if you’re any kind of serious about photography, and you own a Mac (PowerPC or Intel version, as of version 1.1 it’s a universal binary), you want Aperture. And besides, those of you that can afford a R23000 (nee $2799) for a Macbook Pro, you can afford the extra $299 for Aperture. Anybody that takes any kind of photos with a Digital SLR camera (hell, even point-and-shoot digicams) would do well getting this software to manage their photos.

Aperture is not a replacement for something like Photoshop. It’s a pre-Photoshop(maybe) app. It links in seamlessly with iLife ’06, and makes touch ups and investigations into each photo (RAW format preferred, but not required). I wasn’t taking notes during the session, I was too busy gaping at the features of this app. Import management, stacking pictures based on time between shots, a loupe to zoom in and check out detailed portions of a photo, the speeeeeed of it all, the fact that you can apply a filter or touch up (white balance correction or whatever), and “stamp” that change to several other photos,to name but a few of the features that stuck in my mind.
Managing large amounts of photos is *so* much easier with Aperture.

OK, enough of the harping on about the awesomeness of Apple and their software. I’ve said enough. Go check out the Aperture website for yourself to see for yourself what it can do.

One day, I’ll have all I need to use this app. Two 30″ displays, a MacBook pro, a nice Nikon or Canon DSLR camera, lots of memory cards for the camera, and a room to put it all in. Oh, and an iPod. Just because.

Tags: Apple, Macbook, Macbook Pro, iLife ’06, Aperture

If you have a digital camera, and you are an enthusiastic amateur or a seasoned professional – this free seminar hosted by Apple will show you how the Macintosh is the most powerful platform for taking your digital photography to the next level.

I’m already registered, and just forgot that it was tonight. It’s not too late to register I think, and there’s a Johannesburg event tomorrow night (14 June) too.

Have to make a plan to go… I don’t own any Apple gear myself, although I’m in the “Damn I’d love to” camp, but I can’t quite justify the outlay in cash. Hell, I can hardly justify keeping my current PC upgraded.

I’ll try to attend and report back here on it after the event.

Tags: digital photography, Apple

Tags: MacOSX, Windows, Parallels Workstation, Bootcamp, qemu

“Boot Camp lets you install Windows XP without moving your Mac data, though you will need to bring your own copy to the table, as Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows.” The download includes a driver CD with Windows XP compatible drivers for the ATI graphics chips, Intel’s integrated graphics chips, ethernet, audio, WiFi, Bluetooth, and more. The only unsupported items are iSight, the Apple remote, Apple’s USB modem, and the MacBook Pro’s backlit keyboard.

I suppose it was only a matter of time, either Apple was going to get used to people with too much time on their hands eventually getting Windows to work properly (this was done, but the ATI graphics chip was apparently a big problem) on the new Intel based Macs, or Apple was going to release their own drivers for Windows for their Macs. So there it is.

Now, I still have to ask… Why’d you wanna do that Bob? There are cheaper machines to be installing Windows on, with similar or even better capabilities than the hardware that the new Intel-based Macs bring. I suppose it’s like running Linux on your Nintendo DS. I did that once. Once. I saw a friend run Linux on his iPaq too. Once.

Now, don’t get me wrong. If I had the money , I’d buy the MacBook Pro in an instant (Currently I’d need about R22000 for the top model). Mostly due to the fact that it’s a beautiful machine, and it’s one of those must-haves. If you have the money. And guaranteed, if I ever get one, I’ll install something other than MacOSX and Windows on it. Guaranteed. At least once.

Tags: Windows, Apple, ATI, Linux, Nintendo DS, MacBook Pro, MacOSX

I eventually got it just before I left on holiday (18 December) and so I had enough time to encode all of the movies/videos I wanted to before I left, to view on the airplane or while I was on the beach, whatever.

The encoding process was seamless with the software I found and I used high quality MP4 format to play on the iPod video (this format also works with the PSP BTW

The I loaded the converted videos into iTunes and this then synced with my iPod as soon as it was connected. This process was very smooth as the full length movies had shrunk in size and the transfer across USB was fast.

Then on the plane it came to actually viewing the video’s. I obeyed the pilot’s recommendation and only started the thing up when he said it was “safe” to do so The videos where awesome to watch, but I was a little apprehensive as to the small image on the screen and the potential lack of detail of the actual video that was displayed.

I was surprised at the quality and really enjoyed the videos on the iPod. there are two complaints though, my hand/arm got sore holding the thing up so that I could watch it and the number of people staring over my shoulder to see what I was doing and what I was watching.

The first issue is easy to solve, just rest it someplace, but on the airplane there is no such place and the second issue is to put some hardcore porn on the iPod and then play it when they are being rude and watching over my shoulder Somehow I doubt that will go down well.

This device is an awesome piece of technology and works really well. I had the 3rd Generation iPod and this is definitely a step up from that with full USB charging integration (none of the Firewire crap that the 3G model had). I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a portable music/video player – and the optional extra’s are staggering

Tags: iPod video, MP4, iTunes