5 posts tagged “apple”
I've had the iMac for quite a while now but have only had limited use with it due to the fact that I have too many computers sitting around at home as it is and it sees less on-time than my Windows and Linux boxes. It's been sitting on the coffee table of my office as a basic Internet terminal, Front-Row movie trailer previewer, and I made one iMovie compilation from my Niagra Falls trip. For unforseen reasons, I've spent the past week computing on the dining room table so I have the single power cable running between the iMac and wall socket. To make the most of things this week, I started installing a bunch of software that I needed to survive the week.
For communication, Adium - like Pidgin - consolidates between MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, AIM, Google Chat, and Jabber, most of these accounts I forgot I even had. Colloquy is a pretty IRC client that's a nice step from the normal console-like drab of many other clients. Safari does a fine job, but I still prefer Firefox if for no reason other than some of the extensions that I can't seem to live without.
Google Docs is perfect for anyone who needs to consolidate notes between several different computers and especially with peers. My normal text notes and lists are now online so I can seamlessly access them when I'm back on my other computers. Seeing as how I will be traveling soon, being able to access documents through WiFi or Internet cafe is pretty critical. Taking it a step further, I've been loading a bunch of files to my web server via FileZilla FTP. Having an additional 120GB of online storage is invaluable.
I also intend to spend more time in the next few weeks ironing out my travel plans with the help of Google Earth and a copy of a Lonely Planet travel bible. I'd like to be able to plot out my trip and familiarize myself with all the destinations and history of the area.
I'm particularly glad that I finally got my HP LaserJet 1012 printer to print from the iMac over the network to the Windows computer it is attached to. It used to either not print at all using the default HP drivers or it would print out the garbled mess. The OpenPrinting drivers seem to work quite well. Next up, I may want to invest in an Airport Express so that the printer can be entirely wireless and computer independant. Hmm... wonder how I can do the same with more than one printer? Will it work with a multifunction printer/scanner? Perhaps not, sounds like I'll need an Airport Extreme.
This new Apple keyboard is almost perfect. It just needs to be wireless Bluetooth and all would be good in the world. Not that hard, really. Just a few extra components and a battery.
This new Apple keyboard is wireless Bluetooth, but for whatever flash of insanity, someone at Apple decided to kill the numpad and a few other buttons.
So close. It's like leading the Ironman competition by a significant distance only to DNF a couple of metres from the finish line or something worse like killing kittens.
My week old life on a Mac...
Installed Boot Camp Beta 1.3, works fine and pretty seamlessly with Windows XP Media Center 2005. Setup was a snap. Keyboard, mouse, iSight, Bluetooth and wireless all work quite well. The Frontrow remote will work with Media Player 11 but unfortunately, doesn't work with Media Center.
I tried installing Parallels 3.0 and it seemed to work pretty well at first. It stopped to install a bunch of drivers and somewhere in there I think it broke something. Booting back to Windows natively via Boot Camp, the keyboard and mouse don't work. Neither will other 3rd party keyboards or mice. USB issue?
I ended up reinstalling the Windows partition and Boot Camp works again. I'm afraid to use Parallels again until I find the cause and solution.
My Internet connection is acting up recently, seems to go down and then back up on a whim. Right after going back up again today, I received a message to Steve Jobs' keynote at Macworld. Some pretty crazy stuff! Trust me, that's an understatement.
So, pretty much all the Mac rumors are true. There will be an iPhone (and it's actually called iPhone, so I'm not sure how that's going to work with Linksys - update: lawsuit or maybe not) and of course the Apple TV (not iTV).
The iPhone looks slick. High resolution widescreen touch display with "multitouch" gestures, running OS X and it does movies, music, Internet, email, conferencing, address book, calender, syncs with PC or Apple, etc, etc.... oh, did I mention that it does phone calls too? However, I expect that it would get all scratched up the moment you touch it. My iPod Nano's already slightly scratched despite the fact that it's brand new and I stuck it inside an iSkin the moment it came out of the box.
I don't own a cellphone since I'm not particularly keen on talking to some people to have them call me in the first place (I have a, "I'll call you." policy) and I rarely have the need to phone anyone where I am not in the vicinity of an old fashioned phone plugged into a wall jack. But if I ever ended up getting a cell phone, I think the iPhone would be a nice little all-in-one device to take over all those other gadgets that we find ourselves hopelessly wired to. So while I don't think the iPhone will affect me personally on any level, I do want to thank Mr. Jobs for the innovation that he and Apple Computers, Inc. has brought to the computer electronics industry.
The Zunes have been released for a few weeks now and just in time, because I've been meaning to buy a new MP3 player for a while. Mmm mmm, shiny brown brick of plastic and some wonderfully funny reviews here, here, here, and notoriously hehehere. Okay, I kid.
The acceptance of the Zune looks pretty bad, mediocre at best. To be fair, hardware wise it seems to be a pretty average MP3 player, nothing outstanding, nothing terribly bad. I'm sure Microsoft will just dump more money into this project until they have a better second generation product. The software seems to have a few kinks to be worked out and takes too long to install but I think a few patches will fix it.
The real problem I see is it tries too hard to be hip and I think they failed pretty miserably in that department at least - which is just embarrassing. Unless Microsoft can seriously change their company values and persona, I don't think this is something they can fix by pouring money into.
...And just for kicks... 24 hour battery life? Not if I can help it. The 1/4" jack and 3.5mm adapter is actually longer in length as the Nano itself.
