Thanks to David Pogue's latest post that got me thinking about this. I actually believe it is a thought I got from him originally (Via Mackorisnik), but I thought I would expound a bit on my feelings toward this subject.
I am happy with Apple having a small market share. Sure, you don't get all of the products you'd like due to lack of demand (à la ADCSee), but along that same line of reasoning you don't get viruses, trojans, or spyware.
Steve Jobs never set out to make Apple a major computer dealer along the lines of Dell, he set out to make something beautiful. Owning an Apple (in my opinion) should be like owning a BMW: you get what you pay for, and it is something unique and beautiful.
The proliferation of iPods is really what started it all, and now the proliferation of Mac Notebooks (especially among university students) may be starting a future trend. I just hope I don't have to switch to Linux to avoid the hassle of viruses.
16 October 2008
Apple's New Laptops
Well, yesterday afternoon I watched Steve Jobs give his keynote (online, not in person). I was audience to the revealing of the new hardware. New MacBook, new MacBook Pro (in the 15-inch variety, though I just read an Apple Insider article that says the new 17-inchers are due in a few months), new cinema display, and updated MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 17-inch have been introduced. I though I'd add my voice to the cacophany already out there.
The new cases I'm sure will grow on me, but they are a bit jarring at first. I kind of dislike that there is minimal difference between the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros (deprives you the pleasure of smugness). Another feature that will certainly make the cases grow on me is the strength and lightness of them.
Faster processers is good. Better graphics is good. Can't argue with those. The new connectors give me pause, though. I will have to see how standard these get, but the idea of being charged more to buy adapters to make them work with current technology irks me.
My favourite new feature: the solid state drives! You will remember from my MacBook Air post
The glossy screens I remain neutral upon. If they are truly glass, then I would be pleased (truly meaning that they can be cleaned like glass making for easy screen cleaning without damaging the delicate little pixels).
Backlit keyboards are always a plus, but from what (limited) experience I've had typing on the MacBooks and MacBook Airs it takes some getting used to until you can type rapidly on the widely-spaced keys.
All in all, new hardware updates from Apple are (most) always a cause for joy, and I look forward to playing with (and possibly purchasing) Apple's latest hardware.
that I was hoping for these to be introduced. I am pleasantly surprised that they made it into the next update of notebooks! And increased size too!
The new cases I'm sure will grow on me, but they are a bit jarring at first. I kind of dislike that there is minimal difference between the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros (deprives you the pleasure of smugness). Another feature that will certainly make the cases grow on me is the strength and lightness of them.
Faster processers is good. Better graphics is good. Can't argue with those. The new connectors give me pause, though. I will have to see how standard these get, but the idea of being charged more to buy adapters to make them work with current technology irks me.
My favourite new feature: the solid state drives! You will remember from my MacBook Air post
The glossy screens I remain neutral upon. If they are truly glass, then I would be pleased (truly meaning that they can be cleaned like glass making for easy screen cleaning without damaging the delicate little pixels).
Backlit keyboards are always a plus, but from what (limited) experience I've had typing on the MacBooks and MacBook Airs it takes some getting used to until you can type rapidly on the widely-spaced keys.
All in all, new hardware updates from Apple are (most) always a cause for joy, and I look forward to playing with (and possibly purchasing) Apple's latest hardware.
that I was hoping for these to be introduced. I am pleasantly surprised that they made it into the next update of notebooks! And increased size too!
28 September 2008
Google Household
Introducing the latest Google product: Google Household™!
With this new product, Google can index your entire home, car, place of work, even a second home or boat and store what is in there on their servers.
With this handy search option (available at household.google.com) you will never lose anything again. Simply navigate to the page, type in your search, and Google Household™ will bring up a picture of the last place you left whatever item it is you are missing!
I managed to snag a screenshot of the search page
I also got a screenshot of an actual search (in my own home)
Please Note:
This product is still in beta testing and has not received official support. Also, due to high demand, the server hosting the Google Household™ page is often down and thus the search feature is unavailable.
With this new product, Google can index your entire home, car, place of work, even a second home or boat and store what is in there on their servers.
With this handy search option (available at household.google.com) you will never lose anything again. Simply navigate to the page, type in your search, and Google Household™ will bring up a picture of the last place you left whatever item it is you are missing!
I managed to snag a screenshot of the search page
I also got a screenshot of an actual search (in my own home)
Please Note:
This product is still in beta testing and has not received official support. Also, due to high demand, the server hosting the Google Household™ page is often down and thus the search feature is unavailable.
26 September 2008
iTunes Alternatives (and Ranting)
I would like to start off with this: I dislike iTunes to an extreme.
To be fair, I access most all of my media off of a network storage, and it has irked me to no end that Macintosh is most certainly geared toward using your local drive exclusively. I am rapidly beginning to believe that Macintosh in general is not very good regarding accessing networked storage of any sort. The second option is that the home network is slowing, which I believe to also be true, and that iTunes is far too bloated.
I try running Winamp via Parallels and it works like a charm. Quick and easy. I reached the point where I have decided to switch back to Winamp, until I realised that I had already reformatted my iPod into HFS+ and would have to reformat into FAT or FAT32 to use it with Winamp again. About that time iTunes decided to work one more, so I was placated. For the time being...
My main quarrel with iTunes is not the fact that it is slow to change information and begin playback and to transfer anything, I can accept that as the consequence of network storage, my main issue is that 3/4 of the time, when I click and drag to add a song to my iPod, it simply does nothing. It won't drag the song. Updates haven't fixed it, and it seems to be random. I can find no pattern.
As such, I decided to try out some different music players/organisers. Here are the results:
Songbird - I didn't play with this one long; it disqualified itself quickly. It locked up almost immediately and has all the old downsides of iTunes and then some. The internet features are just adding more bloatedness to it. It took a slightly shorter amount of time to add music from the storage, but still, its playback was severely lacking, choppy, and just terrible.
YamiPod - This is a handy little utility for on-the-go listening to your iPod, but not really practical for much. It is a standalone application that you could just load on your iPod, but it lacks the ability to add music to your iPod (as far as I explored). It is handy as far as changing metadata on songs on another computer.
All in all, I miss Winamp.
Links:
Songbird
YamiPod
To be fair, I access most all of my media off of a network storage, and it has irked me to no end that Macintosh is most certainly geared toward using your local drive exclusively. I am rapidly beginning to believe that Macintosh in general is not very good regarding accessing networked storage of any sort. The second option is that the home network is slowing, which I believe to also be true, and that iTunes is far too bloated.
I try running Winamp via Parallels and it works like a charm. Quick and easy. I reached the point where I have decided to switch back to Winamp, until I realised that I had already reformatted my iPod into HFS+ and would have to reformat into FAT or FAT32 to use it with Winamp again. About that time iTunes decided to work one more, so I was placated. For the time being...
My main quarrel with iTunes is not the fact that it is slow to change information and begin playback and to transfer anything, I can accept that as the consequence of network storage, my main issue is that 3/4 of the time, when I click and drag to add a song to my iPod, it simply does nothing. It won't drag the song. Updates haven't fixed it, and it seems to be random. I can find no pattern.
As such, I decided to try out some different music players/organisers. Here are the results:
Songbird - I didn't play with this one long; it disqualified itself quickly. It locked up almost immediately and has all the old downsides of iTunes and then some. The internet features are just adding more bloatedness to it. It took a slightly shorter amount of time to add music from the storage, but still, its playback was severely lacking, choppy, and just terrible.
YamiPod - This is a handy little utility for on-the-go listening to your iPod, but not really practical for much. It is a standalone application that you could just load on your iPod, but it lacks the ability to add music to your iPod (as far as I explored). It is handy as far as changing metadata on songs on another computer.
All in all, I miss Winamp.
Links:
Songbird
YamiPod
31 August 2008
ACDSee for Mac Thread
For all 0 people that read this blog, and share my wish for an ACDSee for Mac, I have started this thread on ACDSee's forums asking for one. Who knows? If enough people bug them long enough, maybe we can get our wish...
26 August 2008
More Photo Organisers...
After a recent trip, I am again faced with the task of organising, viewing, and showing the pictures accumulated. For the organisation during the trip, I just used ACDSee via BootCamp and/or Parallels. But that's no good. I want to be finished with Windows! (Though I still have the issue of Winamp being superior to iTunes, but I have accepted that, at least for the time being...)
I have already expressed my displeasure with iPhoto. I like the slideshows (because of the automatic Ken Burns Effect), and it does look pretty, but I absolutely hate the way it tries to organise everything for you, and everything must be imported. I keep most all data on the network attached storage, and I have definitely gotten fed up with the way most Macintosh software wants everything to be on your local drive. It is faster, but that's not as secure and lacks central organisation.
The problem with Apple's products (Aperture and iPhoto) is that they all want to bring all your pictures onto your local drive, and at the very least create large database files on your local drive. This is so that they perform their pretty functions quickly, but ACDSee can somehow manage to access everything on a network drive with comparatively stunning speed.
The problem with basically every other programme is just that. They are far too slow to be useful. I have tested several more programmes and will relate my experiences.
1. FFView - The website said it was meant for viewing comics, but I could never get it to view anything! It also had an odd voice command module that comes up when you start it and of which you cannot rid yourself.
2. Graphic Converter - It looked so promising! It had a very similar layout to ACDSee, and looked liked it would be wonderful! It worked pretty well on the local drive, but every time that I try to browse a network drive with it, or open a picture from a network drive, it freezes and you have to Force Quit the programme to terminate it.
3. iView Media Pro - I saw many favourable reviews of this product in forums, but all were concerned with the product prior to it's aquisition by Microsoft. When I downloaded it and began to ran it, it appeared to be indexing everything you view! Unacceptable!
4. JView - This one is just lacking. It doesn't have a browser feature (it will only display individual pictures, i.e. a replacement for Preview) and it is very slow to access the pictures off the network drive.
5. Photo Mechanic - Another programme that looked promising, but disappointed. It has the browser feature, but doesn't appear to have any editing features. It also was just too slow. Plain and simple.
6. Picture Arena - I have already spoken briefly on this one, and I must say, I think it is the best of all the others I have tried. It has the browser, but it does lack editing. However, at this point I would almost be willing to accept this lack of feature, but it is still too slow. I believe it is faster than the other programmes (for the most part), but still quite a bit slower than ACDSee.
7. QPict - Another indexer. It tries to imitate iPhoto, which I certainly don't like.
8. Xee - I think this may be the fastest viewer I tried, but it is still slow! It also has no browsing feature; it is just for viewing. Another Preview alternative.
Just for the heck of it, I will throw in...
9. Preview - No browsing feature, and it loads pictures far too slowly.
10. Gimp - An editing programme, not a browser or viewer. It also irks me that it must run through X11 and you have to manually start X11 before you can start Gimp.
11. Aperture - Again with the databasing, it is also pricey.
To be fair, most of the pictures I am trying to view are rather large, from a Nikon D200 or D300, but even the pictures from smaller cameras like the Sony P10 or P200 load just as slowly in the programmes. The moral of this experience is, ACD Systems, please, please, PLEASE make a Mac version of ACDSee! You did once before (though I heard mixed reviews of it), give it another go. The Macintosh community is growing. The time has come.
Quick Note: I feel I should mention that I am running ACDSee 7.0. I have not tried the newer versions. However, I have seen some grumbling in the forums about ACDSee becoming more bloated in recent versions, but I cannot personally attest to this.
I have already expressed my displeasure with iPhoto. I like the slideshows (because of the automatic Ken Burns Effect), and it does look pretty, but I absolutely hate the way it tries to organise everything for you, and everything must be imported. I keep most all data on the network attached storage, and I have definitely gotten fed up with the way most Macintosh software wants everything to be on your local drive. It is faster, but that's not as secure and lacks central organisation.
The problem with Apple's products (Aperture and iPhoto) is that they all want to bring all your pictures onto your local drive, and at the very least create large database files on your local drive. This is so that they perform their pretty functions quickly, but ACDSee can somehow manage to access everything on a network drive with comparatively stunning speed.
The problem with basically every other programme is just that. They are far too slow to be useful. I have tested several more programmes and will relate my experiences.
1. FFView - The website said it was meant for viewing comics, but I could never get it to view anything! It also had an odd voice command module that comes up when you start it and of which you cannot rid yourself.
2. Graphic Converter - It looked so promising! It had a very similar layout to ACDSee, and looked liked it would be wonderful! It worked pretty well on the local drive, but every time that I try to browse a network drive with it, or open a picture from a network drive, it freezes and you have to Force Quit the programme to terminate it.
3. iView Media Pro - I saw many favourable reviews of this product in forums, but all were concerned with the product prior to it's aquisition by Microsoft. When I downloaded it and began to ran it, it appeared to be indexing everything you view! Unacceptable!
4. JView - This one is just lacking. It doesn't have a browser feature (it will only display individual pictures, i.e. a replacement for Preview) and it is very slow to access the pictures off the network drive.
5. Photo Mechanic - Another programme that looked promising, but disappointed. It has the browser feature, but doesn't appear to have any editing features. It also was just too slow. Plain and simple.
6. Picture Arena - I have already spoken briefly on this one, and I must say, I think it is the best of all the others I have tried. It has the browser, but it does lack editing. However, at this point I would almost be willing to accept this lack of feature, but it is still too slow. I believe it is faster than the other programmes (for the most part), but still quite a bit slower than ACDSee.
7. QPict - Another indexer. It tries to imitate iPhoto, which I certainly don't like.
8. Xee - I think this may be the fastest viewer I tried, but it is still slow! It also has no browsing feature; it is just for viewing. Another Preview alternative.
Just for the heck of it, I will throw in...
9. Preview - No browsing feature, and it loads pictures far too slowly.
10. Gimp - An editing programme, not a browser or viewer. It also irks me that it must run through X11 and you have to manually start X11 before you can start Gimp.
11. Aperture - Again with the databasing, it is also pricey.
To be fair, most of the pictures I am trying to view are rather large, from a Nikon D200 or D300, but even the pictures from smaller cameras like the Sony P10 or P200 load just as slowly in the programmes. The moral of this experience is, ACD Systems, please, please, PLEASE make a Mac version of ACDSee! You did once before (though I heard mixed reviews of it), give it another go. The Macintosh community is growing. The time has come.
Quick Note: I feel I should mention that I am running ACDSee 7.0. I have not tried the newer versions. However, I have seen some grumbling in the forums about ACDSee becoming more bloated in recent versions, but I cannot personally attest to this.
06 August 2008
Jumping Steve iTunes Visualiser!
A link from the Joy of Tech. A Jumping Steve Jobs iTunes visualiser! Disturbing on a level that the torso and head do not move, but amusing nonetheless.
Jumping Steve
Jumping Steve
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