An Apple Geek Speaks Out
From the category archives:
Just to prove that the new Skype BETA for OS X does really work with the built in iSight camera on my MacBook.
Well.
It does when you download the correct Skype version eh Chris?
I once emailled everyone I knew saying I was not going to use ICQ anymore and switch to using MSN Messenger only.
Maybe its time to switch again. I currently have Adium (for MSN) installed, iChat and now Skype too. Which one should I go with?
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The new OS X Beta of Skype is out featuring support for the built in iSight camera.
Get Skype and call me for free.
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Got it working - even with firewalls on!
And what did we do to get it working? Fuck all!
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At the risk of turning MegaTao into a “switchers blog” and although it has only been about one week since I blogged about my new MacBook laptop, I feel the need to “big it up” some more.
Although, I must confess, it has crashed on me twice now. Once when I was trying to load Photoshop and it would not load, just bounced the icon up and down on the dock and then did nothing. It also crashed, again when using Photoshop and forced me to restart the machine. Nothing major I suppose - and probably to be expected after pulling it in and out of sleep mode all the time.
I have migrated from using the Safari browser to Firefox and now onto Camino which seems to give all the benefits of both. WhiteBoyBob and I failed to get iChat to work last night - probably due to a firewall/router/port forwarding issue - so we will have to try again another time.
I am still getting to grips with the workspace, using Expose to show/hide the open windows. Sometimes you cannot select a window, such as the Firefox download window for example. Each time I attempted to select it last night it just popped Firefox back up instead. It was misbehaving a little last night though whilst I was trying to download an… er…. video. But all seems ok now.
I have also installed the VLC Media Player which, as per the Windows XP version, is excellent.
I turned back on the Bluetooth and synchronised my Motorola phone contacts straight into my Address Book first time with no issues. The cheeky little application even had the nerve to display an exact picture of my phone! I was then easily able to transfer files backwards and forwards with no issues - not like my experience with Bluetooth under XP!
I have yet to really dabble with iDVD, iMovie or iPhoto. I have some pics in iPhoto and was able to create a slideshow with music very quickly. USB devices such as printers, cameras and portable disks all work perfectly with ease too.
One thing I must do is find out more of the system keyboard shortcuts. I expect that pressing the Apple key and F might bring up the Finder, but we shall see.
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A while ago I wrote a post on my views of the future of the Bittorrent network in response to an article by Dave Winer.
In my post I outlined a service where you could subscribe to a web based interface and manage/download your torrents from. Once they were downloaded to the web server you could then get access to them via a direct HTTP download.
If a user could sign into a website and select a torrent from a list to download and then have the website download the torrent file for them into a folder held on that website - then that would make life alot easier. The user could sign off the site and still have the torrent downloading for them. People could be forced to share the files back to a preset ratio and also, locally held completed copies of the torrents could be made available immediately to the user and then seeded back too.
Two such sites have appeared today on the del.icio.us popular list and appear to offer that functionality.
TTorrent.net provides a 3 tier paid service allowing different storage sizes and number of simultaneous downloads.
Silence Is Defeat offers a basic 50mb service via an array of access methods (web, FTP, SSH etc). The basic sign up fee is only $1 via PayPal.
Personally, at the moment I would not use either of these options.
Yes, I like getting my torrents quickly and for those people that suffer ISPs that use traffic management or port throttling then this may be the best option for them. Ttorrent.net’s maximum service is 15gb storage and up to 15 simultaneous downloads for $25.29 per month or $202.68 for the full 12 months. Quite a lot really! SilenceIsDefeat have the better idea of lower (donations) charges but offer lower disk space. If a site introduced a service that charges a flat monthly rate - say $10 and offers 20GB storage which is cleared down at the end of the month, or a monthly bittorrent bandwidth quota, then this will get my vote.
But what it does mean is that the services will be seeding the torrents longer than a client may do, which makes it better for us in the long run!
I have found a new online playmate. And this time i’m not talking about one of those cyber-bints over at ShockRooms.com. This new girl shares my love for the internet, computers and music. She also knows exactly what to play me next to keep me sweet! She’s really cool.
Another great thing is that she is very promiscuous and will go with anybody! head over to the Pandora website and type in your favorite band or track and she will search out and play other similar sounding tracks. Remember to sign up for continuing maximum pleasure, as she tends not to “put out” after a while if you don’t.
A very clever, sexy little minx of an application she is indeed. And like any good web-whore she is great at sneaking under your works firewall as she runs completely in Macromedia Flash and for an added bonus, she also burps out tracks in high quality too! A perfect distraction while tossing it off in the office.
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On my weekly sabatical to Birmingham yesterday I dragged my colleague to the Apple store at the Bullring to check out the new Macbook. I did look for them at my local John Lewis at the weekend but they were no-where to be found.
I was impressed by them too. Small, light, neat, smart, fast, clever and great at oral sex too!
But after looking at the 20 inch iMacs and also after reading that my matey WhiteBoyBob has just bought one (and not managed to break it), I am wondering if one of those might be a better purchase. I have also been reading some benchmarks on gaming with the 20 inch iMac using XP and Boot Camp. They do seem impressive too. I think I will have to install XP via Boot Camp as the kids use some games on XP still and the wife will probably get all confused over OSX and will not be able to work her Home Accounts Spreadsheet properly without ringing me all the time.
I do use my laptop at home a little. Not lots though - just a little. Sometimes after a hard days internet surfing work I don’t want to be huddled over another PC in the corner of the room. Sitting on the sofa, slowly cooking my legs with the laptop on wifi is quite nice really. I have done more of my “Blogger Template Overhaul” series using the laptop than anything else. My desktop PC setup at home is not perfect for spending lots of time at the screen. Stuck in the corner next to the dinner table, it is quite restrictive to use and the desk it sits on gets piled with paper, toys, mobile phones and recently, my Xbox360, controllers and headset as I now play that via my LCD monitor.
But the 20 inch iMacs are nice and they are faster and have a bigger hard disk too! I do quite a bit of photoshop stuff so maybe that would be a better purchase? But the laptops are nice and “free” and I can take it on holiday and stuff too. Oh… crap…. more decisions.
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Don't miss my first nonGeek Guide on using uTorrent over at Geeklimit!
I have been meaning to write this for a while.
Coronation Street, Eastenders and Sky+ helped me achieve this goal!
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You might have seen that annoying "This copy of windows may be counterfit" message when booting and logging onto your hacked copy of windows XP.
Thank god there's people out there who can help those affected by this blight on the arse of M$ Software…
Edit: I used these instructions to get round the problem. And here is an activation crack program. Never tried it though. The file currently has a .TXT extension. Download and rename to .EXE and all should be ok.
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So, you missed the train to work, the dog ate your laptop and your iPod ran out of batteries. Time to slope off back to your house and do some tea drinking tele-working. There are numerous web-based applications that can replace or augment your PC based software. Mos of them allow collaboration of some sort and are available where ever you can get access to a browser.
Here is a list I have made of the main players broken down by application type. If you have any more to contribute - leave me a comment.
Calendar:
http://calendar.google.com
http://30boxes.com
Word Processing:
http://www.writely.com
http://www.ajaxwrite.com
http://www.zohowriter.com
http://writeboard.com
Spreadsheet:
http://www.irows.com
http://numsum.com
http://www.editgrid.com
http://www.numbler.com
Presentation Software:
http://www.thumbstacks.com
PDF Making:
http://www.pdfonline.com/index.htm
http://www.expresspdf.com
http://www.rss2pdf.com
Drawing/Photo Editing Software:
http://pixoh.com/
http://www.flickr.com
http://www.pxn8.com/
Flowcharting Software:
http://gliffy.com/
Project Management Software:
http://www.basecamphq.com/
Complete Office Suite:
http://www.goffice.com
Clipboard:
http://cl1p.net/
Bookmarks:
http://www.del.icio.us.com
http://www.spurl.net/
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Well, it's not a giant lizard slaying robot and its not a new religion.
It's just a place for me to hang out, store my thoughts and technical musings and stay in contact with my friends. It's purpose may change in the future - who knows!
That's all part of the fun.