The Author – Bart Busschots
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Oct
30
Tech Podcasts I’d Actually Recommend
Filed Under Computers & Tech on October 30, 2006 | 1 Comment
There are a lot of podcasts out there, an awful lot in fact. The hard thing can be separating the proverbial wheat from the proverbial chaff. I dedicated an entire segment of the IFAS Podcast to good astronomy/science podcasts but I’ve never done a post for tech ones here before. Of all the tech podcasts I’ve subscribed to there are only five I listen to regularly and they are all very different and have different target audiences. Unless you are pretty much my clone you’re not likely to be interested in all five but I’d be pretty shocked if at least one didn’t appeal to you!
[tags]podcast, tech, Apple, Linux, Windows[/tags]
Oct
9
CrossOver Mac Beta 2 – Problematic Upgrade but Worth It
Filed Under Computers & Tech on October 9, 2006 | 1 Comment
CodeWeavers recently sent round a mailing about the release of the second beta version of CrossOver Mac. I didn’t have time to play with it straight away but over the weekend I gave it a go. The upgrade was not problem free but it did fix one of my problems with CrossOver, IE now seems to work properly.
[tags]Apple, CrossOver, CrossOverMac, OS X, IE[/tags]
Sep
15
iTunes 7 – Not The Success It Could and SHOULD Have Been
Filed Under Computers & Tech on September 15, 2006 | 11 Comments
The recent Apple event to launch the new iPods, and new iTunes & store, was up to Apple's normal high standard. It all looked great and Steve even managed to get not just one but two "oh and one more thing …" bits in (obviously making up for not including one at the WWDC this year). Also, for the first time in my life I'm actaully tempted by an iPod Shuffle! The preview of iTV also looked very interesting, though in this neck of the woods ITV means something else!
Upon installing iTunes7 my first impressions were also very good. Sure, I think the new blue logo is a step backwards, and the new colour scheme has gone a bit too goth for my tastes, but no one can deny that the new interface is very slick. The promise of reverse-syncing also appealed to me. But then it all just went a bit pear-shaped!
[tags]iTunes, iTunes 7, Apple[/tags] Read more
Sep
10
Free Astronomy Software on Mac OS X – Installing KStars
Filed Under Science & Astronomy, Computers & Tech on September 10, 2006 | 19 Comments
If you run Windows the question as to which free sky mapping software to install is trivial, install Cartes du Ciel. If you run Linux, the question is equally as trivial, use KStars. However, if you run Mac OS X things have traditionally not been so good. I have not found a single good free sky mapping program for OS X. So, instead I have switched my attention to getting either the Linux option or the Windows option working on the Mac.
I had hopped that CrossOver Mac would run Cartes du Ciel but it does not. I tried both V2.7 and the version 3.0 beta but, although both installed, neither worked. 2.7 did run better than 3.0 but failed to render the actual maps so it was still useless! That leaves us with just KStars. This does work on OS X but installing it is not as straightforward as one would hope.
[tags]Astronomy, OS X, Mac, KStars[/tags] Read more
Sep
2
At Last – Windows Apps on my Mac WITHOUT WINDOWS
Filed Under Computers & Tech on September 2, 2006 | 14 Comments
Yesterday, Codeweavers released a public beta of CrossOver Mac. This software lets you run Windows programs on Intel Macs without rebooting, without running a virtual machine, and best of all, without installing Windows at all. I've been waiting for this since the switch to Intel, to me this is the Holly Grail! I don't consider BootCamp to be a proper solution, you have to buy Windows and you have to reboot to change OS. Parallels is a step in the right direction, but you still have to buy Windows and you have a large overhead because you have to run two OSes at the same time. CrossOver on the other hand utilises WINE technology to allow Windows Apps run straight on OS X. Your Windows Apps even share your regular file system and home directory. This means you have one file system, the OS X one, so your files are all in the one place and your Windows Apps are subject to OS X's security restrictions. The minute I read the news report on this I downloaded the beta and installed it. This is a quick review of my first impressions.
[tags]OS X, Windows, WINE, CrossOver[/tags] Read more
Aug
8
Reflections on the WWDC 2006 Keynote
Filed Under Computers & Tech on August 8, 2006 | 5 Comments
First off, I'm very annoyed with myself for forgetting to write up my predictions before WWWDC 2006. I put this oversight down to the fact that I was on Holidays till today but I'm still annoyed, now you'll just have to take my word on what I predicted rather than having a post to prove it! Anyhow, in this post I'll just give you the highlights of the keynote and particularly the Leopard preview and also lay out some of my concerns. Read more
Jun
25
MBP Update – Gets a Little Warmer Than I First Thought
Filed Under Computers & Tech on June 25, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Just a quick follow-on from my initial review of my new 17″ MacBookPro. In my initial review I had said that the MBP does not get very hot but that is not entirely true. It is true that when just running on the battery it gets significantly less hot than my old Pentium 4 Fujitsu-Siemens LifeBook however, while it is charging it does get annoyingly hot. Still not quite as hot as the LifeBook but the battery it self gets hot enough to be un-comfortable on the legs. However, the base of the 17″ MBP is more than big enough so you can easily sit it on your lap in such a way that the hot bit is not resting on your legs!
Jun
19
The Black MacBook – Disappointing
Filed Under Computers & Tech on June 19, 2006 | 1 Comment
Following on from my review of the 17″ MacBookPro yesterday I got to play with a 13″ Black MacBook today. I was, to say the least, underwhelmed. The black is horrible and tarnishes instantly. The machine I was playing with had had nothing more done to it than have it’s initial setup done and it already looked like it was a few years old. I could get over the look of it but the screen is just too small for me with too poor a resolution and the keyboard is terrible. It looks ‘unique’ which I can live with but then I tried to type with it and was not at all impressed. On a more positive note it is not too heavy and feels much more sturdy and robust than the old iBooks. It’s also very fast to boot and apps load quickly (as you’d expect from a CoreDuo machine). I guess if you had an iBook the MacBook will feel like an upgrade but if you had one of the small PowerBooks you’ll really feel like you’ve gone down in the world. Having said that I only got to play with it for a few minutes so this should be taken as nothing more than ‘first impressions’, this is FAR from an exhaustive review.
Jun
18
17″ MacBookPro Review
Filed Under Computers & Tech on June 18, 2006 | 2 Comments
I’m typing this in a swelteringly hot terminal in Valencia Spain waiting for my plane to arrive and hopping that the thunder and lighting in the distance stays in the distance long enough for us to get outta here! Anyhow, I’ve had my 17″ MacBookPro for a week and a half now so I think I have enough experience with it at this stage to go a head and give it a review! BTW, the machine I got has the standard 1GB of RAM, the glossy 17″ monitor and I opted for the smaller but faster 100GB hard disk. Read more
May
31
On Third Thoughts – iWeb REALLY Sucks
Filed Under Computers & Tech on May 31, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Having recently updated my opinion on iWeb from “it’s OK” to “it sucks”, I’ve now gone one step further and decided that it REALLY sucks! I just did a very minor upgrade from iWeb 1.1 to iWeb 1.1.1 and it broke my site. I can’t really put it any simpler than that, it just broke my site. Read more