Category: Apple

iChat saves the day

Posted on By rolfje No Comments on iChat saves the day

Bruce Willis on iChatSo you are on a nice forum, discussing stuff with people you don’t even know, or even don’t care to get to knowing. They’re just there to exchange thoughts with, and you don’t even care that he’s called “g0d1s.4.f4g” (or worse), and you even don’t know if he is a she. Then in comes this guy and actually uses a readable name, tells you who he is, and talks like he talks in real life. No shorthand, no l33t sp33k, just plain English with typo’s, like any normal, sane person. Even worse, he claims to be a celebrity, wanting to talk to some of his fans without all the security, press and other stuff.It sounds too good to be true, but for Die Hard fans out there, it has really happened!. Complete with screenshots of a video iChat session where Bruce Willis prooves who he is to non-believers.

The thread itself is rather lengthy (more than 1000 posts) and contains a lot of off-topic childish crap before the iCat moment, and after that contains even more crap with people posting useless “Oh my god” messages. But there are some funny comments if you have the time to skim through.

Apple, Fun

Give me spots on my Apples

Posted on By rolfje 1 Comment on Give me spots on my Apples

I love my AppleLately Greenpeace has started a campaign against the usage of hazardous materials by Apple. The campain setup is friendly, nicely designed and urges Apple to choose materials which are less hazadous to the environment.As a spinoff of the Greenpeace campain all kinds of so called “journalists” have begun to put Apple on the “wrong end of the scale” of their “environment-o-meter”, and are happily writing doom articles about what will happen to your Karma if you buy any Apple product. But how environmentally unfriedly are Apple’s computers really?

Read More “Give me spots on my Apples” »

Apple, Hardware

Apple and EMI follow up

Posted on By rolfje 1 Comment on Apple and EMI follow up

In a previous post I told you that Steve Jobs wants to provide DRM-free music through iTunes, but was held back by music companies. Steve must have had a few long and hard talks, because now EMI and Apple are teaming up to provide high quality DRM-free tracks through the iTunes music store, priced at $1.30. The same track, in a lower sound quality, with DRM costs $0.99. For 30 cents, you get a track you can actually use, with a higher bitrate.

At the same time this could be a trick by Apple to get around the legal issues currently being discussed about iTunes music not being available to other players than the iPod. Smart eh?

Apple, Software

Bummer, back to Photoshop

Posted on By rolfje No Comments on Bummer, back to Photoshop

I bought Photoshop Elements 4 a while ago, but didn’t use it much since I didn’t like the userinterface (dissapearing menus when you click on the desktop and such). Then came Lightroom public beta, the Photoshop killer. I haven’t touched Photoshop since I installed Lightroom. But now… the Lightroom beta testing period is over. Since I haven’t got 300 Euros to “splurge” on Lightroom, I guess I’m forced to learn to use Photoshop to process my photos now. Oh well… Let’s see how that goes.

Lightroom expired

Apple, Software

Steve Jobs gets it!

Posted on By rolfje 3 Comments on Steve Jobs gets it!

Remember my rant on copy protection in the post about opening iTunes to other players? All the things record and movie companies tried the last few years has only encouraged people to rip, copy and distribute illegal media instead. It turns out that Steve Jobs also thinks that DRM is not the answer, according to bloomberg. Steve Jobs has sent a letter to the four largest music companies, in which he Asks Music Labels To End Copyright Protection.

Sure it might sound bad when you have serious record company stock options, but the idea is not so dumb as it sounds. For years, Apple software has been reasonably priced, and of good quality. You can buy it online without too much hassle. Result: There is not much illegal Mac software out there. This will surprise the Windows user, who is acustomed to running all kinds of illegal software, up until the point they are practically forced to continue to do so, because they have all their content stored in propriatary formats.

I like Apple’s way of doing things much more: Deliver good quality products, ask reasonable prices, and trust your users (up until a point ofcourse ;-). In return, Mac users are often more like “fans” than customers, because they don’t feel like they’ve been “had”.

I think loosing the copy right protection and then lowering the prices on music is a good thing. The iTunes music store is an easy store to search music or other content in, and does not force millions of tracks onto you (like your friend with the 200GB music library on an USB disk does). Who cares if I have to pay a few cents for a track if I feel like iTunes has helped me find that track? The feeling shifts more to like “paying for the service” than “paying for the track” which is probably what we all look for. As an added value, we have the old “it’s my product, I bought it” feeling back, where we can do with the content as we like because we payed for it. We are no longer restricted to stupid things as “you can listen this track only twice on your Zune before it will selfdestruct”.

Update: More information and the response from Norway is online at MacNN. Norway showing it does not understand iTunes at all, because you can configure iTunes to store the files at a location of your destination, which can ultimately be any (large enough) USB disk, which in turn can be a media player device 🙂 .

Apple

Use iTunes with *ANY* mp3 player

Posted on By rolfje No Comments on Use iTunes with *ANY* mp3 player

Many years ago, I bought an iBead Jens of Sweden MP-100. At the time I was a Windows/Linux user and everything was fine. Now that I’m a Mac user, syncing tracks to my trusty USB mp3 player is a bit harder. I had to copy tracks by hand, and when two tracks had the same title the copy would fail. THis was all very irritating. I am saving for an iPod nano, but until I get one I’m stuck with the USB copy tricks.

But not anymore, 5 minutes ago I discovered SyncTunes, a free Mac OSX application which can sync iTunes playlists to any drive as long as it’s available on your desktop. This means that any drive that mounts as a removable drive (USB memory sticks, PDA’s, Sony PSP’s…) can be used to sync the playlist to. The only catch is that you have to make the playlist fit onto the drive (in size). This can be easily done by creating a smart playlist in iTunes which is limited in size.

I tested syncing some of my playlists (through a size-limiting playlist) and it works like a charm. Size limiting playlists are also the thing to use if you do have an iPod, and want some control on how many space is used by pop music, and how many space is used by rock. I’m a happy camper now, and in no hurry to buy an iPod (but that 8GB red nano sure looks tempting).

Apple, Software

Reboot…

Posted on By rolfje No Comments on Reboot…

Today the Mac OS Software update popped up, and warned that these updates would require a reboot (about 80% of the updates do not require a reboot). I have gotten so used to not having reboot and hangup troubles that I almost was surprised to see that I needed to reboot. I use my Mac mini for editting foto’s, video, recording TV programs, streaming music, programming, mail, and the usual webbrowsing. It is so quiet and uses so little power that I only power off the screen, and leave the Mac on. I noticed that I have not turned it off for the past 20 days:

rolf$ uptime
20:17  up 20 days, 23:37, 3 users, load averages: 0.20 0.26 0.20

Not bad for a workstation eh? Glad I bought a Mac, it was worth every penny. The other Mac mini I bought to replace my fileserver is also still worth every penny.Just thought I’d share some of my newly acquired Zen with you…

Apple, Software