If there’s one problem I’ve had since 1994, it’s how to keep all of my miscellaneous text, image and file data organized, in one place, and in a file format that will be viewable years to come. This usually involved Microsoft Works, MS Word, Text Files, and various other files, such as .bmp and even obsolete file formats– that is until now.
After many years of Tascam hardware-based recording, I’m moving to a software solution– well, with a little hardware too! This is going to be a really big change that is going to take weeks, even months to get through.
After buying a 24″ iMac this week, I decided that I would enjoy recording/mixing/mastering much more on a Mac:) And since Apple offers a great audio production tool, Logic Pro, my choice was made that much easier.
Ok, so I did a few things I’m not proud of. So I bombed a few places I shouldn’t have. So I threatened a few people I didn’t know. That’s all behind me now. This is phase two, of my new Second Life.
So basically, Linden Lab, creator of Second Life, touted this new security feature to ban users of the Second Life world. Egregious violators would have not only their accounts banned, but their computers as well– meaning, they would no longer be able to play Second Life on that computer, even if another user of that computer was perfectly innocent.
That worked for like a day.
Well, after nearly 13 years of being held hostage by Microsoft and MS Office, I have pulled the plug on that relationship and have moved over to iWork ‘06, by Apple.
Currently, iWork consists of Pages, which is a word processor and page layout program, and Keynote, which is presentation software. The only thing missing from iWork is a spreadsheet program, but rumor has it that Apple will release one soon, by the name of Numbers.
For those of you that don’t know, Second Life is an MMORPG of sorts. I say of sorts, because unlike many a MMORPG, SL doesn’t really require you do anything. You can play 16 hours a day perfectly well, just dancing on a beach or talking to some freak at a club. There are no quests to run, no secrets to find, and no levels to gain. So why do people play it?
Well, aside from the maybe 20% of people who play the game religiously, there are the other 80% who seem hell bent on destroying this developing second world. These people would be known as griefers, the former would be known as nerds. Griefers come in all shapes and colors. Their sole purpose to is to cause grief to whomever they come in contact with, or special people they hold dear to their hearts. Adrian!!!
Like everyone else, I’ve known about Photoshop forever. But like many others, I’ve never actually owned it– mostly due to it’s high price.
I’ve been using Photoshop Elements with my Mac for some time, and found that the software did what I wanted it to do. However, I came to the point where I wanted more power and more features for working with digital images.
So I jumped head first with the trial version, and started to use some of the features not available to me with Elements. I also purchased a subscription to lynda.com, so I could view all the great Photoshop video tutorials. What a help!
Everybody loves the drag and drop nature of OS X. Drag an app into your applications folder, and it’s installed. You’d think it would be that easy to delete an app — just a matter of dragging it to the trash. But it’s not. Applications install preferences, caches, and other support files throughout your computer that take up space and generate clutter. Deleting these by hand every time you delete an app is a pain.
A Mac user praising Microsoft? Yup! Every now and then ole’ Bill has a really great idea.
The idea worth mentioning is called the Windows Performance Rating, a feature in the upcoming Windows Vista OS, which will rate a PC based on how well it is running and on how much it can take advantage of Vista’s capabilities.
The Windows Performance Rating evaluates components such as the processor, the memory, the hard drive and graphics cards to come up with an overall score. The rating appears in a large blue circle and can be seen in multiple places in the operating system. The main rating is on a scale of 1 to 5, but individual components are also given a “sub rating.”
Windows users can now shut up! There is no virus running around killing Macs. There never was, and until now and the foreseeable future, there won’t be. As much as the virus, spyware, malware, adware community (a.k.a. the Windows community) wants to think Macs are less secure, they are sadly mistaken.
First off. These are no viruses, rather they are flaws or exploits. Every piece of software has them. Apple is no different. But unlike Microsoft, Apple patches things fairly quickly, and released a patch yesterday to fix the recent problems.
Until now, you needed a Windows PC to connect to your Xbox 360, utilizing the file sharing features of the media center. Connect360 by Nullriver Software changes all that. Now, I don’t need to be pwned by Bill Gates in order to listen to my music via my Xbox 360.
Connect360 automatically indexes your iTunes and iPhoto libraries and shares them to your Xbox 360. You can then use the Xbox 360 Dashboard to browse and play your media, organized in the exact same way that it is on your Mac.
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