Category Archives: Mac

Notes!

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I thought I had a newer license than 1.0 for iWOW but apparently not so off to the SRSLabs site to see the price of the new version. $24.99. Not bad but that’s when I realised I’d lost my password and 3 minutes later realised that my password was not encrypted. (You’d think company’s would have a clue wouldn’t you?). If my password is not encrypted you think I’ll give my credit card details over? It also phones home on activation and after the 3rd call it won’t be answered. Not good at all. Looked around and found an alternative.

Hear. Costs $19.99, I can install in on whatever I own (Mac and Win) and it works for all sound, not just iTunes. This is excellent for gaming on the laptop and TV/film/music on the mac. The email asking about licensing was answered quickly too. So I bought it. And I am finding all new sounds in music I’ve played many many times. Click Hear off and it all goes flat, dull. Very noticeable. Tons of settings which are fun to play with. Tomorrow I’ll set the dogs off with some loud dubstep and heavy on the Bass. The only downside is that it sits in the dock not the menu bar but that’s minor compared to the sound enhancement.

Snagit. Junk

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Why is to so damn hard to capture an entire window in a screenshot? Not what I can see but what I can scroll too? Snagit for the Mac – and for Firefox only – says it can. Junk. It can’t. Numerous Chrome extensions say then can and they can’t. I have a long page and I want it all but nothing can do it. And they want money for Snagit too. Pfft.

Lion sleeps and sleeps

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Number of times I reinstalled Windows because the system slowed: 1
Number of times I have reinstalled Lion because it has practically ground to a halt: 2
Difference is that I had Windows for years. Lion has been out for 7 months?
System prefs should open fast, not take 30 seconds. Terminal takes forever. Aperture? Go for a walk. OS Lion itself when you have a couple of drives attached? Ages. I could reboot XP is just under 45 seconds. This machine takes that long to shut down.
This time it’s nuke and install. None of that “Restore” rubbish.

Edit the dot

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I needed a program for a specific task – like you do – and found one with a trial so opted for that. Took me a few clicks and errors before I worked it out and liked it and then I’d run out of changes. I tried to buy the program but the transaction failed. Tried 3 more times with the same result. They had a form to fill out for if this happened so I completed that for them. Because I was in the mood to keep doing this particular task I thought I’d uninstall the app, reinstall and see what happened. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
Of course dragging/dropping to the Trash does not remove the whole program and anyone who thinks it does on a mac wants their head felt. I used App Cleaner to see what files were where and there was a dot file in Prefs. Wondering what was in it I opened it in Textedit and found a perfectly formatted file with an integer count. So I when made a change and the counter incremented, it hits the preset number the program stops. I changed it to -1000000 and reopened the program. It works, I can now have a million changes for the ‘trial’.
Went back to their site and grabbed another of their apps and it works exactly the same way. No attempt to encode the dot file or write it somewhere odd, was obviously listed in some receipt or otherwise. Why? As more people with a clue use apps like App Cleaner which show the files and when they are opened they are clearly written as to what to change they they’ll lose money. No need for cracks, connection limiting or other workrounds. Just Textedit. Surely as their potential market gets bigger they need to be sure they profit from that and a dot file just isn’t going to do it.

And I will buy it – I like it. (and I obviously can’t tell you what it is).

On Tuesday

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D took her macbook in to a Genius. It was the optical drive and something that sits alongside it. He totted up the cost and it came to around £150. Then he said he would change the cracked display fascia, change the keyboard assembly because of a crack and he could do that as the job and drop the cost to £60 for all the same work. If I’d have gone in I’m sure it would have stayed at £150. Not that we are complaining. So she loves Apple more than she already did.

Pre-ordered Tactics Ogre which – along with the PC RPG’s I now have – keep me away from the PS3 and it’s finger damaging controller. Some of the RPG’s include Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Planescape Torment, The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, Starcraft and Warcraft 3. Steam + GOG are a lethal combination for the games I want to play (which are the old stuff).

My mac has decided today to not just unmount the 2 ext drives but to completely forget they are there. Have to remove and re-attach the cable. Happened 4 times. Odd.

I imported a few thousand pics into iPhoto earlier. One that flashed up was me with a mohican but that import crashed and I cannot find the pic anywhere. There are about 16k so I’ll have to try again. and again. Don’t think I’ll stick with it, might just make folders myself.

Blistering

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On July 3 2002 Blizzard released Warcraft 3. Over the weekend I loaded the original game from cd into a macbook pro that was made some time in 2009. That’s 7 years difference in technology and yet the game made the machine run at blistering temperatures. Not just hot – Youtube does that – but skin burning hot, Health and Safety hot. Why? Why is the mac so hugely inefficient at running code that was written over 7 years ago? (I have a Starcraft cd from the same time which just won’t run). And this was on the prologue when you learn the controls/control panel. Hardly anything was going on. What happens when I get to construction and battles? Does it melt? Do I need to put it on ice? I remember running this on my PC and the fan just rolled around normally. Nothing burned, nothing fried, nothing gave any cause for concern. That level of heat cannot be good for a computer, any computer, even one that was first designed to look good and a far far second to work well.
So I can’t play consoles because of my left hand, I could play with the brace and my right hand but not if the machine is going to cook itself to death. Looks like I’ll be buying a Windows laptop that can handle games (Warcraft 3 through to Civ 5). Nuts.

Edit: Downloading the latest from Blizzard. Also have seen that the ASUS G73 is the one to go for. I find it for around £1700 though which is just a little pricey. And I’ve found the Starcraft Installer for OS X.

No delete key.

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One in four users turned off their anti-virus protection in response to performance problems after they installed security software, according to a survey by security software firm Avira. The Register

J has always used Windows and is a creature of habit. She is also reluctant to change in part for memory reasons. She has gone through a few laptops so when this one started showing signs of too much wear – keys falling off, knackered battery and more – but a new machine was needed. It is vital for her not a luxury. She was adamant though and didn’t like those ‘mac things’ despite the rest of us using them. What drove her over the edge though wasn’t the machine, wasn’t Windows updates – it was the never ending stream of AV updates (I’d tried all the good free ones). Yes she knew why but the hogging they caused and the ‘in your face’ nature meant that she agreed to a macbook (I debated another Windows machine but putting Ubuntu on but then the girls couldn’t help her). Thankfully due to Dropbox and my backing up everything else she lost nothing, not a single file. So did she switch because she didn’t like Windows? No. And does she like the mac? Not yet.

Look! A post mentioning a mac that doesn’t have a go at them! The restraint being shown is epic!

I want software that does not exist.

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Requirements.

1. It must support repeating tasks. I don’t want to have to uncheck things at the end of the day, I want to click one key or icon and have it cleared. I want to schedule tasks for Mon and Wed, Tue and Thu. I want flexibility.

2. It must support drag/drop. I want to be able to highlight a block of text on a webpage and drag it to the dock icon where it is pasted directly.

3. It must embed images, not shortcut to them.

*Voodoopad. Cannot do 1.
Things. Cannot do 2 or 3.
*The Hit List. Cannot do 2 or 3.
Midnight Inbox. Maybe it can but it’s so full of other un-dismissable fluff I couldn’t find out.
Evernote. Can’t do 1.
Omnifocus. I’m not paying $80 so I’m not even trying.
*Process. Not designed for this.
Yojimbo. Cannot do 2, don’t think it does 1.
*Notebook. Cannot do 1.
Together does not do 1.
(* means I own it)

I can use THL for tasks, Shovebox for images/text/archives, Notational Velocity for text and that’s all just groovy but all I wanted was one application that was designed for one person to keep it all. I cannot use THL for text because although you can drag/drop that useful piece from a blog it then turns every line into a task.
I don’t want GTD, I don’t need GTD. I just want a program that does 3 simple things very well.

Concentrated working

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I’ve been using Concentrate for a while and thought it about time to write a few words about this excellent program.

Why use it? Because it focuses my attention and it breaks a task down into manageable chunks.  I have 6 activities – plugins, support etc – and each has broadly similar elements with the main difference being the urls that are opened. The core elements:

  • Quit applications. NetNewsWire, Thunderbird, Firefox, Opera, Unison, MacBreakz.  These cannot be launched while the activity is running.
  • Block websites. Range of my most visited including planetf1.com, toucharcade.com, amazon.co.uk
  • Launch Applications. Depending on activity it is Safari, Mailplane, Mamp, Fraise
  • Set Adium / Skype to Away
  • Open websites and specify urls
  • …..and when it’s all over it brings the apps back and Growl’s me a message  (it says Done!).

I spent some time ages ago timing what I did and how much time I could do something before distractions kicked in and won. Around 30 minutes was good so each activity has a 30 minute limit. A couple of activities I find really hard work sometimes and the thought of 30 whole long minutes is simply too much. So I have a 15 minute version and when they start I get a Growl:

It’s only 15 minutes, don’t get scared now.

It works too.  I do not keep track of what activities I have done nor do I watch the time devoted. Some tasks fill the 30 minutes every time and always will, some are shorter and they too will always be but the organisation works, I do focus more and I am sure I am all the better for it. And after the 30 mins I can get a coffee, scan the sites I like, walk the dog and know I have done something and a manageable chunk is waiting for me.

Great program and one I would not now like to be without. Concentrate.