Apple User Podcast

Skype just released Skype 2.5 for Mac a few days ago, it features nifty new features(discussed in a prior post) and some slick effects.

I just found this article  which gives fairly straightforward instructions for enabling 640×480 resolution on our Skype video chats, this is an increase of 4x so make sure your Mac is highish end and you’ve got nice bandwidth.

Remember to use textedit to edit your config.xml, and be careful, only you hold responsibility for what happens. But after doing it your friends will see super sharp images of you.

Namaste.

It was only a matter of time, at CES last year (2006) I remember reports of Sonys Walkman display boasting how incredible their new mp3 players were, meanwhile their Xplode car stereo division was boasting about seamless iPod integration.

Here we are, 2007 and Sony has introduced iPod docks, its not a surprise, Sony aren’t cohesive internally, we’ve often seen companies grow and grow and suddenly they reach critical mass and have to split up their divisions.

Sony and Ibm are examples of this, IBM physically sold off pieces of itself to be leaner and more focused, Sony internally seems to have complete radio silence between its departments. Doesn’t a guy from Walkman division ever have tea with a guy from Xplode division or Bravia Division or Playstation Division and say “Hey John, We can’t move these walkmen, can we integrate something to your Car stereo, TV to make these sexier?”

Apple and Yahoo are exemplary examples of smooth communication in a large company, one hand is always washing the other at Apple, Yahoo aren’t close to as good, but I think they do it better than Google, who had their backsides slapped a few months ago when the incredible Eric Schmidt shook up the geniuses at the ‘plex and said ‘you’re all making great things, docs, spreadsheets, mail, etc, but where’s the integration?’ Up until then, Googles Word App and its Spreadsheet App were at DIFFERENT url’s!

I loved Sony products, grew up with great Amps, Vcr’s and Tv’s,  it would be great to see them (and all companies) synergise their product lines more.

Can anyone give examples of other companies that streamline and synergise their products?

Humourous Video look at Windows Vista features compared to OS X by the New York Times.

Skype 2.5 for Mac is just out of beta and available for download here.

Biggest new features:

• SMS sending
• Ten Way Conference Calling
• Improved video

Over the last six months (someone tipped me off about fakesteve.blogspot.com in August) this blog has provided great insight, hilarious wit and a few great Apple stock buying tips.
This blog is one of the funniest and most entertaing sites I’ve seen in recent months, heres a good post from November, depicting IT managers cheering over Vista’s increased footprint and higher complexity:

“Allah bless you, O wondrous Microsoft! How do you perform these miraculous feats? You have reproduced the Mac OS X desktop with none of its reliability and a far greater hardware requirement. All this plus hundreds of as-yet-undiscovered security holes, and for only $400 a seat, plus $500 for extra memory and another $500 for our IT drones to install it and patch it? Thank you, thank you, thank you, for always putting the customer first! Oh we are so grateful that we never adopted those attractive, easy-to-use, super-reliable iMacs”

FakeStevs is Finally shutting down though, a quote from the latest post:

“For now, dear friends, let me leave you with a message of hope and peace and love. Follow your dreams. Do what you love. Dance like nobody’s watching, sing like nobody’s listening.”

We’ll miss you FSJ.

“Windows Vista Premium upgrade: $160.

New graphics card: $60.

New hard drive: $130.

1 gigabyte RAM: $100.

Microsoft XP ain’t broke, so I don’t need this stuff: priceless.”

An excerpt from this article by the Kansas City Star.

Wow, I found this on Digg, We all knew that our Macs would run Vista really well, but seeing these presenters running Vista on an iMac really makes you feel like you’ve got the best of both worlds. As stated by Kevin Rose and illustrated in this cartoon:

OS X is a superior system to Vista, but if we need to try it out we can, can PC’s try out OS X? No.

read more | digg story

Switching from Linux meant I left behind lots of free open source software, here’s the silver lining:
The best Linux open source packages make it to OS X, its easy to port, as Mac OS X is based on FreeBSD, and my top pics from Linux, The GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, LinCity, Mplayer, Netpanzer and Armegatron

Those applications were literally my top ten used applications when I used debian, and they’re all on OS X too. Did I know that before switching to Mac? No! I switched with faith that things would be easier and better on the Mac, they sure are!

For more great Open Source software, visit Open Source Mac

The Macbook is my favorite computer of the last year, nay, five years. Its lightweight, widescreen (I can’t bear non Widescreens since using the iMac anc Macbook), lights up the room, attracts oohs and aahs, and much more.

I recommend the Base Configuration to almost everybody, Its very powerful, a Core 2 Duo 1.83Ghz Chip is quite incredible, 60gb Hard Drive is lots when your iPod carries all your movies and music, and a Dvd burner is not an essential in my eyes (if you need to, you can FULLY author your DVD in iDVD, and drop the image onto a Mac at your home or office that has a DVD Burner)
I’ve discovered that as well as the really fun Board games that come preinstalled with your Mac (Backgammon, Chess, Four in a Row) we can grab a Great absolutely free cross platform game called Sauerbraten here
Here Follows Screenshots:

This game is great and reminds me of Doom and Quake, its multiplayer, single player, nice AI, good weapons and great graphics. Its great to fire this up and see your Macbook tearing through these great levels, colors, textures all look super, and you can go online and play with your friends or at a Lan Party(Ugh)
Try it out to have some fun.

While recuperating, I recently considered perhaps grabbing a game for my Macbook.
Browsing the shelves at the Apple Store San Francisco reveals lots of good looking and interesting games,

Civilization 4 is a game that allows you to develop a civilization from the stone age to the space age, sounds like fun and most importantly, is a universal binary(meaning it runs at full speed(natively) on older macs(pre 2006) and brand new macs).
Another good looking Mac Game is

X-Plane looks to be the most advanced Flight simulator available on any platform, After mastering every kind of flying machine in every environment around the world, you’re able to create your own scenarios and Aeroplanes.
The sequel to the best selling game of all time ‘The Sims’ is
The Sims 2 is a Dollhouse taken to the computer, a player creates, controls every detail of their character down to personality. The player then builds them a house, gets them a job, helps them get promoted (by educating, amusing and finding love) for them. This formula worked incredibly in the first Sims and the Sims 2 essentially adds superior graphics, extra features and most importantly, the ability to procreate and see the parents genes come to life in the kids and grandkids.

All these games were noticable to me for one reason, they all have the “Universal symbol”

on their box, the fact that these are Top games and are some of the first to become Universal is not a coincidence, being top selling games, their parent companies have the funds to develop Universal editions of their games relatively quickly.
If buying games for my Macs, I’ll only buy Universal games, I’m a huge fan of Rosetta(the software in Intel Macs) that allows older games(Non Universal) to run, I’d simply prefer to grab software thats designed for the Intel Mac.