Month: June 2008

Posted on

Now this looks interesting…

If you want to run Windows on your Mac, you have had up until now four main choices.

Now there is a fifth choice, Virtualbox from Sun.

VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). See “About VirtualBox” for an introduction.

Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD.

I have downloaded it, but not yet installed it or tried to run Windows on it. Certainly looks like it could be useful for a whole range of virtualization solutions.

Continue reading “Now this looks interesting…”

Posted on

iTunes Movies in the UK

Great news for all iTunes Store users in the UK, we can now buy and rent movies.

From the Apple press release:

Apple® today announced that movies from major film studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM), Sony Pictures Television International and Lionsgate UK are now available on the iTunes® Store in the UK (www.apple.com/uk/itunes). Movie purchases and rentals feature iTunes’ legendary ease of use, which makes discovering and enjoying movies as simple and easy as buying music on iTunes has always been. The iTunes Store in the UK features over 700 films available for rent or purchase, with titles available for purchase on the same day as their DVD release, including favorites such as “Hitman,” “I Am Legend,” “National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets” and “Into the Wild.” iTunes Movie Rentals also features over 100 titles available in stunning high definition, perfect for viewing on a widescreen TV with Apple TV®.

I am very pleased with this, and I suspect I may use it a fair bit.

I am even now seriously considering getting an Apple TV just so I can watch the movies on my TV, well I guess I can use the iPod nano in the meantime.

Posted on

Wireless Network Tutorials

Apple have posted a nice couple of video tutorials on wireless networking and setting up a wireless network at home.

For seasoned techy geeks like myself who have been using wireless for the best part of a decade, we sometimes forget how magical and fantastical wireless is to people new to it.

“You mean I don’t need to connect any wires to connect to the internet!”

So nice and simple tutorials like these from Apple are useful and can set the groundwork for people to enter a wireless world.

Wireless basics

Setting up your wireless network 

Posted on

Buzzword

Today Adobe launched Acrobat.com, a suite of online services.

Acrobat

Buzzword is an online document application which can be shared and collaboratively worked on.

Adobe ConnectNow is a conferencing screensharing application.

You can also create (a limited number) of online PDF documents.

Also you are able to upload and share files.

A nice full review of the service.

Posted on

Microsoft to move into social bookmarking

According to Mashable, Microsoft will be moving into social bookmarking.

According to Microsoft Evangalist John Martin, the company is set to release a product called “Social Bookmarks” this week. The product sounds a whole lot like del.icio.us, and will initially be deployed on MSDN and TechNet, so look for it to be mostly hardcore techie bookmarks for now. Features include bookmarking (presumably via a bookmarklet), tagging, and a web-based account where your bookmarks are stored.

Social bookmarking as seen on sites such as Del.icio.us, Digg and Stumbleupon allow users to collect (or bookmark) their favourite sites online and share those bookmarks with their friends and others.Microsoft to move into social bookmarking

Posted on

Connecting your iPod nano to the TV

Now and again I will watch video on my iPod, but the iPod nano screen is rather on the small side for me, so prefer using other things for video (such as my Mac or my Archos device).

However I have been experimenting with an AV cable for the iPod nano and it works well on my non-HD CRT TV. Battery life is ample for a whole movie.

Only downside is pausing or rewinding the movie is a little more complicated than using the remote.