jamesclay, Author at Tech Stuff

June 7, 2008

Fans Flashback

This evening using my MacBook Pro I had a fans flashback to the days when I had a G5 PowerMac.

I really liked the G5 PowerMac, it was a huge beasty, but a very powerful beasty.

Though now and again it would do a jumbo jet impression and try and to set the fans going so fast that it sounded like it was trying to take off!

I believe that this was a bug caused by the PowerMac failing to realise how hot it was and setting the fans to maximum to try and ensure that it didn’t overheat.

Quite a few updates were sent out by Apple to try and fix it, but as I recall not all those fixes worked.

I have been finding that if I push my MacBook Pro I can make it get very hot quite quickly. Even quicker if I have the battery in and even faster than that if I am charging the battery at the same time.

This evening I was using the MacBook Pro and was watching a video whilst doing some simple web browsing, when the fans kicked in. Now the battery was fully charged so I was quite surprised. Charging the battery and using the MacBook Pro is a simple way of getting the fans going. However this time the battery was fully charged!

The fans just got louder and louder…

Eventually I decided enough was enough. I shut the lid, turned the MacBook Pro over and waited until the fans stopped (nearly 30 seconds or thereabouts). I then removed the battery and turned back over. Opened the lid and continued where I left off.

No fans, but still quite warm.

June 6, 2008

iTunes Movies in the UK – hmmmm

I was quite pleased the other day to hear that movies films would be available in the UK iTunes Store.

iTunes Movies in the UK - hmmmm

At the time I had a quick look over the store and saw lots of films. The number one film was (at that time) I am Legend, I was quite impressed that the price for the film was only £6.99 – and that seemed to explain why it was number one. I was also interested to see that National Treasure 2 was also available and thought “I’ll rent that”.

At that time I was busy with work so knew I would leave until later to get them.

So today I upgraded my version of iTunes and decided I would buy I am Legend and rent National Treasure 2.

So you can imagine my disappointment, to see that I am Legend had gone up in price to £10.99. So why was it cheaper to begin with? Why has it gone up? Was it a mistake that Apple has now corrected? Or did I imagine it all?

Ah well so not to worry I’ll rent National Treasure 2 instead. Even with the rental limitation, I was fine with that, I could always transfer the film to an iPod and connect the iPod to my television.

Oh.

No.

Yes, though I can buy National Treasure 2 for £10.99, I couldn’t rent it!

It’s suppose to be a reasonably fun film, worth renting, but not worth buying it and certainly not worth paying £10.99.

So my first proper attempt to get films off the iTunes Store was not a great success, ah well maybe next time.

June 5, 2008

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…”

June 4, 2008

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.

June 3, 2008

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

June 2, 2008

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.

June 2, 2008

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.

June 1, 2008

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.

May 30, 2008

Why typewriters beat computers…

Got a computer?

Well you should have got a typewriter according to an article on the BBC News website.

They’re clunky, dirty and can’t access the internet, yet every year thousands of people buy typewriters when they could probably afford a computer. Why?

Old typewriter