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iPod touch, first impressions (well second actually)

Well I now have an iPod touch, and though I have touched one before, to actually use one for quite a bit of time, is a different kettle of fish. I am very impressed still with the device. Apple have done an excellent job.

iPod touch

The touch interface is very impressive and compared to the typical Table PC or Archos touch interface, the iPod touch interface is more fluid and responsive, and though I don’t like the fingerprints all over the device, the use of the finger is very intuitive.

The screen quality is excellent and images and video look excellent.

Syncing took a bit of time, it’s just an 8GB device, but I did put over five hundred photographs on the device as well as 4Gb of music and podcasts.

The browser is probably the best I have seen on any mobile device, the way you can intelligently zoom in and out makes browsing webpages really nice and you don’t feel you are losing out with the small screen (well it’s a lot smaller than my 20″ iMac).

Overall I do like the iPod touch, do I like it enough to get an iPhone, well if the phone functions work as well as the iPod then it’s a distinct possibility, though I will probably wait until we see a next generation iPhone, you know one with 3G capabilities.

iPod touch, me touch, me like!

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802.11g Airport Extreme Stalled

Interestingly my (older) 802.11g Airport Extreme stalled today. No 802.11g client could pick it up and even though it is plugged into the LAN port of the 802.11n Airport Extreme, the Airport Utility could not “see” it.

So unplugged it, left it for about ten seconds, and switched it back on again, no worries.

UFO 802.11g Airport Extreme

This is an occassional problem, which is in the main just annoying, but I wonder what the underlying problem is (if any) and if the base station will one day just stop working for good!

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Password Protected Sharing

In the two guides I have written (so far) on sharing files between Macs and Vista PCs, Sharing files between a Windows Vista Home Edition PC and a Mac running OS X Leopard 10.5 and  Sharing files between a Windows Vista Business Edition PC and a Mac running 10.4� I did not disable password protection on the Vista PCs.

This meant that users sharing files needed to enter a password (or have a matching account) in order to access shared folders on the Vista PC.

Password Protected Sharing

However if you turn off password protected sharing it is possible to share files without for the user on the remote computer who is accessing the shared folder to use a password.

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File Sharing with Leopard and Vista

Update: guide now available.

I am in the process of writing my file sharing guide for Leopard and Vista and though similar to Tiger and XP, there are some quite fundamental differences which means it is taking longer to write the guide then I first thought.

I have recommended using the same username and password on home networks for sharing files as it makes it easier to share files.

Now with Leopard you can share individual folders much more easily, which means I may write two separate guides rather than one long one.

We’ll see how it goes, expect it soon.

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MacBook Pro Airport Sleep Issues

My MacBook Pro has stopped re-connecting to my Airport network after sleep. I am sure this is down to the fact that I have started to use it on a WPA2 802.11n wireless network.

Checked my settings, but nothing there that seemed out of order.

A quick Google search and up comes through this site the following Apple KB article which has a solution, will try it and see what happens.

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Windows on a Mac

If you want to run Windows on an Intel Mac there are basically four choices.

Boot Camp

http://www.apple.com/bootcamp

This is an either or situation, which means you are running Windows or OS X, therefore if you want to change applications you need to reboot.

Has the advantage that you are when running Windows for all intents purposes your mac is a Windows PC. This means that you get the full power of your Mac for running Windows.

You need a licensed copy of Windows XP *SP2* or Windows Vista

Comes as part of Leopard, so if you have Tiger you will need to upgrade.

Parallels and VMFusion

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/
http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/

These applications create virtual Windows PCs, which allow you to run Windows (and Windows applications) at the same time as OS X and therefore you can switch between them withoout needing to reboot. There is a slight performance hit when running Windows in this way but for most people this is negligible. Also you will need a lot of RAM to run these, at leat 1GB and preferably 2GB of RAM.

Coherence mode on Parallels allows you to run Windows applications seamlessly alongside Mac applications.

Both require a Windows licence, but doesn’t need to be SP2, with Parallels you can even install and run Windows 3.1! Parallels XP support is excellent, however support for Vista is less good, so you can’t use things like Aero for example.

Crossover

http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/

Allows you to run Windows applications (some but not all) within OS X and you don’t need a Windows licence as you don’t install Windows.

Downside is that it doesn’t work with all applications.

MacBook

Summary

Therefore there are four choices when it comes to running Windows on a Mac. Which is best? Well that depends much more on your needs when it comes to running Windows.

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Fujifilm Finepix F50fd Review

Digital Photography Review has posted a review of the Fujifilm Finepix F50fd, a compact 12MP camera.

Like any sequel the F50fd was always going to suffer by comparison to its illustrious predecessor, so is Fujifilm’s new flagship compact a Godfather II or a Matrix Reloaded? The answer, unsurprisingly, is that it’s neither one or the other, but something somewhere in between.

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Just installed Leopard

Well better late than never I guess…

I have installed Leopard on my iMac (using an external Firewire drive rather than my main drive).

It installed fine, though I find it amusing that Apple’s “about one minute”  can be longer than any other minute, maybe a Time Machine thing?

I have had a quick look and I am quite impressed. I am quite pleased with the performance on my iMac which seems much faster, certainly don’t get the lag I have been getting when changing the volume for example.

Safari 3 is much better and I might just install 10.4.11 on my other Macs to get Safari 3, like the fact I can move tabs.

File sharing looks relatively simple, but quite different to Tiger therefore new guides are essential.

Overall impressed so far.

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TC1100 Wireless Problems, Sorted!

I have finally sorted out my HP TC1100 wireless problem. I was having issues getting the TC1100 to connect to my 802.11g Airport wireless network.

I had confirmed that the Intel 2200 BG card in the Tablet supports WPA and I have updated Windows XP to support WPA as well.

The Intel 2200 BG card also supports 802.11g.

I say that as the solution was to switch the Airport Extreme from 802.11g only radio mode to 802.11b/g mode.

In this mode the TC1100 has no problem connecting to my WPA/WPA2 network!

It’s not as even though the TC1100 is connecting at 802.11b 11 Mbps speeds, as the speed shown in the connection window though fluctuating is greater than 11 Mbps!

So if you are having issues connecting to an 802.11g network with a laptop with the Intel 2200BG card, revert to b/g compatability and see if that makes a difference.