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Fantastic Contraption on the iPhone

One of my favourite sites at the moment is Fantastic Contraption so was well pleased to see an iPhone version.

The online game is described as.

An online flash puzzle game where you build whimsical machines to solve each level.

Well the iPhone version is basically an iPhone version of the online Flash game.

If you have played the website version, the iPhone version takes a little getting use to but you can still build quite complicated contraptions.

The downside is the £2.99 price, which is the most expensive iPhone app I have bought so far.

It’s not the most stable of apps for the iPhone the tutorial caused the app to crash twice and a hard reset of the iPhone.

Overall a really fun game.

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What’s that then…

I do go into System Preferences now and again, but not often. I accidently started it this evening and saw this at the bottom.

Hmmm…

I am pretty sure I didn’t install it. Now I know I haven’t downloaded anything recently, but this seemed weird. The name didn’t seem to give any clues.

I opened the preference pane to have a look.

Preference Pane

MacFUSE allows you to extend Mac OS X’s native file handling capabilities via 3rd-party file systems. Visit the MacFUSE website for more information.

Well I was none the wiser!

Did you think I was going to click the link, no I think not!

Did a Google search and got this.

Whats that then…

Made me feel a little better, as it would appear that it wasn’t some kind of malicious code.

Looked further down and it said in one of the other searches something about NTFS…

Now it was all starting to make sense.

Parallels must have installed it when I installed Parallels the other day.

Must stay on top of these kind of things.

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Installed Parallels 4.0

Well my copy of Parallels 4.0 arrived from Amazon who are selling the boxed upgrade for just £32. I didn’t use the enclosed CD, just the latest version from the Parallels website and the serial number included in the box.

The install went fine, converting my Vista and Windows 7 images went fine and Windows 7 is working fine. However I did have issues with the conversion of the Windows XP image, with some WMI errors.

The new version of Parallels is an improvement on version 3.0, but still don’t like coherence mode (default) which just doesn’t seem right on a Mac, much prefer using Windows in a window.

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New Kindle

Amazon have released a new Kindle.

It has many new features and is smaller and thinner.

Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines

Lightweight: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback

Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots

Books in Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required

Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and even crisper images

Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging

More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books

Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns

Read-to-Me: With the new Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud to you

Large Selection: Over 230,000 books plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs available

Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise

One day we might get one in the UK, one day….

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iWork ‘09

Apple have released a new version of iWork with new versions of Keynote, Pages and Numbers.

Keynote has always been my favourite application in iWork and there are some new features which look interesting. Doesn’t seem to be a huge number of new features though, main ones which will make me upgrade are the integration with the iPhone (or iPod touch) and the web show functionality.

Haven’t got a copy yet, but will get the family edition so I can install it onto all the Macs in the house and the possible future MacBook I am thinking about getting.

I may also get iLife ’09, in the main as it usually integrates better with the newer version of iWork.

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Hmmm Parallels 4.0

In a previous post I did say I was downloading Parallels 4.0 so that I could install Windows 7. The download only includes the software and you pay for a licence key to use it. I have Parallels 3.0 and therefore will be getting the upgrade version.

It’s weird though, from the Parallels store, the upgrade is $49.99 which is nearly £50 by the time you convert to pound sterling, add VAT (even at just 15%). Must be because the pound is so weak against the US dollar at the moment.

It’s weird because Amazon are selling the boxed upgrade for just £32.

So for just over £15 less I can get the boxed set and real media, or pay more for a download. Doesn’t make sense to me.

I can wait for a few days, as it is only Windows 7 we’re talking about!

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iTunes Plus upgrades now à la carte

One of the big criticisms of the introduction of the widespread use of iTunes Plus on the iTunes Store (ie the removal of DRM) which was announced at MacWorld 2009 was the fact that you had to do an all or nothing upgrade.

That has now changed.

Upgrades now no longer have to be on a whole library basis they can be now done on an iTunes Plus upgrades now à la carte basis as seen in Apple’s FAQ (note opens in iTunes). You can now do single songs.

As a result I can upgrade my Prince songs, but not necessarily the Steps track I must have bought when I was not really with it!

iTunes Plus

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Installing Windows 7 on the Q1 Ultra

Though I initially had problems with the Samsung Q1 Ultra I have grown to like the UMPC, the main benefit being the five hour battery life (even longer with the powerbank).

Samsung Q1 Ultra

However the operating system has always been a bit of a pain, yup you’ve guessed it, it runs Windows Vista. Though the Q1 Ultra has 1GB of RAM, this really isn’t sufficient for Vista, and as a result boot times are too long, and there are performance lags which I blame on the OS.

I was seriously considering downgrading to Windows XP and to see if that would improve the performance. Now though I am thinking I might install the Windows 7 beta and see if that could improve the performance.

If all else fails, I will install Ubuntu!

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Installed Windows 7, but not all is well…

Having downloaded the Windows 7 beta I installed it in a virtual machine (VM) using Parallels 3.0 running on my Mac.

Though the install worked fine, the installation of the Parallels Tools failed (either automatically or manually).

According to Downloadsquad it will work if you are running Parallels 4.0, build 3810.

So guess what I am downloading now?

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No BBC iPlayer with JokiuSpot on the iPod touch

If you have an iPhone and want to watch BBC programmes using BBC iPlayer, you need to be using a wifi connection, it’s not possible with a 3G (or EDGE) connection.

Of course the iPod touch only has wifi, so in theory you shouldn’t get that problem.

Oh look!

Hmmm.

So how did I manage to get that with the iPod touch?

Well I was using wifi, but I was using JoikuSpot. What JoikuSpot does is basically turn your 3G wifi mobile phone into a wireless hotspot. So the Nokia N95 connects to the internet via the 3G network and then allows wifi clients connect to it via the 802.11 wifi.

Well the BBC must know that I am accessing their server from a 3G connection and serve me up with that error message.