Sep 2008
New Microsoft Ad is good...but, it misses the point
Sep 19 2008 05:59 PM Filed in: Microsoft
Microsoft released a new commercial last night. It’s
part of their $300 Million dollar ad campaign to try
and revamp their image after the Vista fiasco. The
first two advertisements in their new ad campaign
were pretty awful. It had Bill Gates and Jerry
Seinfeld, and the ads really made no sense. Some
people joked that the ads were like the Seinfeld
show, they were commercials about nothing. Now, they
did get people’s attention, but not exactly in a good
way.
The new advertisement is better than the first two. You can watch it on the Microsoft site if you haven’t seen it yet. The new commercial has a Microsoft employee that happens to look like the PC guy, from the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” Apple commercials. He starts off by saying, “I’m a PC, and I’ve been stereotyped”, then it goes on to show a lot of people saying that they are a PC and that they do important things. The thing that the marketing company, and a lot of other people in the forums talking about the commercial seem to miss, is in the Apple commercial, the two guys are supposed to represent computers. That’s why they say “I’m a PC”, not, “I’m a PC user”. Apple is saying that PCs are boring, beige boxes that people hide under their desk, because they look bad, while Apple computers are great looking machines that people are proud to display. It seems that a lot of people, including the marketing firm that did these commercials, seems to think that Apple was saying Mac users are young and hip while PC users are guys in suits; which isn’t what the ads say.
I did see a funny quote. The tag line of the new Windows campaign is, “Life without walls”. If you have no walls, you don’t need Windows : )
Another funny thing, apparently the ad talking about how great it is to be a PC, was created on a Mac.
The new advertisement is better than the first two. You can watch it on the Microsoft site if you haven’t seen it yet. The new commercial has a Microsoft employee that happens to look like the PC guy, from the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” Apple commercials. He starts off by saying, “I’m a PC, and I’ve been stereotyped”, then it goes on to show a lot of people saying that they are a PC and that they do important things. The thing that the marketing company, and a lot of other people in the forums talking about the commercial seem to miss, is in the Apple commercial, the two guys are supposed to represent computers. That’s why they say “I’m a PC”, not, “I’m a PC user”. Apple is saying that PCs are boring, beige boxes that people hide under their desk, because they look bad, while Apple computers are great looking machines that people are proud to display. It seems that a lot of people, including the marketing firm that did these commercials, seems to think that Apple was saying Mac users are young and hip while PC users are guys in suits; which isn’t what the ads say.
I did see a funny quote. The tag line of the new Windows campaign is, “Life without walls”. If you have no walls, you don’t need Windows : )
Another funny thing, apparently the ad talking about how great it is to be a PC, was created on a Mac.
|
Quick Mac Dev Tip - Enable Apache
Sep 16 2008 07:11 PM Filed in: Apple
I have a couple co-workers that have recently joined
the Mac community. I figure I can pass along any
development tips, programs I use, gotchas, and
general tips that I’ve come across along the way.
My first tip is how to enable Apache Web Server on your Mac, so you can do some web development.
The great thing about the Mac is Apple has actually included a lot of development tools by default or on the installation DVD. Apache Web Server is already installed on your Mac, you just need to enable it, which is pretty simple.
Start up the Mac System Preferences. You can either do this by going to the Apple Menu and choosing System Preferences, or you can click on the System Preferences icon in your dock, if you have it there.
Go to the Sharing section, under Internet & Network, and click the checkbox next to Web Sharing. That’s pretty much all there is to it. If all went well, you can open your web browser and browse to http://localhost/, you should see the Apache Web Server start page. You even have your own personal web page located at http://localhost/~username, you can use iWeb to publish to this.
The other thing you need to know is where the actual directory on your drive is that’s mapped to localhost. Double click on your hard drive and open the Library folder. Navigate to the WebServer directory and then to the Documents directory, this is where the web site resides.
To access your personal web page you go to /Users/username/Sites.
One last thing you need to know, in case you are doing something like PHP development, or any other type of development that requires you to make a change to the Apache configuration file. This file resides in /etc/httpd. You need to be root user to edit this file, the best way to do this is to open the Terminal and type the following
cd /etc/httpd
Since your Mac is based on Free BSD, a Unix system, you have all of the great Unix editors built in. An easy one to use for editing the Apache config file is Pico, but you also have access to Vi and Emacs. To start Pico as root to edit the config file type the following
sudo pico httpd.conf
Type in your root password and you are now able to make your needed changes.
My first tip is how to enable Apache Web Server on your Mac, so you can do some web development.
The great thing about the Mac is Apple has actually included a lot of development tools by default or on the installation DVD. Apache Web Server is already installed on your Mac, you just need to enable it, which is pretty simple.
Start up the Mac System Preferences. You can either do this by going to the Apple Menu and choosing System Preferences, or you can click on the System Preferences icon in your dock, if you have it there.
Go to the Sharing section, under Internet & Network, and click the checkbox next to Web Sharing. That’s pretty much all there is to it. If all went well, you can open your web browser and browse to http://localhost/, you should see the Apache Web Server start page. You even have your own personal web page located at http://localhost/~username, you can use iWeb to publish to this.
The other thing you need to know is where the actual directory on your drive is that’s mapped to localhost. Double click on your hard drive and open the Library folder. Navigate to the WebServer directory and then to the Documents directory, this is where the web site resides.
To access your personal web page you go to /Users/username/Sites.
One last thing you need to know, in case you are doing something like PHP development, or any other type of development that requires you to make a change to the Apache configuration file. This file resides in /etc/httpd. You need to be root user to edit this file, the best way to do this is to open the Terminal and type the following
cd /etc/httpd
Since your Mac is based on Free BSD, a Unix system, you have all of the great Unix editors built in. An easy one to use for editing the Apache config file is Pico, but you also have access to Vi and Emacs. To start Pico as root to edit the config file type the following
sudo pico httpd.conf
Type in your root password and you are now able to make your needed changes.
Amazon MP3 Downloads
I’ve read some reviews, have seen some mentions in
forums, and have heard some people talk about it at
work, so I finally got around to checking out MP3
downloads from Amazon. Most of the time I purchase my
music at Downloadpunk, but they
don’t have everything I’m interested in. I’ve
purchased a couple CD’s from iTunes, usually
using a iTunes gift card. While their selection
is great, and I pretty much just listen to my
music either on my iPod or one of my Macs, the
fact that a lot of their music has DRM on it
does kind of suck. The music isn’t in MP3
format, instead it’s in AAC, which is a wrapper
around MP3 that allows Apple to place their
digital rights restrictions on the music. This
usually limits your music to being played on
certain computers, so you can’t share it with
anyone.
Amazon has a competing music store. I don’t know if it’s as big as the iTunes store, but their selling point is that there is no DRM and also the price is usually a little cheaper. iTunes does carry some music with no DRM, but you actually have to pay more to have the privilege of getting the non-DRM music.
There’s a group I listen to, a psychobilly group, called HorrorPops. They’re a great group and I have their first two CDs, ‘Bring it On’ and ‘Hell Yeah’, and I saw they have a third CD called ‘Kiss Kiss Kill Kill’. This CD is available on iTunes for $9.99, but not in a non-DRM version. I checked out Amazon and they have the same CD in MP3 format for $8.99. I decided to purchase it from them. You have to download a small program, which is a downloader application. When you purchase the music you download a .amz file, this file is used by the downloaded to download your purchase. The cool part is once you finish with the download, it imports the music into your iTunes application. It’s now ready to be listened to and synced up with your iPod.
I was pretty happy with my first purchase. The download was very quick using the download application, and all of the music sounds great. It’s at 256 kb for the bit rate, which is very nice. I plan on making future purchases I don’t find on Downloadpunk on the Amazon site.
Amazon has a competing music store. I don’t know if it’s as big as the iTunes store, but their selling point is that there is no DRM and also the price is usually a little cheaper. iTunes does carry some music with no DRM, but you actually have to pay more to have the privilege of getting the non-DRM music.
There’s a group I listen to, a psychobilly group, called HorrorPops. They’re a great group and I have their first two CDs, ‘Bring it On’ and ‘Hell Yeah’, and I saw they have a third CD called ‘Kiss Kiss Kill Kill’. This CD is available on iTunes for $9.99, but not in a non-DRM version. I checked out Amazon and they have the same CD in MP3 format for $8.99. I decided to purchase it from them. You have to download a small program, which is a downloader application. When you purchase the music you download a .amz file, this file is used by the downloaded to download your purchase. The cool part is once you finish with the download, it imports the music into your iTunes application. It’s now ready to be listened to and synced up with your iPod.
I was pretty happy with my first purchase. The download was very quick using the download application, and all of the music sounds great. It’s at 256 kb for the bit rate, which is very nice. I plan on making future purchases I don’t find on Downloadpunk on the Amazon site.
Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
Sep 13 2008 06:06 PM Filed in: Personal
| Video Games
I purchased a new game a couple weeks ago called
“Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures”, and
I’ve been having a blast playing it.
If you’ve never played one of the Lego video games, you don’t know what you’re missing. If you think Lego games are only for kids, you are completely wrong. These games can be pretty tough. There’s a Lego Star Wars game and also a Lego Batman game; they all operate pretty much the same. You first play through each level in Story Mode. In this mode you follow the story line of the movie. This game has all three stories in it: Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade. You play as Indiana Jones and you’ll also usually have one or two other characters on the screen too, which you can switch to when you need to use one of their talents (women characters can jump higher, short characters can climb through holes, etc). The game follows the story lines pretty closely, adding little puzzles along the way. Once you finish a level you can go back through the level in Free Play mode. In this mode you will have access to additional characters that you unlock along the way, and they can allow you to access parts of the level you couldn’t in Story Mode, so you can find additional secrets and treasure.
I have finished the game in Story Mode. It’s not tough to finish if you are persistent. You can’t die in this game, you just lose some of the treasure you’ve accumulated along the way each time your life force goes to zero. You use the treasure to purchase additional characters and abilities, so it is best not to get killed too often. Once I finished the game in Story Mode, I was only through with 67% of the game, so now I am going through in Free Play mode, trying to find all of the secrets for each level.
I definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes a game with puzzles to solve and also is a fan of Indiana Jones. There’s a lot of humorous stuff thrown in, including cameos from various Star Wars characters, which are actually Easter Eggs that you are supposed to find to get 100%.
If you’ve never played one of the Lego video games, you don’t know what you’re missing. If you think Lego games are only for kids, you are completely wrong. These games can be pretty tough. There’s a Lego Star Wars game and also a Lego Batman game; they all operate pretty much the same. You first play through each level in Story Mode. In this mode you follow the story line of the movie. This game has all three stories in it: Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade. You play as Indiana Jones and you’ll also usually have one or two other characters on the screen too, which you can switch to when you need to use one of their talents (women characters can jump higher, short characters can climb through holes, etc). The game follows the story lines pretty closely, adding little puzzles along the way. Once you finish a level you can go back through the level in Free Play mode. In this mode you will have access to additional characters that you unlock along the way, and they can allow you to access parts of the level you couldn’t in Story Mode, so you can find additional secrets and treasure.
I have finished the game in Story Mode. It’s not tough to finish if you are persistent. You can’t die in this game, you just lose some of the treasure you’ve accumulated along the way each time your life force goes to zero. You use the treasure to purchase additional characters and abilities, so it is best not to get killed too often. Once I finished the game in Story Mode, I was only through with 67% of the game, so now I am going through in Free Play mode, trying to find all of the secrets for each level.
I definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes a game with puzzles to solve and also is a fan of Indiana Jones. There’s a lot of humorous stuff thrown in, including cameos from various Star Wars characters, which are actually Easter Eggs that you are supposed to find to get 100%.
Mac Development with Objective-C
Sep 08 2008 09:48 PM Filed in: Objective-C
| Apple
With the recent release of the iPhone SDK I know a
couple developers who have purchased a Mac and are
thinking of doing some iPhone/Mac software
development. Now, most of these developers are from a
purely Microsoft development background, from the
early days of Win32 and COM development, perhaps some
VBScript, and now .NET development. They don’t have a
background in a low level language, such as C.
Objective-C has been around since the 80’s, it’s
basically a very thin OO layer on top of C. If you
know C you should have no problem learning
Objective-C. I learned C back when I was going to
university for my Engineering degree. I think it’s a
good thing to learn a low level language such as C or
Assembler, as it helps you later on when you are
learning a lot of the higher level languages, such as
Java or C#. I myself have been playing around with
Objective-C, mainly for writing a couple little
programs I use on my Mac, but I would like to try an
iPhone App if I could think of one to develop.
Here are a couple good resources I’ve found for helping learn Objective-C.
The first place to start would be the Apple Developer Connection. It has good tutorials on Objective-C, Cocoa development, iPhone development, and using XCode, the Apple IDE.
There are a couple blogs I follow which are pretty good: Cocoa Is My Girlfriend, Mac Developer Tips, and iPhone Developer Tips.
There are also a couple books I recommend. These books mainly pertain to XCode, but you learn Mac development at the same time. Both of these books have taught me a lot.
Cocoa Programming For Mac Os X (Third Edition): Aaron Hillegass. Make sure you get the third edition, as this one is geared toward XCode 3, which is the newest release. I have the second edition also, and while you can probably follow along, the changes between XCode 2 and XCode 3 are pretty big, so you will have trouble following along with the code samples.
XCode 3 Unleashed. The great thing about this book is it walks you through developing an application from start to finish using XCode and the other tools provided by Apple for UI design, unit testing, and performance testing.
I will agree with a co worker of mine that the barrier of entry for a developer on the Mac platform is a bit higher than that of a developer on the Windows platform, but in a way I think that works to the Macs advantage. You don’t have every point-and-click coder out there creating crap applications for the Mac, a Mac developer has to be a bit more knowledgeable.
Here are a couple good resources I’ve found for helping learn Objective-C.
The first place to start would be the Apple Developer Connection. It has good tutorials on Objective-C, Cocoa development, iPhone development, and using XCode, the Apple IDE.
There are a couple blogs I follow which are pretty good: Cocoa Is My Girlfriend, Mac Developer Tips, and iPhone Developer Tips.
There are also a couple books I recommend. These books mainly pertain to XCode, but you learn Mac development at the same time. Both of these books have taught me a lot.
Cocoa Programming For Mac Os X (Third Edition): Aaron Hillegass. Make sure you get the third edition, as this one is geared toward XCode 3, which is the newest release. I have the second edition also, and while you can probably follow along, the changes between XCode 2 and XCode 3 are pretty big, so you will have trouble following along with the code samples.
XCode 3 Unleashed. The great thing about this book is it walks you through developing an application from start to finish using XCode and the other tools provided by Apple for UI design, unit testing, and performance testing.
I will agree with a co worker of mine that the barrier of entry for a developer on the Mac platform is a bit higher than that of a developer on the Windows platform, but in a way I think that works to the Macs advantage. You don’t have every point-and-click coder out there creating crap applications for the Mac, a Mac developer has to be a bit more knowledgeable.
Run VM From External Drive
If you install the software I spoke of in an earlier
post: “Read/Write to NTFS on external drive with
Mac”, you will be able to run a virtual machine from
your external drive. You need to have write access to
the NTFS drive to run the VM. You may think that
running a virtual machine from an external drive
would have bad performance, but it’s actually just as
responsive as if the files were on your machine. The
only times I’ve seen operations take an extended
amount of time is when you perform a Suspend, or when
you take a snapshot of the machine. The great part
about running the VM from the external drive is it
lets you keep the space on your laptop/desktop. My
MacBook has a 60 GB HD, and my average virtual
machine is weighing in at 30 GB, which is a huge
chunk of space to give up.
Read/Write to NTFS on external drive with Mac
Sep 04 2008 10:59 PM Filed in: Apple
If you work with both a Windows machine and a Mac,
and you want to hook up a portable drive to both, you
will need to format the drive in a format that both
Windows and Mac can read. Since FAT 32 really sucks,
your best bet is formatting the drive using NTFS. A
Mac can read an NTFS partition, but can’t write to
it. You may also run into issues trying to read from
an external/portable drive that’s formatted in NTFS.
I ran into this today when I used VMWare Converter to convert my work computer into a virtual machine. The resulting VMWare image was around 20GB, not exactly the size file our network folks would like me trying to copy across the network. The easiest way to move such large files is to copy the files to a portable drive. I formatted my portable drive in NTFS and copied the files onto it. When I hooked the external drive to my MacBook I received a read error. To fix this I did the following.
Install MacFUSE. This allows your Mac to use any FUSE (File System in Userspace). Once you download the disc image and install the package, you should download and install the NTFS-3g FUSE. You will need to reboot after the install, (something I haven’t had to do since my Windows days); but after the reboot you should hopefully now encounter no more issues.
I ran into this today when I used VMWare Converter to convert my work computer into a virtual machine. The resulting VMWare image was around 20GB, not exactly the size file our network folks would like me trying to copy across the network. The easiest way to move such large files is to copy the files to a portable drive. I formatted my portable drive in NTFS and copied the files onto it. When I hooked the external drive to my MacBook I received a read error. To fix this I did the following.
Install MacFUSE. This allows your Mac to use any FUSE (File System in Userspace). Once you download the disc image and install the package, you should download and install the NTFS-3g FUSE. You will need to reboot after the install, (something I haven’t had to do since my Windows days); but after the reboot you should hopefully now encounter no more issues.
The Well of Lost Plots
I recently finished the third book in the Thursday
Next series by Jasper Fforde, “The Well of Lost
Plots”.
Jasper Fforde has to be one of the most imaginative writers I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. Like I said, this is the third book in the Thursday Next series, the first two being The Eyre Affaire and Lost in a Good Book. Thursday Next is the main character in the series, she is a SpecOps agent working for The Literary Detectives. Her teams job is to police the book world, looking for fraud, changed story lines, missing characters, etc. In their world the literary detectives can jump in and out of books, and the same can happen the other way, fictional characters leaving their books and entering the real world. The stories are great, full of humor and great characters. I’ve already started reading the next in the series, Something Rotten, will probably have it finished sometime this week or next. If you enjoy a good, humorous, fictional story I recommend the series, as well as Jasper Fforde’s other series dealing with Nursery Crime.
Jasper Fforde has to be one of the most imaginative writers I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. Like I said, this is the third book in the Thursday Next series, the first two being The Eyre Affaire and Lost in a Good Book. Thursday Next is the main character in the series, she is a SpecOps agent working for The Literary Detectives. Her teams job is to police the book world, looking for fraud, changed story lines, missing characters, etc. In their world the literary detectives can jump in and out of books, and the same can happen the other way, fictional characters leaving their books and entering the real world. The stories are great, full of humor and great characters. I’ve already started reading the next in the series, Something Rotten, will probably have it finished sometime this week or next. If you enjoy a good, humorous, fictional story I recommend the series, as well as Jasper Fforde’s other series dealing with Nursery Crime.