Quentin Stafford-Fraser's blog
One should always have something sensational to read on the net...
Macs and stuff
If you have a Mac and you don't need to get any work done for a bit... Tickr for Flickr is remarkably addictive. You type a word into its search box and it displays, along one side of your screen, a scrolling band of photos which have that tag on Flickr. It's very nicely done. If you want some good words to get started, try 'coniston', 'scuba' or 'night'...
On Slashdot:
Nine years after Michael Dell said he'd shut down Apple and give the money to the shareholders, Apple has passed Dell in market value, at $72,132,428,843 compared to Dell's $71,970,702,760...
Apologies to those of you not interested in Mac-related posts. I expect the current flurry to die down soon!
I noticed a subtle but interesting change in the graphics specs for the new Intel-based iMac:
For the first time ever, iMac lets you use a second display in extended desktop mode, in addition to simply mirroring the first.In the past, the iMac and the iBook have supported external displays but only as a clone of the main one, unlike the PowerMac and PowerBook. This was never a hardware limitation, only a marketing decision and there's a good reliable hack to get over that foolishness. But it's nice to see it won't be necessary.
Here's how you can install Apple's Front Row software on any Mac running Tiger 10.4.4.
Works for me...
One thing my new MacBook won't have is a PCMCIA (PC Card) slot. I've been rather fond of this on my old Powerbook - a CF card adaptor lives there permanently, and it means that I can always get photos off my camera without the need for cables.
The new machines have an ExpressCard slot. This is the replacement for the old PC Card standard; it has been around for a while and has lots of advantages, but I haven't seen any cards for it yet, and the slot is too small for a Compact Flash adaptor, so it'll be back to cables, I guess, for transferring my photos.
Well, I've been very patient. Patient, first, while my insurance company took two months to pay up after my old Powerbook came to a tragic end, and then patient while I waited for Steve Jobs' keynote address. But it was worth it, because he announced the Powerbook replacement, the MacBook Pro, and I have one on the way... Hee hee.
But my patience is not yet exhausted, and it's just as well, because though they're taking orders now, delivery is sometime in February. And the Apple retail stores will no doubt get them sooner than the local dealer with whom I placed my order. I'm hoping that good things come to those who wait...
Not only did Apple come out with some great new stuff yesterday, but Google Earth is now available for the Mac. Wonderful!
I'm a bit late with this one, but the new official DivX codec for the Mac came out a couple of weeks ago, and integrates nicely with QuickTime. After the trial period there's a charge if you want to create DivX-encoded movies, but the package also includes the free codec which will let you watch them indefinitely.
If you don't know why you'd need this, you probably don't! If, on the other hand, you regularly download movies created on PCs and find that they don't play, this will help with quite a lot of them. The other solution is to install the excellent VLC player, which seems to play pretty much everything, though it isn't as pretty or as easy to use as QuickTime Player.
I'm not normally a listener to the Catholic Insider podcast, but I think, at Christmas, if you know anything about Apple's products, and especially if you've ever watched one of Steve Jobs' keynotes, you will enjoy God's Keynote Speech.
First heard on the MacCast.