It’s All Geek to Me!
April 19th, 2008 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
One thing I never really thought much about as far as my computer equipment goes is my keyboard… and what would I? Keyboards are pretty much the same all over, and there’s been little innovation with them since computers became a big part of everyday life. What little innovation they’ve seen has been in the ergonomic department (remember those weird curved keyboards with the keys separated into two sections?) and in adding all sorts of remote function or macro buttons like “one touch” email, play controls for your DVD drive, etc. Despite the fact that keyboards are used everyday and for some all day every… READ MORE
April 7th, 2008 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
So I am working feverishly Thursday last week to wrap up a MAD job before I leave for my New England park, and I notice my Mac Pro is acting a little weird. Something is wrong with the networking as none of the other computers on the network are showing up under my “shared” folder. This is certainly not a big deal, as I am really not using any networking features at the time other than my internet connection and FTP program to upload the final art to MAD. However I am a little anal about those kinds of things, so I quit all my… READ MORE
March 10th, 2008 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
Some time ago I wrote about the long anticipated tablet Mac finally having become a reality thanks to Axiotron. They have created a modification package that turns an Apple MacBook into a tablet based computer… it’s like having a Cintiq monitor combined with a laptop in one contained unit. Here’s a video I ran across recently demoing this new unit with Axiotron’s leader and some artists doing work on it: It’s great they have a comic book artist doing the demo, and a nice portrait of the reporter… too bad they didn’t say his last name. The show apparently is a local one from Hawaii.… READ MORE
February 19th, 2008 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
The high definition disk format war is basically over, and HD DVD is down for the count. All that’s left is to see if the “winner”, Blu-Ray, will eventually win the bigger battle… taking over for standard DVD as the next generation of entertainment media. After the surprise announcement several weeks ago by Warner Bros. Studios that it was dropping support for HD DVD and going exclusively Blu-Ray, it’s been one knockout punch after another for HD DVD. In the last week alone, Netflix announced it was dropping HD DVD offerings through their on-line mail based movie rental business, Best Buy said they would recommend… READ MORE
January 24th, 2008 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
Last week in San Fransisco Apple held it’s annual ?¬?bergeekfest, the Macworld Conference and Expo. Macheads slobber and salivate for months leading up to this show, speculating about what new geeky goodness Steve Jobs will announce is about to hit the market (and consumer wallets) that year. Third party vendors who make Mac compatible hardware and software products also show off their newest innovations at the expo. Usually there is a dearth of new toys and gadgets, many of which are super high on the “tech envy” meter. That’s all fine and well, but how many of these new toys are ready for the real… READ MORE
January 17th, 2008 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
They say there are two kinds of computer users…. those who have lost data in a hard drive crash, and those who are going to lose data in a hard drive crash. I learned that lesson the hard way, as most eventually do. In October of 2006 I was in the middle of two big projects when my Dell Precision Workstation suddenly flashed the Dreaded Blue Screen of Death at me. The entire story is here, but the end result was that in desperation I ran out to buy the only computer available on a local store shelf that had the graphic horsepower to allow… READ MORE
January 10th, 2008 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
I’ve blogged a few times over the last year about the format war raging between two competing technologies in high definition disks, HD DVD and Blu-Ray. My opinion was that HD DVD was going to prevail for a number of reasons, but that the race was way too much in it’s infancy to call yet. A lot of things could happen to make a big impact overnight. It looks like HD DVD just got dealt an unexpected death blow. Last week Warner Bros. studios, which had been releasing it’s films on both formats, suddenly announced it’s intention to go exclusively Blu-Ray in May of this… READ MORE
November 30th, 2007 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
Wacom just announced the release of a new version of it’s Cintiq line of pressure sensitive tablets/LCD monitors… the 12WX. Unlike the heavy and bulky 21UX and it’s predecessors, this one designed to be far more portable and lightweight… more like a sketchbook for “on the go”…. sorry, I just drooled a little bit. The Cintiq’s are a combination of a pressure sentive tablet and an LCD monitor, enabling the user to draw right on the screen using all the benefits and features of a wacom tablet. I use the Cintiq 21UX in the studio, and love it. The new Cintiq 12WX is much smaller… READ MORE
