It’s All Geek to Me!
November 27th, 2007 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
A Guide for the Visual Artist: Mac OS 10.5 Leopard Computer operating systems are tricky pieces of software. Imagine if the manufacturer of your car, something you use and need every day, had to build their vehicles so that you could buy and use seats from one company, a steering wheel from another, tires from a third, etc. That’s the challenge for companies like Microsoft… write a program that runs your computer put will also work with all the hardware and software out there on store shelves. The car analogy goes even further in that most consumers don’t need (or care) to know how a… READ MORE
November 3rd, 2007 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
I’ve written here before about the format war that is slowly heating up between Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Briefly these are two competing formats of next generation DVD, which both use blue laser technology to enable far higher storage capacity on a single disc, allowing them to contain high definition content. Each can hold a full movie in high def, which is 6 times the resolution of a regular DVD and takes advantage of that shiny new HDTV so many people now have. While each player also plays regular DVDs, neither works with the other flavor of HD format. Blu-ray is backed principally by Sony,… READ MORE
October 30th, 2007 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
I got my Mac Pro back on Saturday and all was once again right with the world. I’m not sure they did anything at all to it, but as long as it’s working right it’s all good. I also picked up a copy of the brand spanking new release of Mac OS 10.5 aka “Leopard”, the much ballyhooed new operating system upgrade from Apple. Leopard has some nifty and powerful new feature as well as a whole lot of eye candy, and not upgrading is a little like Stimpy being unable to resist the red “candy-like” button with the “Do Not Push” sign over it.… READ MORE
October 27th, 2007 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
I took my Mac into the Apple Store on Wednesday for it’s annual tune up… part of a service package you can get where they run tests, check software, clean it up and make sure it’s working in top shape. I wanted to get it done prior to upgrading to the new Mac OS 10.5 “Leopard” operating system, which I may or may not do depending on some hardware compatibility issues with my Microteck scanner. Looks like I picked a bad time. The “World Premiere” of Leopard (are we really that far gone that a piece of software has a “World Premiere”??) was today, and… READ MORE
September 8th, 2007 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
Ah…the world of video gaming. Other than a brief period of time when I was obsessed with beating the original “Crash Bandicoot” on PlayStation 2 (mission accomplished, btw) I have never been into video games. Number One Son Thomas on the other hand plays a fair share of them. He’s not alone in that. Video games and consoles are a multi-billion dollar a year business ($7.1 billion in the U.S. alone in 2005). Those kinds of dollars have produced epic races to new technology, cut throat business practices by the major players and lots of competition between platforms. Sony’s PlayStation 2 is far and away… READ MORE
September 6th, 2007 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
As anticipated, yesterday Apple unveiled a completely updated line of iPods in advance of the holiday season at a special event in San Francisco. In addition to a refresh of all the current iPod models, including a redesign of their popular “Nano” line, Apple introduced a new direction in their iTunes Music Store business model… wifi access to purchases directly from their newest iPod model. Here’s a quick breakdown of the latest iPod line: The iPod Shuffle, a button sized player with limited capacity aimed at the ultra portable market, got just a simple facelift with some new colors but the specs and price remained… READ MORE
August 27th, 2007 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
Despite being a bit swamped with jobs, I took a few moments out of each of the last few days to accomplish a task I’ve been trying to find time to do for some time: import the entire, unabridged audiobook recordings of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings into iTunes and therefore into my iPod. I had previously accomplished this a few years ago, but that was before my researching how to do it properly (and in fact before the proper software was available to do it right in the first place). Additionally, I had used iTunes 5 to import the… READ MORE
August 25th, 2007 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
Remember the format war heating up between competing High Definition disk flavors HD-DVD and Blu-Ray? Back when I blogged about it things were just starting to get going, and as the crucial holiday season approaches the gloves are coming off. Blu-Ray had been enjoying the lead in disk sales at about 2 to 1 over HD-DVD, thanks in large part to the “PS3 effect” and stronger studio support with Fox, Sony, Disney and Lionsgate films being Blu-Ray exclusive versus only Universal being HD-DVD exclusive (other studios produce thier films in both formats). Blu-Ray supported have been crowing victory on AV tech forums and message boards… READ MORE
