Monday, 29 November 2004
Macs In Charity
In the second week of December, a MUGS forum member will be heading to Calcutta on a Youth Expedition Project, and her team is working with a local NGO there that rehabilitates rescued child prostitutes. Her group is helping Sanlaap, a Calcutta NGO that shelters and educates them, in a variety of manners - education, construction, financial assistance, etc.
She has been given the task of sourcing out old computers to bring there. If any of you are able to donate PC100 SDRAM/help in the upgrade to OS X/or even old Macs, please do let her know - even if you want to sell off your RAM for cheap(er), She'd like to know as well. Also, people who have large cardboard boxes suitable for freight for an iMac DV should get back to her too!
Please contact her through this thread on MUGS forums. Her team leaves on 8 Dec, so she'd like to get these fixed up by perhaps 4/5 Dec. This project is slated to receive a fair bit of publicity, and all official documentation will contain references to our sponsors/donors. She will gladly include, also, the names of those who have helped in these ways.
Sunday, 28 November 2004
What a day!
Today is a special day for the both of us, and we'll tell you why later.... :-P We arrived at the Singapore Expo in the morning and began setting the Mac Users Group Singapore (MUGS) booth for SITEX 2004. Our role is to promote MUGS to all Mac users and non-Mac users. We wanted to let people know that MUGS is an online discussion forum for them and that our purpose is to help them enjoy and know more about Macs and iPods.
A huge crowd appeared as soon as the doors were opened at 1100h, what a surprise it was for us! In fact, we were shocked to see people loitering outside of the exhibition halls as early as 1000h! Although we were there for the past 3 days, we arrived only in the evening. Hence, the surprise as we witnessed one of the biggest people "migrations" ever. ;P
The event lasted until 2100h and by the time we packed up, it was nearly 2200h. We were both tired and sleepy, not forgetting that we needed to get our butts to work the next day. One last thing, today was our 2nd anniversary, but we did not celebrate, nor had any candlelight dinner. However, it was all fun meeting lots of our Mac friends during SITEX 2004. ;)
iPod Sock
It's funny how Mac users will rush out to buy anything that Apple manages to come out with; the latest craze appears to be the iPod sock which was selling like hotcakes everywhere. We're also part of the guilty ones as we've ordered some through our friends at MUGS and being the typical kaisu... order more from the online AppleStore. Guess it makes a good Xmas gift for our friends as it can also be use for handphones. :-P
Saturday, 27 November 2004
MenuMeters 1.2
MenuMeters is a set of CPU, memory, disk, and network monitoring tools for MacOS X. Now updated to ver. 1.2 with the following improvements:
- New net meter display options.
- Peak throughput display for net meter menu.
- Options for shorter CPU, memory and net meter graphs.
- Fix memory meter problems on machines with 4GB of RAM.
- Other minor bugfixes.
Echo Indigo IO
We were on the look out for a cardbus sound card that will work with Mac for quite awhile because our friend needs it. A fellow MUGS member just told Fred that the Echo Indigo IO works flawlessly with his PowerBook. If you also need a cardbus audio card, do checkout this page @ Echo for more details.
Thursday, 25 November 2004
MUGS @ SITEX 2004
MUGS was invited to participate in SITEX 2004 by Apple, and we will be there to help "spread the word" over the weekend. The new MUGS website will be launch on Sat; a prize presentation will be also held. We would like to congratulate Jimmy for winning the competition with his excellent design.
Wednesday, 24 November 2004
NetCell SyncRAID in 64-bit
NetCell has announced the availability of its 64-bit SATA RAID PCI adapter card, previously only available in 32-bit. The card offers PowerMac user performance of RAID 0 and data protection RAID 5. Do check out NetCell for more information.
Monday, 22 November 2004
iCal 1.5.4
Another update has just been released by Apple, iCal 1.5.4 includes a new security improvement for imported events with alarms.
Saturday, 20 November 2004
Logitech MX1000
One of the most essential component that a computer user cannot be without is none other than a mouse, yes these electronic rodents can be found on almost every computer desktop. Over the years, we saw the evolution from a simple "ball" mouse to optical, from wired to wireless. And now, the next evolution has begun. Lets welcome the arrival of the Laser equipped optical mouse from Logitech, the MX1000. We will be able to review our friend's MX1000 soon and give you an update.
Friday, 19 November 2004
iPod Updater 2004-11-15
The Software update seems to be in season this few days with Apple providing software updates to quite a few of their products. BTW, here is another one to add to the list. iPod Updater 2004-11-15 includes iPod mini Software 1.2 for iPod mini and iPod Software 3.0.2 for Click Wheel iPod, do check out this page for more information.
Thursday, 18 November 2004
iView MediaPro 2.6.2
iView MediaPro 2.6.2 has just been released. Improvements include preliminary support for DNG file format, improved exporting annotations in XMP format back to TIFF, JPEG or Photoshop files, corrected issues when resetting folders with long names and others.
Learning from the Master
Famous celebrity photographer Greg Gorman was in town for an Epson sponsored seminar today. During the seminar, Greg took the audience through his entire Digital workflow, from capture to archiving to output. Greg also share his tips on how to capture the perfect portrait with a live model shoot. Overall, it was a very well organised and well presented seminar. Well done Greg, Thank You Epson and not forgeting the crew from Cathay Photo who supported the event! Greg collection of celebrity photographs can be viewed from now till Decmeber at Epsite in Wheelock place.
Tuesday, 16 November 2004
AirPort 4.1
The AirPort software has been updated to version 4.1, this revision supports Keyspan Express Remote for use with AirTunes (AirPort Express only), better support for WPA security on WDS networks and the ability to rename a USB printer connected to a base station.
Monday, 15 November 2004
Interesting products from RRS
Really Right Stuff has been busy churning out some great products for photographers lately, do check them out here. They've also posted a 5-Part Tutorial that will walk you through the basics of horizontal panoramas. Good job, RRS!
Sunday, 14 November 2004
Did LSI supply SATA RAID card to Apple?
While searching for a reliable SATA RAID card for the Mac, we've discovered that there is a possiblity that LSI could have supplied SATA RAID card to Apple for use on their G5 xServe servers.
Based on the Apple knowledgebase documents posted here and here, we assumed that Apple is using the MegaRAID cards manufactured by LSI. The next clue came from the extensions folder in Mac OS X, if you take a look at the extensions folder, you'll be able to find a MegaRAID extension in it. The final clue came from the specifications of the Hardware RAID Card stated on Applestore, which is very similar to that of LSI's card. How can we confirm this since a search on the Web does not reveal anything concrete? We may need to rip apart a xServe! :-P
Saturday, 13 November 2004
Little Snitch 1.1.1
The idea of information possibly being gathered from my Mac and being sent to who-knows-where for who-knows-what is not pleasant. I need an application that is able to intercept the attempt, and Little Snitch 1.1.1 does just that. The software will also bring up an alert panel informing me of all the connection details including the name of the application, which initiated the connection. This helps prevents applications from "phoning home", protects my Mac from spy wares like trojans, worms, and other network parasites. It also shows which applications send information over the internet.
Challenges Mac platform faced
A Mac user has to face many challenges resulting from its small population in a PC-dominated world. One of the most profound problems is with the availability of Mac-compatible hardware products. A good example is the top-end graphic card that seems to be out of reach to Mac users... at least for now.
Yes, we do have a limited number of Nvidia's 6800 series and the rather outdated ATI Radeon 9xxx series. But take a look over the fence and you'll see a host of the very latest ATI X800 series and many other high-end graphic cards. Why are we bothered by this state of affairs? Well, with the release of Tiger next year, core image will be enabling systems with higher end graphic cards to handle the rendering processes; this effectively takes the load of rendering graphics away from our G4 or G5 processors. Hence, with the limited choices in higher-end graphic cards, we will not be able to make full use of the hidden power in our Macs. We really hope Apple will be able to tie up with the major graphic card manufacturers to come out with more higher end graphic cards so that we can make use of what Tiger can provide. :-/
Friday, 12 November 2004
Eye-One Match 3.0.1
GretagMacbeth has released Eye-One Match 3.0.1, an update to its software application that drives its i1 Display and other i1 hardware packages.
Wednesday, 10 November 2004
More Vaja cases has arrived!
We've received the 2nd shipment of Vaja cases for the iPod and iPod mini today! These cases were ordered for the second mass order that Fred has helped to organise in the MUGS forum. We are delighted as these cases have arrived before the expected dateline, and we're sure the new owners will be happy as well. :-)
Monday, 08 November 2004
Accelerate your Mac
Just found some very useful articles on the web which talks about Storage Acceleration and Photoshop Acceleration, these articles are not to be missed if you want to squeeze more performance out of your Mac.
Sunday, 07 November 2004
Mac OS X - 10.3.6 Update
&uotAn update (10.3.6) for Mac OS X has been released by Apple, please see this article on Apple's knowledge base for more info.
Saturday, 06 November 2004
Cars from Pixar?
No, Pixar did not build cars, and we believe they never will. But, they did come up with shows like A Bugs Life, Finding Nemo, Toy Story and many more. The latest show that will be coming to town next year is Cars; we simply love the 3D effects used in this movie. Take a look at the preview here.
Thursday, 04 November 2004
Neat Image
Neat Image is a digital filter designed to reduce visible noise and grain in digital photographs. It is now available on the Mac, checkout www.NeatImage.com for details.
Wednesday, 03 November 2004
Wet weather days.....
There isn't a single day in the past few weeks that passes by without a single drop of rain hitting the ground. *sigh* This caused problems for us as plans had to be changed or cancelled because we either got wet in the rain or have to wait out. We certainly hope that this rainy spate will past soon.... :-(
Tuesday, 02 November 2004
A perfect companion
We found an excellent storage companion for PowerMac G5 and PowerBook while surfing the web on a lazy Tuesday night. The G-RAID by Medéa.com is a FireWire 800 storage solution with capacities up to 800 GB. Do checkout Medéa.com for more information.
Monday, 01 November 2004
Ripping
Having a good pair of earphones may not always be a good thing. Why so? Well, you'll get to hear things that were originally there, but have been missed out earlier with lower quality earphones. This reason alone will cause us to wonder what we have been missing out in our music.
Fred experienced this first hand after acquiring his Shure E2C, the missing pieces of audio started falling into place after putting on the earbuds and playing some of his AAC files ripped from CDs. The sound of the triangle, the tapping of feet and even the imperfection of a recording becomes all so apparent all of a sudden.
With that in mind and in preparation of the inevitable acquisition of a pair of Grado headphone, Fred started re-ripping the whole of his CD collection using 192kbps AAC in the hope to obtain higher quality audio compared to 128kbps used earlier. Although the process is slow and long, Fred feels that the extra effort is well worth it.