Computers & Stuff...

Hardware, Software, Networking, Gaming ...And Stuff...

[neiloloughlin]

Well worth a listen!

Listen/purchase: Beware Believe by Feeds

[neiloloughlin]

Not as nice as the Nifty but worth keeping in mind depenging on price.

[neiloloughlin]

While 128gig was more than enough on my Windows 8 Laptop, for some reason (mainly my iPhotos\Aperture library) I can see myself eating into my Mac Air SSD much quicker. The Nifty Drive looks to help reduce that problem by giving the option of a 50% space increase. While not as good as having a larger SSD it's a good solution for stuff I rarely access or where speed in unimportant. Looks like they are not delivering until August but I have is no immediate need.

[neiloloughlin]

Some good pieces of advice here. Still not sure if Lightroom or Aperture better suit my needs.

[neiloloughlin]

Mac Replace

One of the wierd quirks of OSX is that when you drag and drop a folder over one that has the same name, it replaces the existing folder and everything is it. Not as you would expect to merge everything or even give you an option of which to do. Means when coping a new artist\album into my music directory it overwrote all existing tracks for that artist. God bless my crashplan backup.

I believe since Lion, if you hold Option it may offer you a “Merge” option but I’ve  not had the nerve or opportunity to try and confirm.

Very strange. Seems Apple wants to make a regular simple task much more complex

[neiloloughlin]

Mac Music WorkFlow

While I use Spotify, I do like to have a workflow for dealing with music I download from various sources. In Windows Mediamonkey is\was the king. Try as I might to find a replacement, nothing on OSX seems to come close. Apps like Tuneup work really well once the files are within iTunes and you are merely working with tags. But getting your files into a proper directory structure is where I have found OSX falling down.

I’m sure there is a good workflow out there but I just have not found it yet!

[neiloloughlin]

Macbook Air – NFS Manager

I’m an OSX newbie for sure but I’m pretty competent when it comes to general networking. Since all my data is stored on my ReadyNAS, one of the first things I need to sort out when starting up any new OS is access to my files. Until a few months back I was a SMB user. However with all my servers moved to Ubuntu I started to use NFS. With OSX being Unix based I assumed that NFS would have been support natively (and it was till a few releases ago) but not such luck.

So I started to look at AFP and CIFS since these appear right in finder with little or no setup. The problem is that I pretty much live in my NAS and server and AFP\CIFS seems really sluggish connecting and navigating.  Not sure if it’s my network but I doubt it sicnce my slower Dell has no issue. So I had to try and get NFS working.

Enter NFS Manager. It s a 3rd party tool but it’s simple and works first time. I now have my NFS folder all set up and working a treat. Better still it is much after than AFP & CIFS.

http://www.bresink.com/osx/NFSManager.html

[neiloloughlin]

Macbook Air – Initial thoughts

I have managed to get some screen time on my new MBA to put some initial thoughts together in my move away from windows.

·         The thing its self is great – As you would expect with all things Apple the hardware is damn fine, the physical thing is the most striking part. It feels solid but is really light and everything from the opening hinge, to the keys and to the magnetic power cord just add to that.

·         The screen is really nice – while part of me worried about not springing for the Retina screen. Having used it for a few days now that all but vanished. Compared to what I was using (Dell Studio 1558) this a major step up. Sure if you a tech journalist, photo editor it might not tick all your boxes but for me with my pretty dodgy eye it look pretty great.

·         Trackpad and gesture – The touchpad on the MBA is enough to confirm what I already believed: that Microsoft got it wrong when it came to touch. Firstly the pad is just downright great. Big, sensitive & have a great feel. It is however the gestures that make it truly brilliant.  These are what bridge the laptop v tablet divide. The multi touch gestures give me all the flexibility of a tablet but without the need to reach across my keyboard or smudge my screen

Networking is not really Apples strong suit – I’ll post more on this but be is CIFS or AFP, OSXs implementation is just not as good as Windows. It just seems so slow. I eventually got NFS working which resolved nearly all my issues but it took some 3rd party help since apple no longer official supports it.

[neiloloughlin]

My new toy has arrived.

[neiloloughlin]

Out for Delivery

So my journey to an almost total non-Windows world should begin today as my new Macbook is out for delivery.

[neiloloughlin]

To Retina or not to Retina

That really is the only question once i decided to go Mac. Retina or no Retina, MBPr or MBA. Initially I thought it was a pretty straight answer: Yes. But when I came to splash the cash I stalled.

It came down to me justifying the £300 for a retina display. That’s a lot of cash. It’s about 75% of a new PS4 or iPad (we dinged the one we have so it’s looking a bit sorry for itself). And if I’m honest, especially for a casual user. I don’t photo edit much, I certainly don’t edit movies and I don’t program. Anything I do use my laptop for is not resource heavy. I’m surfer, movies watcher, organiser and system admin (of my own server). Not the sort of tasks that scream for a Retina display. Sure it would look nicer, though I did not see as big a difference as I had expected when I checked them out in the Apple store (not side by side right enough…but then who does when they get it home). Coming from 15” 1366x768 (or whatever that res is) to a 13” 1440x900 is pretty big step anyway.

So a Macbook Air it is. Yep a bit of me still wants the Retina display but that part is not my wallet…it wants a PS4 as well!!!

[neiloloughlin]

From the Dark to the Dark side!

Well after a lot of looking I've splashed that cash. One of the key things I was looking at was moving away from Windows spurred on by my move to all things Linux with a (hypervisor) server setup. While there is some really nice hardware out there, the fact that it is all Windows 8 does little to excite. Win8 is not bad per say, just confused and unfinished.

Either way that left me looking at Linux and Mac. While a move to Linux was probably top of my list, the reality when spend £800+ is that there is limited support & limited hardware to choose from. If I was spending less, then there might be more options and I'd be more willing to take a risk but I'm not that brave.

So, a Mac it is! I've been critical of Apple and macs. I still don't know if its the right move for me but its a lot less risky then a Linux move. Buying one does not really change my view, I'm still critical of iOS even though i have an iPhone. I do love a new car smell and flipping OS gives that. I'm not sure buying a mac will make me a fan-boi (as my brother put it) but if I buy a second/follow up maybe it does!

[neiloloughlin]

A genuine contender.

[neiloloughlin]

XPS 13 Laptop with Ubuntu

Its about the only quality laptop out there installed with Ubuntu. I really do love Unity. Sorry if your a Linux purest!

[neiloloughlin]

While the Alienware 14 is not for me, have to say this is a pretty awesome piece of kit. Will be interesting to what price it come in at in the UK.

[neiloloughlin]

Interesting review. Haswell has pushed battery life out a mile but not performance and it seems the 13" MacBook Pro suffers from a lack of power. Does that mean come the next refresh the same limitations exist? It's also worth noting that on screen real estate is less than a MacBook Air in native resolution. Hmmm...

[neiloloughlin]

So when looking at a new laptop in the £900+ price bracket it’s hard not to look at a Mac. I'm fairly impressed with the battery life of the Air, the performance is pretty good but not amazing for similarly priced laptops and of course the build quality is right up there. If I'm looking to move away from Windows it may well be on the cards.