Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Calling all Mac users! Unite for a good cause…

Ok - first, let’s make it clear that this is F. typing, not Shaymaa. Shaymaa doesn’t like Macs and refused to post this. So I will. Don’t worry, this is all legal and halal....

Now - fellow Mac users, most of you must know MacHeist. If you don’t, then please note that if you are serious about your Mac oriented life, then this is something you will not want to miss out on. Here’s a quick intro to MacHeist:

MacHeist is a website that resells Mac OS X shareware. The site has become known for its marketing tactics. These tactics include challenges (or “heists") that entitle successful customers to free software licenses and/or discounts, as well as the concept of selling software in a bundle that increases in size as more customers purchase the bundle. The site was founded by John Casasanta, Phillip Ryu, and Scott Meinzer.* from Wikipedia.

Their new bundle is now available - actually, it was available for the past two weeks, but Kuwait University does not acknowledge important Mac dates (they don’t even give us a Ramadan holiday, so.. their ignorance is well expected) - so I only just got a chance to buy it - and this is where you friendly, cooperative, Mac users of the Middle East come in: if you buy the bundle using my referral link, I get TWO free apps.

I’m a starving student.
My money goes on books and book cases to put those books in. Seriously. I’m IKEA’s no. 1 customer when it comes to those white bookcases with glass doors.

So, buy the MacHeist bundle. You won’t regret it, because this year it’s loaded with amazing applications at only $50. And while you buy it, use my link (referral) to help me get more apps. Share the joy.

One more thing - I’m not the only one who benefits here - like always, MacHeists donates 25% of your purchase to a charity of organization, and more information can be found about that on their website.

Take the time to look into the bundle but keep in mind that the last day to buy it is the 23rd of January.

And thanks for letting me post this Shay! I’ll get my site set up soon - inshallah - so that you won’t have to do this again.

(16) Comments |  Filed under: Apple | 

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

What’s your favorite programming editor?

Intype. It is by far the coolest editor I have ever worked with. Maybe not the best, but that’s because Intype is still in the early stage of development (current release is 0.3). It already carries some amazing features. You can create your own color theme or download other peoples’ themes. I have downloaded a few, switched around between them and they are amazing. Personally, I prefer to write on a black background, I find it easier on the eyes especially after long hours. Intype was inspired by the famous Mac editor, TextMate.

Some Intype features include tabs, line and column counts, language parsing selector. I have been using it ever since it was first released to testers and the improvements are outstanding. Testers have helped improve Intype by listing some feature requests at the Intype forum. This little app is free to download and use during the alpha and beta development phases, but once it reaches release 1.0 it will be priced similarly to TextMate.

Intype will cost between $25 to $45 (€20 to €35). One license will be valid for one version of Intype and all updates for this version (for example version 1.0 with updates until version 1.9).

There are many other Windows text editors, some of the most popular include TextPad, Notepad++, Programmer’s Notepad, Notepad 2, Crimson Editor, Zulupad, JujuEdit, TopStyle, EditPlus and a whole lot more.

What’s your favorite programming text editor? What’s the feature you love most?

(12) Comments |  Filed under: Programming | 

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

The LaCie I love

When it comes to buying an external hard disk drive, I have learned the hard way, that LaCie is the best solution. I recently ditched my 60GB ipod and didn’t have a replacement. I needed something small, portable and reliable. I have used LaCie drives for quite some time and really liked them.

My experiences with Maxtor HDD have been horrid and I decided to stick with LaCie ever since.Recently, I bought a new addition, small mobile HDD from LaCie (160GB, 5400rpm). It’s awesome. It comes with three ports: bus-power, 6-pin FireWire and Hi-Speed USB 2.0. Cables included. It is bus-powered, so you don’t need to carry any heavy adapters. The drive recharges from the laptop/desktop it is connected to, hence its portability. I have used it on Windows and Mactinosh and it was great - plug and play without a problem (hamdilla). You do not have to install the One-Click Back-up Software included in the package, but I found it useful as it moves large folders smoothly and doesn’t deal with the Windows’ manually drag-and-dropped transfer errors!

What I liked most about it was that its very small and lightweight. I only needed it for backup when I am traveling, so 160GB was great. I have realized that the more GBs you carry, the more you want to fill’em up - with anime, videos, e-books, files, whatever… and then, you never have the time to watch/enjoy it all. So I decided to stick to 160GB.

I bought the drive from Integrated Offices in Hawalli (Kuwait). Price: 50KD. Tel. : +965 2664278

What external HDD you carry with you on the road?

(8) Comments |  Filed under: Reviews | 

Saturday, December 08, 2007

How to speed up Windows startupٍ

When you buy a new Windows computer, it starts-up beautifully and pretty quick. Try installing Office, Skype, Live Messenger, iTunes, AVG antivirus, zipGenius and restarting the computer becomes a PAIN. Right after logging in, a 5-minute waiting period becomes a daily routine as the necessary files and programs start loading. Some of them respect your wishes and don’t start up automatically after logging into the system, others - no matter what you do - start up and call its five other plugins to start up as well (such as update managers and all).

There comes a day when you start your computer and wish none of these programs start launching. Here is how you can do that:

1. Click Start > Run
2. Type msconfig
3. Click on “Startup” tab
4. Very carefully deselect all the programs you DO NOT want to start at login. Such as Messenger applications, Acrobat updater, and anything else you have installed and you know you don’t need them at start-up and you will be able to run them whenever you want. BUT BE WARNED: do NOT deselect SYSTEM programs. There are programs on the list that are required by the system, so you want to make sure they start up as soon as you login. You really have to know what you are doing here.
5. Click OK.

You can restart anytime, it’s not necessary you do it now.

After restarting you will get a message that you are in running SELECTIVE STARTUP, and that’s OK! It’s true, since you “selected” how you want your system to startup. Once you deselect anything from under the “Startup” tab, you are switched to SELECTIVE STARTUP in the General tab, just keep everything under selective startup checked as it is.

If you ever change your mind, you can always go back to msconfig and click NORMAL STARTUP from the General tab instead of SELECTIVE STARTUP. The NORMAL STARTUP will use the default settings when restarting your computer - which is starting up all programs on the list every time you log-in into your system.

You will be amazed to how fast you will be able to log-in after doing this.
Note: This is for advanced users and you are doing this at your own risk, I will not be held responsible if your system doesn’t load for any reason. Enjoy!

There are many ways to speed up Windows OS, feel free to share your ideas and concerns here…

(3) Comments |  Filed under: Tech | OS | Windows | 

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House?

Microsoft recently commissioned a children’s book titled “Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House?” to help parents explain to their children everything about their new stay-at-home Windows Home Server, a.k.a HP EX475 MediaSmart Home Server. You have to admit it’s a really great marketing campaign! People usually describe servers as a stack of some ugly hardware in a storage room of every company and NOT something lying around at home. So, Microsoft brought up this new technique of bring it home in a very “home-friendly” manner. They even put together a series of short videos of a “techie” going into a house and interviewing everyone in the household about the “new member” of the family - the server. There are two videos out, and they are very funny! You can watch them here.

The whole idea is: it’s not less of a server now that it’s a stay-at-home server, by getting Windows’ stay-at-home server you will improve your home network security and capabilities. Some of the highlight features are that you can connect your Xbox to it and access videos and audio files stored in the server and play them on your TV (just like the Apple TV). With a few clicks, you can also set it to automatically backup files on the computers connected to it on the local network (wired or wirelessly). This release allows you to connect up to 10 users and 1 guest account.

Microsoft really knows how to reach out to non-tech savvy people, bringing them the latest technology in a simple way. I know I am going to get something with that last statement, but hey, Microsoft is in every house and that should say something. Here’s a preview of the book:

The book will be published and sold on Amazon in the near future.
Currently, the server is available in 500GB HD but I was expecting a lot more than that! It costs around $700. A 1TB is not yet in-stock but should be very soon - now that will probably be enough for some families. Of course expanding the capacity of the HD is possible and it can be reach up to 9TB - which is a relief. The storage appears as one large volume, so whenever you add a drive it will expand the same drive, no partitioning allowed. One downside, you can NOT load a program on the HP MediaSmart Server and share it among multiple PCs, which is a bummer. Maybe there will be a work-around hack for this…

You can check out the flash interactive video available here to see how the server can be used in your entire house, room by room.

(2) Comments |  Filed under: Tech | Microsoft |