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New stuff from Macworld Expo 2009

By on January 5, 2009 in Technology

This entry will be a place to find the new hardware and software that gets released this week to coincide with Macworld 2009 and CES 09. Check back over the next week or so as this page gets updated with stuff that catches my eye.

Productivity Applications

Apple iLife ’09 – Latest version of the best available consumer media suite.

Apple iWork ’09 – Update to Apple’s productivity suite. Nice additions to Keynote and Pages. Endnote and MathType integration with Pages is a nice addition. I’ll be using Endnote and Mathtype a lot for courses I’m doing. This might mean I don’t have to use Microsoft Word.

Microsoft announce that they will make it easier for Office for Macintosh 2008 to connect to and use SharePoint services.

Music Creation

Toontrack Drumtracker – Convert audio drum recordings into drum midi data.

Development Tools

Widget Press ModelBaker – Web development app to quickly build web apps, iPhone & iPod touch web apps and Android web apps.

FileMaker Pro 10 – latest iteration of the easy to use database application.

Odds and Sods

Xsilva Lightspeed – Mac based Point-of-sale system. Run your retail business on Mac!

Plastic Logic eReader – Upcoming ebook device. Loots very nice.

Apple grabs 2nd place in Smartphone market

By on November 7, 2008 in Technology

Bests both BlackBerry (and the hardware front) and Microsoft (on the software front). Microsoft is now 4th in the mobile OS vendor table. Which is nice given that Windows Mobile is an abomination to use!

Apple swiftly jumped in second place, grabbing a 17.3 percent share with the iPhone 3G. Apple even bested sales of RIM’s popular BlackBerry models, but the firm is not far behind, taking 15.2 percent of the smartphone market.

More at: Apple leapfrogs RIM for #2 slot on smartphone sales list

Apple donates $100,000 to fight Prop. 8

By on October 24, 2008 in General

Apple comes out publicly to oppose the Proposition 8 vote in California on November 4th. Prop 8 seeks to overturn the Californian Supreme Court ruling on same sex partnerships.

Apple donates $100,000 to fight Prop. 8Apple said it views Proposition 8 as a civil rights issue, not a political one and as such, is donating $100,000 to defeat the measure, it announced today. Prop. 8 is aimed at defining marriage as only between a man and a woman and preventing same-sex marriages.”Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights – including the right to marry – should not be affected by their sexual orientation,” the company said on its website today.

More at: The Technology Chronicles : Apple donates $100,000 to fight Prop. 8

An Introduction to Regular Expressions

By on September 15, 2008 in General

Drew McCormack has just posted a 13 page PDF tutorial on regular expressions.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn about regular expressions, here’s your chance, because I’m attaching to this post a chapter on regular expressions that I wrote recently for a Master’s level Python course. Although it targets the Python language, the regular expression syntax is virtually the same across the board, so anything you learn should translate pretty well to other languages and tools.

[From An Introduction to Regular Expressions | MacResearch]

More praise for Hellstrom’s Hive

By on June 25, 2008 in Writing

I finished listening to the audio book version of Frank Herbert’s Hellstrom’s Hive yesterday. God, I love that book. It is so crying out for a sequel. I want to know what happened next, then over the following few years, decades, and centuries. I’m now reading the book again. On my Sony Reader of course. I created a LRF version of the book from a PDF I “found”. I’ve bought two paper copies of the book and an audio version. I’ll buy an authentic eBook version when I can.

I might take some notes and jot down some thoughts of possible sequel ideas in Scrivener as I read it this time…

Switched back to MacBook Pro

By on June 25, 2008 in General

I switched back to using my MacBook Pro 17 inch today after a few months using a MacBook Air. I’m not going to be travelling quite so much for a while so don’t need an ultra portable Mac for day to day use. The MacBook Pro is noticeably quicker. Plus the screen is magnificent 🙂

One of my friends is going back to university in Scotland to do a Masters degree in something to do with hearing (she works in this area). She needs a computer for this. I’m telling her to get a Mac with a Windows install in a virtual machine. Best of both worlds. I’m going to set up the MacBook Air this way and lend it to her for a month to see if she likes using a Mac. Then she can buy a Mac or a Windows laptop in an informed decision.