New Mac Products To Hit the Markets?

At the upcoming Macworld Expo it has been rumored that new iMac’s and maybe even Mac mini’s will be released, but more excitingly is a rumored new home server device with sharing facilities and iTunes.

If Apple is to release a new server, it will be competition for the new HP MediaSmart servers which boast similar functions with same ARM-based platform, the same WiFi functionality, and with Time Machine supported. Though the new Apple server is rumored to have some new features such as; AFP file sharing, full support for a shared iTunes library, as well as media sharing to iPhone, iPod touches, and Apple TV devices.

Additionally, the new server is said to integrate the recently introduced MobileMe in order to provide remote access to the device, as well as photo integration with MobileMe, and the server is to have a me.com subdomain (which would allow access to its files and iTunes library via the Internet).

Filed under: Industry News, Mac Related , Apple, xserve

Windows Vista vs Mac 0SX vs Ubuntu 8.10

It seems like there are millions of Windows Vs Mac pages debating the topic, and now I have decided to write my own which I hope you will find helpful, though I have decided to add in Ubuntu’s latest release 8.10 to make things interesting.

Firstly, lets start with ever controversial Windows Vista. When I first saw Vista, I must admit, I thought wow, this is much neater. Sadly, that was only the interface, and not much else. One thing that Windows can rely on, is its business tools and the world-wide support, as other than that I cannot understand why so many people like it. Sure, gaming is better supported, but asides from that market, the high demand for Windows can surely not last, unless Windows 7 is a great improvement. The entering of my assurance many a time that installing software will not harm my computer, followed by the delay in the time from plugging in of a USB flash drive to availability of use, are two of my greatest dislikes of the operating system.However, my feeling is, overall that Windows should be used for only two things, gaming, and business…everything else, can be left to Mac/Linux.

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Linux is a complicated chapter of modern day computers, with most people not knowing much about it, and some linking it with a Penguin. To help bring some clarity to the Linux world, Ubuntu has come along with its latest release, 8.10.

Now my history with Linux is not an amazing one, it is merely a few weeks old, though during that time I cannot say that it has been all that easy for a first timer wanting to fully install it on a machine. Now talking from scratch knowledge of any Linux software, I downloaded the Ubuntu 8.10-i386.iso from the Ubuntu site. This was all good and well, and once the download of 699MB finished, I burnt it to disk assuming that was the case. Be warned, you need software to burn a disk image to a disk, not just the disk image as a file. Once I corrected my ways, this now worked. I inserted the disk, and just as should happen, the screen displayed the option to install Ubuntu, or try it from disk.

Fair enough I thought. I clicked install and it begun doing its thing. Now baring in mind that most people do not wish to fully install Linux on all of their hardrive, the developers kindly give you the option of using a partition, or fully installing. I begun to think I’ll install Ubuntu on one of the hardrives, I had two in the machine and selected the smaller one. I was then told that this can’t be done for a reason I could make no sense of. Not too reluctantly however, I decided to let Ubuntu own my whole PC.

This installation was done rather effectively and I was beginning to get mightely pleased. Though now, of course, like most people, the first thing you need it an internet connection to be made. After looking a bit, I found a networking configuration option, selected DSL and put in my settings, and nothing happened. This is a huge frustration, especially compared to the ease at which Mac seems to almost figure out the connection for you.

Though admitingly, besides my few, lets say beginner mishaps, I am impressed. Ubuntu, with a few more user friendly improvements, could easily challenge Windows and Apple, and with its free pricetag, I am sure in the not to distant future it will begin to more and more.

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Apple of late has only improved its position as a world force in the OS market, as this artical shows. Aggressive advertising campaigns seemed to have worked, as well as moving into new markets that seem only empressed at the new option. Apple has managed to find the balance of fun and productivity and put in a package that is easy to use.

Many of the complaints about the OS is firstly its price (though if one is to compare what you get, you’ll often find it is quite a fair offer), and secondly its compatibility (which is more of a false rumour than fact). I have been a Mac ‘fanboy’ for nearly a year, and am not regretting switching to it at all, as everything I need Windows for, can simply be done by installing Windows on my Apple using the wonderful tool that is BootCamp. Some more praise can head its way in the fact that everything works out the box, it comes with trail software, it is easy to learn about the OS, and the support is incredible.

To simplify matters:

	Windows Vista		Ubuntu 8.10		Mac OSX
Interface	Large improvement on XP.	4	Gnome is attractive. Misses sleekness.	3	Amazing	5
Ease of use	Many options. Too technical.	2	Command console is not average user friendly.	1	Simple and logical layout.	5
Gaming	99% supported.	5	Very few “good” games available for purchase.	1	Some games, but not a very wide choice.	2
Upgrading	Many options of OS.	4	Easy online upgrade.	5	One package per upgrade.	5
Hardware Support	Everything good, except USB’s take long to load.	5	Some drivers need downloading and installing.	2	Quick plug-and-play. Few downloads for plugins needed.	5
Software Support	Almost everything is made for Windows.	5	Mostly open-source software like Mozilla, OO.org etc.	1	Main ones supported.	4
Business	Great choice.	5	Many open-source alternatives.	4	Great choice.	5
Overall		30		16		31

Filed under: Industry News, Linux, Mac Related , Mac, Ubuntu, Windows

MS Office Word 2008 (Mac) VS Open Office 3 Writer (Mac)

I have been a fan of open-source for quite a while now, and hence when a big commotion over such an application arises, I need to check it out, and I downloaded and tried Open Office 2.4 without much liking. As one needs to understand – and my blog displays this – I have not grown to like Microsoft, and so moving away from them is what I really wanted, but that was not to happen just yet.

This was all to change when using the (then) newly released MS Office 2008 for Mac (MS Office). At first, “wow, its so sleek” is what filled my mind, but as the time of using it got longer, I begun to see faults, resulting in me retrieving Open Office 3 (OO3).

Credit needs to be given to Microsoft for correcting many user frustrations that the 2007 Word for Windows version had, such as the new and annoying interface, though there were two irritations that I found to have developed; 1. Page numbering – simply is a battle to get it to do what you wish it to do, 2. Table of contents – after typing in excess of +-10 pages, I found there to be problems in the table of contents displaying what I selected it to display. These two errors, were some of my biggest reasons for taking the change.

I was typing a long document of over 15 pages, when I moved my .docx file across to OO3, virtually faultlessly! Now understand, this document had in it: pictures, a MS Office cover page, table of contents, tables, as well as drawings done in MS Office. Only a few tweaks were needed to be made, such as the color of the heading 1,2,3 etc. headings, that changed, as well as color changes to the cover page. To me this really was amazing.

Now having used OO3 for quite a while longer, though I admit almost solely in Writer (which is OO3’s version of Word), and I have found out many more of its features, that as far as I have experienced, place it ahead of MS Office:

- Can save documents in its own formates or the MS Office 2003 standards.

- In OO3 Writer, after awhile of typing, a predictive text tool becomes available, which gives you suggestions of the words you are typing.

- Many, if not 90% of all features of the OO3 suite are there, that one is use to in MS Office.

- The old MS Office layout is used, so their is easy navigation.

- The download is in one package and includes the following: Writer (Word), Calc (Excel), Impress (Power Point), Draw, Base (Access).

- It is available in many different languages.

- It is open-source, which means that add-ons are available, (as are for Fire-Fox for example).

- It is free!

Visit: http://why.openoffice.org/index.html for more on Open Office 3, or http://download.openoffice.org/index.html for the free download.

Filed under: Industry News, Mac Related , ms office, OO3, OpenOffice, word, writer

Technology Stats – End of 2008

Hi all, well seeing as the end of the year is near, it is time for the roundup of the worlds progress on technology masses. Well lets get right into it;

2008 has seen a rapid growth in internet users with world penetration rate hiting 21.9 % with 1,463,632,361 (June 2008). The biggest markets of which are Asia (114,304,000), Europe (105,096,093), and North America (108,096,800).

As one can see from the alongside graph, fibre still has a long way to go with only the tip of first world countries having access to the technology.

By the end of November 2008, browser statistics show an interesting picture. Open-Source truly seems to be the way forward with Firefox leading the way with 44.2% penetration of the market (coming in 2nd is IE6, followed by IE7, and then Chrome).

The second review of the year needs to be the movement in operating system. A previous artical on the blog (link here), showed there to be growth in Mac and Linux, whilst Windows was suvering the poor release of its Vista version. A new look at these statistics show that Windows has continued its fall, droping to  89.62% from 91.50% by end november. Following the earlier trend as well, shows that mac has jumped up to  8.87% (November) from  7.57% in January and Linux – due to the posibilty of new Ubuntu and Fedora releases – has seen the open-source penguin reach  0.83% (November) from  0.64% in January.

Next up on the techrn agenda is full reviews of Ubuntu 8.10 and Open Office 3, until then, keep well and merry Christmas.

Filed under: Industry News , Internet, Linux, Mac, Review, Windows