Real Dimensions

It’s official, I’m an apple fan boy. It started out when I switched to a MacBook Pro laptop at my previous employer, and I loved it. I just works fantastic, not to mention how much easier it is to develop Ruby on Rails applications on it over a Windows box. Then I got a new MacBook Pro for my current job and Freelance work. I’ve since stopped all use of windows, with the exception of parallels for testing. And now, the closer on the fan boy claim…..

I bought an iPhone!!

Yes, I love it, it works fantastic. There are to many good point to list, but I will say one thing, it is extremely easy to use. I had a Blackberry from my old company and I really had to look around to figure out how to do things or search on Google for info. With the iPhone, I have been able to use almost all it’s features with out reading the manual or searching on-line.

Before anyone goes commenting about how ridiculous it is to spend $600 on a phone (yes I got the 8 gig) , let me explain why I got it (besides the fact that it is amazing). With my new job I commute into NY City several days a week, this requires me spending two plus hours on a train each time I go into the office (round trip total). My old iPod Mini died a few weeks ago so I’ve been looking to get a new iPod, plus, with my freelance work I really wanted to get a new phone that I could check my e-mail on. So, I could spend $250 to $350 on a new iPod and another $200 to $300 on a good smart-phone that does email and Wifi or spend that money on one device that does it all. I opted for the one device, the iPhone, believe me, I am not disappointed.

I’m not going to do any kind of review since there are tons of them out there done by better writers than myself, but if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask and I will try my best to answer.

How do I uninstall a program in OS X? I’ve been getting this questions a lot lately with the recent surge in Mac interest around my Company and friends. So listen closely………

In almost every instance, you only have to do one thing, you drag it to the trash, or Ctrl-Click (right click)and choose “Move to Trash”.

How simple is that? No uninstall, no Program Manger to deal with, it’s as simple as Apple Pie. (I never really understood that saying, why is apple pie simple?)

If your not sure where the program is on your hard drive, that’s east to fix too, you simply Ctrl-Click (right
click) on the alias for an application (on the icon in the dock, for example) and click “Show in Finder.” A window will open showing the original application on your hard drive, most likely in the Applications directory right off the root.

It wasn’t always this simple, you see there are two basic kinds of programs for OS X.

The old kind, consisting of a program file (or “application,” as Apple calls it) and usually a few other files. When you want to get rid of a program of this kind, need to locate and move all the files to the trash.

The other kind is a newer, and much better way, called a package, an idea that came with with OS X. Apple liked the idea of packaging software so much that it even called it a “package.” On the surface, a package looks like a single file, you only see one icon.

A good example of a package is iCal. Put your mouse over the icon for iCal in your Doc and Ctrl-Click (right click) on it, choose “Show in Finder” That’s the iCal package. If you Ctrl-Click (right click) and choose “Show package contents” you will see there are actually more than 350 separate files inside the package, now I think this is a massive improvement over the way some other Operating systems handles software.

Now, before you drag a program to the trash, you have to make sure you’re getting rid of the whole program. If it’s a package, you’re good to go, move it right into the trash. But if the program you want to get rid of is the old, unpackaged kind, you need to move it and any associated files into the trash.

Good luck, and I’m glad to try and help if you have any questions.

I read an article last week about how Microsoft is positioning it's self to make more money from anyone that wants to purchase a copy of Vista to be used in a virtual environment, such as Parallels on a Mac.

As quoted from the licensing terms for Vista as published by Microsoft, users of their Vista Home Premium and Vista Home Basic Operating systems

may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system.

Now thats not the end of the story, Microsoft will let you use Vista on a virtual environlent if you pay up.

Instead, Microsoft will require that users purchase a Vista Business or Vista Ultimate license, which will retail for $299 and $399, respectively, in order to emulate the Windows environment.

This is a knee jerk reaction to a growing number of people that are buying Macs and running windows on them. The more people are exposed to Macs the more people seem to want to drop windows so Microsoft is throwing dollar signs in front of people who are considering buying a Mac and running Windows virtually in something like Parallels.

One way around this is with Apple's Boot Camp. With Boot Camp your not running Windows in a virtual environment so your not violating any licensing terms. The draw back is that you will still need to reboot to the OS you want to work in.

(i first read about this in an article on AppleInsider) 

Apple has decided to thank the top twelve developers that have contributed to the WebKit Open Source Project. These lucky twelve will be getting brand new MacBook Pro computers, and five of them will also be getting a free ride to Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference 2006. Not bad as a thank you for doing something those developers probably enjoyed doing in the first place. Kudos to Apple!!!

Well, Apple has finally unveiled their new Intel Apples. The new Macbook Pro looks awesome, and I think it just might be my next laptop (when ever I can get a new one that is). With PC’s as good as they are today, unless your pushing something really heavy like Adobe® Premiere® the old fight between Mac and PC’s is null and void. The new ones are now Security stability and ease of use.