Archive for the ‘Geeky Stuff’ Category

Moving from Microsoft (Windows) to Apple (OSX)

Sunday, November 7th, 2010

About 9 months ago I made the switch from being a Windows user to an Apple one. I originally made the move because I wanted to develop software for the iPhone and iPad, which is something that should be done inside OSX. The idea was that you can easily use Windows inside OSX, but the other way ‘round isn’t so practical. I’m quite a proficient Windows user; I remember when Windows 95 came out, and have been using it quite extensively ever since. I had wanted to do this since mid 2009, but moving to Apple can really add up, money wise. All in all, I’ve spent about £4000 on apple equipment when I could have spent less than half that by using Windows and Android. I came into a few bob and thought, “Let’s do this schizniss”.

How I became a ‘MacFag’.

Turn the clock back 3 years and I was with my girlfriend at the time. I really wanted an iPod Touch, thought it would be a handy PDA, as well as the music and video functions. I wasn’t “allowed” to buy it, on fear of being made homeless in a strange city. Well, what is a boy to do? eBay that MoFo so it’s waiting on the doorstep when I came home. I arrived home to find my shiny brushed-metal goodness, and that was my first affair with Apple. It was amazing and new, I could read the news on the tube while listening to music. I could tweet and facebook to my heart’s content in the local coffee shop. I was no longer late for appointments as I now had a calendar I was willing to use. I was completely besotted by this gadget equivalent to a 19 year old who won the lotto and enjoyed Hollyoaks and Chinese food…. And you know what? I think if it’s possible, it was slightly besotted with me.

I found I used it so much and it was so handy, that when I accidently lost it, I bought another one two weeks later. My phone contract then came up and a month later the iPhone 3GS was due out, well, I thought it was time to take the relationship to the next level. Roll forward a year and I have an i7 Macbook Pro, an iPhone 4* and an American 32gb Wifi iPad too.
*See the section on how to get the latest iPhone year on year without it costing you much at all for the upgrade ,)
Awesome things to do on your iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch [and/or] iPad).

First up, syncing contacts, calendar and mail is really cool. There are quite a few people who do this now, but I choose Google as my main service. I migrated from Hotmail to Google Mail for this, which at the time was a synch because for £25 you could get Hotmail to take a few valium about you leaving them, where as now that isn’t such a sure thing.
This means that when I update my calendar, contacts or mail in one place… like add a new event or read an email, it’s updated everywhere else. It’s a little bit technical, but fear not, the lovely people at Google have instructions on how to get this bad boy off the road.


Just follow the easy to use instructions on here: www.google.com/mobile/sync/

Custom Ringtones and Alarm Tones on iPhone !

Custom Ringtones and Alarm Tones on iPhone !

The next one is ringtones. Everyone in my office seems to have the default ringtones for their iPhones; something that most people seem to have. You can use these ringtones for Alarms too, but alas, not text messages (I dream of the day when I can have the Zelda ‘Open Crate’ sound for a text message… why am I single again?).

It’s a bit complicated, but once you’ve done your first one, the next one is piss easy. Your friendly neighbourhood geekologist has written up a guide here: blog.90nz0.com/2010/08/02/how-to-bung-your-own-ringtones-on-the-iphone-with-just-itune-works-in-itunes-9-2010/

Did you know that you can also use your device to play movies and television on your telly? Well, you can do that too… blog.90nz0.com/2010/03/25/video-to-iphone-to-telly/

… In update to that, since I wrote that guide, there is an app called Plex and VLC, which is something I’m going to write about in the future. It kicks seven shades of shit out of Sky TV, Virgin TV and to a lesser extent, XMBC/Boxee…. Plex is also coming to the new AppleTV, which makes it worth buying in my books.

Features I miss in Windows 7 that have been bought to OSX

Aero Snap - use SizeUp in OSX

Aero Snap - use SizeUp in OSX

The first one is something called Aero Snap. I still can’t quite work out how Full Screen works on OSX, it’s different to Windows, but there is some software out there called SizeUp. It’s a freebie for the most part, but well worth parting with the cash for when you use it. I assign a few shortcuts and suddenly what I’m looking at takes up the left/right/bottom/top half of the screen, I can then do the same thing with something else, and wallah, I got two things side-by-side. So for example, I currently have MS Word on the left half of my screen, and a web browser on the right. And they say blokes can’t multitask.

http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/

Aero Peek - Use Hyperdock

Aero Peek - Use Hyperdock

The next one is something that Windows calls Aero Peek. This means when I hover over an item in the task bar, I get a little preview of all the windows in that application. In practical use, it means instead of clicking on the application and then clicking ‘window’ -> [name of window], I can go straight to the window I want! It has other features like when I hover over iTunes; I can change the track around. I understand that it doesn’t sound helpful, but seriously, it is.

hyperdock.bahoom.de/

Windows Media Centre - Use Plex

Windows Media Centre - Use Plex

Did you know that your Apple computer makes probably one of the best media centres money can buy? I was planning to buy a cheap second hand MacMini and using it just for this software called Plex, but now they’ve managed to get it up and running on AppleTV, well, for £99 bucks, it seems like the better option.

www.plexapp.com

Wrap Up

So, here I’ve written up how to fix the “Bubbly Personality” and “I lyk 2 walk n da park” issues of the Apple world, at least for me. If you find this guide handy, please feel free to leave a comment or pass it onto people you know are interested. I’ll be writing up more stuff, plus I have a few recipes to get blogging in the future. Soz for the neglect of my blog, but I’ve been Busy Busy Busy, started a new totally awesome new job and I’ve been full-on social mode over the past few months.


Anyway, L8erz p0t4t4z.

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My first post from OSX

Monday, April 12th, 2010

I’ve finally made the transition to Apple’s operating system, OSX. I’ve not used it for more than 15 minutes in the past, and I’ve delved into it from a full understanding of Windows. Some things I find rather strange, but others I’m finding a lot better. I got a feeling that if I hadn’t been using Windows 7 for such a long time, with it’s “The icon is always there, even if the app isn’t on”, things would be far more confusing.

So far, the main differances that I’ve had to get used too are.

  • Multi-touch Trackpad; use two fingers up’n'down to scroll, four fingers to jump from open-apps, desktop and current window, three fingers to go ‘back’.
  • Trackpad is all one button, once you get your head around having two points at once, it’s better. For example, on a normal trackpad, you’ve got the two buttons and the pad itself, to drag something, you click the button down and use the pad to move it around. It’s identical on this, except you can click anywhere.
  • Installing programs is a lot easier, you just open up the DMG file (a bit like downloading a ZIP or EXE), then it acts like a CD Drive has been inserted, and you just drag one bit into the other (for example, you drag ‘OpenOffice’ into ‘Applications’… walla, done). Sometimes there are the usual menus, sometimes not.
  • The Dock is a bit weird-but-good, you’ve got your open programs, and a ‘Applications’ icon which acts like ‘Programs’ in the start-menu in windows, but you can drag them into the dock. This’ll make a shortcut to the program. If the program is running, there is a little white dot under it.
  • The red ‘close’ button, which indicates closing a program or menu in Windows, just closes the window rather than the program. To close the program, press CMD+Q, which is the equivalent to Alt+F4.
  • Maximise is a bit different, can’t work out how it calculates the right size, but it just does.

There is loads more, but this’ll do for now.

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How to play downloaded Movies/Telly on your iPhone (and then onto your television)… including Ripping DVDs

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

I’m asked quite a bit on how to play downloaded movies and television (any sort of video, really) on your iPhone or iPod Touch… and then, move that onto your Television. It can take quite a bit of time to convert each file (unless the one you’ve downloaded is already formatted), but most of the job is a “Set up and leave it running in the background” job. There are, as with all things technical, many ways to skin the cat. This, however, is how I do it. I won’t include here exactly how to download the videos, but there are plenty of other tutorials out there that will teach you. This will also ‘rip’ DVDs, which means, turn them into a usable video file.

One important note though: Don’t ever pay for downloading videos, unless it’s a trusted source, such as iTunes. There are plenty of “Get every Movie ever made, just $5/month” run by people who you definitely don’t want to be giving your card details to. I remember my Dad once fell for one of these and it wasn’t much more a link to Pirate Bay and uTorrent with a tutorial set up.

So, let’s go ahead and get this puppy running. The file that I’m using is a rip of a video that I already legally have purchased, and as such, is a backup copy and I’m well within my rights to use it as I wish.

I’m presuming you already have iTunes installed.

How to get this running

  • Step 1 – Download Handbreak

    Step 1 - Download the Handbreak Software

    Step 1 - Download the Handbreak Software

    Download HandBreak (click to open), it’s a simple tool, get the “GUI” (Graphical User Interface) version, if you’re reading this, then you don’t want to be bogged down with writing codes. Make sure you get the right one for your operating system. You’ll then be prompted to download the file, click ‘yes’, if you get a choice (and for the sake of this guide), choose to save it to your desktop.

  • Step 2 – Install Handbreak

    Stage 2 - Install and Run the Handbreak Software

    Stage 2 - Install and Run the Handbreak Software

    Find the downloaded file (on your desktop if you’re followed this tutorial), double-click on it to open it up, and just keep on pressing ‘next’ and ‘i agree’ to the terms and conditions (You should read the terms and conditions*, and don’t accidentally ‘cancel’ when its installing), the default options are all fine.

  • Step 3 – Set Handbreak up

    Stage 3 - Set everything up in Handbreak.

    Stage 3 - Set everything up in Handbreak.

    • (1) Select the Source file, this is your video file that you’ve downloaded or the folder with the DVD in
    • (2) Select where you want your output file, if you’re going to do this a lot, then choose a new folder, if you’re just doing it every now-and-then, then pick somewhere like your Desktop.
    • (3) Select the ‘iPhone & iPod Touch’ Preset
    • (4) Making sure that the aspect ratio is fixed, if you’re only going to play this file on your iPhone/Touch, then you can leave this setting as it is. If you’re going to put it through to the telly, you’ll want to increase the Width to 720ish (or if the Source is smaller, select the source’s width). The bigger the size, the more room it’ll take up on your device. I find they normally take up around 700-800MB, at the ‘Size’ that looks good on the telly, so if you have a 32gb model, 2-3%. If you’re only playing them on your device, they’re around 400mb, which is a lot less.
    • (5) Press ‘Start’, a black box will appear which will give you a percentage of how far along the file is. I think they take about 2-3 hours on my computer, but every computer is different. I normally do it the night before and just leave it going. Feel free to do other stuff while it’s running in the background, but if your computer crashes or you reboot it, you’ll have to start again.

  • Step 4 – Import into iTunes (and then onto your iPhone/iPod Touch)

    Stage 4 - Import into iTunes and then your iPhone/iPod Touch

    Stage 4 - Import into iTunes and then your iPhone/iPod Touch

    • (0) Open up iTunes
    • (1) Click on ‘File’ then ‘Add File To Libary’, browse to the file we made in Handbreak (on your desktop if you were following above), and select ‘open’. This will them import it into your Library
    • (3) Go to ‘Films’ section in iTunes
    • (3) Right click on the video you just imported into iTunes, if it’s a TV Program, then go to ‘Options’, then at the ‘Media Kind’ drop down, change it to TV Program. This will move it from the Films section in iTunes to the TV Programs section.
    • (4) To make things look pretty on your device, go to CDCovers.cc (click to open) and download the cover. You can then, once you’ve downloaded the right one, go to Artwork and add the cover to the file.
    • (5) If your device isn’t plugged in to your computer, plug it in now. Once it’s finished sync’ing (if you’ve got auto-sync), drag the video file into iPhone/iPod Touch. It’ll then sync, and once that’s done, you’re more-or-less done !

  • Step 5 – You should now be able to watch it in the iPod application.

    Only buy the OFFICIAL cable (about 30 squid)

    Only buy the OFFICIAL cable (about 30 squid)

    Now to get this running on the telly, you need to buy an official iPod/iPhone AV Cable, I choose the APPLE MB129ZA/B Composite AV Cable, it’s important you buy the real thing, as with iPhone OS 3.0, they wiped out something that broke unofficial cables. I went through 3 different brands before I found out, luckily they were all from local shops so it wasn’t a big deal waiting for them. Everything plugs in as you would expect (the three wires are colour coded, the iPhone/iPod Touch end is a usual connector, there is even a USB cable to plug it into the wall so you don’t run out of juice).

    When you plug it in, the telly won’t change until you’re actually playing the video. You can also watch YouTube on the big screen.

    As a side note: You can also watch TV Catchup (Live Television feeds, click to open) and a lot of BBC iPlayer (click to open) on the big screen too. This is great if you’ve got bad Freeview reception.

* Well, that’s up to you, I never bother, but it’s always good advice to point out that they’re there for a reason.

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