Friday, May 25, 2007
Apple Security Updates★
Hey there. Its been a while, but so have the exams. One left, and then I'll be back on track, when it comes to posting at least.Thanks to Alasdair who kindly handled that Engadget news, and expect to see him more and more on the MacTake. ( That's as soon as I start pulling my weight again on theworldtodayblog.co.uk ).
Quick bit of news, Apple has released security updates:
Security Update 2007-005 is recommended for all users and improves the security of the following components:Looks interesting and I'd give it a shot. Normally I just download security updates immediately, rather than wait for verdicts and bug reports, and I'm going to do the same for this lot. However, if you do notice a bug or know of a bug / concern regarding these updates, please post in on it. I'd be happy to read your emails sent to skippy[at]mactake.streamk.com, as well as comments posted directly on this blog. You can always contribute anonymously on the MacTake.
bind
CarbonCore
CoreGraphics
crontabs
fetchmail
file
iChat
mDNSResponder
PPP
ruby
screen
texinfo
VPN
Joost invites are still flowing people; even with the exams I'm finding time to send them off, so send requests to skippy[at]mactake.streamk.com.
Till next week, Happy Mac'ing!
(by the way. Pirates of the Caribbean 3 is fantastic. If you get a chance, go see it! )
Labels: joost, news, pirates-of-the-caribbean
★ 1 Comments. | By Skippy, Friday, May 25, 2007 6:41 PM
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Exams & Plugging like a bathtub.★
I've been listening to MBW again folks, so naturally I have a little bit of a buzz around me coupled with an insane desire to do something mac'ish. Oh, and I'm also featuring layers of concentrated sweat formed from squatting in humid ratholes.So a few quick plugs and some recommendations. Check out School House. If you're going to school, it stands a fair chance of revolutionizing the way you organize things, and should help you slide through the course. I setting it all up now, and the GUI is a work of art itself.
Also: Blogger have been real sports and realized that the MacTake isn't a load of spam, and therefore taken away the word verification shebang from my Blogger dashboard. Thank'ee kindly.
I'm still sending out Joost invites so if you have the itch, email me at skippy[at]mactake.streamk.com. I'll try and do it in morning and evening batches. Exams are literally next week so things might be a little quiet on the MacTake till about next friday. Apologize for that, but you can keep up to date with Mac tips, tricks, news and humid ratholes by following the maccast, macbreak weekly and the typical mac user podcast.
For your general tech podcast crack, listen to this week in tech, and net@nite!
For now, why not check out this video of Microsoft's oPhone, on dvorak.org/blog.
Hey! I don't need to write my own content, I can just plug everyone else's!
Just kidding... I only plug stuff if I really like it. Anything mediocre doesn't make it. Catch up to you all properly after the exams.
Till next time folks: Happy Mac'ing!
Labels: adam-christianson, john-c-dvorak, joost, leo-laporte, macbreak, merlin-mann, school-house, scott-bourne
★ 2 Comments. | By Skippy, Thursday, May 10, 2007 6:19 PM
Joost: Reborn. Invites flowing free.★
Joost has resumed operation. Don't ask me why, or how. It just did. Good news is that I've sent off the latest batch of invites already, so if you want one, email me at skippy[at]mactake.streamk.com and I'll pop it off to you asap.Onto other news: I just registered for an account at Scott Bourne's ApplePhoneShow. Its full of itty-bitty bites of iPhone magic. Definitely recommend that you go check it out sometime. Also, Alasdair on theworldtodayblog has directed us to a pretty-cool video. Conan visits Intel. Its on clipstr.com so if you have the time, check it out!
Happy Mac'ing!
Labels: joost, news, scott-bourne
★ 0 Comments. | By Skippy, 8:02 AM
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Joost: Sudden Death.★
Is anyone else having this problem? You see, I've promised my readers free joost invites; as many as they want providing my fingers can scurry around on the keyboard fast enough to send them all. However, Joost isn't co-operating. This isn't some lame excuse, this is a Joost-addicted man on fire.
And you can see why I'm feeling the burn. The Start Joost button is there, but grayed out. So near, but so far; to cite another cliché.
If anyone else is having this problem, stick up a comment, send an email, post a letter; just share your joost deprived worries with me, as well as tips.
I'll keep an eye on it, and will check again later tonight and tomorrow. Sorry to all of you who are waiting for an invite, you will get it, I promise.
Till then, Happy Mac'ing!
★ 6 Comments. | By Skippy, Wednesday, May 9, 2007 7:16 PM
Joost Beta - Now for friends.★
Good news for all us Joosters, a new version is out there with new channels and unlimited invitations. As far as I can tell, running the old version doesn't work anymore, so if you need your Joost fix head on over and download the new version. Correct me on that one however.If you don't know what Joost is, read it up on the MacTake here, or visit joost.com. If then, after discovering the delightful world that is Joost, you want an invitation, email me at skippy[at]mactake.streamk.com and I'll whizz one your way.
Music, Swimsuit (bowchickabowwow) and other channels have been added. The kindly folks at Joost have also promised to add new channels every week, which is looking good for the Joost community.
Last but not least, we invite you to enjoy the variety of new shows we're introducing each week. This week we bring you a host of new channels from Universal Music, great science fiction like Earth Final Conflict, and Creature Comforts from Aardman Animations. We've also got swimsuit models and snowboarders, anime and animals, and much more. But that's just the beginning.
Each week we'll launch new channels - making sure you can watch what you want, when you want. So stay tuned...
You can download the new version of Joost here.
So the whole 'Happy Mac'ing' has been itching at me. Its a little strange, geeky and oh so band-camp'ish. But it is familiar and almost heart warming.
Should I keep it... or should it go? You tell me. Till then (grimace), Happy Mac'ing!
★ 2 Comments. | By Skippy, 4:40 PM
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
App Pick: Joost.★
You're downstairs, watching TV. Its pretty good quality, no real problem there but it strikes you that from what you've heard, Alex Lindsay would be tearing his hair out with everything from the color-depth to the resolution of the broadcast.
Total recall is on and David Hume is just about to walk around a creepy corner when suddenly he just stops in his tracks. Dead still, not moving at all. Has he noticed something on the floor? Is he interfacing with the Internet via some kind of retina display? No, because the clock on the wall next to him has stopped too and there is a sort of motion blur around his arm.
5 minutes later he jumps back to life, the clock resumes ticking, and he walks around the corner to find nothing but shadows. Suspense to the extreme? Welcome to Joost.
If you haven't heard of it, check it out at http://www.joost.com/; its going to revolutionize the way you watch, think-of and interact-with tv.
I've had a beta-version for a little while now, and I am in a lucky position to be able to review it, as it is, right now.
Imagine a TV on which you could choose what you wanted to watch, when you wanted to watch it. Its all out there, everything that's been released on the tv, so far, to date. Want to check up on an old episode of Joey? Did Michael ever do anything about his chicken-legs, and get hooked up with the hot girl from the fish-store? Pick up the remote, use it like a cell phone keyboard and type in Joey Fish store, and satisfy that little niggling curiosity.
That's the potential I think that Joost has. But right now? Well the quality is good enough, but not good enough to keep Alex Lindsay's hair on. HD is far, far away right now, but entirely feasible in the future I'm sure.
You see, Joost is tv content delivered via the Internet.
There are going to be some bugs to work out though, the GUI isn't really that great. Yes its shiny, yes its semi-transparent, glass-like and slick, but is it easy to use? No way!
I think that Joost need to get their act together in that respect, they need to bring over more of the features and feel from (for instance) the Sky Satellite GUI, or just your average cable tv gui. It's what we're used to, and right now it's working great. Sure, implement some enhancements. Joost has already brought in more features for its GUI than Sky could dream of. There are thumbnail images of what each channel looks like, funky 'My Channels', and Smart channels; it's all just a little foreign though, the enhancements are good, but they need to be a litle more familiar.
When Joost makes it into our living rooms ( I don't think there's any doubt about if it will ), we don't want to learn a whole new system of channel navigation. Joost has built support right in for the Apple remote, I'd like to see them make that jump and build support in for the Fox cable remote, Sky remote and whatever else is out there.
Joost is borderline standard media broadcasting. It's tv, but its not a podcast. It doesn't quite make it out into the equal, free playing field yet, and if you ask me, that's what is going to get it right into your living room. Media corporations are going to be more willing to take one small step at a time in the direction of equal playing field broadcasting, rather than making the big jump in there.
I can see a future version of Apple TV with Joost built right into it. In fact, someone could get started hacking the box (albeit an elegant, popcorn-popping sleek shiny grey cube), and sticking a Joost player right on there.
So on a final note, the advertisements; oh yes, the dreaded word. Well in actual fact, I simply love the approach Joost have taken. Its one ad at a time, not 20, 30 or 40. Its 1 minute of advertisement, 10 minutes of show, 1 minute of advertisement... etc. Its all in bite-sized chunks. Admirable.
My suggestions would be to include a few pre-loaded advertisements with the Joost install and then if the user's connection stalls, play them from the hard-disk, whilst buffering the broadcast in the background. It would mean that people with slower connections would see a lot more ads, but it would give a more smooth experience, and I doubt that they'd notice.
So ladies & gentlemen, Joost has the potential and its delivering a good chunk of it right now. I've been a little tough on it, but at the end of the day, its in beta and I've seen beta applications completely transform and dominate as their production cycle matures. Expect to see it on your Apple TV soon.
Happy Mac'ing!
Total recall is on and David Hume is just about to walk around a creepy corner when suddenly he just stops in his tracks. Dead still, not moving at all. Has he noticed something on the floor? Is he interfacing with the Internet via some kind of retina display? No, because the clock on the wall next to him has stopped too and there is a sort of motion blur around his arm.
5 minutes later he jumps back to life, the clock resumes ticking, and he walks around the corner to find nothing but shadows. Suspense to the extreme? Welcome to Joost.
If you haven't heard of it, check it out at http://www.joost.com/; its going to revolutionize the way you watch, think-of and interact-with tv.
I've had a beta-version for a little while now, and I am in a lucky position to be able to review it, as it is, right now.
Imagine a TV on which you could choose what you wanted to watch, when you wanted to watch it. Its all out there, everything that's been released on the tv, so far, to date. Want to check up on an old episode of Joey? Did Michael ever do anything about his chicken-legs, and get hooked up with the hot girl from the fish-store? Pick up the remote, use it like a cell phone keyboard and type in Joey Fish store, and satisfy that little niggling curiosity.
That's the potential I think that Joost has. But right now? Well the quality is good enough, but not good enough to keep Alex Lindsay's hair on. HD is far, far away right now, but entirely feasible in the future I'm sure.
You see, Joost is tv content delivered via the Internet.
There are going to be some bugs to work out though, the GUI isn't really that great. Yes its shiny, yes its semi-transparent, glass-like and slick, but is it easy to use? No way!
I think that Joost need to get their act together in that respect, they need to bring over more of the features and feel from (for instance) the Sky Satellite GUI, or just your average cable tv gui. It's what we're used to, and right now it's working great. Sure, implement some enhancements. Joost has already brought in more features for its GUI than Sky could dream of. There are thumbnail images of what each channel looks like, funky 'My Channels', and Smart channels; it's all just a little foreign though, the enhancements are good, but they need to be a litle more familiar.
When Joost makes it into our living rooms ( I don't think there's any doubt about if it will ), we don't want to learn a whole new system of channel navigation. Joost has built support right in for the Apple remote, I'd like to see them make that jump and build support in for the Fox cable remote, Sky remote and whatever else is out there.
Joost is borderline standard media broadcasting. It's tv, but its not a podcast. It doesn't quite make it out into the equal, free playing field yet, and if you ask me, that's what is going to get it right into your living room. Media corporations are going to be more willing to take one small step at a time in the direction of equal playing field broadcasting, rather than making the big jump in there.
I can see a future version of Apple TV with Joost built right into it. In fact, someone could get started hacking the box (albeit an elegant, popcorn-popping sleek shiny grey cube), and sticking a Joost player right on there.
So on a final note, the advertisements; oh yes, the dreaded word. Well in actual fact, I simply love the approach Joost have taken. Its one ad at a time, not 20, 30 or 40. Its 1 minute of advertisement, 10 minutes of show, 1 minute of advertisement... etc. Its all in bite-sized chunks. Admirable.
My suggestions would be to include a few pre-loaded advertisements with the Joost install and then if the user's connection stalls, play them from the hard-disk, whilst buffering the broadcast in the background. It would mean that people with slower connections would see a lot more ads, but it would give a more smooth experience, and I doubt that they'd notice.
So ladies & gentlemen, Joost has the potential and its delivering a good chunk of it right now. I've been a little tough on it, but at the end of the day, its in beta and I've seen beta applications completely transform and dominate as their production cycle matures. Expect to see it on your Apple TV soon.
Happy Mac'ing!
Labels: alex-lindsay, app-pick, joost
★ 0 Comments. | By Skippy, Wednesday, April 18, 2007 4:57 PM
