Category Archives: Tech
The Mechanical Keyboard
For those of us who lived through the tail end of the cold war and were privy to the introduction of personal computers, you will remember this keyboard.
The IBM Model M Keyboard.
This particular keyboard used mechanical switches, which were extremely noisy and tactile, creating a real sense that you were typing on a typewriter. Put simply, the Model M was a relic of a time when western nations still had a manufacturing base, when we made our own stuff and didn’t ship it off to the great land of China to be built for the lowest possible price, when we didn’t sacrifice quality to make a quick buck.…
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Also posted in Cool Stuff, Reviews
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Apple – A Love Story
I remember when I first brought you on eBay, you were an old thing, an outdated 400mhz G4 and by the standards of the day, very slow. I didn’t care, you were mine now. You dazzled me with your amazing case design, I opened you up and the motherboard slid right out, everything was easily accessible. You were so well engineered.
I bought you because you could run Final Cut Pro, an amazing video editing system that was light-years beyond anything on the PC. OS X was a breathe of fresh air after years of agonising Windows use. I finally had a PC I could trust, and you didn’t let me down.…
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Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, has died.
Not many people can say they literally changed the world, but I think Jobs did. The iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad and even going back to the original Macintosh. He wanted to make technology accessible to everybody, and I think if you look around then you can see his hand in most of the stuff we use day to day.
Rest in peace Steve.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.
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Everything Is [still] A Remix
A few weeks ago, I linked to an exciting web based documentary series by NY filmmaker Kirby Ferguson, Everything Is A Remix. The series plots the unoriginality of everything in our modern culture, focusing particularly on Star Wars in Part 2. For those of you who missed it, catch up here. I was excited today to discover that Part 3 has finally been released. This one details the rise of personal computers and how much of what we know today came from borrowed ideas from the past. Enjoy.
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Also posted in Cool Stuff, Culture
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Why I HATE to LOVE Apple
I remember the first time I wanted an Apple machine. I’d been using PC’s since I was a wee lad and to me, Apple’s had always seemed a novelty. A machine that basically had nothing going for it, slow CPU’s, barely any software and zero gaming potential, a specialty device that was only really useful for video editors and desktop publishing. It wasn’t that I hated them, I just never really thought I’d have any use for one.
What always irked me about Apple machines was OS 9 and it’s predecessors. Coming from an IT background I thought the Apple OS was an abortion, a dead fetus covered in it’s murdered mothers bloodied womb, suffocated on legacy code.…
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Hitler vs Mike Seymour
I’m not sure how many of you are either graduates of FXPhD, fans of The RC or VFX Show podcasts, readers of fxguide.com or know Mike Seymour in some other way, but for those who do, drop what you’re doing now, and watch the video below.
You know you’ve achieved a certain level of notoriety when someone goes to the trouble of making a Hitler video about you. We’ve all seen so many of these Downfall over-dubbs that for the most part they’ve stopped being funny. However this one really tickled me. Mostly cos its pretty much an in-joke. But it made me chuckle, and left me pondering which was my favorite line out of “Mike said I’d be snorting blow off my Wacom” and “He said Toxik gets him hard, but Toxik doesn’t get me hard at all”.…
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Spirit is dead.
Spirit and Opportunity, two tiny rovers sent to Mars in 2004 who until recently, were still rolling across the martian desert sciencing the fuck out of the red planet. These little guys, who were designed to last 3 months have continually been making valuable scientific finds since they landed. It’s 2011.
Sadly, Spirit finally lost contact last March and the little guy never woke up again, despite the best efforts of NASA. A lonely death, in the cold martian winter. Gone but not forgotten.
Opportunity, spirits twin, is still going strong, despite a faulty wheel and the need to drive everywhere backwards. …
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Project Cafe
E3 is just a few weeks away and I have to say I am pretty damn excited. While the usual preview overload is expected I am somewhat curious about Nintendo’s new system, codename “Project Cafe”.
All we really know so far is that the system will be as powerful as an Xbox 360 and have a controller with a built in LCD. Is it a touch screen? Probably.
I have to say I am somewhat skeptical that Nintendo can release a system where 3rd party games can flourish. Ever since the N64, Nintendo systems have really suffered from a lack of quality titles.…
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Also posted in Cool Stuff, Games
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Dolphin – The greatest emulator you didn’t know existed.
Have a Wii? Have bad eyesight? Sick and tired of straining to see a crappy 480P signal on your 1080P 70 inch flat screen? Like most gamers I owe no allegiance to any one system, but the Wii, well lets just say playing it feels like you’re shopping downmarket. I own quite a few Wii games but I never get around to playing them since I can’t stand looking at them.
I have however found a solution. I give you, the Dolphin emulator!
Available for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows, the Dolphin emulator is just that, an emulator for the Gamecube and Wii.…
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Also posted in Articles, Games
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Instacast review
As an avid podcast listener one of my main complaints about my iPhone is that there wasn’t a nice, easy way to get podcasts directly on the device. You can subscribe in iTunes and fumble trying to get things to sync up, but when you have a super sized library like I do it becomes tricky juggling things on and off the device.
Then one day as I listen to the excellent “Back to Work” with Dan Benjamin and Merlin Mann, Merlin mentions off-hand that he subscribes to podcasts in an app called Instacast. “What the hell is Instacast?” I ask myself.…
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