Hardware

Flipping ‘eck

I gave in on Saturday, and bought myself one of these beauties:

Flip Ultra

The quality of the recorded video is pretty high, better than your average mobile phone, I’d say – and certainly better than my iPhone which doesn’t do video at all. The flip-out USB connector works excellently, and saves on the considerable hassle of messing about with cables. Haven’t tried uploading to YouTube or anything yet, but the software (which runs from the Flip itself, and doesn’t require installation) seems easy enough to use.

Am looking forward to taking it around 2gether08 later this week.

I got me a MicroTrack!

I’ve been after a decent audio recorder for a while, and on the recommendations of Neville Hobson, who regularly blogs about such matters, I opted for an M-Audio MicroTrack 2. And very nice it is too.

MicroTrack II

I’m still waiting to use it, because my Compact Flash card hasn’t arrived yet. I haven’t ever seen one of these before, always previously having used SD or Sony’s Memory Sticks. I’m guessing CF cards are pretty big – the slot in the MicroTrack is huuuge!

Some MacBook Questions

Mac

I do love my Macbook, I have to say, and it gets an awful lot more use than my Vista laptop, which you can see just in shot, shut as usual. Mine is a 2.2 GHz model – the middle range one. I need to get some stuff sorted out for it, and could do with a bit of help.

  1. I want to upgrade my memory to the maximum 4gb. How come it costs £240 from Apple but only £63.44 from Crucial? I mean, I know Apple probably charge a premium but that’s a huge difference!
  2. Photo editing software. I currently have Pixelmator, but it does my head in a lot. Now I have a DSLR I reckon I need something a little better for photo editing. I was thinking Photoshop Elements?
  3. I have a little Sony Handycam that records straight to hard disk. It lacks an external mic capability, which is a pain, but it makes up for that in cuteness. Anyway, it being a Sony, I can’t currently edit the .mpgs that the Handycam exports on the Mac, they just don’t like each other. I found this solution on the web, suggesting using Quicktime Pro (which I don’t yet have) and something called ‘MPEG_Streamclip_1.8.dmg’ to sort this out. Assuming this means I can edit the video on the Mac, should I stick with iMovie or is it worth investing in something like Final Cut Express? Does Adobe Premiere exist on the Mac? I can’t see it anywhere.
  4. Storage. As well as the MacBook and the Vista laptop, I can possibly see myself investing in an iMac at some point in the future. I’d like to have one drive which they all share, or through which they all sync up with. Is this what a Time Capsule could do? For instance, I’d like all my photos to be in one place, rather than spread over 3 different machines, or at least have the same photos on every computer.
  5. 5. How do I hook my MacBook up to an external monitor? It doesn’t seem to have the right shaped hole anywhere on it.

If anyone can help me out on any of these things, I’d be most grateful!

It’s Eeeasy

John Naughton’s Observer column is required reading. Today he casts his eye on the Asus Eee PC:

Besides, the limitations of Mark I ought not to blind us to its significance – which is the cruel way it highlights the baroque complexity of conventional computing machines with their bloated operating systems, security problems, flaky hard drives, overheating processors and overweight chassis. Some day, our great-grandchildren will marvel that the industry once standardised on software that required its users to press the ‘Start’ button when they wished to stop their machine. Especially when all we really needed was a life-support system for a browser.

Mec Puck Z

…is the name of the artistic creation that young Master DavePress produced using the graphics tablet just now. He has given it the title ‘Mec Puck Z’. Don’t ask, I didn’t dare.

Mec Puck Z

(Warning: it’s a pretty big download!)

I am sure you all agree it’s a real work of art. He loves the tablet though – makes using the computer far easier and more intuititive.

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