Zath! Archive for

December, 2009

Technology Of The Noughties: Cloud Computing

Cast your minds back to the beginning of the decade… Broadband was making its first appearance in the technology world and all our applications were installed locally on a hard drive in our computer. Fast forward nine years, and we still have a lot of local applications, but with fast internet connections, having your local applications with you all the time is no longer a necessity, in fact the vast majority of applications on your hard drive right now probably have some sort of cloud equivalent…

In my opinion Google has, and continues to, make major breakthroughs in cloud computing. If you were working on a presentation or important document on your computer ten years ago but forgot to take it with you to work on the crucial day, there wouldn’t be a lot you could do about it…

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Dell Mini Inspiron 10 Netbook (Atom N450) Announced

In the crowded world of netbooks, Dell have always been a major contender, with their Mini series and we’ve written two reviews here on Zath for the Dell Mini 9 netbook.

With a new year, comes a new netbook from Dell. The new Dell Mini Inspiron 10 netbook will be released early this month and Dell are offering a variety of options as always.

In terms of performance, it is the same as always, 1.6Ghz N450 Atom processor, 1Gb DDR2 RAM and the option of either 160Gb or 250Gb hard drives. Not much improvement since the last model there, however they also give you the choice between 3 and 6 cell batteries with the latter providing up to 9.5 hours of battery life. This puts it right up there with its greatest competitors in terms of endurance.

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Technology Of The Noughties: Apple’s iPod (MP3 Players)

Remember this? The incredibly thin, high capacity MP3 player from Apple, otherwise known as the iPod was most definitely one of the biggest impacts we saw this decade.

Taking the market for digital music players by storm, Apple revolutionised digital music and continue to innovate and update their line of iPod’s.

Before the iPod, the market was screaming out for someone to create an easy to use, functional device. The original iPod, released in October 2001, did just that with its huge capacity of 5GB or 10GB. Consumers went from being able to store maybe a few hundred songs to their entire CD collection on one device and take it with them wherever they went.

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Technology Of The Noughties: The Modern Operating System (Windows & Mac OS X)

When you see how much technology has advanced in the past decade, it’s hard to see ourselves going back to old operating systems (OS) to carry out everyday tasks. Plagued by troublesome networking setups, kernel panics and third party hardware setup (plug and what?), I could never go back to using an OS prior to Windows XP or Mac OS X – could you?

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Has Microsoft Turned Into The New IBM?

Surfing the web today, I came across a very interesting interview on SeattlePi with Don Dodge, who was Microsoft’s Director of Business Development for the Emerging Business Team until getting laid off last month. During the interview, he revealed his opinions on Microsoft, their current situation and where they’re heading. He also revealed that he thinks “Microsoft is a lot like IBM was in 1985”, going on to say that “after 20 years they are losing the innovation edge.” This got me thinking; has Microsoft lost the ability to innovate after being the most dominative force in computing since the late 1980’s? And if so, why?

I think a key to the solution is the sheer amount of things Microsoft does. When you think of the number of markets Microsoft compete in, you can understand that it’s extremely difficult, maybe impossible, to dominate every market. Not only do Microsoft develop and maintain the Windows OS, they also compete in the market for smart phones with Windows Mobile; the gaming market with the Xbox 360 and internet search with Bing.

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How To Get Dolby Digital Sound From A Standard PC/Mac Mini Audio Output

I use my Mac Mini for everything… Surfing the net, managing my humongous iTunes library, watching HD video files? You name it, I do it. Sitting next to the Mac Mini is my Sony DAV-DZ260 Home Theatre System (amazing amp) which outputs to a 5.1 surround sound system.

Ever since getting the Mac Mini, I’ve connected it to the amplifier with a standard PC audio cable, but this meant that when I was watching my downloaded TV or movies from iTunes or other sources, I could only get 2.0 stereo sound which wasn’t as good an experience as the 5.1 I got from DVD’s played through the system.

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CD Art Display Review (Minimalist iTunes Interface For Windows)

CD Art Display is a fantastic program for Windows which is free for download and is a nice addition to your desktop and iTunes library. Although it is not stuffed full of features and functionality, it does exactly what it promises and all in all, it does it very well in a similar way to CoverSutra on Mac OS X.

Basically, the application is designed to simply display your album artwork and song information on your desktop. Pretty much exactly as the name suggests. It is neat and compact so does not clutter your desktop at all.

By default, the text is displayed clearly, on a transparent background, therefore it blends in even more to your desktop. Depending on the extremity of colour on your desktop wallpaper, the text should be clearly visible.

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MAG Multiplayer Open Beta (PS3)

Sony has announced that there will be an open Beta available for MAG at the start of 2010 after the closed Beta was released a few months ago.

In case you haven’t heard of it, MAG (Massive Action Game) is an online action game which will be able to host matches of up to 256 players in each game and is a PS3 exclusive.

The two playable modes available will be ‘Sabotage’, which will play with up to 64 players and ‘Domination’ which will be the stage the massive 256 player mayhem.

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SonicSwap Review (iTunes Playlist Widget)

SonicSwap is described as an iTunes playlist widget. It’s an add-on to iTunes for OS X that provides extremely simplistic usability for even the beginners amongst us. The app features several useful features that all worked extremely well for me and best of all, it’s available as a free download from the downloads section of the Apple website.

Basically, the main feature of the widget is the simplification of the iTunes interface. It sits neatly upon your desktop and allows you to control your tracks and volume etc. without having to bring up the bulky and sometimes laggy iTunes interface.

I have to say, that it doesn’t feature such an attractive look as most other OS X apps, it just doesn’t follow the usual style of apps. However, its functionality is key and it delivers all that it promises. Ok, so you could just leave the iTunes mini player upon your desktop, it would provide the same basics, however, with SonicSwap, not only are the navigational buttons displayed, artwork and track details are listed too without taking up a sizeable chunk of your desktop.

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Will The Apple Tablet Arrive In 2010?

Of all the rumours we’ve seen in the past decade, the Apple Tablet is without a doubt the most consistently frequent and annoying… When you’ve been hearing about a product since August 2004, (yeah, really) you just want to get your hands on the damn thing! No-one outside of Apple, to our knowledge, has managed to do that, but surely we’d have gathered some solid evidence of the tablet’s existence after 5 and a half years? Here’s what we know so far…well perhaps…

More recently, only 2 months ago actually, we heard that Apple’s tablet will consist of a 10.6” panel, which puts it in between the iPhone and the 13.3” Macbook in terms of size. One thing’s for sure, Apple won’t be wanting this device to be known as the ‘Apple Netbook’ – not if recent price estimates are well founded anyway…

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LG Pop (GD510) Review

If there’s something that’s going to take over the market next year, it’s the invention and use of the touchscreen as a UI. And, a company that like to use it quite a bit are LG. More specifically, with their new LG Pop (GD510) mobile phone. The phone is sleek, it looks sexy and fits in the palm of your hand – even if you’re a lady with small hands. So, is this affordable phone going to take off and do well next year?

The screen is a nifty 3-incher, making it the world’s smallest touchscreen phone. It weighs next to nothing, even with the battery inside it, and although it’s on the bottom range of LG’s touchscreen phones, if you’re after something fairly easy to use and can’t afford an iPhone, then this may be for you. The UI is probably the most simple of the touchscreen UIs out there, although a little slow at times. You really do have to force your finger on the screen to make it know you’ve pressed a button.

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Merry Christmas Everyone!

Just wanted to publish a quick post wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas from us all here at Zath, which is actually our third Christmas since I personally started blogging here at Zath.co.uk!

This year has really flown by, things have been really busy here in the last few months and moving in the right direction! We’ve got lots of exciting developments and plans for 2010, so we hope that you keep on coming back to the site, be sure that you’ve subscribed to our RSS feed, become a fan on Facebook and/or follow Zath on Twitter.

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‘I Want One Of Those’ Sale – 50% off at IWOOT!

‘I Want One Of Those’ are opening up their winter sale early, in fact it’s started today on Christmas Eve! That means even before Christmas Day is here, you can take advantage of some great sale prices where you can save up to 50% off some of the sale items!

Understandably you might want to wait until after you’ve opened your Christmas presents to see whether you get all the gadgets and gifts that you’re hoping for, but once you know, you might want to check out this I Want One Of Those’s sale for cheap bargains as it’s only running while stocks last!

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Dropbox iPhone App Review

You may have caught our look at the Dropbox online file sync service for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux a few months back, where I mentioned its availability on the iPhone platform. If you’re a user of Dropbox and have an iPhone or iPod Touch then you should definitely check out the free Dropbox app on the iTunes App Store.

When you’ve downloaded Dropbox, you’ll need to enter your email address and password to sync it to your account, and everything on your personal storage will be available to download and view. The interface is extremely simple to navigate, with 3 options at the bottom of the screen allowing you to switch between “Favorites”, “My Dropbox” and “Settings”.

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Mobile Cinema DVD Projector – Perfect For A Party?

In the past, having cinema screens in your house was something only the wealthy could boast. But the Mobile Cinema DVD Projector allows anyone to claim the same functionality on a budget.

With built in stereo speakers and a DVD player, you can project your favourite movies of your collection onto any plain wall up to 50” and enjoy high quality video as well as decent audio providing an all round home theatre experience. In terms of resolution, it is lacking in clarity at just 480×240 which may seem ridiculous especially when projected at 50”, but you are getting a huge picture.

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SongGenie Review (MP3 Tagging Software for Mac OS X)

You may have seen my earlier article on CoverScout, the app which can pluck all of your album artwork from the Internet and attach it to your tracks in iTunes. I mentioned SongGenie in there as an app which furthers the capabilities of CoverScout by adding in all of your track information. You do need both to make all of it happen.

The app is a simple one, it works very similarly to CoverScout by collaborating with your iTunes library and scouring the internet for all of the relevant song information such as Artist, Album, Track Numbers etc. and generally cleaning up your iTunes library. For me there is not a lot worse than seeing a list of tracks which are called ‘track 1’ etc. and this is the answer.

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How To Setup Xbox 360 Media Player ‘Ecosystem’ Guide: Part One

As promised in my How To Setup Xbox 360 Media Player Guide teaser, with this help of this guide you should be able to stream everything. Play anything. Hundreds of HD movies. Thousands of songs. No DVDs, no DRM, no getting up from the sofa. No need for your PC to even be on and above all, no fruit! I told you I’d show you how to do it, so here it is. From scratch.

Part One: Infrastructure and Software

I recommend that you follow this guide with a clean installation of Windows 7 on a modern, Intel, dual-core or better native PC (ie. Not VM or Boot Camp), with at least 2GB of RAM, an internal SATA HDD, wired Ethernet and USB2 onboard.

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Alien Breed: Evolution – Episode 1 Review (XBLA)

I never played the original Alien Breed which received cult status all those years ago, so I went into Alien Breed being new to the game. I have looked into the original to see what all the hype was about and from what I have read, Alien Breed: Evolution is very impressive and stays as close as it can to what made it so good all those years ago on the mighty Commodore Amiga!

I know people have slated Team 17′s latest game (the fanboys who just can’t let go), but I don’t see what they’re complaining about. I found this to be addictive as hell and couldn’t put it down, especially after first having a preview of it when we attended Eurogamer Expo 2009 in Leeds back in October.

The storyline of the game is a ship called the ‘Leopold’ crashes into another ship near a planet’s orbit and they then start to be pulled into the atmosphere and it’s up to you to get the ships power back online and avoid certain doom. But of course, you have hoards of aliens trying to stop you along the way.

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CoverScout Review (Album Art Downloader for Mac OS X)

You may have seen my review quite a while ago now on TuneUp, the Windows program designed to find and sort all of your iTunes artwork appropriately. Well, CoverScout does just that, but for Mac OS X.

The app works alongside iTunes, not very discreetly I might add, but it doesn’t ruin the whole look and feel of OS X and iTunes. With just a few clicks you can have CoverScout scour your entire library for missing artwork and inserting high resolution artwork as it goes. Not only that, the integrated editor allows you to alter the artwork in terms of cropping them, scaling them to fit the consistency of your collection.

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Microsoft Releases Expert Tips Widget (Sponsored Post)

Microsoft has recently had a real return to form with their successful development and release of Windows 7, that combined with some of their other recent initiatives means that there’s some real vision and lot going on there even though Bill Gates has been gone from the day-to-day running of the company for well over a year now.

Perhaps as a means of showcasing some of things that are currently released or in development, Microsoft UK has released an interactive widget which provides a somewhat different way of giving you an idea of the various aspects of their current technical focus.

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