itunes
How to Reset/Restore Your iPhone 3G/3GS
March 2, 2010
In the past I’ve written about my experiences of Apple’s big iPhone 3.0 software update in which I’ve had my doubts over useful the update itself was and found that after two months I had to try to restore my (then) iPhone 3G PAYG as I suspected (or hoped) the problems I had were due to some corrupted files and not a hardware fault.
Now as much as I like to do my fair share of Apple-bashing like any decent PC user and coupled with the highly annoying iTunes sluggishness we experience in Windows, I have to admit that they have made managing your iPhone day-to-day in terms of synchronising, backing up and restoring it when needed very simple and effective.
Unfortunately, iPhones are not without their faults, issues and problems like any other mobile phone or mini-computer, the worst one I’ve experienced a few times now is everytime you try to start an app, it would then immediately crash! Handy eh? Suffice to say, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to become familiar with restoring and resetting the two iPhones that I’ve owned so far.
Continue reading »Altec Lansing VS2620 Desktop Speakers Review
February 23, 2010
After deciding to use my laptop has a pretty much permanent home media set up, I decided that I would move my desktop speakers to provide better sound quality than the standard built in speakers when watching movies and TV shows. This left me short on audio in my Mac Mini (Other than the pretty much useless built in speakers). Therefore I went out on the lookout for some low budget desktop speakers.
After recently receiving some Altec Lansing iPod speakers and being sufficiently impressed, I must say I now have great loyalty to the brand. So you can imagine my delight at coming across a pair of desktop speakers that fit the bill perfectly, from the same company. Having looked around at alternatives from other well known brands such as Logitech, the difference in price was minimal, but the deciding factor in opting for the Altec Lansing VS2620 Desktop Speakers, was as much the aesthetic appeal as anything else.
Continue reading »Linux Training Week: Software Availability
February 16, 2010
One of the biggest issues when moving away from Windows is software availability; what we do on a computer isn’t defined by the operating system, but the third party software we use on that operating system. Because most of the software written for Linux operating systems is open source, it may be difficult to find a replacement for the everyday software that you use on Windows or Mac OS X.
Web Browsers and Email
Everybody has their favourite browser, and you’ll find many available for Linux. I chose to use Firefox (which is installed on Ubuntu by default), Google Chrome (my browser of preference on Windows and OS X) and Opera 10 Browser in addition to this.
When testing each browser, I found them to be on par with each other, although Opera was definitely slower than Firefox and Chrome. I found Chrome to be extremely fast and lightweight in comparison to Firefox, and it remains my browser of choice on Linux. If you make the switch, or already use Ubuntu, I definitely recommend checking Chrome out. Enabling Flash was also an easy process – I simply downloaded the plugin on first use and everything worked great.
Continue reading »MusicDNA – MP3’s Possible Premium Successor?
January 28, 2010
I don’t think I need to point out how fast the tech world moves, and that for every new piece of technology there will be one to replace it and the music industry epitomises this brilliantly: LPs, Tapes, CDs and now MP3s. But some of the people who worked on MP3 have come up with what could prove to be the successor: MusicDNA.
In a step up from MP3’s which just contain the music (and a little bit of information about the artist, track title etc) MusicDNA will allows for a whole host of different types of related data to be carried in the same file as the music, things such as lyrics, videos, artwork and blog posts.
Continue reading »Apple iPad – Do We Need A Tablet?
January 27, 2010
So with the Apple iPad having finally been confirmed, anyone and everyone has been having their say on various tech blogs and sites around the web. So what sort of reception has the supposed blockbuster device had over the past couple of hours? Have Apple blown our minds again? Or have they finally dropped the ball?
Well… I think it’s fair to say that the general consensus is that it’s not a lot more than a giant iPhone (or perhaps I should say an iPod Touch). The guys over at Engadget have been lucky enough to get a hands-on with the iPad and they describe it as ‘not light’ and ‘pretty weighty in your hand’. An extraordinary amount of readers left comments expanding on this, going on to say “The thing is really an oversized iPhone, Apple finally fails”. It certainly makes interesting reading. Such a device coming from a company that is usually so reliable when it comes to wowing us with revolutionary devices.
Continue reading »Apple iPad Tablet Announced!
January 27, 2010
Today is the day that Apple fans have been craving for the past few months, and depending on what is released… perhaps years.
The event began with the man himself, Steve Jobs, giving a few updates regarding the state of the company as we speak. 50 million visitors to the 284 Apple stores worldwide last quarter. 140,000 iPhone/iPod Touch applications in the App Store and over $15 billion in revenues in 2010 alone. So what was announced?
Only the much rumoured Apple iPad Tablet device!
Continue reading »Daniusoft Media Converter Ultimate Review
January 22, 2010
Daniusoft Media Converter Ultimate is a program designed to do a host of things with your media files, from ripping and burning DVD’s to removing the DRM off iTunes downloads. You’ll definitely have a tough time finding more features in another media suite, but how does it hold up against other programs of its nature?
The feature of this media converter that intrigued me the most when I first saw it was the DRM removal tool. This especially piqued my interest as I download a lot of content from the iTunes store, including HDTV shows and podcasts. To me, being able to convert high definition content is a must in any such program, so I was naturally skeptical when adding my files to the conversion list.
Continue reading »Awaken Review (Alarm Clock for Mac OS X)
January 21, 2010
Awaken is an alarm clock application for Mac OS X, that comes with more features than you may expect from such an application, and certainly beats other alternatives on the market. Before I came across Awaken, I used Alarm Clock, a free and simple application that did what it said on the tin: played music through my speakers at whatever time I wanted! I found the application to be somewhat unintuitive, and at times buggy, so I went on the hunt for a replacement and came across Awaken.
In a market where there are many free applications that do a simple job, you may wonder why you’d pay $10(CAD) for an alarm clock application, but when using it I felt that the interface was significantly more polished than other similar applications, and offered more options as a whole.
Continue reading »nuTsie Mobile App (Sync iTunes Playlists & Stream To Mobile Phones)
January 15, 2010
Android’s been in the news a lot so far this month, with the release of the Nexus One just before CES 2010 and with more devices on the way, there hasn’t been a better time to switch to Google’s open source mobile phone platform. The only thing putting me off the purchase of an Android device has been the inability to take my music with me. My iTunes library is over 32GB in size, and the Nexus One comes with a measly 4GB storage via MicroSD, which caps out at 32GB.
For me to be able to carry around my music with me is essential in my decision to purchase a new device, and it seemed that my only option was to sync only certain playlists at a time, which is inconvenient at best. Why Apple don’t have an iTunes streaming application for the iPhone is a mystery to me, but why Google themselves don’t is a major question, with Google being very cloud-centric in their future plans.
Continue reading »DbPowerAmp Review – Lossless Music Converter
January 11, 2010
After deciding that I would like to convert my large collection of .flac lossless music to apple lossless format so I can organise them all in iTunes, I was faced with the task of finding the best software for the job. I started by using Foobar2000 to convert them via .wav, however I consequently lost all of the ID3 tags on the way and had to manually add them in through iTunes which was unsurprisingly tedious.
Enter DbPowerAmp Music Converter. I came across the software package after some extensive Googling and browsing of related forums and decided it was the most attractive option when compared to rival software. I immediately downloaded the trial and eventually got my hands on a full license.
Basically the package consists of several applications. As well as the music converter there is also a CD ripper and a batch converter. Personally, the only one I use is the latter of the three as I use iTunes itself for the CD ripping and I prefer to do my conversions in bulk as it is much less hassle.
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