snow leopard
Apple MacBook Pro Review (Aluminium Unibody)
January 27, 2010
Or perhaps this article should be titled “Why Apple’s Unibody Macbook Pro’s are the best ever made…and why you might want to wait until you buy!”
We first saw Apple’s new ‘Unibody’ line of Macbook’s and Macbook Pro’s in October 2008, and they were subsequently updated 8 months later to include the 13” Macbook Pro. There’s no doubt that the new look unibody enclosure was a much needed upgrade to the dating look of the previous Macbook Pro, but aesthetics aside, they definitely packed a punch with new NVIDIA graphics and the option of dual graphics cards in the Pro (the integrated 9400M and the more powerful 9600M GT).
Continue reading »Parallels Desktop 5 Review (Mac OS X)
January 19, 2010
Apple’s Mac OS X’s a great operating system, but however much you love it, few of us can get by without running Windows for some reason or another. When it comes to running Windows on your Mac, you have two choices: use Apple’s boot camp or run Windows virtually using either Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion.
When Snow Leopard was released, new versions of both these applications were released, each offering their own strengths and weaknesses. Parallels Desktop 5 comes with some great new features, some more polished than others, and offers a great incentive when using Windows applications in an OS X environment.
Setting up Parallels is an extremely simple process which allows you to install an OS of your choice (Windows or Linux) virtually, by using either a physical install disk or installing from a disk image (this comes in handy when installing Linux distributions especially, as many are downloaded as an .iso image). The install process is the same as you’d see when installing Windows on a physical drive, so there’s nothing unfamiliar to worry about – in fact, it’s significantly simpler, as you Parallels requests your Windows license key before installing, to make the process as automated as possible.
Continue reading »Essential Software for Mac OS X
January 9, 2010
More people today are using Mac’s than ever before – OS X market share has been climbing steadily since the release of Mac OS X, but third party software is just as important as the OS it’s running on, so what do you need to put on your Mac?
Web Browsers
Every new Mac comes with Snow Leopard pre-installed, which gives you Safari 4 out of the box. If you’re on an older Mac or just don’t like Safari, there are a host of alternatives available. I have three browsers installed on my Mac, but often use Safari. If you want to customise your browser then I recommend Mozilla Firefox, my PC and Linux browser of choice. As well as offering plugins and add-ons that allow you to make the browsing experience more personal, it’s open source too. You could also try Google’s Chrome browser for OS X. It’s been unofficially available for quite some time now, but the official Google Chrome Beta was released a few weeks ago and it’s very speedy and takes up less system resources than Safari.
Continue reading »How To Add Lots Of Windows 7 Country Themes To Your Collection
November 11, 2009
Ok, so Windows 7 is all the rage right now. In case you hadn’t heard, since its release a few weeks ago, the market share of Windows 7 has already surpassed that of Snow Leopard and Linux put together! One of my favourite features in Microsoft’s new OS is the ability to use a theme with various desktop backgrounds. If you haven’t seen this already, you can find it in the ‘Control Panel’ under ‘Appearance and Personalization’.
Since the testing versions of Windows, guides have been popping up all over the net on how to add other country themes to your own (country-inspired theme styles along with various wallpapers of the country concerned), which is included by default, which is all well and good, but it’s a bit of a hassle digging out the themes from the Windows folder on your hard drive, and when you do your choices are limited to 5 countries.
Continue reading »CoverSutra Review (Minimalist iTunes Interface For Mac OS X)
November 2, 2009
I love music and have a huge iTunes library to prove it, but having to go into iTunes every time I want to view what’s playing, select a new track or rate a track I’m listening to gets annoying! Especially when I’m listening to music for a long time while I’m working on something…
For quite some time I was looking for a more minimalist interface (or application) that could manage my music without as much hassle, and I came across an application called CoverSutra, from a small developer called Sophiestication.
When running, CoverSutra sits on your dock, displaying the artwork of whatever’s currently playing, and gives you a larger album art in a CD case template, with song and album information on your desktop. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing on your desktop, but it’s also a very functional application, compatible for Mac OS X 10.4 through to 10.6, although newer versions only support Leopard and Snow Leopard.
Continue reading »How To Install Windows 7 On Apple Mac’s Boot Camp
October 28, 2009
When I woke this morning, I went through my usual schedule of reading various technology blogs around the web to see what’s new, and came across the most ridiculous article about installing Windows 7 on an Apple Mac via Boot Camp.
The article in question (I won’t name the blog…) basically warned Mac users that if they were excited about installing Windows 7 on their Mac’s anytime soon, they should hold off because Apple don’t officially support Windows 7 in Boot Camp yet. In fact, at the end of the article the writer himself said “I wouldn’t try it”. If it isn’t already clear, I completely disagree with the article and wish to set the record straight for anyone thinking of installing Windows 7 on their Mac.
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