Apple WWDC

June 7th, 2010 by Mikey in Stuff

Now, as a non mac owner and owning nothing made by apple, this may seem like a weird blog post, but I was in the vbirc #chat channel and we have an apple bot which spits out the liveblog and so I was privy to some of the new things which Apple are doing, which I wouldn’t usually actively seek out, and I thought I would post my opinions on them, as a prospective first time apple buyer.

iAds

iAds don’t seem to be a very good or welcomed thing in the Apple community. Personally, if I had an iPod, and I installed an Application, such as Facebook, (example) and Apple served me ads, every 5 page refreshes, it’d get pretty annoying. Then of course, Facebook has inline ads also. It gets real messy real quick. Opinion: Dislike

Microsofts Bing comes to iPhone

Well, this is something I didn’t think I would see, Microsoft and Apple working together. Google will, of course, remain the favorite and the default SE for Apple devices, but it’s been said that Microsoft have been working hard to move Bing over to HTML5 so that it’s ‘Apple Approved’ for the iPhone, so good on them I say. Opinion: Like

iMovie

If I’m honest, this may flop, but it’s a nice idea, Usually you shoot a video and edit it on your iMac or Mac Pro (I dont have either, so I’d have to buy one) so the idea of being able to edit it right there on your iPhone is a nice one. It’s also a nice price at only $4.99. Opinion: Could work

iBooks

I do like this one, you download a Book, as a PDF, and it goes on your iBookshelf which is accessible via iPad, iPod and iPhone. This is the feature I like the best, the ability to data sync ability, maybe they could apply it to iPhone (maybe it’s already possible), so when you buy a new iPhone you can just sync your phone numbers across. It has many possibilities Opinion: Like.

Summary

Sounds like Apple are bringing alot more features to the table and alot of these are innovative as we have come to expect from Apple.

STEAM release new client.. I kinda like it.

April 27th, 2010 by Mikey in Stuff

Full Image [lightbox]

So, Steam has released a new client, I kinda like it.. it’s clean, does the job, etc. I especially like the way the new games library is laid out, with all the games on the left side, and important links on the right, keeps everything clean and uncluttered, whilst adding some eye candy, with a backdrop of the game you’ve selected, so if you select Team Fortress 2, its gonna have a backdrop of Team Fortress 2 gameplay.

Although the new store layout leaves alot to be desired, it seems to be alot more secure than before, as now when you hit cart to buy something, you have to reauthenticate, whereas before, you didn’t have to, I also like how they have ditched the army green colours, it wasn’t very appealing or eyecatching at all.

The new community tab is also great, it no longer looks like IE embedded in an application like it did before, with the URL bar being stylishly integrated into the clients header. The Library has also some new options to display as a grid, or list too. [Gameslist] | [Gamespics] The Library’s ‘downloads’ tab is also new to me, it looks nice, tells you how much is being downloaded and uploaded by updates, or by games being installed, I thought that was nice and handy too.

Upsides; nice, new, clean etc. Downsides; store leaves a lot to be desired, takes a little longer to load

DropBox

November 1st, 2009 by Mikey in Stuff

Dropbox is a file hosting service, which is 100% free, and easier than most file hosts, as it’s installed on your computer itself, so it’s a drag and drop thingy. Quick and easy

You start off with 2GB FREE space, and when you sign up with my referral link, (the one below) you get 250MB EXTRA space, and it’s all free, it also gets ME 250MB extra space (which I kinda need ).
To put it in perspective, I’ve been using this actively for six months and I’ve only just come near to running out of space..

It’s like an image hosting service, cept you just drag n drop the files into a folder on your computer, and then right click them for a link to the internet which other people can click and see. It’s epic, basically, and free.

The following screenshots are of my dropbox account, and guess what, they’re hosted on dropbox! (to show hyperlinking and hotlinking works)

Click the images to get a full view!

Click this link to sign up to Dropbox.