Category Archives: Tech

Blog: What to do?

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Since moving to wordpress I have gained a hell of a lot more flexability in what I want to achieve with this. Now after playing around for a few weeks it strikes me that the posts may seem a little random in subject matter to you. You may have arrived here to read an Apple related article, but are not so interested in what socks I have been wearing this week, and what I did over the weekend.

A quick mooch reveals that WordPress also have another application, WordPressMU (Multiple User) with which I could create multiple blogs, each dedicated to it’s own specific categories. I might as well dive in and sort this now before this site grows too big. I had a nice adventure in upgrading this installation of wp last night and hosed the site for a few hours, luckily I backed up the important files, so it didn’t take long to get back up and running again, so now I am in the mood to get hands dirty and upgrade to an even more flexible platform.

So what do you think? Feedback appreciated, I am currently using Google analytics to measure site traffic, so I know it’s not just mother checking in once in a blue moon.

Nintendo release full Wii browser

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The blue light shining out of the Nintendo Wii disc slot can only mean one thing, new stuff from Nintendo. Today sees the release of the full Opera internet browser (previously we been using a beta version). I could wibble on about it, but here is a video to explain it better than I ever will.

I found this video btw on youtube whilst browsing about using the Wii browser. Suprisingly easy to use actually, great for watching game reviews and other doings.

As I play the Wii on an Apple iMac using an Elgato EyeTV Hybrid, I have no real need for a web browser on the Wii when I can just minimize the Wii window and use Firefox to much better effect, it is none the less well implemented, and is running youtube videos happily in the background at the moment while I throw this stuff up from the iBook.

Opera browser for Wii is free through the Wii Shopping channel until June, at which point it will cost 500 Wii points (about a fiver?).

iPhone development delays OS X Leopard

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Boo Hiss! News just coming out that due to the shift of QA and engineer resources from Apples’ new OS X iteration Leopard over to the much anticipated iPhone, Leopard release has now been delayed until October 2007.

Found out whilst mooching round macrumors.com for news of any new developer seeds. Plenty people getting pissed off and whining that they want the OS and not the shiny phone, me, I’m not fussed, the longer they take to get it right the better.

More details over @ macrumors.

Update: Official Apple Statement

Apple Statement

iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can’t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard’s features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we’re sure we’ve made the right ones. [Apr 12, 2007]

Beatles on iTunes tomorrow?? (updated)

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From NME.com

The Beatles’ music finally set for download release?
Apple and EMI set for major announcement tomorrow
2 hours ago

Speculation is mounting that The Beatles’ back catalogue will finally become available to download.

Apple have called a press conference at the EMI label headquarters in London tomorrow (April 2), where boss Steve Jobs will make a major announcement about iTunes.

The Beatles and Apple recently settled a long-running legal dispute over use of the Apple brand name, clearing the way for a deal to be struck over the digital release of their music. Since EMI control the band’s catalogue, insiders are predicting that a deal between the two will be announced tomorrow.

The Beatles music has never been available to legally download before.

Recent changes in chart rules allowing downloads to count towards the singles chart have prompted speculation that when it is available, the band’s music could dominate the UK Top 40.

Depending on the details of tomorrow’s news, this could now happen as early as next Sunday (April 8). There is also speculation that the announcement could include information about the European launch of Apple’s latest MP3 playing gadget, the iPhone, which is set to make its US debut this summer.

Check NME.COM tomorrow for full details of Jobs’ speech.

Rumours over at macrumors.comsuggest that the press conference could be about EMI becoming the first record company to remove Digital Rights Management from music downloads, something Steve Jobs has recently proposed in his “Thoughts On Music” article from Feb 2007.

Or maybe we get both? Certainly been a bit dry on the Apple news front recently, all will revealed tomorrow.

UPDATE: DRM removal it was, more details over on aunty BEEB

Apple iTunes – Edit description field

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Have recently been converting a lot of video to .m4v format to manage video playback through Apple iTunes (7.1.1), now when I export stuff “for iPod” from my elgato eyeTV software, the resulting video files, when imported into iTunes have a description field. I have not been able to edit this field with iTunes (get info) or add descriptions to videos I have added from other sources.

Well I found a solution (although it would be nice if Apple managed to add this to a future release) over @ dougscripts, hopefully that helps someone else out there :O)

Feed Me!

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Can’t wait to keep up with the latest wiffle that pour out of my head? I know, I understand. Why not use a newsreader? Google have created a nice online jobby here. Sign up and add a new subscription using ye olde UnkleRupert’s Knee feed adress:

http://blog.pro-creator.co.uk/feed

Is very easy, add some others and Hey bingo! You can access all your normal haunts in one stop Huzzah!

Well I like it anyway.

Me long term Geek – proof

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Do you ever vanity search? Pop your own name into google/yahoo/search engine of choice, and see if you can find any mention of yourself? I do all the time, just in case any hot chicks are talking about me (and they do).

Well, they may no longer, a recent vanity search led me to proof positive that I am a long term geek, with no prospect of recovery. But I am proud, after all, how many of you can say that Merlin of the famous “Merlins Cave” adventure game page in Acorn Electron User magazine chose you, out of the tens of twats that wrote in, to include a comment in his sacred place HUH?

CHECK IT OUT 4th column, first paragraph, November 1985 – I doth truly ruleth, jealous?

Feel free to print out a copy and show your friends, tell them “I know him” and know that that will increase your cool ratio.

||other acorn electron magazines and web sites are available||

Social bookmarks an ting

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As you can see there is a link to the “Social” page at the top there. Pop through and you will see a nice big kinda cloud of all my publicly visible bookmarks (I have got some secrets you know) that are managed through my del.icio.us account.

del.icio.us allows you to export and manage all of your internet bookmarks online, share them with other people, and integrate them with plugins like this nice firefox one. Doing this means you can always have your bookmarks to hand wherever you are, at home, at work, on holiday etc.

So I thought I’d share that, being nice and all that, feel free to send paypal donations of thanks to neill@pro-creator.co.uk :O)

If your using Apple OSX you can also use a nice app like cocoalicious to manage all your bookmarks (although development seems a bit slow on this one, it does the trick), you may need to tickle it a bit as well (see this)

Of course you might be using Windows, in which case, you have my sympathies.